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I love sitting on my porch and absorbing all the sounds, especially when I'm as dead tired as I am now (had to wake early after sleeping at dawn for various reasons)... the construction across the way, the cars bustling to wherever it is they need to go, and the bagpipes off in the distance...
Mmm.
Slaving over my small 3x5 tablet and tracing something I drew sketchily in class is a huge pain in the ass. Case in point, this took me over two bloody hours. My hand hurts.
The face needs to be redone before I shade it.
Knowing what I do now, would I do it all over again?
Doesn't everyone ask themselves that question? For the longest time, I would've said yes. Yes, almighty god, yes. A thousand times yes.
I would be lying to myself.
There are many times when I look back with friends upon the awkwardness of youth and lament upon our sufferings.
I ask myself now: Was it really that bad?
HECK YES.
It really was. You try being a lone, awkward asian kid in a school of caucasian football-playing thirteen year olds, and then get back to me.
But I wouldn't have given up my life for the world. Those experiences made me the man I am today. Not the parts of me that are listless, aimless, and generally lost, but everything else... I don't regret it one bit, not anymore.
Thought I might share a conversation I had. You might want to brew a pot of coffee before sitting down to read this, it's kind of long. It covers socialist theory, human galactic parasitism, and theoretical physics... and not it's not necessarily all related. So seriously, coffee.
Update: Responses from various people in the comments section, open up and read it. DO IT.
_____
[01:45:57] Johann: Well I'm sure it'll improve in later years
[01:46:00] Justin: Live diligently for a few days, and see what kind of productive output you can harness.
[01:46:09] Johann: first and second year PSci have not taught me anything
[01:46:22] Johann: I spent days writing out political diatribes when I was home
[01:46:33] Justin: lol.
[01:46:39] Justin: Angry letters to the editor?
[01:47:05] Johann: nah
[01:47:08] Johann: my own journal
[01:47:21] Johann: and also prepping for my main body of work
[01:47:33] Johann: "The Manifesto", as was mentioned in my post.
[01:47:58] Justin: Indeed; and what's it going to be, Johann?
[01:48:13] Justin: I must say, I'm interested.
[01:48:17] Justin: Is it militant?
[01:48:19] Justin: Reactionary?
[01:48:23] Justin: Ideological?
[01:48:43] Johann: Ideological
[01:48:46] Johann: but also rational
[01:49:29] Johann: first section, the basic tenets of socialist thought, and its failings and successes to date
[01:50:50] Johann: third section, a breakdown of socialist ideological methodology to date.
[01:51:18] Johann: (i.e. theoretical implementations of socialist/communist theory, such as Marxism, European democratic socialism, etc.)
[01:51:43] Justin: And finally, your contribution?
[01:51:55] Johann: not yet.
[01:52:27] Johann: fourth section: theoretical implementations of worldwide socialism and the basic premises and failings of each
[01:54:35] Johann: and finally several sections on my own theory and (thus far, anyway) it's ideological failings as a perfect society expressions of hope of reaching the (thus far unattainable) Marxist 'end of political history'.
[01:55:09] Johann: *insert and between society and expressions
[01:55:22] Justin: Forgive me, Johann, but it sounds tediously ideological; I prefer a world divided.
[01:55:31] Johann: I know.
[01:55:57] Johann: Trust me, thus my expressions of it, even if achieved, as imperfect.
[01:56:03] Justin: A value in different systems, and the inherent diversity of human expression, social and individual.
[01:56:10] Justin: Ahh.
[01:56:24] Justin: Good; as long as you're not prophesying it as a Marxiian messiah.
[01:56:30] Johann: nah.
[01:56:43] Johann: just a better system than the current one existant.
[01:57:07] Johann: I don't even know if I'll have to really write it. Things are moving along with just subtle pushes here and there from various people
[01:57:18] Justin: That much is true; take the best from all we know, and socialism has done many wonderful things, like unionism, health care, welfare.
[01:57:28] Justin: Subsidized...everything.
[01:57:31] Justin: Especially education.
[01:57:36] Justin: Poor american bastards.
[01:57:39] Johann: Yeah
[01:57:44] Johann: well the failing of marxism
[01:57:46] Johann: globally
[01:57:52] Johann: falls in several key areas
[01:58:11] Johann: one: the non-existant actual polarization of rich and poor
[01:58:51] Johann: two: the failure to account for developing nations not even through with their capitalist phase, if one is to take the Marxist idea of capitalism as the vehicle of Marxism
[01:59:08] Justin: lol. I like one. I never bought class consciousness.
[01:59:26] Justin: Second is also very true.
[01:59:40] Justin: Marx discounted them completely.
[01:59:45] Johann: yeah.
[01:59:53] Johann: He thought of Germany and Germany only
[01:59:55] Justin: Only sold his idea to the Russians after it failed to catch everywhere else.
[02:00:05] Johann: And yeah
[02:00:15] Johann: the Russians waited for people to join them in the great revolution
[02:00:16] Johann: hahahaha
[02:00:19] Johann: I still laugh about it.
[02:00:43] Justin: Like early Christians thinking hte end is night.
[02:00:47] Johann: yeah.
[02:01:11] Johann: three: the expectation of sudden change and the failure to account for cultural conservative inertia.
[02:01:24] Johann: You can't kill EVERYONE who doesn't think the same way as you do.
[02:02:33] Johann: and in some places, i.e. China:
The failure to account for pre-existant cultural, not political, hierarchies
[02:03:18] Justin: lol. Real trick is not killing anyone who doesn't think as you do, but in only killing those who'll TRY TO PREVENT you from thinking the way that you do.
[02:03:32] Justin: Otherwise, you'll always be in a sinking boat.
[02:03:38] Justin: Desperately bailing water.
[02:03:42] Johann: Like those damned Cylons!
[02:03:44] Johann: KILL THEM ALL!
[02:04:15] Justin: lol. The Cylons are their own ideological pawns.
[02:04:20] Johann: The prime failure of Maoism (there are many) was that it retained the whole 'respect for elders' that is so prevalent in Chinese culture, immediately building a class-structure
[02:04:28] Justin: They serve the idea, act as its instruments.
[02:04:31] Johann: I love BSG, it's deep. Bloody deep.
[02:04:32] Johann: Yeah.
[02:05:16] Johann: probably the most appealing sci-fi show right now. Over any of the new Treks for sure, and definately over stuff like Stargate and crap.
[02:05:18] Justin: So do I; I'm always pleasantly surprised by each new shade of grey their pallet provides.
[02:05:23] Justin: True.
[02:05:32] Justin: I'm trek forever, and I must say, it's better.
[02:05:37] Johann: Yeah
[02:05:45] Johann: though the original Treks are still watchworthy
[02:06:01] Johann: I'm not a trekkie and I'll still watch them.
[02:06:10] Johann: I won't watch Voyager much though
[02:06:15] Johann: except for Seven of Nine.
[02:06:52] Justin: TNG.
[02:06:54] Johann: Though if you're talking disturbingly hot sci-fi characters Number Six, hands down.
[02:06:55] Justin: So utopian.
[02:06:59] Justin: Check that socialist utopia.
[02:07:04] Johann: hahah damn straight.
[02:07:05] Johann: =)
[02:07:09] Justin: No money, replicators, unending material wealth.
[02:07:16] Justin: Pure equality.
[02:07:22] Johann: Yeah. Replicators would solve ALL our problems
[02:07:28] Justin: Only in DS9 did they expose the insidiousness of such equality.
[02:07:29] Johann: too bad it's really bad physics.
[02:07:39] Justin: How it's too easy, destroys something in the man.
[02:07:47] Justin: Matter conversion.
[02:07:58] Johann: Matter conversion has to come from somewhere
[02:08:21] Johann: Eventually you'll be throwing off entire planetary orbits just to feed your populace and give them free shit.
[02:08:31] Justin: lol.
[02:08:37] Justin: Now that's something I'd never thought ot.
[02:08:51] Justin: Idea is that most of it comes from waste.
[02:09:05] Justin: Eventually it woudl stabilize, unless people were TOO extravagant.
[02:09:08] Johann: not possible. Human population rises exponentially
[02:09:14] Justin: But I think they'd loose the drive for extravagance.
[02:09:23] Justin: Stop replicating fifty stoy solid gold houses.
[02:09:29] Justin: lol.
[02:09:50] Johann: I mean, unless you put birth rate control laws
[02:09:54] Johann: in which case it isn't really equal
[02:10:01] Johann: if one family can have a kid and one can't.
[02:10:15] Johann: I mean, you'd eventually literally implode stars
[02:10:47] Justin: True.
[02:10:50] Johann: You'd have nebula after nebula
[02:10:52] Johann: I mean it could work
[02:10:54] Justin: Someone should work out how that system might work.
[02:10:57] Johann: as a migratory population
[02:10:59] Justin: Now that woudl be a fun read.
[02:11:09] Johann: I was thinking of writing a novel
[02:11:11] Justin: Yeah, constantly moving outward like a fucking plague.
[02:11:19] Johann: about humans doing exactly that.
[02:11:50] Johann: It's like BSG, except the only thing they're running from is the nebulas they leave behind
[02:12:54] Johann: Imagine the sun going red-giant then white-dwarf
[02:13:00] Johann: in several centuries
[02:13:04] Johann: I mean
[02:13:24] Johann: right now the theory I think is that most planetary orbits but the first two or three (we're third, duh)
[02:13:35] Johann: would expand faster than the sun's expansion
[02:13:49] Johann: but compress that time frame
[02:14:06] Johann: God
[02:14:10] Johann: that would be such a cool read
[02:14:23] Justin: Well, you know what a Dyson sphere is.
[02:14:26] Johann: yeah
[02:14:33] Justin: Teh supposedly maximal way to harness a solar system's energy?
[02:14:38] Justin: Build bunch of those.
[02:14:56] Justin: Then destroy galaxies to build a shell around a supercluster.
[02:15:23] Johann: I suppose you could do it with a replicator
[02:15:30] Johann: but the problem I would see then
[02:15:34] Johann: is the process of building one
[02:15:48] Johann: would you use up the mass availible to you
[02:15:58] Johann: before you could even build one around the thing?
[02:16:25] Johann: and isn't a Dyson shell theoretically impossible anyway?
[02:16:56] Justin: Well, you'd have to probably zap all the matter in a zillion lightyear radius to build it.
[02:17:05] Johann: I suppose a shell isn't theoretically impossible, but still...
[02:17:14] Johann: still... in the end
[02:17:32] Johann: you would be reaching farther and farther out for raw material to keep the population of your sphere fed
[02:17:35] Johann: and happy
[02:18:20] Johann: as well as for more superstructures to house your expanding population.
[02:18:47] Johann: technically the civilization would HAVE to collapse, as it created an ever expanding area of empty space
[02:19:12] Justin: True.
[02:19:23] Justin: Eventually, it would just be so far to get matter, that it would die.
[02:19:32] Johann: exactly
[02:19:52] Johann: I mean, even a 'hyperspace' drive must, at some level, destroy matter to get the neccessary energy
[02:20:00] Johann: you would be killing yourself off slowly.
[02:20:55] Justin: Wow, how nihilistic an parasitic our scifiesque future has become.
[02:21:13] Johann: I think humans are naturally, on a stellar level, doomed to return to our roots of nomadism if we are to survive. I hate to sound like the Matrix, but yeah, we are parasitic.
[02:21:33] Johann: I am so posting this convo on my blog.
[02:22:12] Justin: WEll, it's how we opperate.
[02:22:17] Johann: Yeah.
[02:22:20] Justin: Fuck Suzukki, we come, see, conquer, and move on.
[02:22:26] Justin: No sacred balance for man.
[02:22:32] Justin: He's too greedy, ambitious.
[02:22:37] Johann: Well
[02:22:41] Johann: sacred balance socially, yes.
[02:22:43] Johann: Naturally
[02:22:49] Johann: it ain't fucking happening.
[02:23:08] Johann: Nature is going to have to fuck itself and move aside for us.
[02:23:33] Johann: But I am going to be conservationist here on Earth as long as I can, because fuck it, we can't kill off THIS planet until we can successfully move the fuck OFF of it.
[02:24:02] Justin: lol.
[02:24:06] Justin: That's the turth.
[02:24:37] Johann: It's too bad really.
[02:25:25] Justin: It is.
[02:25:42] Justin: But conservatism, the desire to preserve or continue the old, never seems to last long.
[02:25:53] Johann: yeah.
[02:26:00] Justin: It's a drag on progress, for good and ill, but never a true impediment.
[02:26:22] Johann: http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/dysonFAQ.html#STRENGTH
[02:26:25] Johann: Read this if you have the time
[02:26:31] Johann: it's the Physics of a Dyson Sphere
[02:26:53] Johann: Man...
[02:26:56] Johann: wow
[02:27:17] Johann: what if we do get trapped in Dyson Sphere mode and do eat out a chunk of the universe?
[02:27:48] Johann: assuming the faster-than-light travel relies on the gravitic/magnetic associations between stellar structures
[02:27:48] Justin: Looks like there's enough mass for a sphere in the inner system alone
[02:27:53] Justin: (including the belt I assume)
[02:27:54] Johann: WE WOULD BE FUCKED.
[02:28:34] Johann: Yeah there seems to be
[02:28:37] Johann: but as I said
[02:28:49] Johann: more mass would be required than for the structure alone
[02:28:53] Johann: you'd need everything else
[02:29:03] Johann: which increases exponentially
[02:29:42] Johann: I mean, it's a lesson we're still not learning here on earth, our growth rate and consumption is greater than the exponential regeneration of nature.
[02:29:51] Justin: So we'll make like Niven and do the ringworld thing.
[02:30:02] Justin: A more physically acceptable version,
[02:30:24] Justin: Imagine it: a world a million times bigger than ours all around, with oceans the size of dozens of worlds.
[02:30:31] Justin: Wonder how you'd set up an ecology on that.
[02:30:38] Johann: Yeah
[02:30:40] Johann: that would be intense
[02:30:49] Johann: We'd also need a lot of mass
[02:30:56] Johann: but Jupiter's up for it I suppose.
[02:31:26] Johann: we'd still need to migrate eventually, if the human race survives long enough
[02:31:38] Johann: the sun would naturally go red giant eventually
[02:31:55] Johann: millions of years
[02:32:04] Johann: so not too worried
[02:32:07] Johann: but a thought.
[02:32:16] Justin: Beh; we'll evolve into the Q by then.
[02:32:24] Johann: hehehe
[02:32:43] Johann: Alright
[02:32:45] Johann: posting this on the blog
[02:32:47] Johann: hold on.
I saw a photo of the new Iraqi cabinet in tailor-cut black suits today... and all I could think was, 'What the hell are we doing to the world?'
I've been talking about how I'd loved to have been in 30s London or Paris in the booming jazz scene, but I just thought of something even more cool. To have danced in regal halls in an age when all the upper-crusties knew was to dance and curtsey to the beautiful sounds of Tchaikovsky. Dead in the romantic period, away from all those boring old thinky baroque and classical types.
Yes, I can be that bloody shallow. *grins*
This post comes from thoughts reflected after reading Justin's blog.
It seems to me that I lack any motivation to do anything because I constantly feel more intellectually informed than those around me. It is not often I find an equal in intellectual capacity, and when I do, I can frequently talk for hours with them. The only thing, really, I am motivated to do is to sit at home, read, digest, and swallow books whole. Perhaps not the most practical of things to do, but I enjoy doing it.
I wonder if taking these first year political science courses this summer was a mistake. I've read two of the three texts one of my courses offers (Thucydides and Machiavelli, the other being one of Gandhi's) and the course thus far does not at all seem appealing. In fact, the professor thus far treats the class like a bunch of idiots. Which some people have expressed problems with.
I personally feel that they weren't listening in class... because the class *is* made up of a bunch of retards. Not all of them, obviously, some remain well informed, but the rest make as to impress their own views upon others without realizing that their views are coloured, as I have said before, by their own unique natures.
Nor are they often factually correct.
I suppose that's the problem I've had with the Humanities program the last year, the fact that, despite the intelligence of the majority (certainly not all) of the people involved, their minds remain closed to all but a specific path of knowledge that the outline leads you towards.
The specific ordering of the texts and the omission (and ridicule heaped upon) other authors and texts points to a very narrow field of study, when I had originally thought that Humanities would broaden my horizons, rather than forcing it into one view of conservative thought... its roots in platonism and its ends in late Republicanism.
I think the realization of this oversight and this ... cultural elitism, for the lack of a better word, only really came to the forefront of my thinking (whereas it lay dormant as doubts expressed only on occasion with frustration) when a professor made the claim that everything past Descartes was garbage... and after that I slowly realized, as I examined the curriculum and talked to friends who are currently in the process of graduating from the program, that many texts one would think key to understanding much of modern thought were glaringly missing and leaving gaping holes... and texts that emphasized certain views were placed rather neatly in logical order.
As I read more of what we skipped of Aristotle and other thinkers in the past year, what we learned of Aristotelean thought itself seemed a little shaken. Not overly much so, but enough to cast slight doubts.
I'm not going to rant on about this, because I have simply done it far too often and with far too many people... but it's a shocking thought when I consider that for the last two years I have been guided onto a line of thinking so narrow that I was almost myself sucked into it, and that while it has not been a waste (as I have, undoubtedly, learned a lot of what colours much of those particular modes of thought)... I honestly needed to rethink where I was in life and what to do next.
Yet as of this moment I have yet to figure out a program that isn't infantile in terms of pace or content. Humanities may be the best there is, at least here at Carleton.
Perhaps if I doomed myself to a life of academia... gods... let that not be my future.
You know what, I'm bloody tired, so this post sucks. Read what I wrote on May 2nd, if you haven't already, but otherwise... wait till I have the time and energy to write something worthwhile. Right now I'm swamped with a lot of other work.
Busy as hell, but the best thing I've heard today is this:
"Sir Ian McKellen called Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code "a load of codswallop" at a press conference earlier in the day."
Source: BBC News
Just checking into the blog... writing articles for the Charlatan so I don't have much time on me hands. But... the winner for Johann's nicest people ever award for tonight is two-time Juno award winner...
Rock on.
He even went to the same Shawarma place I went to after the show. That's like... the umpteenth time someone I've interviewed has had the same thought as I have right after a show as far as food goes. Okay. So maybe like the third. That makes him even cooler.
If I counted vices, and not just food, the list would go on and on and on.
A word about the awesome things floating round the net lately before I go to bed, ranked in order of awesome...
5. Diebold Machines Are Even MORE Screwy
So Madeline and I talk sometimes about how the States is just a fucked up place. We've discussed Diebold machines before... but... she told me about this and I looked it up eventually during the day. So... Americans... vote for the Communist party if you like. No one's going to know.
4. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition) Babes Strike One Against The Bikini Ban
Because honestly... what's E3 without the booth babes? Those video-game geek journalists totally need afterparties and hot chicks. They spend the all the rest of their year light-years away from such things at Stravromula Beta. Fo' serious.
So yes, there's a lot of other E3 news. Then again, a lot of you don't play all the fancy new video games. And I'm not providing E3 coverage... well... unless anyone wants to give me a press pass.
3. Grizzly-Polar Bear found in the Arctic
I heard about this on the Colbert Report, of all places. If you missed it... too bad. I miss the Colbert Report most of the year, since I don't own a TV. Deal with it like I do. Needless to say it was high-larious. It's probably somewhere online to download anyway... probably on YouTube or Google Video... if not, there's probably a bittorrent.
2. Air Purifiers Create Smog-Levels In Room That Surpasses Downtown L.A.
Get your guns, your coloured hoodies, and restage the worst gang fights between the Crips and Bloods in your own house, complete with SMOG!
I've got a GREAT idea though. Rebuild the Hindenburg, use HELIUM or any other NON FLAMMABLE low-density gas, and put thousands of these to work in the upper atmosphere! Ozone-layer problem... fixed! Johann is a genius, and should be given Nobel Prizes several years in a row for his awesomeness.
Those of you who got suckered by late night infomercials... well... I'm sure you've probably given yourself really bad asthma, so I won't make fun.
1. Radiohead Continues To Be Fucking Awesome... and Thom Releases A New CD All By Himself
First link is a hot hot video. HOT. Second link was disconcerting until Thom said that the band was still working on new stuff. Then I was just happy. Because more Thom is never a bad thing.
That's it for now. I'm going to bed. It's 4 AM and I have articles to cover tomorrow.
Wow. A well produced parkour film...
This is probably one of the better parkour movies I've seen since that Russian guy.
Better directed, for sure, and far less hesitant. Which... would be NO surprise if he actually *is* David Belle (I'm looking into that right now)... since he'd be the one of the founders of Parkour. And David Belle is a fucking monkey, if you've seen him on the telly, you'd know what I'm talking about.
Daaaaamn.
I mean, the line between Yamakasi and Parkour gets so blurred... but... damn... both sooo fucking insane.
EDIT: I just double checked. It's a scene from Banlieue 13, the Luc Besson film starring Belle. The website is here. I still haven't seen it, the DVD released last year and I haven't bothered to find it here yet.
Truthfully, Besson's films are starting to get really repetitive. But this might be cool.
It's good to see old friends, it really is.
*sighs*
I'm feeling lonely. I should be sleeping with someone right now, but hell, being sick sucks. Having my blood drawn tomorrow for testing and all... it's good to keep regular in testing and all, though I don't think there's anything really to worry about.
Gin gets me in that relaxed mode of being damned fast. Way faster than my vodka. I guess I'm just used to the ol' vodka by now. I feel fine.
Fine being a very flexible term, of course.
Robert Steven Williams is pretty awesome. Oh folkies.
So as much as I sometimes get bothered about people being constantly persistant about hitting on me, I wonder if I'm doing the same inadvertantly sometimes. Even though I really think of some people as friends, I wonder if my free attitude towards things really comes off as some sort of attraction.
Cause come on, some of my friends are smokin' hot. Ridiculously so.
*shrugs*
Then again, giving someone orgasms all night is never really a bad thing. Though part of me wants to settle down. Yet, that part of me doesn't get much say in current matters... not till I find someone really perfect, that is.
Whatever.
You know, I actually really do miss Kelly. I want to disagree with someone about the goodness of people and such right now, and I don't get to really argue with her all summer. Poop. Though I'm sure she's having fun, hehe. I really ought to be solidifying my Bonnaroo plans... damn, I better call Luc when I get back in town.
Waa waa...
I really want to get back to O-town. I miss my ability to relax solo all day without the bothers of having to talk to family and stuff. Not that it's bad talking to family, sometimes I just need my solitude quite a bit.
*melts into the floor*
Gonna get more gin.
It's mildly disturbing the pleasure I can find in mild depression. Everything's mild right now. Been reflecting upon past loves and all that, listening to a mix of jazz, the Stars, and soon enough, some Morrissey.
*trembles slightly*
Oh Morrissey.
I had more politics to talk about, written in all sorts of odd places, the doctor's waiting room, a japanese restaurant, the street, at red lights, et cetera ad infinitum. But I'll save you my political babble for now... I've been writing the last few days non-stop about all manner of things, fiction and otherwise.
I had a thought last night... going by the logic that our cells are being constantly replaced, our personalities constantly changing (as people use to justify not smoking young, in that you're devastating your body for a future... you, that's not you...) then... I've lost everyone dear to me... more than that, I'm constantly losing everyone dear to me.
Not the most cheering thought.
And the thought that I'm conversely meeting new people and discovering new surprises all the time does nothing to really bring back any cheer.
And I completely declare writing a story on that theme without my permission bloody plagiarism. Because I'm writing one, damn you. I'll sue you like they did Dan Brown. *shudders* Eww... the Da Vinci Code... eww.
I just realized putting the title of that book and that hideous author's name in my blog will probably snatch me a few more hits. I don't know if I want that kind of publicity. As I just told Steph:
Several months ago, when people were still hyping about the book and there wasn't a movie yet, when people mentioned the book and gushed about how it was the best book they'd ever read, I sorta just had to force a smile and think to myself how someone I know could have possibly not read any good books ever.
Now that there's a movie, I can freely say to people's faces, especially if they haven't read the book, that they're fucking stupid.
I enjoy the priveledge.
Placing him among authors like Crichton and Clancy, both of whom I read on occasion, is fine by me. And like the two previously mentioned authors, decent movies might come of it (I'm thinking the original JP and The Hunt For Red October, respectively)... but to call them the best movies of all time would be... a stretch I'd rather not take.
It does have a rather good cast though. Maybe not Hanks so much, I'll still forgive him for some shitty movies, but Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellan are stellar.
Anyway I'm going on a movie rant, which sets a pretty bad precedent. I'll quickly recommend a movie I'd rather be watching... House of Flying Daggers, or whatever is coming out of the far more artistic Chinese film market these days. (One can only make so many kung-fu comedies and strictly Chinese ancient fare before one pulls something great out) I dig it. Though I can't complain if a John Woo movie hits my eyes. Sometimes you just have to have the infinite ammo and gratuitous violence.
Anyway, enough of that, I'm going to close this post and revel in a bit of music and write some more.
Cheers.
The collapse of Cuban socialism will be, I think, one of the most tragic events to kick off the 21st century. Perhaps not as well remembered in the following decades or even in all of history as more Western events such as the attack on the World Trade Centre and the events following, as it and its effects remain inevitable, but still a great loss to human culture.
The perserverance of Cuba to the great ideal astounds me. Even to this day and age when the rumblings of its fall echo even from within (and no bloody surprise), the ability to persist in such a vein in this modern, capitalistic world astounds me. Venezuela makes sense. Cuba, with its rapidly declining economy, amazes me with the sheer will the people exhibit to go on.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if the entire world was made of such spirits. But then, I delude myself. There are in Cuba, as everywhere else, those people who according to their own interests. The collapse of Cuban socialism is inevitable. The day the charismatic (and admirable) Castro dies, the Cuban government will be left with no choice but capitulation, unless some unforseen (and likely far more overtly tyrannical) leader steps up to the plate.
Knowing the American government and its unwavering policy towards Cuba and 'rogue nations', I would bet on the former.
You might ask why Cuban socialism is such a treasure that I would wish to preserve it, despite its may flaws. Its cultural heritage is priceless. Cuba is an economic paradise, should it ever escape its embargoes and enter the Capitalist market proper. The character and flavour of Cuban individualism and its rugged determination to survive despite all odds will be destroyed forever.
I long to visit Cuba. I am well aware that a great number (perhaps even a majority) only await Castro's death to break out into modernity. That is perhaps the most revealing tale there is to tell. Humans crave conformism and the luxuries of modern living, even at the cost of a beautiful culture.
So many Westerners rant about the pleasures of a simple life. It isn't what it's cracked up to be, for chrissakes, it's hard work. Work that most people that rant on about it wouldn't be accustomed to. It might even turn them off. Hell, it might even turn me off.
But Cuban perserverance amazes me. The ability to keep such ancient cars running, when the most of us would've written them off as junk long ago. The endurance through economic embargo, even reverting (out of necessity) to ass-backwards ways of doing things to keep things going, and yet retaining a cultural pride and a sense of one-ness. The fact that they can muster rallies of thousands against practically anything, while we can barely muster three people together unless it involves Bush and/or Iraq.
Aww hell. I'm going to go rant at my friends a while about things in my life rather than going on with my socialist ways. But seriously, what the fuck.
Why don't you wait until you're asked?
So why don't you ask me?
Spacing 6th issue release sucked nuts. Just a whole lot of art fucks standing around rubbing each other's egos. As Steph said, "Rufus would say 'Let's fuck this awful art party.'"
But the new issue of Spacing ain't bad, and hanging with old friends is always a plus, so it definately wasn't a total loss.
Terrible terrible cough racking me now. I think it's the 'trying to quit smoking' thing. So I just downed two teaspoons of Robitussin and I'm going to hit the sack and pray that helps.
I know this is a kinda shitty post. Shut up. I'm chemically altered, Robitussin is some strong stuff. Read the post below.
Man, this is crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. Bed, before I can't make it there.
Photos from Spacing release party etc. from yesterday to come tommorrow when I'm coherent again.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about modern the modern Western psyche is the blatant refusal, despite the rise of so called 'liberalism', to acknowledge or even pay homage to the fact that their own cultural bias colours their view of the world. They cling incessantly to some sort of handhold with which to justify their bias, whether it be the Aristotelean values of Universal Truth or the pseudo-scientific precepts of the unbiased observer (which modern science has all but denounced, yet keeping it still in some form or another and still teaching it as the basics in elementary education, grounding children into this frame of mind).
I own several analytical 'scholarly' texts on sex from earlier decades (one of which I am currently reading, from the sixties) that goes so far as to quote the most 'esteemed' sexologist, Jacobus, in saying that Arabs are the greatest pederasts in the known world. While this may seem outrageous and shocking to the modern reader, to a philosopher and a socially aware individual the will behind such a statement is not at all unique even in our own time.
I refer not only to the masses who can do nothing but wallow in their own ignorance due to lack of exposure, but also to the so-called cultural elite, whose arrogant 'liberalism' and values of 'freedom' allow for them to cover the sham of their own bloody bias to the extent that they themselves seem to believe that they exist without bias and that they view things from a universal standpoint.
The refusal to acknowledge one's own bias, of course, not limited to Western culture, as an engendering into one's society is unavoidable on any level of any culture, however, it is Western (or perhaps, decidedly North American) culture that so obstinanty clings to their cries of their 'enlightened' and 'unbiased' natures to blind themselves from their own blindness.
The most disturbing thing about this venture is that I cannot see any means to end the perpetual cycle that Western culture has already embarked upon, thanks to human and societal tendencies towards ignorance and stupidity. Present the masses, or the so called 'elite' (which comprises of nothing but pseudo-intellectuals and the new class of the hard-working petty-bourgeois... to view things in class terms, which I will readily admit to doing on occasion) with a new idea like post-modernism or existentialism and they will appropriate it, pay subtle homage to it, then ram their fat cocks of ignorance into its anus by using it as the new watchword for their stupidity.
It's become such a perpetual cycle that, unlike in other cultures at present and in history, where ignorance is maintained by the upper-crust of society to maintain their hold on their most precious commodity: power (note, not money, though money is the means of power in a modern capitalist society, it is not money that is itself evil but the power which it represents), that the 'intellectuals' and the masses are doing it just fine and could continue doing so without the intervention of the outmoded power-hungry persons in office or in positions of power.
Though scorn is placed upon those in power, it is only when they flex their muscle of power and their own brand of ignorance onto others (which is the nature of power, to flex one's muscles over another, hence hatred is constantly engendered) that they are truely hated, not for the ignorance of values but for 'freedom'. Yet if power were not the prime commodity and the upper-crust capitalists removed from the system entirely, something else would take the place of money as the currency of power and perpetuate more of the same ignorance and idiocy that permeates through society today. This can be freely waning use of power over the people and the struggles and hoops by which dictatorial persons must leap through to attain their goals (it is no longer a simple matter of monkey say, armies do... the monkey now has to pass laws under the noses of the masses), yet the rising 'liberal' elite still marches on ignorantly, beating their chest over every issue, even when they have majority support.
This is not to say that the freedoms the liberal movement presents are not valuable, but that in the end they are but another fossilised ideal that they will not reach simply because of the huge human capacity for ignorance. Should the liberal movement triumph, simply another form of currency will take the place of money and the masses will yet be at the yoke of another elite, albeit a more benevolent elite, it is simply not an absolute definition of freedom. How could they possibly hope to do such a thing? The majority of them signed onto the movement with minimal thought, to follow a trend, and they themselves have perhaps read a minimal bit of Marxist theory and called that their extent of liberal knowledge!
Yet the masses engender it, and are not simply prepared themselves for absolute freedom. They enjoy their ignorance, bathe luxuriously in it. Yet all the while they beat their breasts and they say that they are not ignorant, that they know what the hell they are talking about.
In this, perhaps, Reagan was correct in his assessment of communism. He said, "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." Yet what he obviously (since Reagan was no genius, as history proves) forgoes is the fact that almost no one who dons a mantle of any ideology has any idea what they speak of. A Marxist CAN understand Marxism, so long as they are aware that their views are forever coloured by their understanding of marxism, and so forth. It is impossible to apply your view to the universal without first assessing your own views!
Again we see this trend of thought arising in modern society in the philosophers of existentialist and post-modernist movements. I am not trying to say that such people do not EXIST at all, but that the followers of such philosophies tend to be, as usual, of the ignorant sort who then pretend to be enlightened, pretend a sense of goddamned superiority, yet never reflect upon their own wills and biases and thereby mock the human condition by exemplifying it outright.
What is the solution? I have no clue. No fucking clue. I've been working years on compiling a worthwhile solution (jokingly called The Manifesto) to any perfect utopian system, socialist, anarchist, whatever (and I still, despite being entirely disillusioned, refer to myself as a socialist) but it is impossible. The only solutions I can dream up, perhaps because I am myself human and impossibly attached to human paradigms (Damn you Heinlein, damn you and your damned fictional Martian... lucky bastards) only create new power structures. 'Better' power structures, perhaps, but still a human, imperfect, and inherently flawed one. Impossible, that is of course, short of a miraculous undertaking of divine intervention by which all humans are then acutely aware of themselves.
I have to go get showered and go out to lunch with a friend now, but those are my thoughts for now. Thoughts on human masks (my own) if I feel like writing about myself are to come later.
"I just called to say I love you."
I'm almost certain that I'm dead. Music comes on when I want it to, fancy cars drive by when I'm thinking about them, and things are just way too perfectly in tune to me.
Dead or asleep.
It's sorta creepy, but I'm determined to enjoy it, so whatever. If I'm dead there's nothing I can do about it now, and if the world's just aligned with me right now, why pass up the oppurtunity?
I'm headed back to the T-dot sooner or later today, I just have to figure when I want to board the bus. I just chased two blocks after Kelly, who just came and went like a thief in the night and reclaimed her sweater from my closet without saying hi at all as I was in the shower. I just heard the door close, grabbed my clothes, and put them on while sprinting out the door to chase her down.
Silly person. =)
I fully intend to use the line she gave me as a pickup line. "I miss Kelly so much, she's gone tree planting! I have to fill up my time with lots of sex to make up for it."
I wonder if it would actually work. It shows a care for friends, right?
Pictures from the walk yesterday:
