to my intended state of being: alone. Not lonely per se, well, on some levels lonelier than before, but first- and foremost alone. Which made me realize once again the importance of respecting myself and learning to live with me being me. This is something I had always known, but sometimes abrupt changes can put that knowledge to test. The choice is whether to opt for saving your individuality, or to debase your personality in order to please. And the latter can never result in true pleasure, seeing as you'll ultimately end up alone anyway, so you better make damn sure you like who that is going to be by staying true to yourself. That sounds so easy on 'paper' but can be devastatingly hard in real life, sometimes not sticking to your actual self may seem like the right thing to do, but it never actually is. As crushing as the consequences to it may be, in the long-run not straying from your psychological make-up will prove itself to make you much happier than twisting yourself into the shell of a person you're not. But well, Hunter S. Thompson formulated essentially this much better than I possibly could:
"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in
spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on
our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole
way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but
essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so
important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must
look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness"
(From: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967)
Which says it all, doesn't it? However many people you impress in your lifetime, however many seemingly meaningful love- and friendship relations you enter, however many admirers you surround yourself with, you are always trapped in your own mind with yourself, completely alone. There is no escaping that fact, which is why a strong personality is the largest and single-most valuable asset you'll ever have. And you need to be able to live with yourself and by yourself, otherwise you'll succumb to the illusion of needing an anchor in the troubled waters of your being, and at some point that anchor you had been relying on won't hold you anymore and you'll have to navigate on your own - and if you're not in tune with yourself, if you don't accept and respect yourself, you are going to fail and drown.
Beware of not confusing debasing your personality with adapting or improving parts of it though. It is fallacious to assume that you can't change certain shallow parts of yourself in order to be more appealing or suitable for certain people or situations. But once you go about trying to change the very core of what makes a specific individual just that you're asking for trouble. In multiple ways. "People don't change", as Gregory House once put it, and once you've realized you're ultimately going to stay who you are and started to accept that fact your entire life and way of dealing with people and issues will change for the better. Because you'll be able to focus on your innermost ambitions and desires without trying to fit any expectations that have been set for the facade you had created for those around you. It is crucial for actually attaining a certain feeling of contentedness in your life that you realize that as early as possible in order to avoid having an epiphany at age 50 and suddenly trying to establish yourself as a porn-star because you realized how much of a player/slut you actually are and that you could have turned your nymphomania into money. Which might be an extreme example, but you get my drift. You'll always have regrets in your life. Just try not having to regret the way of life you chose or the kind of field you're working in. As I said in an earlier post you don't need to work as anything you terribly enjoy as long as it's a mean to an end. But if you only do what you do to adhere to outside pressure and only act the way you act because you let your actual personality be crushed by those pressures you're gonna have a bad time, to reference South Park once again. And well, you can all imagine the dire situations you might find yourself in when your adapted personality encounters something that the actual personality despises; those convinced of the adapted version will be in for a rude awakening and you yourself will realize that you actually had yourself fooled. Which is a hurtful realization that you want to avoid. Trust me on this.
It is a hard walk to walk, that walk of self-realization and respect without any compromises. Is it worth walking? Fuck if I know. Certainly doesn't feel like it from time to time. But in regard to the future I assume that it is. At least I know that I won't look back at my life at some point and realize that I haven't done what I wanted and needed throughout it, I won't have regrets because I didn't stay true to myself, no, I'll look back at my life and know that although what I did was not always right I always made calls based purely on my own perception and ideas, not falling for the fallacy of trying to conform. And I like to think that that is something to be proud of. Now I may be wrong. But I can not for the life of me figure out how I could be in this case, so I'll just assume that I'm not.
The loneliness mentioned earlier that I feel at the moment is not as crushingly weighing on me as I thought it would be though. I have grown to accept being alone in the end, and I have grown to accept that my personality is not suitable for togetherness per se anyway, and I have also grown to accept myself as being myself; therefore being alone, or lonely for that matter, does not seems de facto bad to me. Because as I said at the beginning of this post: being alone is my intended state of being. I believe I was never meant to be an actual part of social intertwining that goes beyond casual conversation with platonic partners. And whilst this rule has seen its exceptions, it was only proven true by them. This is a pattern that I have often recognized throughout my life, and albeit being technically too young to actually say anything like that with certainty yet I can say that I have almost 20 years worth of anecdotal proof to base this assumption on - and the pattern has shown its consistency throughout that time. But I decided to not wallow in self-loathing because of it, and rather to embrace solitude as an inevitable constant in my being; I accepted it. And having done so, exceptions like the ones mentioned feel even more extraordinary simply because the absolute dependance on them for happiness is out of the picture, therefore the focus can be switched to just being happy. And when the rule strikes again, the happiness may fade but it won't be replaced with soul-crushing depression. Rather with the well-known and embraced feeling of solitude discussed earlier. And that is a lot better than the first-mentioned emotion, because when the solitude you've gotten used to hits it won't be a moment of losing all hold and drowning, but rather a moment of what you had expected anyway "finally" happening. Yeah the realization of having been right all along once again hurts, but in the long-run it's less debasing and hurtful to your inner core than the alternative of believing that the exceptions are supposed to be the status quo and not the other way around. That is of course a really depressing way of seeing things at first, but it's ultimately more honest to yourself and those you enter whatever kinds of relationships with. The only thing that finally remains depressing about it is seeing those that have not and somehow can not accept this in their own lives, and take each set-back like it's the end of their emotional being, which at some point is just sad to see. Especially because it reminds me of myself back when I didn't see myself for who I am, and life for what it is, and was heavily dependent on others for my well-being. But well, to each his own. I guess what I am just trying to do here is show you how much value for your life respecting and sticking to yourself actually holds. My goal is not to turn you off the idea of relationships and togetherness though mind you - I am just saying that you are going to end up alone anyway, so you'll have to see to it that you're walking your own path because walking a path someone else sets for you will lead you to a destination you might not like anymore when that someone is gone. So I am essentially trying to warn you, you can consider this post to be a word of caution. Or rather a piece of advice. However you want to put it, it's just something to keep in mind when living your life and binding yourself to others emotionally.
Like death, solitude is an inevitable fact of that great journey that we decided to call 'life' for whatever reason -- it's really just a process of growing and decaying if you look at it -- and it is also one of those things that people tend to have a hard time accepting as the inevitability that it is. So for the same reason that artist create entertainment to reach a sort of immortality, couples get married in order to reach an eternal togetherness. Both of which do not work per se. You'll end up in a box 6-feet under no matter what, just like you'll ultimately be alone no matter what. The obvious question at hand now is if these ways of immortalizing yourself or your coupling are completely useless in the face of aforementioned inevitability. Well, no, not really. Although the body decays part of the mind will remain in an artists' works, just like loneliness will be alleviated by marriage and if it actually lasted until death did them part the consecrated union will also be remember long beyond the demise of the weds. And whilst that knowledge will not ease the finality of death or being alone, it will provide solace in that moment. Or at least I think so. Maybe at some point when I'm wiser and I'm older I'll know with a fair amount of certainty. But I doubt it to be honest, I think one can never truly know in ones lifetime. Not that it really matter in daily decisions, otherwise we'd spent hours deciding if leaving the house in the morning is the right thing to do. But still. There is an omnipresent wondering about that moment of drawing ones final breath. And understandably so. I mean, if we all just knew how it felt to die and what came afterwards, we would either all commit suicide or start living a pedantically healthy, almost hypochondriac lifestyle. Both of which would be extremely counterproductive to society. Which is also why this very tangent doesn't provide much room for discussion or interpretation, because I can not talk about the feeling of death, or the feeling of ultimately being alone, simply because I have not reached that point in my life yet. Not by a long shot actually. And whilst of course being able to formulate my theoretical thoughts about it like I did above, I don't want to get into it much further. At least not for now and definitely not soberly.
Hah, a lot of line of thoughts come down to this in my posts, don't they? But when I'm in a state of mind altered enough to completely think these things through, my motor skills are mostly too impaired to write the thoughts down, making this whole thing extremely difficult. Should I manage to walk that thin line between being creative and able to write, and just being too fucked up to get anything done I will surely produce great insights full of wisdom. But until then I will keep on telling you which topics I can't write about in sobriety.
Which basically concludes today's post, and well I hope you've learned a thing or two, or have at least been inspired to think about things a little differently by the words above. And in this light I will leave you with some great music, as always:
50 Cent - When It Rains It Pours
-> I have said before that 50 will appear here some more from time to time, and well here we go. The song is so fucking dope, and that's really the only proper way to put it. The beat and the guitar-lick in it combined with 50's unique voice make for an awesome tune to say the least, and the scene in the movie is amazingly fitting, so... Enjoy!
Fort Minor - Cigarettes
-> It's just like a cigarette it's something that I do once in a while but between me and you, it's just like a cigarette, nobody's really fooled, I don't want the truth I just want to feel cool... Great song, deep meaning, reflecting the hypocrisy and lack of integrity that is omnipresent in today's musical industry, and well I like Fort Minor in general, so... Enjoy!
Swedish House Mafia - One (Original Mix)
-> If you only know this melody because of the version with the vocals, shame on you! This is the real version of this song, and it's fucking enthralling, the way it builds up with just a few notes to an epic melodic journey. I have heard this song first in 2010 shortly after its first release I believe, and have enjoyed it ever since. Without the vocals mind you. I don't have any problem with Pharrell Williams or his music per se, but he completely ruined this great song in my opinion. But this version is as awesome as it gets, so... Enjoy!
Hadouken! - Levitate (Koven Remix)
-> Whilst browsing through the UKF Dubstep channel on Youtube, I re-discovered this gem that I first heard about half a year ago during my summer break I think. Starts with beautiful vocals that slowly rise to an awesomely epic drop at about a minute ten in, and it's all in all just a great tune, so... Enjoy!
Metallica - Seek And Destroy
-> I have a T-shirt of the "Kill'Em All" album and I extremely enjoy this song, which is why I had to share it with you. And well, it's a classic tune from a classic album from one of the most commercially successful Metal bands to date, although it's exactly that that ruined them after the first four albums they released, but this is a different topic, and this tune is fucking awesome, so... Enjoy!
Exodus - The Toxic Waltz
-> I am somehow feeling classic, timeless metal tunes today, and so I could not help but feature this great great song from the album "Fabulous Disaster" which I don't personally own. But that's the song that introduced me to Exodus and enticed me to buy the "Bonded by Blood" Album a few years ago. Well, this is an amazing and funny song, great guitar playing, great vocals, just a great piece of thrash metal, so... Enjoy!
Well, this entry was somewhat on the darker side again, pretty sinister and depressing topic to be honest, but when I started composing it I was in a comparable mood. Still am to some extent, but well you know why it's only to some extent and not an extreme weight dragging me down. Anyway, I hope this post was enjoyable despite its negative topic. I mean, it's not like I've been thoroughly positive in my previous postings. And you should have gotten used to a certain degree of slightly pessimistic cynicism in my writing and thinking. In my thinking, that I am only actually revealing here come to think of it, I am much more passive in everyday dialogues than the thoughts expressed here would suggest.
But enough of this, I am tired.
Peace!
About Me
- Finley
- I am an aspiring freelance journalist, blogger, and writer. I mostly write opinion pieces about society, politics, music, and philosophy. If you're looking for any freelance work in that area, make sure to contact me via e-mail.
Showing posts with label 50 cent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50 cent. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
I feel stupid
for not having realized earlier that I can also change the font of my blog posts' text, so now that I have I will compose all posts from here on using my favorite font "Courier New".
There are multiple reasons for my fondness of this font: first and foremost it is because it looks like a typewriter, which is something I really enjoy, it has a classic time-less appeal that speaks to me on an artistic and aesthetic level; secondly my mum had an old typewriter on which I'd write the occasional nonsense as a child, but unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire that burned most of my parents' and my old stuff that had been put into a storage container when we moved to China in '07, enhancing my emotional connection to this font; and finally the Hunter S. Thompson book collection I am currently reading is written entirely in this style, and as you know I idolize the guy, making this font the only appropriate choice for me to use for my blog.
I have to say that lately I am even more compelled to write than usually, seeing as I am receiving loads of positive feedback in real life recently, which is definitely a nice motivator for me to continue working on my posts. Not that I wouldn't have done that would I have gotten no or even negative feedback. But it's still nice to feel a certain sense of recognition, that people are actually impressed with what I have to say. It warms the cockles as it were. Actually, I am still seriously contemplating writing a book, or maybe try to get an unpaid columnist position somewhere, and aforementioned feedback makes these ambitions thrive like well-planted seeds being tended to by an attentive and loving farmer. Knowing myself I might be too lazy to actually get started though. I mean a book. That's a lot more pages to fill than my blog requires me to. It would still be nice to produce something in print however. Or maybe these are just day dreams that I will give up again at some point soon. I will let you know albeit most of you probably not caring.
But if I were to actually write a book, it would most definitely not be fiction per se. I can't imagine myself imagining a whole new world and stuff, that would not be something I would terribly enjoy either I think. I'd more write like my own personal manifesto on everything that I consider to be wrong with this world, or perhaps an opinionated analysis of society through the eyes of a third-person narrator. Or just a series of cynical essays that will resemble my blog posts. Or not even go the extra mile to create new material and just compile my posts into a book. But I don't know about any of that for now.
For now, I'll just stick to writing this blog and entertaining you guys. Or offending or boring or whatever your sentiments towards my little slices of the great ham that is the art of writing are.
Meh, the ham analogy doesn't really work for writing,does it? More for like, a butcher. But you get what I mean, my few little ramblings here are hardly more to the writing community and its history than ants are to us or we are to the universe. Just a tiny almost non-existent piece of the whole, whatever that happens to be.
But I am getting off track here, I am in no mood and way too sober to start discussing the meaninglessness of life compared to the entirety of the universe, or discuss the individuals worth in a high-speed world that is rushing to anonymity and conformity. No way, not today, not without getting seriously fucked up first, these are no topics for sobriety, period.
I am not even sure why I am already writing any of this, my next post is not due for another week or so. But I am too lazy to change the DVD, I have seen the menu animation of "Final Destination 2" for what feels like the millionth time already, and am too bored with the movie to watch it again, meaning that I am stuck sitting here, with essentially writing as the only thing to do apart from the usual pastimes of the Internet of which I'm growing more and more weary seeing as they are a relentless repetition of semi-comedic material about as meaningful as a dog turd on the sidewalk. Yet I still fully indulge in them as soon as a flicker of boredom comes up. And it's not even like I don't have anything else to do, I am sure that if I looked into it I would find lots of things in need of completion for my studies. I could also start writing lyrics again. Instead I am sitting here, looking at this sterile screen in front of me wishing I was writing on an actual typewriter instead of just in a font that looks like one, and slowly drowning in a sea of pointless words and formulations, fading away into the illusion of contributing to the prevalence of common sense simply by writing about it. Or maybe it's not an illusion after all, maybe there are actually people being reinforced in their own use of common sense and decency in a world where these virtues are so quickly lost and replaced by shallowness and egoistically biased judgement.
It is so easy, almost encouraged to behave like an asshole nowadays; it's unnerving! I can not understand these people. Well that is not entirely true. I can comprehend why someone would behave that way. Personal gain is a powerful motivator that often overlooks humanity and compassion. I have been there as well, the opportunities to throw someone under the bus in order to get something out of it are almost omnipresent. But I have rarely acted on it, and if I did I either felt like shit because of it or had very good reasons to do so. Either way, I have seen it far too often that people do not only act insidiously out of impulse and circumstance, but rather actively seek opportunities to deceive, manipulate, and use others, and when these opportunities are found exploit them like there's no tomorrow. And honestly, this saddens me. I mean it's not like I haven't learned to recognize these bastards from a mile away and avoid them like hell, it's not like this a completely new phenomena to me or in general, but still I feel like a little part of me dies every time I hear about or see that kind of behavior.
The reason for this is mainly that in my mind, and those of many others, it is so easy to behave decently. Respect those that respect you, and those who show disrespect or insult you you ignore or avoid. I am not saying you should "turn the other cheek" either though, don't get me wrong, some people simply need an ass-whooping from time to time. But this senseless negativity, this back-stabbing, this pointless hatred that some exhibit are simply not understandable to me. Live and let live for Christs' sake, it's not that fucking hard, is it?
And the most surprising thing to me is that everywhere I go the people surrounding me mostly fully agree with me on this, but still I see mankind behaving like goddamn retarded assholes not even remotely trying to just leave others be and worry about their own issues. Why do these lunatics think that they're solving anything or making life better for themselves when they so clearly are not? This has to be some sort of mental health issue, there is no other reasonable explanation that comes to mind. Or maybe my non-egoistic way of thinking is a symptom of mental deterioration after all, and all those I consider to be assholes are the healthy ones. But then again, this could all just be the dream of some over-sized mongrel that ends the second the beast wakes up from the sound of its own farts, so I don't see any point in speculating beyond my observational sphere on this, meaning that I will stick to my original utterance: Most people are egoistic assholes with a mental condition, and those that recognize this trend in their surroundings as well are a dying breed of decent humans, just like I like to think I am.
But essentially, it's egregious to assume anything based on one's perception of oneself, because it can not be anything but heavily biased, usually towards, but sometimes even against oneself.
This bias in inherent to our nature and is not something to be ashamed, but just something to be aware of. It is possible to assess your own works' worth, but you need to realize that you're looking through tainted glasses when doing so, and adjust your self-assessment accordingly, which is a skill that develops over time. As the years go by you and what you create will be submitted to tons of judgements by various kinds of people, and you will see how and to what degree that varies from your own perception, which will in turn allow you to adapt your own appraisal of what you did to that of your audience, which is usually more accurate simply because it's a stew of many opinions from people who may not even know you instead of just your own. I can not emphasize enough that this does not mean to let yourself be influenced by others' opinions in your doing though, remember that most people are assholes that don't know what they're talking about at all, but don't forget that there are honest souls out there as well either; meaning that singular negative feedback from idiots should not get you down, but neither should singular praises from idiots lift you up, both would be fallacious feelings and lead to you not working the way you would want to, ultimately resulting in depression and failure, because you'll either produce good work thinking you're producing crap or vice-versa, ergo not being as productive as you would probably want to be. But vis-à-vis the aggressively mediocre taste of humanity nowadays actually being productive is of no value to the entertainment industry; pandering to the lowest common denominator amongst today's brainwashed TV-addicts however, is. Not that I haven't talked about this what feels like a million times already, but still it is true, be it in music, film, or writing that the corporate giants are turning true creative output into a cheesy, slimy mass properly cut into easily digestible pieces ready to be served to the brain-dead masses, thinly disguised as valuable nutrition for the mind.
And of course, the driving force behind it is money. But despite us all realizing this we're not only condoning this behavior, we're even endorsing it by showing these corporations that it's easily possible to make billions of dollars off of untalented, crappy musicians simply because we, or some assholes among us, are buying into their shit! But this has already been discussed at length in one of my earlier "Food For Thought" segments, and I will not subject you to this torturous discussion once again, and am myself in no mood to get all aggro about this now. So, let's just keep in mind that money makes good music go bad, and that it's the corporations', "the man's" fault combined with our inability to resist their bullshit lies and propaganda. And I am using the word 'propaganda' explicitly because of its tremendous historic meaning, because I think that planting an ideology in people's brains is no more or less worse than using similar schemes to push bad, commercialized music, films, or books onto unsuspecting audiences, and thereby thoroughly ruining the essence of these arts, essentially ruining the artistic side of these arts. Of course the repercussions of selling crappy art are not as easily visible or as shocking as those of indoctrinating an entire nation with an ideology, but are not to be underestimated nevertheless.
I mean think about the entertainment that will be here 20, 30, or even 50 years from now considering its development from the late 70's until the first decade of this century. Do you begin to see what I mean? We've gone from "The Great Shark Hunt" to "50 Shades of Grey"; from "Master of Puppets" to "Wrecking Ball"; and from "Pulp Fiction" to "Titanic" and "He's just not that into you". Mind you that I'm not trying to undermine the fact that there are indeed great artistic creations of this decade that managed to restore enough of my faith in humanity as to not jump off a bridge, but they're not as prevalent anymore, they're being reduced to the tiniest of niche. The big stars of the past were those that had actual worth, be it musically, artistically, or linguistically. Even those that sucked were better than today's "Top 50" or equivalent rankings, and that is just a sad sign of deterioration within the humans' understanding of the arts. And if we allow this rotting to continue, we will ultimately end up with horrific corporate industries managing an artists' every thought to make sure it is sell-able, and otherwise force-ably dismissing it. Oh wait, that's not a prediction at all, that's what's happening right now, but this seems to be the most extreme perversion of artistic integrity that I can come up with on my own. But well, in a few years I will surely be proven by one of the large entertainment industries that I just lack imagination, they'll find a way to making sell-outs even worse, I guarantee. And isn't it just sad that I can already predict that now with a fairly high amount of certainty? But that's the nice thing about it being only a prediction - it may or may not come true, and I certainly hope it doesn't, although I have to say that given the developments of the past decade I'm pessimistic about it.
Anyhow. This topic has been rehashed so many times in so many different ways already that my little take on it here should suffice considering I have myself already dealt with it before on this very blog, but not on the meta-level that I have elevated the theme to here encompassing essentially all forms of art.
Well, looking back on the text so far, I have to say that I am currently quite fond of dealing with multiple topics in one post, individually brief or long. Which was not a conscious decision, but rather just happened in the course of my writing. Maybe you have noticed it too, maybe I'm just imagining it, I don't know. But should you have noticed it, let me know if you like it or if you prefer mono-topical posts. Because I myself am usually drifting through thoughts and ideas whilst writing these posts, and am not really following a clear structure or trying to make a main point, but rather series of small points that add up to a nice, almost-weekly dose of 'wisdom'. I use quotation marks here because I am ambivalent when it comes to defining my ramblings as actual wisdom. To some extent I obviously consider them to be, hence the title of my Blog, but still I can not shake the feeling of sounding like an asshole with overblown ego wanting to impose his own opinions onto other people by declaring them to be wisdom. But as indicated before, I do think that there are things to take away from these posts. I just do not want them to be taken as being what they are, I want you to question every syllable I utter so as to form your own notion of the topics dealt with here. Hence my ambivalence towards the use of the word 'wisdom' as a description of my literary productions. But I still firmly stand behind this Blogs title, especially considering that it just has a nice ring to it, and that it does describe what I want you to attain by reading and thinking about the themes dealt with in these posts. Yes, you heard that right, I want to you to gain a feeling of "music and personal wisdom" within your daily life, I want you to subject yourself to philosophical lines of thought each and every day, preferably whilst listening to good music. But I know that you won't do this anyway, I mean neither do I to be honest. It is a nice thought though isn't it? To actually sit down with some nice writings on philosophy, drinking a cup of hot chocolate, and listening to some good old classic Rock. But it rarely happens that people actually do that nowadays, unfortunately. Even reading in general seems to be declining. Well at least when it comes to actual books that is. At least when it comes to my generation. Or, well, parts of it, I'm not someone to bash an entire decade of people, but it does feel like with every passing aeon less and less brain-mass is being passed on to offspring, slowly turning them into brainless zombie-like creatures more resembling primal beasts than fully developed homo sapiens sapiens. As part of the generation "Y" as sociologists put it, a lot of people may think that I am too young to be making these kind of calls, but to be honest I kind of doubt that using your brain to recognize patterns of mental degradation around you has an age-restriction. But it all seems to come down to this anyway. Every single one of my blog posts, and every line of thought I think. Maybe it's just me being a cynical asshole as always, maybe it's just me being condescending to way too many a soul. But I doubt it. Unfortunately.
Well, once again, a post that resulted in me criticizing society or rather developments within society caused by itself. But you all knew that that was going to happen, and so did I. Still, I do think that this beast of a post holds a lot of vital points I have not made at any point before, and should all in all be a long but entertaining read. Or at least that's the underlying intention, and I hope that I succeeded. Well, this concludes this 3000-word result of three days of typing, and here is some good music:
Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
-> Great Band, great track, and I love to play this introductory riff on my guitar, it was such a great day when my guitar tutor taught me how, and yeah Led Zeppelin needs featuring here and will be quite a few more times in the future... Enjoy!
Dub FX - Society Gates
-> I have definitely had a Dub FX song on here before, but I am almost entirely sure that it was "Fly with me". Well, whereas "Fly with me" is rather psychedelic and elicits a feeling of drug-use in me, "society gates" is a nice piece about society and the norms it forces its inhabitants to conform to, which fits nicely into the final paragraphs of this post, so... Enjoy!
Twisted Sister - The Price
-> Well I had Twisted Sister on here before as well, but definitely not this song and needed featuring here! It's an epically beautiful tune that holds many truths on many levels, and is musically great as well, so... Enjoy!
Black Eyed Peas - Joints & Jam
-> "A chick-a-doom, a chick-a-doom chick-a-doom doom" - The Black Eyed Peas were so great back in the days, what the hell happened to them? I mean yeah, money and corporations, but can they really delude a band's essence this much? Apparently they can. But anyway, great track, funny video, so... Enjoy!
Twofold - All Around
-> UKF does not disappoint, this is an epic song by Twofold, an artist I've seen a couple of times on the UKF Dubstep Channel lately which is usually a good sign, and this guy definitely deserves the spot on this 'exclusive' playlist that is UKF; amazing song, so... Enjoy!
50 Cent - I'll Whip Ya Head Boy
-> Upon re-watching "Get Rich Or Die Tryin'" a couple of times these past months I decided to include this great song that a friend of mine used as introductory music for his boxing match. I've never been the biggest 50 fan to be honest, but I've always liked his tracks and this one is definitely awesome, and you will see a few others of his works on here at some point, so... Enjoy!
At Vance - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Summer)
-> This is a great metal interpretation of the Summer-part of the Vivaldi's Four Seasons by the German band "At Vance", whose music I've been enjoying for about 4 or 5 years now. I had to include this amazingly crafted piece of music here at some point so might as well do it now, bring a little bit of sunshine into the darkness as it were. Anyway, this is an awesome interpretation of a classic piece, so... Enjoy!
Well, this post turned out to be a real beast of over 3000 words of ramblings, that I hope are enjoyable to you. I have addressed multiple topics in various lengths, but I think I managed to keep it all revolving around somewhat of a red line throughout the erratically uttered thoughts.
But anyway, creating this entry took a few days, and now it's again midnight soon, so I'll go to sleep and let you enjoy this literary creation of mine.
Peace!
There are multiple reasons for my fondness of this font: first and foremost it is because it looks like a typewriter, which is something I really enjoy, it has a classic time-less appeal that speaks to me on an artistic and aesthetic level; secondly my mum had an old typewriter on which I'd write the occasional nonsense as a child, but unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire that burned most of my parents' and my old stuff that had been put into a storage container when we moved to China in '07, enhancing my emotional connection to this font; and finally the Hunter S. Thompson book collection I am currently reading is written entirely in this style, and as you know I idolize the guy, making this font the only appropriate choice for me to use for my blog.
I have to say that lately I am even more compelled to write than usually, seeing as I am receiving loads of positive feedback in real life recently, which is definitely a nice motivator for me to continue working on my posts. Not that I wouldn't have done that would I have gotten no or even negative feedback. But it's still nice to feel a certain sense of recognition, that people are actually impressed with what I have to say. It warms the cockles as it were. Actually, I am still seriously contemplating writing a book, or maybe try to get an unpaid columnist position somewhere, and aforementioned feedback makes these ambitions thrive like well-planted seeds being tended to by an attentive and loving farmer. Knowing myself I might be too lazy to actually get started though. I mean a book. That's a lot more pages to fill than my blog requires me to. It would still be nice to produce something in print however. Or maybe these are just day dreams that I will give up again at some point soon. I will let you know albeit most of you probably not caring.
But if I were to actually write a book, it would most definitely not be fiction per se. I can't imagine myself imagining a whole new world and stuff, that would not be something I would terribly enjoy either I think. I'd more write like my own personal manifesto on everything that I consider to be wrong with this world, or perhaps an opinionated analysis of society through the eyes of a third-person narrator. Or just a series of cynical essays that will resemble my blog posts. Or not even go the extra mile to create new material and just compile my posts into a book. But I don't know about any of that for now.
For now, I'll just stick to writing this blog and entertaining you guys. Or offending or boring or whatever your sentiments towards my little slices of the great ham that is the art of writing are.
Meh, the ham analogy doesn't really work for writing,does it? More for like, a butcher. But you get what I mean, my few little ramblings here are hardly more to the writing community and its history than ants are to us or we are to the universe. Just a tiny almost non-existent piece of the whole, whatever that happens to be.
But I am getting off track here, I am in no mood and way too sober to start discussing the meaninglessness of life compared to the entirety of the universe, or discuss the individuals worth in a high-speed world that is rushing to anonymity and conformity. No way, not today, not without getting seriously fucked up first, these are no topics for sobriety, period.
I am not even sure why I am already writing any of this, my next post is not due for another week or so. But I am too lazy to change the DVD, I have seen the menu animation of "Final Destination 2" for what feels like the millionth time already, and am too bored with the movie to watch it again, meaning that I am stuck sitting here, with essentially writing as the only thing to do apart from the usual pastimes of the Internet of which I'm growing more and more weary seeing as they are a relentless repetition of semi-comedic material about as meaningful as a dog turd on the sidewalk. Yet I still fully indulge in them as soon as a flicker of boredom comes up. And it's not even like I don't have anything else to do, I am sure that if I looked into it I would find lots of things in need of completion for my studies. I could also start writing lyrics again. Instead I am sitting here, looking at this sterile screen in front of me wishing I was writing on an actual typewriter instead of just in a font that looks like one, and slowly drowning in a sea of pointless words and formulations, fading away into the illusion of contributing to the prevalence of common sense simply by writing about it. Or maybe it's not an illusion after all, maybe there are actually people being reinforced in their own use of common sense and decency in a world where these virtues are so quickly lost and replaced by shallowness and egoistically biased judgement.
It is so easy, almost encouraged to behave like an asshole nowadays; it's unnerving! I can not understand these people. Well that is not entirely true. I can comprehend why someone would behave that way. Personal gain is a powerful motivator that often overlooks humanity and compassion. I have been there as well, the opportunities to throw someone under the bus in order to get something out of it are almost omnipresent. But I have rarely acted on it, and if I did I either felt like shit because of it or had very good reasons to do so. Either way, I have seen it far too often that people do not only act insidiously out of impulse and circumstance, but rather actively seek opportunities to deceive, manipulate, and use others, and when these opportunities are found exploit them like there's no tomorrow. And honestly, this saddens me. I mean it's not like I haven't learned to recognize these bastards from a mile away and avoid them like hell, it's not like this a completely new phenomena to me or in general, but still I feel like a little part of me dies every time I hear about or see that kind of behavior.
The reason for this is mainly that in my mind, and those of many others, it is so easy to behave decently. Respect those that respect you, and those who show disrespect or insult you you ignore or avoid. I am not saying you should "turn the other cheek" either though, don't get me wrong, some people simply need an ass-whooping from time to time. But this senseless negativity, this back-stabbing, this pointless hatred that some exhibit are simply not understandable to me. Live and let live for Christs' sake, it's not that fucking hard, is it?
And the most surprising thing to me is that everywhere I go the people surrounding me mostly fully agree with me on this, but still I see mankind behaving like goddamn retarded assholes not even remotely trying to just leave others be and worry about their own issues. Why do these lunatics think that they're solving anything or making life better for themselves when they so clearly are not? This has to be some sort of mental health issue, there is no other reasonable explanation that comes to mind. Or maybe my non-egoistic way of thinking is a symptom of mental deterioration after all, and all those I consider to be assholes are the healthy ones. But then again, this could all just be the dream of some over-sized mongrel that ends the second the beast wakes up from the sound of its own farts, so I don't see any point in speculating beyond my observational sphere on this, meaning that I will stick to my original utterance: Most people are egoistic assholes with a mental condition, and those that recognize this trend in their surroundings as well are a dying breed of decent humans, just like I like to think I am.
But essentially, it's egregious to assume anything based on one's perception of oneself, because it can not be anything but heavily biased, usually towards, but sometimes even against oneself.
This bias in inherent to our nature and is not something to be ashamed, but just something to be aware of. It is possible to assess your own works' worth, but you need to realize that you're looking through tainted glasses when doing so, and adjust your self-assessment accordingly, which is a skill that develops over time. As the years go by you and what you create will be submitted to tons of judgements by various kinds of people, and you will see how and to what degree that varies from your own perception, which will in turn allow you to adapt your own appraisal of what you did to that of your audience, which is usually more accurate simply because it's a stew of many opinions from people who may not even know you instead of just your own. I can not emphasize enough that this does not mean to let yourself be influenced by others' opinions in your doing though, remember that most people are assholes that don't know what they're talking about at all, but don't forget that there are honest souls out there as well either; meaning that singular negative feedback from idiots should not get you down, but neither should singular praises from idiots lift you up, both would be fallacious feelings and lead to you not working the way you would want to, ultimately resulting in depression and failure, because you'll either produce good work thinking you're producing crap or vice-versa, ergo not being as productive as you would probably want to be. But vis-à-vis the aggressively mediocre taste of humanity nowadays actually being productive is of no value to the entertainment industry; pandering to the lowest common denominator amongst today's brainwashed TV-addicts however, is. Not that I haven't talked about this what feels like a million times already, but still it is true, be it in music, film, or writing that the corporate giants are turning true creative output into a cheesy, slimy mass properly cut into easily digestible pieces ready to be served to the brain-dead masses, thinly disguised as valuable nutrition for the mind.
And of course, the driving force behind it is money. But despite us all realizing this we're not only condoning this behavior, we're even endorsing it by showing these corporations that it's easily possible to make billions of dollars off of untalented, crappy musicians simply because we, or some assholes among us, are buying into their shit! But this has already been discussed at length in one of my earlier "Food For Thought" segments, and I will not subject you to this torturous discussion once again, and am myself in no mood to get all aggro about this now. So, let's just keep in mind that money makes good music go bad, and that it's the corporations', "the man's" fault combined with our inability to resist their bullshit lies and propaganda. And I am using the word 'propaganda' explicitly because of its tremendous historic meaning, because I think that planting an ideology in people's brains is no more or less worse than using similar schemes to push bad, commercialized music, films, or books onto unsuspecting audiences, and thereby thoroughly ruining the essence of these arts, essentially ruining the artistic side of these arts. Of course the repercussions of selling crappy art are not as easily visible or as shocking as those of indoctrinating an entire nation with an ideology, but are not to be underestimated nevertheless.
I mean think about the entertainment that will be here 20, 30, or even 50 years from now considering its development from the late 70's until the first decade of this century. Do you begin to see what I mean? We've gone from "The Great Shark Hunt" to "50 Shades of Grey"; from "Master of Puppets" to "Wrecking Ball"; and from "Pulp Fiction" to "Titanic" and "He's just not that into you". Mind you that I'm not trying to undermine the fact that there are indeed great artistic creations of this decade that managed to restore enough of my faith in humanity as to not jump off a bridge, but they're not as prevalent anymore, they're being reduced to the tiniest of niche. The big stars of the past were those that had actual worth, be it musically, artistically, or linguistically. Even those that sucked were better than today's "Top 50" or equivalent rankings, and that is just a sad sign of deterioration within the humans' understanding of the arts. And if we allow this rotting to continue, we will ultimately end up with horrific corporate industries managing an artists' every thought to make sure it is sell-able, and otherwise force-ably dismissing it. Oh wait, that's not a prediction at all, that's what's happening right now, but this seems to be the most extreme perversion of artistic integrity that I can come up with on my own. But well, in a few years I will surely be proven by one of the large entertainment industries that I just lack imagination, they'll find a way to making sell-outs even worse, I guarantee. And isn't it just sad that I can already predict that now with a fairly high amount of certainty? But that's the nice thing about it being only a prediction - it may or may not come true, and I certainly hope it doesn't, although I have to say that given the developments of the past decade I'm pessimistic about it.
Anyhow. This topic has been rehashed so many times in so many different ways already that my little take on it here should suffice considering I have myself already dealt with it before on this very blog, but not on the meta-level that I have elevated the theme to here encompassing essentially all forms of art.
Well, looking back on the text so far, I have to say that I am currently quite fond of dealing with multiple topics in one post, individually brief or long. Which was not a conscious decision, but rather just happened in the course of my writing. Maybe you have noticed it too, maybe I'm just imagining it, I don't know. But should you have noticed it, let me know if you like it or if you prefer mono-topical posts. Because I myself am usually drifting through thoughts and ideas whilst writing these posts, and am not really following a clear structure or trying to make a main point, but rather series of small points that add up to a nice, almost-weekly dose of 'wisdom'. I use quotation marks here because I am ambivalent when it comes to defining my ramblings as actual wisdom. To some extent I obviously consider them to be, hence the title of my Blog, but still I can not shake the feeling of sounding like an asshole with overblown ego wanting to impose his own opinions onto other people by declaring them to be wisdom. But as indicated before, I do think that there are things to take away from these posts. I just do not want them to be taken as being what they are, I want you to question every syllable I utter so as to form your own notion of the topics dealt with here. Hence my ambivalence towards the use of the word 'wisdom' as a description of my literary productions. But I still firmly stand behind this Blogs title, especially considering that it just has a nice ring to it, and that it does describe what I want you to attain by reading and thinking about the themes dealt with in these posts. Yes, you heard that right, I want to you to gain a feeling of "music and personal wisdom" within your daily life, I want you to subject yourself to philosophical lines of thought each and every day, preferably whilst listening to good music. But I know that you won't do this anyway, I mean neither do I to be honest. It is a nice thought though isn't it? To actually sit down with some nice writings on philosophy, drinking a cup of hot chocolate, and listening to some good old classic Rock. But it rarely happens that people actually do that nowadays, unfortunately. Even reading in general seems to be declining. Well at least when it comes to actual books that is. At least when it comes to my generation. Or, well, parts of it, I'm not someone to bash an entire decade of people, but it does feel like with every passing aeon less and less brain-mass is being passed on to offspring, slowly turning them into brainless zombie-like creatures more resembling primal beasts than fully developed homo sapiens sapiens. As part of the generation "Y" as sociologists put it, a lot of people may think that I am too young to be making these kind of calls, but to be honest I kind of doubt that using your brain to recognize patterns of mental degradation around you has an age-restriction. But it all seems to come down to this anyway. Every single one of my blog posts, and every line of thought I think. Maybe it's just me being a cynical asshole as always, maybe it's just me being condescending to way too many a soul. But I doubt it. Unfortunately.
Well, once again, a post that resulted in me criticizing society or rather developments within society caused by itself. But you all knew that that was going to happen, and so did I. Still, I do think that this beast of a post holds a lot of vital points I have not made at any point before, and should all in all be a long but entertaining read. Or at least that's the underlying intention, and I hope that I succeeded. Well, this concludes this 3000-word result of three days of typing, and here is some good music:
Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
-> Great Band, great track, and I love to play this introductory riff on my guitar, it was such a great day when my guitar tutor taught me how, and yeah Led Zeppelin needs featuring here and will be quite a few more times in the future... Enjoy!
Dub FX - Society Gates
-> I have definitely had a Dub FX song on here before, but I am almost entirely sure that it was "Fly with me". Well, whereas "Fly with me" is rather psychedelic and elicits a feeling of drug-use in me, "society gates" is a nice piece about society and the norms it forces its inhabitants to conform to, which fits nicely into the final paragraphs of this post, so... Enjoy!
Twisted Sister - The Price
-> Well I had Twisted Sister on here before as well, but definitely not this song and needed featuring here! It's an epically beautiful tune that holds many truths on many levels, and is musically great as well, so... Enjoy!
Black Eyed Peas - Joints & Jam
-> "A chick-a-doom, a chick-a-doom chick-a-doom doom" - The Black Eyed Peas were so great back in the days, what the hell happened to them? I mean yeah, money and corporations, but can they really delude a band's essence this much? Apparently they can. But anyway, great track, funny video, so... Enjoy!
Twofold - All Around
-> UKF does not disappoint, this is an epic song by Twofold, an artist I've seen a couple of times on the UKF Dubstep Channel lately which is usually a good sign, and this guy definitely deserves the spot on this 'exclusive' playlist that is UKF; amazing song, so... Enjoy!
50 Cent - I'll Whip Ya Head Boy
-> Upon re-watching "Get Rich Or Die Tryin'" a couple of times these past months I decided to include this great song that a friend of mine used as introductory music for his boxing match. I've never been the biggest 50 fan to be honest, but I've always liked his tracks and this one is definitely awesome, and you will see a few others of his works on here at some point, so... Enjoy!
At Vance - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Summer)
-> This is a great metal interpretation of the Summer-part of the Vivaldi's Four Seasons by the German band "At Vance", whose music I've been enjoying for about 4 or 5 years now. I had to include this amazingly crafted piece of music here at some point so might as well do it now, bring a little bit of sunshine into the darkness as it were. Anyway, this is an awesome interpretation of a classic piece, so... Enjoy!
Well, this post turned out to be a real beast of over 3000 words of ramblings, that I hope are enjoyable to you. I have addressed multiple topics in various lengths, but I think I managed to keep it all revolving around somewhat of a red line throughout the erratically uttered thoughts.
But anyway, creating this entry took a few days, and now it's again midnight soon, so I'll go to sleep and let you enjoy this literary creation of mine.
Peace!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Well...
...today was a lazy-ass day for me. I woke up around 12:00, but stayed in bed until around 17:00, with the only exception being one small sport and a couple of bathroom breaks, otherwise full-on chilling on my couch with no interruptions :D
And I had so much planned for today; I was going to work on some things for university, maybe clean the apartment and go out to buy groceries, but, alas, I was couch-locked by tiredness and hits from the bong and therefore could not get myself to do a damn thing.
As much as I really want to complain about it though, I do not have any reason to do so, seeing as I love being lazy, I just love it. For me personally, the perfect day is a day like today. No movement, no stress, no nuisance, just a couch, a PC, a TV and high-speed internet access. Life is sweet!
The only problem the keeps recurring is that damned socially-indoctrinated feeling of guilt when doing so, it's like we were conditioned not to be lazy, and, when we are, our subconscious is fighting it out of the internal reflex that brands being lazy as a bad thing, when it really is not altogether.
Of course, laziness can cost you a lot of opportunities, but it also opens a variety of different paths to the same basic results, because most lazy people want to get there, but want to do so with as little effort as possible, and therefore usually manage to find some sort of shortcut through, or way around, obstacles on the way there.
At least that is what I like to believe.
On the other hand, my theory has been proven right a lot of times throughout my life so far, but then again, the opposite was proved almost as often, so I guess, being lazy in moderation is the right way to go, because, as always, it's the dose that makes the poison.
Well, not as always per se, but as in most of the cases where the saying could be applicable.
Speaking of laziness, I was once actually too lazy, among other states of mind, to move a mouse that was a mere 5 centimeters away from my hand in order to put on a new episode of a sitcom a friend and I were watching, so we literally watched the same episode over and over again until his laptop mercifully ran out of power and finally allowed me to sleep. That's how far laziness can go under the right circumstances.
That was a fun weekend anyway, we camped somewhere next to a road in some woods in China and got really really fucked up, it was quite awesome, I like to think back to that.
So, after having told this random story, I believe we have arrived to a point in this post where my continued 'talking' would just make things less and less interesting for you, so here are, as usually, the links to some great songs:
-> Very well-known song, extremely popular artist, but Eminem is a fucking legend, so a few of his songs will pop up here from time to time, and this one is really great and funnily made!
-> Well, Eminem was already playing so I stumbled upon this gem once again, haven't heard this song in eternity, imho one of the best songs of the entire album
-> Don't know how I ended up here, but this song is also very great, very chill beginning, then an awesome drop; so an all in all nice track, definitely worth listening to entirely!
-> Here is some Dutch rap that I really enjoy, the dude looks chill, I like his flow and the whole song is just a great piece of music!
-> I have no clue at all whether you guys like this kind of music at all, it's somewhat of Nu-Metal/Crossover, essentially "metal" guitar playing with rapping and some sort of singing/screaming/growling incorporated into the hook, which I used to hate like three or four years ago, but nowadays I can actually enjoy it, tell me how you like it
-> Well, lots of people have mixed feelings towards the whole "Snoop Lion" thing, but I personally think it's great that Snoop has found another purpose in life and now preaches peace and reggae, I mean, why not, it's good for him, and we get to enjoy Snoop singing Reggae songs
So, this concludes today's entry, I know it wasn't overly long or filled with tons of relevant content, but I do hope that it was still enjoyable!
Peace!
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