A wise man's advice

tends to go unheard by those needing it the most. It seems as if the people that are on their way to complete self-destruction and eternal despair are the very people entirely unfazed by  wise advice directed at them in a desperate attempt to save their lives. I don't know why that is, maybe ignorance is inherent to the kind of mindset that inhibits those set on self-destruction. Or maybe a wise man is not perceived as such and therefore the advice does not arrive in the minds of those targeted.

I don't know. I'm not even sure that there is an actual point I was trying to make in the paragraph above. Something about wise men and their advice being unheard by those needing it the most... but I don't see anything interesting coming out of that topic to be honest. So, we'll need something else. It's getting hard to find things to write about once again, which is partially due to my work for GonzoToday!, seeing as I am now listed as Staff Writer there and am so quite eager to get articles published as often as possible, which leads to me having less time and energy to put into this blog. But I still want to post on here as much as I can, hence this entry. My uncertainty regarding a topic has still not disappeared though, and I am facing the same dilemma I am always facing... I don't know what to write about... Hm...

Holy fucking shit. I am so fucking far behind deadline that I cannot even produce the words to describe that time span. And of course I'm sorry, but I know that I have done this and apologized for it far too often than to be able to reasonably expect anyone to actually believe my reasons - which are the same as usually - anymore. Which is fine, really. 

Anyway. I am going to get back to the topic I hinted at in the first and then dismissed in the second paragraph, which is the way that advice uttered by those that are generally, or at least by me personally, considered to be wise completely gets missed or even worse misinterpreted by those needing it the most. One example that comes to mind would be most religious leaders; they - or at least most of them - are preaching a message of peace, of love, of unity with yourself and your surroundings, but a helluva lot of extremists are misinterpreting these messages and turn them into formulas for blind hatred and senseless violence. This is a trend inherent to most faiths, at least the biggest groups, with the most prominent examples being the crusades and the infamous jihad. I have never heard anyone rape, kill, or plunder in the name of Buddhism though. There should be more Buddhists then, I suppose, but those needing advice of wise men usually do not tend to look further than the established religions for guidance, or are easily caught by some cults like Scientology. Ah, so we're going down that road again... Alright, let's do it. These kind of cults and sects realize when a person has come to an extreme down point in their life, it's like they can smell misery, and they can easily position themselves as wise and knowledgeable and happy in the minds of those poor sorrow-struck souls. Which is not something those actually possessing valuable information are apparently unable of doing, and that sucks. 

Fucking hell, I still have no idea where I'm going with this. Like literally, none. I started this with a clear line of thought in mind, as usually, but ended up not continuing to write right away, and lost that train of thought completely by now. Which makes this whole entry somewhat weird..

Well. It's currently 9AM and I have already been awake for a few hours. I've actually managed to create a habit of getting up early lately, and it's doing wonders for my energy. I've also started going to the gym, which is also proving to be working out quite well for me, and that is really something I would not ever have expected just a year ago. It's funny how some things can change so drastically whereas others remain unaltered for a lifetime. Stagnation is one of the great forces in life, and some part within each and everyone of us is definitely affected by it. "People don't change", as said Dr. House, and he was right; most people you'll meet are pathological liars that will often pretend to have changed but will never actually try and alter their personality. Which is not bad per se, at the least the latter isn't, but it does get frustrating to see people around you still clinging to the crazy notion that humans are actually capable of change when subjected to enough pressure and/or information. I call absolute bullshit on this; you can naturally mess a person's head up enough until even their most basic character traits become unrecognizable, but in any normal scenario, people will do everything to convince themselves that they have changed whilst repeating the same old shit. That is why History repeats itself, that is why most of us are completely unable to learn from our mistakes... We say we do, we have our logical reasons to not do something again, and yet we keep on working the same tired routine, day in, day out... I am sitting here, 50 Cent blasting on full volume next to me, sipping on some Green Tea, and contemplating the life path that lies ahead of me. I have by now decided to go about realizing myself a little differently: I will actually go back to the business environment I loathe, but I will not be an employee - I'll start my own business. And I will reinvest that money smartly, and so create passive and/or portfolio income that I can then live of. And at that point, my entire life will be completely focused on doing what I love - writing. No financial worries anymore. That is now part of my plan for life that is slowly appearing in the mist of what I had planned... being self-employed is nice, you know, but what I strive for is true independence. The kind of independence that will allow me to fully indulge in journalism, and not getting doors slammed in front of my face anymore. The kind of independence that allows me to do whatever the fuck I want, and getting in the face of anyone I please. And of course the road to there will be paved with hardship, long business talks, and lots of annoying-ass money-related BS, but I am willing to take that road in order to be able to use the influence that is inherent to wealth coupled with the journalistic sense of justice that is inherent to myself in order to finally get some people to wake the fuck up and bring some change into this messed up planet of ours. But I digress. 

I was actually talking about the way I will invest in my future from now on. A way that was largely influenced by Robert T. Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", to be honest. Now, of course, I am not one to simply buy into any self-proclaimed guru's expertise, but as a nudge and life philosophy changer, this book has done a lot of good to the way I think about money, and changed the way I will go about handling it. And while I am not deluding myself with thoughts of billions of dollars piling up on my bank account, I do think that a life of financial freedom is possible, and will do my best to achieve it as quickly as I can reasonably expect to. Because although money is the sole root of all evil in this world, it is also the only weapon powerful enough to stop it - "an immortal can only be killed by another immortal", as it were. 

But that is already pretty much everything I have to say for this post, that is so fucking delayed that even trying to justify it would be an insult to you guys. So let me just leave you with my sincerest apologies, and some good music:


Pane Mua - Powerstomp (Spag Heddy Remix) 

-> I have spent some time on the Most Addictive Dubstep channel once again, and stumbled upon this beauty right here. Although the high-pitched build-up is a tad hard on my ears, the drop has this amazing energy that is reflected in the following three-step in- and decreases of the melody, which just forces my head into a state of mindless nodding that only starts to fade when the last second of this epic piece of greatness has passed... Enjoy!

Fox Stevenson - Trigger

 

-> Yup, I'm still roaming around the realms of MA Dubstep, and just when I was on the verge of going to another channel for the next song, I came across this bit of beautiful filth right here. Now, I have no idea whatsoever who Fox Stevenson may be - and I hope he doesn't get mad at me if he ever reads this - but I do know that this guy has just managed to blow my fucking brain out of my skull, and that is saying something! It's always so hard to find good electronic music online, especially Dubstep, simply because any idiot who can fiddle a bit with the gain and bass of a song believes they're the next big thing in EDM, and that makes separating the wheat from the chaff insanely hard. That being sad, this is an awesome tune, so... Enjoy!

Gang Starr - Full Clip

 -> "Big L, Rest In Peace!", and then the beat comes in, and Guru gets on top of it, with his unique flow and delivery, combined with his double-rhymes, and just dominates the whole thing from beginning to end. Too bad he died, shall he rest in peace as well. Anyhow. This song is fucking great - the scratched-together hook, the amazing beat that induces heavy nodding to the beat, and the awesome lyrics, all together form a grand piece of Hip Hop music! Enjoy!

Das EFX - Real Hip Hop

-> Do I really need to say anything about this classic? From the third Das EFX studio album, "Hold It Down", this song quickly spiraled to be the benchmark for real old-school Hip-Hop tunes, and has stayed with heads from all around the globe ever since. The funky beat, the cool rapping, the raw and rugged flavor of the video... This is just an all in all amazing track, produced by the one and only Dj Premier, and a must-know for anyone who considers himself even loosely affiliated with the notion of Hip Hop culture, so... Enjoy!

Simon & Garfunkel - The Boxer

-> Wow. Just wow. Simon & Garfunkel do not fail to amaze me with their amazing songs. This great, partly autobiographical song that looks at a boxer trying to make it in New York City, is a momentum to the past. This riptide of craziness and solitude flowing against the current of this beautiful tune, this underlying anger, these two talented artists hearing the mere echo of a voice that rang so loudly in past days... This song gives me truly supernatural chills... Enjoy!

Warren Zevon - Don't Let Us Get Sick

-> Warren Zevon was a musical genius in many ways. He was the kind of person who forced you to look at yourself the way you really are, not the way you would like to be seen by others. He was indeed "good people". He was a close personal friend of Hunter S. Thompson. And he wrote this beautiful piece of musical excellence that could make grown man weep little girl's tears of innocence. Why do all the good ones leave us so early? Rest In Peace, Warren, you will be missed! 

So. I have once again managed to completely miss my deadline, and haven't even gotten a good post to show for it... I mean, honestly, the above ramblings are quite a bit below par, but I cannot for the life of me bring myself to deleting them and writing anew, so you'll just have to deal with an aggressively mediocre content this time, as sorry as I am for that! Anyhow. I hope that -- in spite of the horrid lack of organization, sense, or a golden thread -- there were a few things you could take away from this entry and apply to your own lives, you know the deal. I cannot promise that I will post regularly again next time seeing as I am still going through a number of major transitions in my life and am writing more and more for GonzoToday, but I can promise that the next entry will be of adequate quality once again. With that in mind, I hope that these ramblings were at least moderately enjoyable to you! 

Peace!

And so I return

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!