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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 laziness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laziness. Show all posts

Thursday, April 17, 2014

It's like a rollercoaster-ride

this great mystery called "life" isn't it? And I mean that in both directions. Sometimes, like myself lately, you might feel down, rock-bottom down actually, and then fate, or whatever you want to call it suddenly jolts you back up and you find yourself being happy again. Which does not last forever obviously, the fall back down always comes eventually, but it's nice to be reminded that it's usually followed by a ride back up. And well, ultimately everything evens itself out anyway. I have already discussed this though so I won't repeat that today. I am as usually writing completely at random and hoping that something interesting appears here so that I can meet the (almost-)weekly deadline I have set for myself. Deadlines are actually something I thoroughly despise and always try to somehow postpone or get around, making me somewhat pissed at myself for having set one here. But if I don't do this regularly I notice that it gets harder and harder to write creatively and even spell correctly, which impairs my ability to go on working on my novel that now already consists of almost 9000 words, and I am really eager to write as much as I can for it seeing as I really enjoy creating the protagonists life on the edge. Maybe I'll post a little sneak-preview of it here at some point to get your opinion on it and, well, to share it of course. But not today. I want to have a little more material to choose from prior to deciding what part of it to excerpt and feature here. So I will once again just stick to writing something that's hopefully entertaining for you guys. Or at least something that makes you think about things, but you all know the drill by now. Which leaves me at an impasse because I am not really thinking a whole lot at the moment, I am simply basking in the happiness that has suddenly been catapulted back into my life. I mean there is a lot going on, there's trouble brewing all around the world, which I know because I am now following every source of news imaginable on Twitter and installed two News-apps on my smartphone. That idea came to me, as you can probably imagine, whilst reading a Hunter S. Thompson book. And also because I have lately been feeling like I should work towards a profession where I would actually make money with my writing, in whatever form that may be.

And according to "wordcounter.net" the above introductory paragraph was exactly 420 words long. Isn't that awesome? I mean that that just randomly happened so close to 4/20 is just fucking amazing. It actually made me smile just now. But anyway, there will be another post around that day concerning itself with mankind's favorite plant. Probably. Today however I will be ranting about something that has drawn my into a vicious circle of being pissed about it over and over again. That something is namely my inability to write lately. And by that I don't mean that I'm suffering from "Writers block" or something similar, no I mean that I do not have the fucking time. My social circle here has expanded beyond my wildest dreams meaning that if I'm not at university I am somewhere else hanging with friends or spending time with my girlfriend, both of which lead to me being home late and exhausted, ergo unable to produce as much as a god damned predicate. Which just saddens me because I would love to spend as much time on creating sentences and paragraphs as possible. But alas, reality and its many responsibilities are always lurking behind the next corner, ambushing me whenever they see fit, and thereby preventing any kind of creative process from happening. Even now I am very limited in my time, hastily typing these words on my smartphone whilst waiting at my institution for higher education for an exam to finish so that I can go home. Not alone though mind you, which means that this entry will not be continued until late afternoon today or worst-case scenario even tomorrow morning. That would be terrible, especially after announcing this post to be appearing "within the next few days" on Facebook. What a blunt error on my part. Making promises that will probably not be holdable after all. I am however trying my best to hold them, which is why I am using these few minutes of spare time to write this. 
Being a highly social animal it is getting increasingly hard to find such moments of tranquility though. It's not only my misanthropic side speaking here; I genuinely believe that albeit longing for social recognition and interaction even us humans need a fucking break for one another from time to time. By which I do not want to demean the value of any time spent with people close to myself. Or complain about the amount of time that was spent. All I am saying is that it is essential for people to be by themselves occasionally, especially when creating art of any kind or when dealing with emotional extremes. In latter case having others around may be helpful to some, I agree, but personally I would much rather discharge myself emotionally on my own prior to talking to others and sharing my feelings. But maybe that's just me. 

Hm. The above paragraph derailed kind of quickly from "inability to write" to "breaks from social interaction". Well I guess the topics are pretty heavily interlinked after all as outlined above. If there were more of those breaks my ability to write would 'rise' again. But then again social interaction is mostly not as bad as it used to be for me. Of course there are lots of things I still find insanely annoying about it that make me want to quit society and live on a small island on my own, but all in all it's gotten better I think. Although I have to admit that my perception of the world is once again tainted in rose by the recent uplift that fate (or whatever) has given my life, meaning that that might also be the reason for me thinking that interacting with humans is not as bad as usually lately. Which is not negative per se, but just something to keep in mind whilst reading this. I was in an entirely different mood when I wrote the last entry for example. Which is pretty obvious actually. But well, as the title suggests that's how life goes. And isn't it fucking annoying that I keep coming to that conclusion? I mean, I feel like a broken CD-player repeating the same old track over and over again. And also the reason I feel fucking trapped in an ever-repeating cycle. Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy with everything at the moment. But still. There is a relentless little nagging voice inside of my brain that's enticing me to somehow try and break free from the ups-and-downs of life. If that's even possible; and I highly doubt that to be honest. It's like Karma - something you can not escape. And whilst you know me enough by now to know that I am not spiritual or religious in any way, I do believe the underlying concept of Karma to be applicable to everyday life. If you behave decently and well towards others, eventually good will come to you in some form. And well, the opposite applies too: if you behave like an asshole you'll ultimately be punished for your wicked ways in some way. And albeit having to admit that there are enough cases where this does not seem to apply, I still believe the idea of Karma to hold some truth. All the times I have behaved like an utter jerk or have hurt people it has turned around to bite me in the ass in one way or another. And whilst not every time I behaved decently has been rewarded in some way, it still is true that it does not only make you feel better about yourself but also increases the likelihood of good things coming your way. At least that's how I have experienced it so far. Mostly. There are of course also examples of times where good deeds have been completely unrequited and even led to disastrous consequences for me. In retrospect even these times have been evened out by other positive experiences that can somehow also be traced back to aforementioned consequences, so the overall concept of Karma still applies. And somehow I find solace in that fact. Because you see so many people acting like the world revolves around them, and it's just so great to 'know' that these assholes will eventually have some sort of huge "down" within their lives because of that behavior. Know is in parentheses because you can not possibly be sure of a thing like that. But at least I like to think that it is that way, and that gives me some sort of comfort when dealing with those kind of assholes.

Anyway. I am really lacking creative capabilities today. I feel somewhat drained lately. I am probably just too happy to write. Or maybe I am just lazy as fuck and am using that as an excuse for myself. Which is actually not uncommon at all; if there is a possibility to blame unproductive behavior on anything but ourselves, us humans are extremely quick to do so. And understandably so. I mean, it's easy to face being too lazy to do things you're not interested in, but when it comes to things you would actually want to do but for some reason feel unable to complete them it's a whole other story. Because, well, you want to finish these activities and reach the goals you set for yourself. And the feeling of inability that hinders the progress towards it may just stem from laziness. A laziness that is not necessarily bad though, because your inner batteries need recharging once in a while and those periods of non-productivity may lead to just that. It only becomes problematic when the non-productive periods outweigh the productive ones. And I don't necessarily mean outweigh in temporal terms. The productive periods can be a lot shorter than the non-productive ones. Some people just work better when they cram their creative span into a few frenzied days between weeks of not doing anything. Which is a perfectly valid way of working, as long as the fruits said productivity yields are big enough. Which is very subjective of course, and entirely depends on your own perception of things. For some that may be a few hundred words, for others a few hundred pages; if you're writing that is obviously. But it applies to any kind of creative process. I myself usually try to just write a little at least every other day because otherwise I lose my flow so to say and have a harder time getting stuff done the way I would want to. Which is also yet another reason this post took such a long time to be completed actually. 11 days for an entry to appear. That's a little longer than almost-weekly, but still roughly fits the scheme. Plus I doubt that anyone is really going to complain about it. 

But I am getting tired. And well, as outlined above I really think that I have exhausted my creative potential for the next couple of days, and seeing as I really need and want to continue working on my novel, I will need to be creatively active again quite soon, so I am putting a stop to this moderately interesting but hopefully still to some degree enjoyable entry, and as always leaving you with some good music to unwind:

Astronaut - Quantum (Spag Heddy Remix)
-> This is one of the songs that could probably literally make me cum. It is such an epic fucking remix of an already awesomely melodic song, and the build up to the raw drop that still manages to remain melodic throughout and thereby not destroying the charm of the original but adding a raw bite to it so to say, that makes this entire song such a perfect musical creating, so... Enjoy!

Spag Heddy - Pink Koeks
-> Well after just featuring the remix above I felt enticed to research some more songs of this guy, and stumbled upon this gem, which besides being completely fucking sick and awesome also makes me happy somehow, maybe it's the melody, I don't know, but hearing this track makes me smile, and well it's just an amazing tune, I am really liking this artist and will surely have more of his works here in later posts, so... Enjoy!

Annihilator - Alison Hell
-> This song is, as you can see at the start of the video based on a true story of a little girl who slowly fell into the depths of insanity, starting with a simple fear of boogey man. Well, besides from these sick guitar riffs that far surpass many modern-day guitarists wildest dreams, this song is extremely deep and reflects the development of Alison's mental deterioration frighteningly well. All in all a great classic, so... Enjoy!

Iron Maiden - Brave New World 
-> Although I have a certain aversion to the great Huxley novel of the same name because I was forced to deal with it in English class, it holds a great truth about what humanity's heading to, and well this song somewhat touches on that theme as well, there's lots of social criticism in there, and it's just an overall beautifully sad song that most definitely needed featuring here, so... Enjoy!

Andre Nickatina & San Quinn - Ayo for Yayo 
-> While I know neither of these artists' other songs or even background or anything at all actually, I do know how much I enjoy this song, and how fucking awesome it simply is. And of course a warning about the dangers of cocaine addiction. But that shouldn't be a nuisance, it's still a fucking great song, the beat is really chill and the guys flow fits so amazingly with it, making it an all in all awesome tune, so... Enjoy!

DMX - Where The Hood At 
-> Whilst being pretty homophobic, which is not unusual in Rap, this is still a fine-ass piece of rap music right here. D to the M to the X. I mean, you all know this song, and there is not much more I can really say. Great classic tune, so... Enjoy!

Well, this did not turn out as one of my best posts to be honest, and I do apologize for the slight lack of quality which occurred because of reasons outlined above. I will do my best to compensate for this with my next post though, and will also try and post within the next seven days instead of eleven this time. But anyway, I hope this entry was still enjoyable to you, and wish you a good night, or day, depending on which part of the world you're reading this from.


Peace! 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Love it or leave it

Well, it has once again been a week since I posted. I could have figured that out beforehand though to be honest, I mean, you know me and my chronic laziness syndrome.

For this entry I have chosen to discuss the statement that can be read in this posts' title. "Love it or leave it", which is pretty much a word by word translation of the title of a German rap song, but it's the message I will discuss and not the song itself, although it is pretty great, I might include it in the usual list of songs at the end of the post.

So, what do I mean by "love it or leave it"? It's quite simple actually, the message is to either be entirely and whole-heartily involved in whatever it is you happen to be doing, or to completely let it be and concentrate on something else. The message is essentially not to do anything in a half assed fashion.
That coming from me may seem weird to those that know me personally, seeing as I am exactly the kind of person that does only the required minimum to get by, and not more. But I do that whole-heartily. I have spent my lifetime perfecting the art of comfortable mediocrity that gets me through life with the least amount of effort possible. While some might find this achievement to be questionable considering the definition of "achieving something", I beg to differ. I don't think that the term "achievement" should have a general definition, seeing as it is highly subjective. For me, an achievement is to comfortably drift through life whilst giving people the impression that I am actual valuable and contribute to whatever is going on around me. For someone else, an achievement might be to reach the very top of whatever field he happens to be in. Now, ask yourself, is one "achievement" really more of that than the other one? I don't think so.

But I am getting lost in my ramblings again. Back to the topic.

The issue with doing something "just a little" (and for once I am not talking about psychoactive substances although this sentence might elicit that impression...) is that it either crumbles under outside pressures that set expectations higher than achievable by half assing, or that it becomes too boring and dull to be bearable at some point, but at that point the opportunity to actually get completely implicated in the action in order to make it interesting has usually already been missed.
"But is that not totally contradictory to what you said about your own way of drifting through life?" Nope. You didn't listen. Go and re-read the previous paragraph. I am completely involved in staying at just the same level as the bar for having mediocre success is set, which is enough for me. I don't get my personal feelings of success from getting the perfect job with great pay, or from getting high grades. My personal feeling of success kicks in when all that bullshit is done and I can finally relax and just devote my time to leisure. And everything else are just means to achieve exactly that - being able to chill without having to worry about some fucking shit that I don't even want to think about but am constantly compelled to by the usual forces.

The point I am trying to get across is probably that you should define for yourself what you really want, what your personal feeling of achievement consists of, and work towards that. With everything you got. But don't stumble around life not even remotely knowing what you're trying attain by doing what you're doing. I used to do that. I went to school, heck, even when applying for university I was just doing it because "that's how it it is - you go to school, get your diploma, and then go on to study". That had been drilled into my head by every person of authority that ever "guided" me. You have to work to pay your bills, and in order to work you need to be educated, and in order to be educated you need to go to university, etc. But all this dull, bullshit routine should not be the goal in itself. It should be a mean to give you the financial and social stability to get utterly fucked up into another dimension on weekends. It should be the norm that you defy by working within, but living without. It should not be the reason you get up in the morning. The reason to get up should be the fact that once the work is done you can come home and finally do what humans do - escape this dreaded reality of conforming we have created for ourselves, our own personal little matrix.

Damn me and my racing thoughts, went off-topic again at some point there.

Anyways, I think I managed to convey the general outline of what my thoughts are on this subject. I mean in the end, you're all going to do whatever you want, and, as you know me, I fully endorse that. But if you're going to do whatever it is you're going to do - at least really do it. Get completely immersed in your actions. Love what it is you want to do. Love it. Or leave it, but then find something - we all need something that we love, something that gives us the strength to face the painfully fake world out there. Everyday.
And don't forget that leaving it is the option for actions you can't get fully involved in, but bear in mind that in order to be entirely entangled in what you love you have to create the means for doing so, sometimes by dull, relentless tasks you loathe. But as long as it serves the cause of leading to something that you pursue out of sheer enthusiasm you can endure it.

So, if you're going to take action - love it or leave it. That's all there is to it.

And with this, and some music, I'll leave you be for now.

Genetikk - Liebs oder lass es (feat. Sido)
-> this is the aforementioned German rap song that inspired today's entry, and the crew that made this gem is one of the few German rap artists that seriously care about rap and Hip-Hop as a culture, and they have lots of talent and skills, and albeit having lots of comedic texts, do practice the apparently lost art of social criticism and sarcasm within their music, which is great!

Kid Ink - Hell and back
-> I have very close to zero knowledge about Kid Ink himself, but I know that this song is fucking awesome, and I figured since this is a blog to promote good music anyway... Enjoy :)

Hopsin - Sag My Pants
-> Oh god, did I post this already? If so please smite me in the comment section, I am soo unsure about this at the moment... Anyway, Hopsin is fucking amazing, raw and pure talent concentrated in one MC, real, good ol' fashioned Hip-Hop music with great and funny lyrics, check out some of his other stuff, too!

Ice Cube & Snoop Dogg - Go To Church (feat. Lil' Jon)
-> Awesome song, two of the best MCs out there together yields great results! And Lil' Jon gets paid millions for screaming a few words... I mean seriously, his "part" consists of "You scared, you scared, you scared, motherfucker, you scared" and he assists in the hook. And that's it. But I'm not here to bash Lil' Jon or this song! I like this song! A lot!

Metallica - Master Of Puppets
-> maybe the most cliche metal song I could come up with, but definitely one of the finest pieces of music ever recorded, the solos, the riffs, the singing, the baseline, the drums, all perfectly joint in a melodic, yet wild, paradise of musical excellence! Awesome!

Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
-> why, yes, this song exists! And it is a great, very trippy song about the most psychedelic ganja in existence, and elicits exactly that kind of feeling! And, well, musically, I can only say that this is Jimi Hendrix - THE Jimi Hendrix. I think that speaks for itself.

Bon Jovi - You give love a bad name
-> yeah I know, I know... But this song is fucking great, and anyone telling me their head doesn't automatically start moving rhythmically when this starts playing is lying, simple as that! Great tune!

Cypress Hill - Insane in the brain
-> "Insane in the membrane.... Insane in the brain, yo! Insane in the membrane... Left insane, got no brain!" Such an awesome song! I love Cypress Hill and everything about them, and this song is by no means an exception!

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's entry. It was a bit on the lighter side compared to other things I've posted, don't you think?

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!