So, here we are

at the very top of western civilization. And is there anything to take away from this maddening scheme that is our time? I am not so sure that there actually is.
I mean we have all these amazing achievements, mankind has come such a long way since the first ape decided to walk on two legs, but still I am ambivalent when it comes to defining what worth there actually is in our existence. And I am not even going to touch the whole big question thing here. I am simply trying to wrap my mind around the ego that us humans have developed in the course of evolution. All we're doing is fucking, drinking, and slowly killing each other, we're essentially playing GTA with the world. And I'm not even sure of that.

What I am sure of though is that I am sitting on my couch right now, showcasing my inner makings to an anonymous public with my roommate snoring on an air-mattress next to me, slowly drifting through various stratospheres whilst watching Californication and smoking. My eyes are somewhat focused on the screen of my laptop and on the TV at the same time, and I can't help but feel a certain resemblance between myself and Hank Moody. I know it's fucking cliche, and I also know that everybody likes to think that they can identify with their favorite fictional character, but goddamn, I have been where this guy is portrayed as being in my own way, so I feel somewhat of a strange relation between myself and the idea of "Hank Moody". Not the person per se obviously, seeing as we're talking about a fictional character, but much more the idea of the guy. The free-lancing writer, the crazed, erratic, gonzo-influenced author, the anti-hero essentially. The other extreme so to say. The anti-gravitational pole, the scapegoat, the punching bag.

I think that we all create our lives in a way so that we are the protagonist of our own little tale, we all want to be the martyr, the chosen one, we all want recognition in some way or another.  What we're all essentially striving for is immortality of sorts, be it by monetary success, literary excellence, musical masterpieces, or anything else that can enable us to buy a place in the expensive neighborhood called 'history' forever. By expensive I do not mean any actual value, but rather the effort and sacrifice that is necessary to achieve such a place, the relentless pursuit of having one's name remembered by the world that costs its high price in its own way, simply because remembrance is almost exclusively created in destruction and despair. In order to be known you need to have suffered, seems to be the most common denominator found among ïtoday's audiences, which is pretty rough on those creating entertainment because albeit leading to works of staggering genius, these rough patches that are the root of excellence do fuck you up quite intensely over time, and results are usually just a coincidental side-effect of these lows, which in themselves are not defined by a feeling of contributing to the literary pedigree by using the blues to create an epitaph to these periods of sadness, but rather just by wallowing in narcissistic despair and self-loathing until the brink of collapse, at which point words are the only thing keeping one from entering an eternal drug and drinking binge. Still, these fruits grown from sad soil using depressed fertilizers are usually the rarest literary gems that authors have to offer, making the fear and loathing leading up to their creation a necessity for actual greatness, which is a pretty hard blow on the writing and entertainment community seeing as no-one really wants to suffer for an essentially unknown audience, but everybody has to in order to achieve true greatness, at least that's what it seems like.

But this tangent about immortality through depressive genius just coincidentally appeared above to be honest. I am still unsure, once again, about the actual points I was thinking of making when I started to write this about two days ago in a hazed frenzy in the middle of the night, completely strung out and manically trying to recognize the letters I was typing, which I did up to a point of complete desperation, then I stopped continuing working until now. But even in retrospect I am quite contend with what I wrote, I believe I touched on some interesting issues in there, but this is not the time for self-flattery. No, I think I will now address a different topic altogether, namely that of communication.

Sounds boring enough when put like that, but I can assure you that it's not. Think about it, in all of its aspects. We communicate to express things in a way that other individuals can understand and respond to, that much is obvious. But why is it so hard still, after a few million years of practice, to actually say what we want to say in a way that people understand? I mean, the biggest problems usually arise from miscommunication, and its the simplest things, the smallest of words, the slightest of mistakes that can set into motion a chain-reaction of unforeseeable events leading up to huge altercations or similar nuisances. And why? Most words aren't even that ambiguous in themselves, but it's the context in which they are used combined with the humans natural need to over-analyze and interpret utterances by others that renders them indecipherable to some, making these individuals prone to misunderstandings, which is not their fault per se, but they are rather, in most cases that is, to be seen as mere victims of circumstance. But unfortunately, there is an equal amount of people either too stupid to understand the actual essence of what they are being told, or too biased by their own preconceived notions to even try to understand anything but what they want to understand, making fruitful communication damn near impossible. We have now essentially made out that there are people that are enticed by circumstance to misunderstand, that there are people too stupid to understand, and that there are people who don't want to understand what is being said because of their own prejudice. So, why do we even bother communicating anymore? 

The answer to that is, as many things are, based on the basic human need for social recognition by others, we are social animals after all, driven by the instinct to express and impress ourselves and others, meaning that even though most people we will encounter will not understand, not properly at least, what we're trying to tell them we will still keep on uttering sentences and opinions in their proximity because of the slight chance that at least one of them will be able to grasp the intended meaning. Because we need our personal meaning to be conveyed to other people, we want others to understand the essence behind the sentences, but unfortunately the understanding usually does not match the intentions, which is just sad because messages and opinions are easily deluded simply by misinterpretation, by ambiguity. 

Even these words right here will not sound to you the way they sound to me, will not convey to you what they convey to me, and will not reach you the way I mean them to, and I am very aware of that. But I know what I want to say, and I know that the people who feel as I feel can usually understand underlying themes and subtle references in these texts, and those who do not feel that way are not meant to understand anyway and will therefore read and understand whatever fits best into their narrow perception, and not what I actually want to say, which is fine, because it separates the wheat from the chaff, separates those that see actual value in what I write from those just along for the ride.

"The ride". The inexplicable yet omnipresent journey, the basic drive forward that compels us all to move towards an unidentified goal. This crazy roller-coaster of life that jolts us up and down in completely randomized and erratic patterns with seemingly no logical adjacency. We all know it to be true, life is composed of its highs and lows that in the long-run cancel each other out to create a comfortable drift in retrospect. In retrospect mind you, an up always feels like an up, and a down always feels like a down, but looking back it was all just somewhere in the middle. And isn't that exactly what we're programmed to be striving for? The passive middle, the inactive acceptance, the elemination of all the extremes, a dulling numbness of the senses? Searching for what's right or what's true is no longer perceived as necessary, no, just finding what works, however badly, has become the most prestigious achievement attainable. But unfortunately that's nicely aligning with my point about mediocrity being the end that is in itself a mean to obtain personal gratification, meaning that I am actually part of the root of this problem to some extent. But then again maintaining that level of constant mediocrity essentially boils down to being well above average in order to be able to seem mediocre enough so as to not having to do more than needed and expected at that level, which in turn means that the search for right and true has already been done personally, just not publicly. Notwithstanding it is just small percentage where this applies, most people seeming to be fine with what works and allegedly not searching for truth or rightfulness are actually like that and do not pretend to be just to have to do less. Or maybe we just don't know it yet.

But anyway. I have been drifting around between topics and ideas way too much in this post, which is why I'll put a stop to this madness now, and leave you be with some music, as always: 

Iron Maiden - No Prayer For The Dying
-> Great track from the Maiden' album of the same name, beautiful guitars and vocal, legendary band, and the rest of the album is definitely worth listening to as well if you haven't yet, so... Enjoy! 

Leonard Cohen - Hallejulah (Rufus Wrainwright Cover)
-> I first heard Cohen's original version back in the 2000 or so when my I was riding in my mum's car to somewhere, heard it again in the Watchmen movie like eight years later, and now found this awesome cover of it. And albeit not being the least bit religious I find this song to be amazingly beautiful and somewhat inspiring, so... Enjoy!

Bob Marley - Jammin' (Live Version)
-> Unfortunately I could not find the studio version of this on the mobile version of YouTube, don't know if it's there in the desktop version, but it doesn't really matter, you all know this song anyway, and it's an all-time classic that needed featuring on here, so... Enjoy!

Alborosie - Kingston Town
-> I haven't listened to this song in what feels like forever, a friend of my showed it to me in 2009 or 10 I believe, during a weekend of camping that consisted solely of getting too messed up for words, which was fun, and the song reminds me of that and is in itself really awesome, so... Enjoy! 

Keizer - Niet Haten
-> First of all, I want to emphasize that I neither condone nor endorse the whole "hashtag" craze that has taken over the internet, I am thoroughly despised by it actually. Nevertheless, Keizer is a fucking beast and one of the fastet European rappers to date, make sure to listen to the complete track, the third part is the most mind-blowing (starts at 1:50 for all you impatient people), but the whole song is pretty cool, so... Enjoy!

Ice Cube - Hello (ft. Mc Ren & Dr. Dre)
-> Did I put this on here already at some point? If I did I'm sorry, but I don't think so... Anyway, awesome classic track, first heard whilst watching the "Up In Smoke" Tour on DVD and on numerous occassions since... Enjoy! 

So, this turned out to be a somewhat disorganized post, dealing with my multiple lines of thought throughout, but I do hope it's still enjoyable, I completed it in multiple sittings and usually in an altered state of mind, so it may seem somewhat erratic at some points, but I think I managed to mostly keep it together. Anyway, I am uploading this from my mobile phone in a Coffeeshop, and seeing as I have never done that before I don't know whether there are any adverse effects on layout or links when accessing it from a PC, please let me know if that is the case!

Peace! 

Edit: it was the case, the spacings and paragraphs were off, but I took care of that now. And btw, that kind of thing is what the comment section is there for, someone could have said that it looks weird, there were at least 8 people that read it before I fixed it, and in my opinion it was clearly visible that the spacing etc. were not the way they're supposed to, but maybe that's just me...  

Food For Thought #4

Hmpf.
I could not get around to writing anything this weekend unfortunately, seeing as my rich, snobby-ass landlords forced me to renovate my fucking apartment, which is not something that I completely opposed doing seeing as renovating was kind of necessary, but in principle I disagree with being forced to do anything, especially by some shady clause in a shady-ass contract, and especially when it makes me postpone my new post until the next month, so that now there are only three posts in February. Good job, assholes.
But now my apartment is renovated and looks nice and new, which is great. Just great. Especially considering that I am moving out in two months. Awesome. I love working for other people, because I am such a fucking humanitarian. It just pisses me off that I was conned into signing something that forces me to actually renovate my flat not because I feel like it but because my landlords feel like it.

I am getting lost in raging thoughts though. I mean I am at fault too, but I really didn't have a choice either, so I guess in the end, everyone and no-one is to blame. The peaceful way of the middle, as always. But all of that is not the reason I am posting tonight, no, as the title already gave away, I have decided to actually sit down and finally write a new "Food For Thought" segment in which I will be tormenting you with my thoughts on my latest obsession, which is essentially just pissing out of my ass and venting about random things. There is only a slight problem. I am lacking a topic, like literally drawing a blank. I sat down, knowing that I wanted to write a new "Food For Thought", ready to bust out fifteen hundred words of compressed wisdom, yet here I am, getting lost in meaningless ramblings once again, unable to formulate a sentence that has more meaning to it than the sum of its words. It's crazy, I've already struggled with this in my last post, and had promised myself to start this month with something of actual value to you, my readers. So, here goes nothing.

Have you ever wondered about the problems stemming from people projecting their own inadequacies on others that are situated below themselves in whatever hierarchy they happen to be in and the harm that these people are actually causing? You probably haven't, so allow me to elaborate.
What I mean is something we have all encountered at some point in our lives, be it at school, at university, at the workplace, or anywhere with an enforced hierarchy. In these places there are always people who have managed to stay in a company or organization long enough to move up the ranks without drawing any attention to their utter lack of competence and social skills. When these people then arrive in a position that grants them a certain amount of authority they see that as the perfect opportunity to make everybody pay for their lack of skills by trying to make people feel as unfit for life as they actually are. And the worst part is that, since they are backed by authority they are actually succeeding. At least that is the feeling I am getting. The first time I even noticed the existence of this phenomena was back in elementary school.
I was in France, and had German classes, and the teacher insisted on teaching us a wrong conjugation of an irregular verb, so I told her that she was telling us complete and utter bullshit. But alas, seeing as she had the authority, my entire class was taught wrongly until I managed to get the headmaster to talk to the bitch. And even he was reluctant to do so at first, but seeing as he was a good person he listened to reason. And grammar. But let's examine what happened here. The teacher somehow managed to cover up her failure as an educator up to this point. I then stumbled upon that burden by uncovering a common mistake that could have been dismissed by her as such. But her inability to admit that error shows that she feels that her underlying insecurity and inadequacy is being exposed, making her take a defensive and aggressive stance towards my correcting her because she feels threatened in her authority and authenticity.
This behavior is not typical only to elementary school teachers, but it's prevalent everywhere in life. And in my example it was clear-cut case, which it usually isn't, making it extremely difficult to distinguish the actually well-meant influences from those that simply arose from underlying imperfections the influencing person finds in him- or herself. Let's for example take the manager whose wife is always nagging him about him being too busy with his job and not making time for his family. He knows this to be true, but does not want to face that it's his own faults that led to this being the case, meaning that he will now try to pass these inadequacies onto his subordinates by making them work longer and bashing the results of this extended work, leading to them feeling incompetent and worthless, and ultimately reducing their chances of having a successful career because their self-esteem is thereby steadily decreasing over time. These parasites that can not handle their own pathetic lives are slowly grinding down the motivation of the intelligent visionaries stuck in lower-management positions, poisoning the creativity and spirit of those hierarchically below them.
And you know what? It is our motherfucking fault. Yes, we are all once again to blame. We've let these stupid insecure assholes go through high school, college, and university without even trying to properly educate them. And by that I don't mean just factual data from books and general knowledge. I also mean that these people were never taught to be secure about their insecurities, these people have never been taught that being wrong is okay, even if you're hierarchically higher than the person who's right. And you know why they have never learned all that? Because it is not taught anywhere. Those up the chain are always right, their authority is without question, we are not taught to ask and defy anymore but rather to accept and obey, which is a practice that creates the kind of people I was talking about earlier - the kind of people that only understand the alleged superiority of those in power, do not bother questioning things, and think that they're on top of the world anyway, until the moment comes where someone in a lower rank is smarter. That's when all hell breaks loose. That's when these assholes try to suppress any criticism directed towards them, which in turn makes those criticizing insecure in their right and finally shuts them up for good until they reach an upper-management position themselves where they will, out of experience, repeat the same bullshit again and again, until every shred of initiative and intelligence has been squashed and these creatures remain in their ignorant positions of perceived power forever. Because being smart doesn't matter. Doing the right things doesn't matter. Behaving like a decent human being doesn't matter. Knowing right from wrong doesn't matter. Nothing fucking matters except for your ability to kiss ass, take names, and shut the fuck up. Don't think that management is making mistakes, because they aren't. And if they are, they still aren't. Or they are, but it's really the employees' mistake that have caused repercussions that made it seems like management is making mistakes when it clearly isn't. That's as simple as it gets in today's ugly corporate world. And we're still wondering why less and less employees actually aspire to move up on the rotten and foul construct that once was the career ladder. We're being taught that bosses are assholes, because we've let them be assholes for way too long, and are actually creating new, even assholier assholes to follow suit, reducing the whole concept of hierarchy to a gigantic shit-throbbing asshole that spews out pieces of diarrhea in form of inappropriate criticism and manipulative conversation from time to time. It's sad really, that the only way to prepare people for authority is by placing authority over them in order to make them feel how it needs to be done, which is sad because most authorities placed over individuals nowadays are either working but in themselves corrupt, or incompetent and insecure but very convincing. I am not even sure which kind is better, it's like choosing to get either AIDS or cancer actually, if both were still equally incurable that is.
The convincing one convinces by being big and loud, and in itself doesn't know anything, which it wants to cover up, making a very large impression on its subordinates and thereby training them to be incompetent but convincing as well. The corrupt one, on the other hand seems to be working flawlessly and is usually more than knowledgeable in its field of expertise, but alas, has chosen to be controlled by those with money and/or the lack of moral fiber to blackmail, meaning that its subordinates are trained effectively in being seemingly perfect but constantly enriching themselves by less-than-reputable means. And that is the kind of education that was being dropped on our ancestors, is being dropped on us, and will be dropped on our offspring, and there is close to nothing any of us can possibly do about it, simply because it is as usually only a small fraction of people actually realizing these adverse influences stemming from the wrong people being at the wrong end of chains-of-command everywhere. If everybody realized these issues, a whole lot of bastards would lose their jobs overnight, and an even bigger lot of decent people would get the jobs and positions they deserve, not those kind of positions that don't fit anyone involved but still require everybody to bend over backwards for them. But that is, as always, not going to happen. Not a chance.

Which is why I'll leave this topic be for now, I am getting depressed writing about it and have covered the most important points that I wanted to make, so there is no real reason to continue ranting about this.
The central theme here is omnipresent throughout most of my posts anyway, we're being enslaved and turned into mindless parodies of individuals, barely resembling decent human beings anymore, just functioning in a crooked system that turns us into crooked puppeteers only existing to ensure that our puppets will be equally crooked when they inherit the same strings given by the same masters, just equipped with new puppets, and so on. Technology is advancing but mankind is caught in a downwards spiral with at best slim chances of ever recovering. And it's been this way for so long, people that have died before I was even born had already realized it, and people that will be born after I have died will realize it again, but something is perpetuating the status quo with such a force that nothing seems to be able to throw it out of balance. I mean, it already took us a few millennia to get rid of monarchy and dictatorships, and not even close to everywhere yet. And with the stupidity and greed of people steadily increasing, I doubt that we'll see any changes for the better anytime soon. Yeah, of course, we're getting new freedoms here and there, the first nations are starting to realize what the Netherlands had already realized a century ago: Weed is relatively harmless and has the potential of becoming a gigantic cash cow of tax-related profits, so we're going to regulate the market for it. Which is fucking awesome and about damn time if you ask me, but the system in itself remains. Society remains. And that's the root of the problem, the only reason that drugs were ever illegalized to begin with. Amongst the corruption, greed and "political favors" that led there.

But that's a different story, and will not be dealt with now. Now I am just glad to have finally finished this post that I started typing yesterday evening but didn't get around to finishing seeing as I had to get up way too early today and therefore went to bed before I was done typing.

And looking back on this post, I must say that I struggled at points to keep on topic, it' so easy to stray into different areas especially on these kind of issues that all relate to my favorite central theme. But I do think I managed to get different points across than in the "Food For Thought" that concerned itself only with aforementioned subject. At least I hope so, if you thought it to be repetitive please let me know, I want to annoy, but sure as hell do not want to bore people.

Wrapping this all up though, I hope this post was enjoyable to you, and, well, I know it was pretty sinister again but it has to be for this topic, and I don't really think that you guys will mind anyway, so I'll leave you be with some music now:

Fedde Le Grand & DI-RECT - Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix)
-> Hmm, crunchy! Zomboy is a great artist, and this remix is nicely done, it has this awesome "in your face" feeling to it which I really enjoy, so all in all an amazing piece of art... Enjoy!

 Don Dibalo ft. Dragonette - Animale (Datsik Remix)
 -> This is a great song that I discovered completely by accident a couple of years ago, and I have never even heard the original to be honest, but Datsiks remix is fucking sick, so... Enjoy!

Geto Boys - G-Code
-> What a classic song, can not believe I hadn't put it on here earlier, Geto Boys are an awesome group, great artists, and amazing lyrics, all in all a great package, and this song is an epitome to the groups greatness... Enjoy!

N.W.A. - Fuck Tha Police
-> An even more classic song than the previous one, and I am even more astonished by the fact that this track was not included earlier, I mean this is one of the most famous tracks in the history of Hip Hop, and well, 'nuff said actually... Enjoy!

Cheech & Chong - WEed are the world
-> Hahaha, this is an awesome song by Cheech&Chong, mainly outlining that they're still alive, kicking ass, and smoking more weed than most of us will ever get to see! These guys are the living embodiment of every stoner to have ever lived, and are still rocking it today, big up to them... Enjoy!

AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long
-> classic track, and all in all AC/DC are fucking awesome and need to and will be on here a lot, seeing as they're on of the best fucking bands out there, and their music will last throughout the ages, including this great great song by them... Enjoy!

So, I am finally done with this beast of a post. It took me almost three days to actually finish this thing, and I apologize for taking such an eternity to do this, but somehow I was way too busy to actually finish it in one sitting like I usually would. And yesterday I couldn't add any music because my roommate was already sleeping and I need to turn the volume all the way up in order to properly listen to the songs I am going to dump on you, so I had to wait until this morning to actually finish this post, which is unfortunate, but gave me the opportunity to write a lot more than I had expected to and choose high quality songs over a period of almost two days, I hope you guys will appreciate it.

But anyway, this is really all I have to say for now, take care.

Peace!