Intellectual Self-Fellation
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Daniel's LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | | 4:32 pm |
One thing I've noticed for as long as I've been watching him is that Alton Brown is often in the habit of eating a bit of each ingredient after he's done talking about it. | | Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | | 11:50 am |
Losing friends
doesnt always have to be a bad thing. Sometimes you're better off without keeping the wrong people around.
| | Friday, June 12th, 2009 | | 11:42 pm |
killing yourself
I mostly think about it when my friends are dicks to me. Its not till recently that I realized I could just not hang out with those people. There's a lot of assholes around here.
| | 12:06 pm |
Moral Obligation
Dear anyone with a time machine- In the event that you travel to the past and you unfortunately fail the prime objective, we should agree that it is your responsibility to preserve a secondary objective. That is, if you accidentally disrupt the past, therefore altering the future, we should establish a plan B regarding how to interact in the past. For example, let's say you have been stranded in the middle ages in Europe. One should have equipped his time machine with a full library of knowledge- encyclopedias or something- so that you can justify your claims of science without being thought of as a heretic. Let's face it, you don't fit in those time periods and you need certain levels of technology to maintain your sanity. The simplicity of feudal life is occasionally burdensome and one will miss the modern joys of life in whatever society equipped you with the technologies to build a time machine. Thus, the presentation of these technologies to an archaic world must be done delicately, and using step-by-step explanations. More importantly, you should make as much haste possible in seeking out the literate persons of the society you are in. If it is the feudal era, this would be the clergy. Unfortunate, yes- but they are the only ones who will truly understand your scientific knowledge. The Newtonian philosophies will challenge the church, but if you have brought with you an encyclopedic knowledge of church history, you will be able to show them the inevitability of its development and the innfallible words of their popes- for if God makes the pope infallible, then he is just as infallible to the past as he is to the future. Your proof of this will be all of the science you can accomplish with natural ingredients. The present, compared to the past, is an amazing place. The primary objective is not to change the future, but should this not be possible (as someone has discovered your secret) you must undertake a secondary objective- that is to clearly and gently explain to the people of the past what the people of the future know so that the advancement of human society can be accelerated and, possibly, saved from the inevitable self-destruction we see on the horizon.
| | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 10:29 pm |
Sometimes suicide occurs to me as a test to my friends and family. How many of them would care all that deeply? How many of them would feel ashamed of the way behaved because it had somehow been their fault that I did it. Sometimes I think it'd be the most sadistic thing I could ever do. | | 12:11 am |
| | Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | | 10:32 pm |
Dear Mr. Mariscal: Thank you for writing to me with your thoughts on the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the continuing government response. I appreciate your comments and welcome the opportunity to respond. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States closed on August 21, 2004 after releasing the 9/11 Commission Report. The Commission was highly critical of the governments actions, citing a lack of imagination to envision the full scope of what a host of prior terrorist events meant for U.S. homeland security as well as a failure to connect the dots that might have led to the revelation of the 9/11 plot. The Commission also provided several important recommendations to reorganize government to fight the battle against terror. If you would like to view a full copy of the Commission's report, copies are available at many bookstores and through the 9-11 Commission's website at http://www.9-11commission.gov. On December 5, 2005 the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, comprised of several members of the 9/11 Commission, followed up on the Commission's recommendations with a progress report and found significant remaining deficiencies in government policy which we continue to work to remedy. The 9/11 Commission Report did not find evidence of intentional Government complicity in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Commission was a bipartisan group comprised of many respected leaders who worked exhaustively over many months reviewing millions of records and conducting countless interviews - including of the President and Vice President of the United States. Even if you feel their criticism of the Government might have gone further or uncovered more, I believe our current efforts are best focused on trying to implement the improvements recommended by the Commission - an area in which we still have much work to do. I remain committed to the pursuit of policies that protect Americans from terrorism while safeguarding important civil liberties and will keep your thoughts in mind as I review related legislation. Again, thank you for writing. If you have any further comments, please contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 2.... Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein United States Senator Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ENewsletterSignup.Signup. | | Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | | 3:22 pm |
| | Monday, May 25th, 2009 | | 4:58 pm |
Vanity
For as long as I can remember I have hated the way I look. But what I've always hated MORE was people who say they hate the way that they look. This is because they make LIGHT of my condition. See, I have the bite radius of Gomer Pyle. More than that, I hate what it does to my face. If I didn't understand that it would just exacerbate things, I would carve into my face with a bowie knife. If my face was covered in acid, I wouldn't mind so much except for the pain. Perhaps getting my teeth fixed will help me to overcome my insecurities, but the true source of insecurity is the use of the word hate in society today. "oh my god, I hate my thighs" has given me this sense that those things which are mere dislikes for those things about our self-image are points which one needn't mention to others, as they are superficial and vain. HOWEVER, this issue with my jaw is more than that. I literally HATE it. I want to die because of it. I want to hurl myself off of a large cliff, impailing myself on the jagged rocks below because of it. So there are two things that need to happen: 1. I need to get some orthodontia or something 2. YOU ALL need to watch how you use your words- misuse of language may become misinterpretation to those that hear it, which can lead to complexes like mine.
| | Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | | 1:43 am |
What is it to love?
This has been the question I have been trying to answer my entire life. Love is something I wish I could understand. I've always felt ignorant, I've always felt I was running around asking myself "is this love?" and the answer I always got was "if it is, you'll know." Well the truth is, I've never been certain. I guess its the Newtonian Scientist in me that says nothing is absolutely certain and yet things exist. But I cannot come to any rational conclusion about love. It is something I never understood in my entire life. What, in God's name, was it to love? I thought I was in love, but became a self-saboteur when I came to realize that I was not. Yet beyond that I returned to denial. I told myself I was in love over and over again. No, I am not a homosexual. This is something that I want to make abundantly clear. But I am very confused as to love. The "love talk" was never given to me. No one told me what the birds and the bees were beyond sex. This thought has been absent from my brain since I was a young boy. You see, I had a girlfriend very young. And she and I were close. Too close. Romeo and Juliet status. It was all lust. But then she had guilt because she was a Christian but deep down we all knew I wasn't. And so what of it? I sabotaged it by becoming physically intimate. That way I wouldn't have to marry this girl because everything was already ruined. But that ruined her. It ruined the relationship which ruined her. You see, that has always been my problem. I have intended to destroy my relationships but never wished to hurt the people involved. I wanted desperately to leave Shannon because I had hurt her. But I knew I had to protect her because I loved her. So I stayed. But it wasn't working because neither of us was happy. So I said if you love her set her free and I did. But what I'd never lost was the shame, the guilt, the self-hatred, the wallowing. I have indeed lived with my shame every day since I have acted and perhaps because I had no religion. The point of religion, I suppose, is to give you the false sense of security not that God is judging you and therefore that everything you do matters, but rather that God is there to judge us in the American sense, and Jesus is there to defend us. The devil then must be the prosecutor who twists our actions around to make it seem to God that we were evil. But those once baptized claim that Jesus has their back, and that Satan has nothing on Jesus' arguing skills. But I claim to myself and to those around me that I am observant and therefore the greatest litigator that ever was and I needn't fear the devil. My only weakness would be fearing the pain I cause to those I love. I would like to reiterate that I stayed with a girl I hurt because I loved her and couldn't bear to hurt her again on top of the confession with the absence of my presence. I can understand very much Jesus' pain. All the physical burdens and tortures of Pilate could not have possibly hurt Jesus more than the knowledge that he would have to leave his dearest friends, Mary Magdalene, the Apostles, and his Mother behind. Jesus is simply an archetype. A metaphor, if you will, for my life. The question is, to what am I willing to sacrifice myself that I might save and protect the people I love and care about. The existentialist in me says that nothing I do matters at all and that the point of it all is to find meaning. But that distracts me from the matter at hand, which is sacrifice. Am I then to sacrifice myself to the cause of meaning? He says "no, live! spend your life finding meaning, not your death!" But then he says "On the other hand, once you find meaning it won't do anything to change the fact that you're just gonna die anyway" The fountain of youth, the feudal ages say. But that's not so great because living forever would suck right? right? unless you were a genius and could use everything the world had to offer. And what better excuse for immortality than ergodynamic computer software? Internet addiction is perhaps the most powerful force in the world and those who use it know that you can spend hours upon hours LEARNING and COMMUNICATING for no reason whatsoever. But communication is evolution. Communication is how we all come to agreement and make what we call "peace." Why doesn't anyone seem to grasp what I'm getting at here? If everyone could be as unprejudiced as me, and look at the internet the way that I do, there would literally be world peace.
| | Friday, May 15th, 2009 | | 8:51 pm |
A radio is a poor substitute for a friend
remember the days when kids would go to the mall just to hang out with one another? Why must we force ourselves into our homes? I come to work every night, in a uniform that only I wear. There is no one else here, a ghost store. I sell nothing to no one, but have just enough customers to keep me distracted from my closing duties. There is no company, there is no conversation, there is no co worker. There is only me and the work to be done There are chairs with no one to sit in them There are chess peices with no one to move them There is a cashier with no one to keep him company. [this job gets very lonely and I don't understand why.]
| | 12:47 am |
The Laws of Ska
The most recent wave of Ska in California had pledged its allegiance, by way of covering their music, the Lennon/McCartney writing style. But the wave died when Gwen disowned us in favor of more hip-hop styles. The wave looked elsewhere for leadership. The ideas had been suggested- the Aquabats, Sublime, Five Iron Frenzy, Reel Big Fish- but none seemed to really have it in them to make it to the big time and stay true to Ska. But what if we had had a different leader, one who decided to bring a new era about using old materials- using the style of George Harrison. Harrison's influence is undeniable, as his synth-pop style was eventually taken on a wild spree in the 1980's. The style of ska is often imitative of those previously instigated by past generations. For example, the first wavers were often dressed like the swingers of the big band era, which ultimately resulted in a revival, though originally adapted, of that swing style, which eventually evolved into rock and roll. People here are dying over the VH1 comedians' comments on "hey, remember the 80's?" and all the "old school" themes seem to be coming back without reason or prompting. The need for nostalgia and sentimentality are breathing life into those things that made us feel secure in the 80s, our slinkys and parachute pants... And these things give our world more stability, more meaning. Thus, we "bring back the 80's" in order that we might fill that void of things that keep us happy and distracted from the terrible goings on in the world. Thus it is our duty to bestow upon some band the title of Supreme Ska Masters that they might be the example for style in the New Wave, but they must not bear a poor example. In the second wave, 2-toners dressed in checkers and attempted to represent unity whereby people of all races involved would dress like "proper" English lads, though the merchandise they had was often shoddy and worn. This led to the evolution of their fanbase from "rudeboy" to "punk" and the concept spread to the United States like wildfire. This reminds us that we must be cautious in who we allow to be the mouthpiece of the wave- granted, we must allow anyone who wishes to make whatever music they please. But what we cannot do is allow people to misrepresent both themselves, as being ska, or Ska, as being what some bands perform. It is not up to the bands themselves to decide a label, rather it should be the function of the band to create whatever music they will being inspired by the writers they are to compose what they will and those who were originally given the title "ska" would be able to determine who else was of that genre. The title may not be bestowed upon a band who does not play by the rules. The rules are not even complicated. 1. There's pretty much one sentence which sums up the musical laws of ska from Wikipedia: "It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the offbeat." 2. Anti-prejudiced entry laws: anyone who has the skillz is in. 3. Don't be a punk: Styles change but a well-founded philosophy should be altered only once in a while, when something really tricky comes along to change your world view. Punk has a way of telling you to shut your brain off and live for destruction. 4. There is no "I" in Ska: Solo concerts are for douche bags who don't know what music is about. Unless you're Andrew Bird and you can make that much happen at once, soloing is for studio albums, fills, intros, warm-ups, and girl/boy impressing only. There is no reason for you to book a show on your own unless its at a strip club and then you have to let your bandmates watch. 5. Dress the part: Don't claim to be one thing with your mouth and another with your outfit. If you're a RudeBoy for Life then you have to commit to the uniform. The basest of which for men is a shirt, neck accessory of some kind (tie, ascot, neckerchief,etc.), comfy shoes (in case you need to skank or fight), and pants of some kind (shorts ok). For women a shirt, neck accessory (tie, bandana, necklace, handkerchief, etc.), and pants or skirt of some kind. And for god's sake, make it look good. [stipulation: to personal discretion to I leave the judgment over when it is appropriate to violate uniform rules for circumstances where your actions dictate your outfit i.e. surfing, mining, science...] 6. Walk the talk: the philosophy of Ska is definitely up to interpretation but I think you can get the general idea- learn how to watch your own back and join up with others who have done the same, so that you're not dependent but you have help if you need it. If we might find a band who is innovate, retrofascinated, and who follows the basic rules of Ska, they will blossom into the heart of the New Wave and will return Ska to its rightful place as America's Inspirado.
| | Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | | 11:09 pm |
Why I will own my truck: An American Argument.
Though it is not my wish that my parents ever die, I must accept it as an inevitability. The mortality of my parents has then come to fascinate me as I will seek to understand life better by seeing where I fit in relative to my parents' completion of said journey. In the event of their both passing, all of their properties must be passed on to their children, the process of which has been dictated to me as being one of monetary values- that their properties will effectively be liquidated and we will be given each our equal shares of the monetary value of their properties. On paper this is indeed the most "fair" system, but as an American I find it nigh unconstitutional. ( Read more... )
OR, in other words, dibs on the truck!
| | Friday, May 1st, 2009 | | 12:03 pm |
| | 11:15 am |
Timecapsules would work better the other way around
Dear me, I remember when I was your age... and self... Good times. Sort of. It was sort of like being in a bubble, where the things that mattered to you were the only things that mattered in the world and everyone else could go screw themselves. But as you get older you start to find that other people's opinion of you has a great force to inform your opinion of yourself. You find that people who think you're weird and strange say so and convince you of it yourself. The power of words is a power far beyond that which we had once thought it was. So I urge you to recall, as often as you can, that thing that made it okay to be you. Do not give up on the things that make sense because beyond them is only madness, and not the fun kind. The fearful, angry kind. The kind that makes people hurt themselves. Because sadism is just schadenfreude when it gets repressed, but self-loathing brings pleasure to no one. It seems silly to think you could forget where you came from, but that's why we have records- and albums. Hang on to that ska, its you. Pick it up! Sincerely, You- 7 years from now.
| | Sunday, April 26th, 2009 | | 2:39 pm |
Sense data: the wind
Outside I see there is wind blowing. I assure myself of this by stepping outside and learning that my visual impression of the wind's effect on the objects outside seemingly coincides with my other senses' reception of the wind itself: It is cold, it is fast, it has an odor, it makes a buffeting sound against my eardrum. Yet one cannot know positively whether it is windy unless one leaves the windless environment of his home and steps into the wind. That is to say, one cannot even experience the wind itself visually except by a logical conclusion drawn from seeing the wind's effect on other things. This is because one cannot see wind- it is colorless and it is seemingly shapeless. Yet all of the other characteristics of objects which we seem to deem as "real" are given, so we accept the wind as existing. This tells us that those concepts which we cannot see are then said to exist as long as we can perceive of it through other sense data- that is we agree songs exist despite them having only the characteristics of sound (though, if one is hearing this song played live one could argue they see the song in the vibrations of a guitar string or the pumping of the amplifier's woofers and tweeters). But despite us seeing things as existing physically manifest, we seem to think of the song as existing and the vibration as being incidental when, in fact, the string is the cause of the sound and the song is itself a characteristic of the guitar string and not the other way around. And so it must be with the wind- that I identify of something as being independent of its creator must be an illusion, and that in fact it is existent only as a characteristic of some greater object. But what is the cause of this wind? Meteorologists would say something to the effect of one front coming into contact with some other front, but this assumes the fronts merely exist and have no cause themselves. That is once again the illusion and we would then seem to look to the ocean. The ocean seems to be the source of most winds as there they are most intense and away from that direction seems to be the commonest theme for the wind. And so the ocean's movements cause many oscillations in atmospheric pressure (much reflected in the "sounds" the ocean makes) and those cause a chain reaction in the greater sea of gasses that is our atmosphere. But what then is the cause of the ebb and flow of the sea? I've heard science say "the moon" as though they knew it by measuring something. I have come to believe this since it coincides with their tide charts very accurately. In fact, I've not seen the day when tide charts had failed to predict what would happen. This particular experience of wind is somewhat limited by circumstance however, so I resolved to continue this meditation while driving in my truck. In doing so I observed a few more things- I can feel via my truck as though it were some senseless extension of my body. I can get a better sense of the wind by feeling how the wind blows against my vehicle and how I must compensate for it. In truth, I personally do not feel the wind, but its effects on the thing I am controlling are observed by me not only by sight, but by the knowledge and impulse to correct the movement of my truck to compensate for the force of the wind. In addition, when the windows are rolled down I get a very different sound from the one I would experience when stationary. Not that it is no longer the wound of wind, but rather that it is louder and more violent. This is, of course, because I am rushing through several different channels of wind at blazing speeds, but the fact reamins that the sound I identify is that of wind and so it is catalogued in my mind as such. Perhaps one of the most amusing things about dog ownership is the exictement one sees in a dog when he rides in a car. My dog always had the habit, which I understand is not an uncommon one, of sticking his nose out of the window. Dogs, as we seem to have learned over time, have a more developed sense of smell than do humans. It must be out of curious necessity then that his nose is out of the window- for my world seems to be based on the understanding of things existing visually, followed by a verification of those things through my other senses. For a dog, his "primary sense," as it were, is olfaction. This is his primary means of sensing the world and thus, he attempts to smell any new object which he encounters just as I look at new objects I encounter. But what is wind to my dog? To me, the movement of light from one thing to another is how I come to understand thigns of its nature- this tree is green because certain frequencies of light are identified in a specific language by my mind as being "green" but what of those who do not base their world on light? Clearly, color is immaterial to the dog and smells must needs be more specific yet associative in the same manner (that is all things that are green are associated when discussing matters of color, and thus all smells must have associations as specific as colors; as humans we sometimes use words of comparison such as "oakey" or "salty" to describe smells, but this is all based on the smells we gain from other things and there doesn't seem to be any adjective which describes smell without comparing it to another thing). So the wind to a dog, I should think, is something like the light of men. For the wind can give a dog impressions of an object (whether or not it is "green" or "salty" or something) without him having any other sense data about the object- that is he can know there is a person nearby because he can smell them despite the fact that he cannot touch them or hear them (just as I can tell by sight there is another person in the room despite lacking the same sense qualities about them at any given moment). So what then? Is light the wind of the eyes and wind the light of the nose? I should hardly say so, since the information given by wind is vague at best being that I cannot see it. Yet for my dog, the wind certainly carries much more information with it. To some degree, a dog "sees" the wind. It has color and shape for him. For me though, breezes are merely the cause for the movement of more "real" things.
| | 12:34 am |
Why am I here?
The ultimate question I suppose. Let us approach it as selflessly and logically as possible. The world surely exists, as I am witnessing it. But have I always witnessed it? logic would dictate no, because my "age" as it were seems to identify me as being at least 20 "years" old. What I really have to recount these things are memories as well as objects which I still have but can recall from memory where and when I acquired them. They adorn my room and home, they are my objects of interaction in my alone time. They give me a sense of permanence as they have persevered in this race to continually exist we call in time on some line somehow parallel to mine. Many things have run through my line and diverged naught to be seen again. Love even, the greatest force of all, has lifted itself of my life and been gone for very painful passages of time. Presently, I am pained by its distance. But this is emotional self-indulgence and already my ego has led me off track into self absorption. I digress, these objects and the corresponding recollection of experience remind me of my subjective perspective on the present: where I have been defines where I am. But where I am does not definitely define where I am going to. When faced with a challenge, say a debt, I may have two options: defeat my challenge- that is, in this instance, to pay my debt- or to go jump off a bridge- and in this instance, I mean simply to jump off a bridge. There is fighting, which allows us to win or lose, or there is giving up, which is usually die or somehow survive but be horribly maimed and depressed. This leads me to believe I have some "control" over my own existence- that is there is the option of killing myself always at close reach. I seem to have this sense of understanding that most teen suicides are not entirely preventable. Perhaps what occurs in the reaction to the euphoria of drug exploration the teens see God and they become so wholly depressed by his absence when they reach the real world that life is no longer worth living. But the face of God is not for the faint of heart- it is only those who would give themselves over to the vainglorious mirror that would awe something so much but be not blinded. I seek not my own image for it disgusts me, but this disgust is merely an evolutionary tool to combat against vanity for vanity is the tool crafted to distract my mind from measure and policy that would govern my life more logically than self-interest. Yet this rambling seems somehow unjustifiable in this path, since I am doing nothing but indulging my intellect in soliloquy. A man is mad who speaks to himself or perhaps simply vain. It is then the duty of the man not to speak but to himself, but always to another. Those people who invented God did so by making him in their own image. This was done to remind us that we are God, but that we wish to recognize that we are not, for God is simply a character in our minds that we may put on or take of if we wish to again invent him. Rather God is our other to justify our frustrated sounds we do make when we feel deeply. Our anger must be heard by someone to justify the grunt we all do make. [Besides, what was God in the womb but our mother? But who was it that recognized it was not just ourselves who spoke to us? It is a bit of our father who doubts the unity of ourselves with our universe and yet once we are out we continue to think out loud to our universe despite our thinking of ourselves as separate from it. There was Y and then there was X just as there was me and then there was space and I can somehow remove myself from thinking about the whole universe when I think of it. But really, if I want to conceive of the universe in its entirety I must be so vain as to recall my own location in it as precisely as possible that I might retain perspective on relativity.] So it is me that wills this concept of separation from unity with the universe. Consciousness is simply separating myself from all other things and identifying me as what I am individually of all other things. Consciousness is saying "this is what I am." That is perhaps the moment when we feel we are not our mothers- when we identify ourselves as something different. Perhaps the moment we form a tube to feed rather than simply absorb. It is the replication with pressure that forms the ultra dense tissue that enables us to function. It is perhaps the ossification of our skulls that slows the growth of our minds for it seems a child learns much faster while his skull is much softer. In any case, it must have been an incredible sensation to go from being unconscious to conscious. But that was I doing before my brain tissue was formed. Who was I? What did I know? [This seeks to answer the first question being that where I had been defines where I am. Thus the better question is what did I have with me which is essentially the same as "what did I know?"] This is not something personally traceable as one could not remember before one had learned to remember and thus it must be approached logically. Logic identifies that certain essential qualities of my current self were absent- namely language, self-image, various preferences and prejudices, and possibly emotions. But the last is a very sensitive one for me to ponder, for I feel so very closely attached to my emotions I might argue that they have always been a part of me even preceding my physical manifestation. But, like my mother, the world expects me to leave my emotions behind and live in the "real world" without them. This was the will of the womb itself as it forces us out when the pressure is too great to be held any longer. Thus being in this world was a choice not lent to us. Yet some are stillborn. As was I. I had the cord wrapped about my neck and yet survived. They managed to get me breathing again after I had been not. This is common, they said. But can we not imagine the bizarre effect this must have had on my brain? To have had no oxygen, even for a moment, in those crucial moments of development? The first moment in the real world and I missed it! Perhaps this is the origin of my morbid fascination. I thought today "wouldn't it be lovely if I had been diagnosed as being terminal? Then I wouldn't have to consider the needs of tomorrow today for today would be the only day I had left to worry about. Imagine if, having had a wonderful day, the next morning never came? There needn't be any tomorrow to top today since it was wonderful. We wish not for the day to end. But then run we into a day that is somehow cursed. Things fall from our grasp, our emotions are not even or stable, the future seems bleak and all is lost. It seems that in ever waking up we take a gamble that tomorrow will be a good day too. Yet the greatest thing one could experience is a wonderful day, followed by nothing else. Perhaps this is the purpose of life- to discover the day we shall die, then prepare for it. Prepare our will. Prepare our funeral. Our FUNeral. Save money for all the things you had wanted in life but could not afford presently because you had to also make enough money to survive. Then we take all those things and enjoy the fuck out of them until we die. But the gamble lately seems to be that we live such long lives we must invest so much more to make those last years last longer. We force workers into retirement that they might open jobs up for the young who need money to make their livings. For theirs is the future. It is tragic that they may be forced out, but were they to stick around, the young would go impoverished and would then grow old without even the option of retirement if they managed not to starve to death or die in the cold. We then see that the tragedy which befalls our elders is then their own responsibility that their youth was not spent working for money but rather indulging themselves. Yet this is only if one wishes to retire so comfortably. I see my retirement not as a retirement at all but as teaching the trade I lived until I die. That is, once I have mastered a craft and done all that I'd hoped to do in that trade, I would spend my elder years teaching what I had learned doing. Therefore, it is up to me to learn a specialty craft that it be worth someone's money to learn it from me. Can you imagine if Sir Sean Connery, in his retirement from acting, designed to be an acting coach? Not only that, but an inexpensive one. This would certainly make him a living wage. I would perhaps seek him out myself. Thus I've resolved this is my lot in life- to master a difficult craft, then pass it to an apprentice that he might do the same. The Way of the Samurai, as it were. Except that they kill their Senseis when they have become greater than them. This is because the Sensei's life is complete. But in my art, the decision to kill would come too hastily, as I would know that others may also learn from me the ways of the Force. To defeat our masters, then to take their place. That is our role in life. And so it is the weakness of the Christians to to plot to kill God and take his place. This can only be done however if we have truly gained a superior knowledge of right and wrong than God has, for then and only then may we truly have authority to judge where he does not. It is then our more present duty to truly define what is right and what is wrong and it must then fall to the Judges of our court system to make those judgments regardless of self-interest. And it is then also the reason for living that we might live from day to day that we might encounter scenarios which require judgment that we may present them to our Judges. Thus the Supreme Court is truly the highest authority in all the land. But then, we seek to decentralize that power, as we come to define sole authority as corruptive and inherently evil, which it is. This more endows us with the paradoxical power of free will. Free will gives us the power to say and do what we wish, that we might come to actually be given the ability to chose between right and wrong for ourselves. Thus, the very purpose of free will and indeed consciousness is for us to come to a better understanding of right and wrong that we might have the authority to defeat our own creator and be his superior.
| | Saturday, April 25th, 2009 | | 1:09 am |
Acting note
It has just occurred to me that owning a jar of blackberry preserves and a spoon I have the capability to- at any time- reach into the drawer, wield the spoon, open the jar of preserves, and indulge upon a single spoonful then return the jar to the refrigerator, wash the spoon, and return it to its place in the drawer. So I did just that. What have I gained from the experience? Should the necessity ever occur to me to recall the experience of doing said actions, I will have the knowledge of precisely what that experience entails for I will have learned it by doing precisely that thing. You see, knowledge comes best by experience- and experience teaches us things intimately that one can never learn by postulating. One may use physics to determine precisely where a ball would land if they threw it- having read texts on how one throws and calculating the power generated by one's throwing arm and quantifying each detail of the throw such that one could know all one would presume to know of the throw, yet the thrower cannot know what the throw will feel like unless and until he finally throws the ball. Such is the purpose of play: that we may learn a skill that we will find useful in the "real world" by playing a game which allows us to perform a similar task. What can one gain from a game like football or baseball but how to do battle? The accuracy of a pitcher is no doubt taken to consideration when that pitcher might be drafted for war. Perhaps a pitchers throw would be studied to create more accurate RPGs. In any case, the soilder and the athlete are very similarly crafted machines of competition. But what of the arts? Which players are the ones who are given the lot of mimicry and improvisation? What do their skills apply for at war? Perhaps the games they play are far too peaceful as they sing and dance and explore one another's personalities and bodies. Our explorations of kinesthetics and psychology deter them from putting faith in our games and studies for they think of us as hippies but the true danger comes from men like Hitler who support the arts for their own benefit. They see us as gypsies, travelling the vast world of minds without permanence in any one and in doing so we gain the knowledge of many lands. The actor is a vagrant of the astral plane- wandering from personality to personality, finding new tricks and feats of mind and body by exploring the mind and body of those they assume the personality of. They recraft their outward appearance to better reflect the person whom they become on the inside. They do incredible tricks and explore one anothers wavelengths and generate a new way of thinking for an audience. Theirs is a craft of wars waged on people's minds. Blitzkrieg was no doubt derived from the Spanish cloak-and-dagger style of creating deep confusion in an audience at the top of a scene. This "audience" mentality creates the urge in people's personalities to say "we are going to watch a show- don't interrupt." It is also well known that Pope John Paul II was an actor. What can this say of his personality? That he was something of a diplomat and was able to get on the wavelengths of those world leaders whom he spoke with. The world was most definitely a more peaceful place when he was alive. But what of this Fascist who knows nothing of the bohemian artists mind? Where shall he lead the world? Now I shall not say that because Hitler understood the power behind art that he was a better leader. I say only that he understood how to wield it like a spoon and use it to devour the goodness of those people with their own tools pitted against them. The bastard was finally stopped when we gave in to doing propaganda for the government (Elvis) and promoted a war against that son of a bitch. But Fascism attempted to strike back when the Red Scare began. The need to destroy the Communist movement gave the government a reason to put us back in our place by accusing anyone and everyone who seemed to speak out against Conservatism as a Communist. In listening to Bertold Brecht's defense against the HUAC board, i find that the effort was renewed by the actor himself. The man was able to play, in front of them, as he would in front of anyone. He was fearless enough to play his theatrical game under their circumstances and make them seem to play the fool. Brecht was a master. And he defended the Liberals with Liberal tactics. He sat in the room and used his superior intellect to grant him the ability to wield a very specific comedic weapon- a language barrier- do both block the attacks of the Commission and return blows as though it were a samurai-held katana. And so I shall eat my jam and replace the jar to its place and the spoon to its that I may know- when the time comes- such a display may be a brilliant way to play which, if done correctly, may vanquish those who oppress me in the guise of a witch-hunt for pinkos.
| | Friday, April 24th, 2009 | | 12:58 am |
Notes to self regarding your voice work.
( Read more... )I often get light-headed when I sing. I am told it is because I do not breathe enough, but I think it is because I take too deep of breaths and then hold it in my system so long as I control more directly the air as it leaves my body, that my mind is absorbing more of it. Perhaps this over-exposure to oxygen is the cause for all of my... me-ness.
| | Monday, April 20th, 2009 | | 2:41 pm |
I imagine that thousands of years from now, someone will uncover the Warner Brothers' Tomb and assume they worshiped Bugs Bunny. |
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