you cannot sedate
My morning rant.
I hate it when people cling to the banners of an ideal as an excuse to indulge in murderous instincts.
To me, the only sin - and it's more of a shame, really - is to waste consciousness by allowing animal instinct to take over, especially the instinct for violence. I hate to watch people get angry. They look like red-faced monkeys, mouths all open and arms flailing. Grace and composure are virtues. It is more noble to me, then, to mask your anger physically than to stand before your audience face-naked at a podium and mouth-wail all openly - if you have to be angry, don't be ugly.
Sorry, President Bush.
That's one of the things I don't like about television. You don't see things the way they are. You see them the way people want you to see them. With movies, it's different. You're expecting someone to toy with your perceptions, emotions, beliefs. Do we want the television news to do that to us? It's a service - that means "serve us," not "convert me." You're supposed to make your own decisions, but how can you process edited information? There isn't much leeway to formulate your own educated stance when the corporate system shoots "angles."
I hate angles.
I want to look at things wholistically; not always possible, but then, if it's not, why would you settle for just one angle?
"We don't negotiate with terrorists," politicians say, one after the other. Accepted dogma. How could it be any other way; why would it be any other way?
Well, terrorists are people too. Do you think they wake up in the morning, turn over and look at the clock, and think, "Damn, I'm going to be evil today." No, it's much more like, "Damn, I'm going to kill me some evil Americans" or Russians, or Jews. We're the evil to them, and you can't change their mind by refusing to talk to them. Cutting off negotiations is just another way of plugging your ears and saying, "LA LA LA I"M NOT TALKING TO YOU." What are their demands? I don't think anybody even pays any attention.
Of course, I'm certainly not going to say taking over a school full of children is any way to get your point across. It's certainly not the same as sitting down for tea.
I'm saying things shouldn't have to come to that. Negotiations have to take place before things escalate into hostage situations and plane hijackings. It just ... makes more sense, doesn't it? To try to keep people peacefully in the fold? What the hell do these people want, anyway? Their own state? Money? A regime change? I'm sure they've stated their case. If they're militant anarchists, well, then there's your first mistake - letting the citizens become so disillusioned with your government that they dissent violently. It's a long way off in America, but it's on the horizon.
Also, you're letting your citizens get ahold of massive weapons. Who produces these weapons? Industries, and for who? Governments. It ain't Joe Shmoe out in his garage who whittles AK-47s out of wood, for christ's sake. Either some force outside of your country is supplying your rebels, in which case you've got too many problems to count, or the corruption in your own country is so bad that your workers and military and whatever are letting these fall into the hands of rebels.
Terrorism is state-created. When a country has terrorists attacking it, it's like a corporation - and every citizen owns a share of blame!
What pisses me off the most, though, are these creeps who are shouting, "Look at me! I'm a liberation army!" Because no, you're not. You're a dope who's been duped into thinking your death is going to make a difference. You're going to strap yourself down with explosives and walk into a public place, and that's going to be the last impression you make. Is that REALLY all one life is worth? A few pounds of c4 and a crater? You could have actually MADE something of yourself, if you'd decided to TALK to people. You could have been a priest or a diplomat or run for your country's version of school board and tried to make a REAL difference.
Good job, dumbass. I hope you enjoy oblivion.
I have nothing but contempt for people who cut a potentially fulfilling life short in the name of an ideal. It's not going to get you to heaven. I hereby proclaim heaven the stupidest idea ever. Grow up already, kids. Killing the heathen doesn't get you waltzing past pearly gates once your brain stops quivering in its calcium box. Neither do all those other sheep-herding check-lists - obeying your ma and pa is good common sense, but it's not a ticket to paradise. You should be "good" because it's a noble expression of something a step higher than animal instinct. If you have the ability to fight the swamp you crawled out of, the swamp you carry in your homeostasis - if you have the ability to contemplate the universe and persist despite your own inborn destructive nature and the wilds of the environment ... well, why wouldn't you use it?Animals can't do it and we can - and we resemble animals in just about every way - therefore, it's our defining characteristic. It doesn't make us better, it makes us different.
We have the most complex, rich, and effective communication system of any creature we know of. This doesn't just stop at language, but with art, music, electronic systems - when was the last time you saw a dolphin transmitting his clicky noises into motherfuckin' OUTER SPACE? OBVIOUSLY, we're capable of certain things - maybe, someday, even interstellar travel. If the rest of the universe is dead, we might even be able to sew it with life; if there's already life out there, well great! We'll have someone to shoot the shit with, to compare notes with.
But knowing us and our fuckin' ... animal urges ... and our seemingly complete lack of control over it ... we'll freak and blow up anybody we find. GO US!
And this wonderful communication system we've got? The one that spans nations and transcends words and can touch hearts and open minds?
We use it most for - you guess it! - distancing people.
Building excuses to blow eachother up. Oppressing those who's demise benefits us. Furthering our own lot at the expense of others.
Newsflash, humanity. People don't need 36,000 channels to surf. They don't need yachts. Or a mansion with 18 bathrooms. In fact, not everyone needs a HOUSE. A yard. 3.5 kids. You don't need to eat when you've got the motherfucking munchies (yeah, keep going, hypcrite).
What, I ask you, is WORTH OWNING?
Well, my answer is art. Art is the only think worth owning, and its best from people you love. Because to own art is to own a piece of that person. So anything manufactured is next to useless - machines don't have souls (yet) and thus their work is soulless (and I'll let you define "soul" however you want; it can just mean consciousness or something even more abstract; I'll admit this is the weakest part of my arguement since I don't know much of anything about the soul and I'm content just to contemplate the possibilities). The greatest expression of a human, the human soul, is creation. Because we can create more than just offspring - we can create wonders.
Aesthetic poverty, self-engaged minimalism, abstaining from indulgancies - these things appeal to me. In a society of gluttons, where the animal greed is gorged like pigs in a trough, the gauntness of moderation is noble. Especially in a world where so many starve - who am I to gorge myself three times a day?
Unless I have two kids, I'm set on living in an apartment the rest of my life. One with a view. I like high-density housing; I think we would do so much better if people stopped throwing up fence after fence and grabbing up all the land just so they can stretch their feet. The wilderness was here first; give it a little room, too. There is something beautiful in the conservation of space. Especially when you realize you can make any artchitecture artistic and functional.
I recall saying that there are times and places and ways you can express that inner animal - because it's not healthy to indulge greed or violence. I'm not saying it's EVIL, I'm not saying its a SIN, I'm saying it's common fucking sense because LOOK at what it does to people. The effects are obvious. With violence, you need only look at the physical results to know it's unhealthy. With greed, the shame bulges in every gluttonous curve of the American body. It's revolting. To me, that which creates beauty is good; that which makes things hideous is bad. And I'm not saying ugly people are bad, because ugly people can create beautiful things. Beautiful people can be hideous inside. This is all relative.
Sexual expression is not something I'm used to talking about, but it deserves a place here. Greed and violence can be indulged in the abstract, if done carefully, and thus turned into creativity, it can be sated without running rampant. Destruction can be creation too, but there are shady boundries that people need to take into consideration. Lust, too, can be turned towards creative ends. I am the last person who is going to stand here and tell people how to have sex, but I am going to say lust turned towards creativity is beautiful in every way. It's one of the greatest things two people - any two people - can share. And I am insistent on the presence of love, with or before lust or somewhere. If it's love, it can't be wrong. But you have to know it's love. And that is an elusive definition.
I guess I've talked about just about everything. I'm tired of typing.
I hate it when people cling to the banners of an ideal as an excuse to indulge in murderous instincts.
To me, the only sin - and it's more of a shame, really - is to waste consciousness by allowing animal instinct to take over, especially the instinct for violence. I hate to watch people get angry. They look like red-faced monkeys, mouths all open and arms flailing. Grace and composure are virtues. It is more noble to me, then, to mask your anger physically than to stand before your audience face-naked at a podium and mouth-wail all openly - if you have to be angry, don't be ugly.
Sorry, President Bush.
That's one of the things I don't like about television. You don't see things the way they are. You see them the way people want you to see them. With movies, it's different. You're expecting someone to toy with your perceptions, emotions, beliefs. Do we want the television news to do that to us? It's a service - that means "serve us," not "convert me." You're supposed to make your own decisions, but how can you process edited information? There isn't much leeway to formulate your own educated stance when the corporate system shoots "angles."
I hate angles.
I want to look at things wholistically; not always possible, but then, if it's not, why would you settle for just one angle?
"We don't negotiate with terrorists," politicians say, one after the other. Accepted dogma. How could it be any other way; why would it be any other way?
Well, terrorists are people too. Do you think they wake up in the morning, turn over and look at the clock, and think, "Damn, I'm going to be evil today." No, it's much more like, "Damn, I'm going to kill me some evil Americans" or Russians, or Jews. We're the evil to them, and you can't change their mind by refusing to talk to them. Cutting off negotiations is just another way of plugging your ears and saying, "LA LA LA I"M NOT TALKING TO YOU." What are their demands? I don't think anybody even pays any attention.
Of course, I'm certainly not going to say taking over a school full of children is any way to get your point across. It's certainly not the same as sitting down for tea.
I'm saying things shouldn't have to come to that. Negotiations have to take place before things escalate into hostage situations and plane hijackings. It just ... makes more sense, doesn't it? To try to keep people peacefully in the fold? What the hell do these people want, anyway? Their own state? Money? A regime change? I'm sure they've stated their case. If they're militant anarchists, well, then there's your first mistake - letting the citizens become so disillusioned with your government that they dissent violently. It's a long way off in America, but it's on the horizon.
Also, you're letting your citizens get ahold of massive weapons. Who produces these weapons? Industries, and for who? Governments. It ain't Joe Shmoe out in his garage who whittles AK-47s out of wood, for christ's sake. Either some force outside of your country is supplying your rebels, in which case you've got too many problems to count, or the corruption in your own country is so bad that your workers and military and whatever are letting these fall into the hands of rebels.
Terrorism is state-created. When a country has terrorists attacking it, it's like a corporation - and every citizen owns a share of blame!
What pisses me off the most, though, are these creeps who are shouting, "Look at me! I'm a liberation army!" Because no, you're not. You're a dope who's been duped into thinking your death is going to make a difference. You're going to strap yourself down with explosives and walk into a public place, and that's going to be the last impression you make. Is that REALLY all one life is worth? A few pounds of c4 and a crater? You could have actually MADE something of yourself, if you'd decided to TALK to people. You could have been a priest or a diplomat or run for your country's version of school board and tried to make a REAL difference.
Good job, dumbass. I hope you enjoy oblivion.
I have nothing but contempt for people who cut a potentially fulfilling life short in the name of an ideal. It's not going to get you to heaven. I hereby proclaim heaven the stupidest idea ever. Grow up already, kids. Killing the heathen doesn't get you waltzing past pearly gates once your brain stops quivering in its calcium box. Neither do all those other sheep-herding check-lists - obeying your ma and pa is good common sense, but it's not a ticket to paradise. You should be "good" because it's a noble expression of something a step higher than animal instinct. If you have the ability to fight the swamp you crawled out of, the swamp you carry in your homeostasis - if you have the ability to contemplate the universe and persist despite your own inborn destructive nature and the wilds of the environment ... well, why wouldn't you use it?Animals can't do it and we can - and we resemble animals in just about every way - therefore, it's our defining characteristic. It doesn't make us better, it makes us different.
We have the most complex, rich, and effective communication system of any creature we know of. This doesn't just stop at language, but with art, music, electronic systems - when was the last time you saw a dolphin transmitting his clicky noises into motherfuckin' OUTER SPACE? OBVIOUSLY, we're capable of certain things - maybe, someday, even interstellar travel. If the rest of the universe is dead, we might even be able to sew it with life; if there's already life out there, well great! We'll have someone to shoot the shit with, to compare notes with.
But knowing us and our fuckin' ... animal urges ... and our seemingly complete lack of control over it ... we'll freak and blow up anybody we find. GO US!
And this wonderful communication system we've got? The one that spans nations and transcends words and can touch hearts and open minds?
We use it most for - you guess it! - distancing people.
Building excuses to blow eachother up. Oppressing those who's demise benefits us. Furthering our own lot at the expense of others.
Newsflash, humanity. People don't need 36,000 channels to surf. They don't need yachts. Or a mansion with 18 bathrooms. In fact, not everyone needs a HOUSE. A yard. 3.5 kids. You don't need to eat when you've got the motherfucking munchies (yeah, keep going, hypcrite).
What, I ask you, is WORTH OWNING?
Well, my answer is art. Art is the only think worth owning, and its best from people you love. Because to own art is to own a piece of that person. So anything manufactured is next to useless - machines don't have souls (yet) and thus their work is soulless (and I'll let you define "soul" however you want; it can just mean consciousness or something even more abstract; I'll admit this is the weakest part of my arguement since I don't know much of anything about the soul and I'm content just to contemplate the possibilities). The greatest expression of a human, the human soul, is creation. Because we can create more than just offspring - we can create wonders.
Aesthetic poverty, self-engaged minimalism, abstaining from indulgancies - these things appeal to me. In a society of gluttons, where the animal greed is gorged like pigs in a trough, the gauntness of moderation is noble. Especially in a world where so many starve - who am I to gorge myself three times a day?
Unless I have two kids, I'm set on living in an apartment the rest of my life. One with a view. I like high-density housing; I think we would do so much better if people stopped throwing up fence after fence and grabbing up all the land just so they can stretch their feet. The wilderness was here first; give it a little room, too. There is something beautiful in the conservation of space. Especially when you realize you can make any artchitecture artistic and functional.
I recall saying that there are times and places and ways you can express that inner animal - because it's not healthy to indulge greed or violence. I'm not saying it's EVIL, I'm not saying its a SIN, I'm saying it's common fucking sense because LOOK at what it does to people. The effects are obvious. With violence, you need only look at the physical results to know it's unhealthy. With greed, the shame bulges in every gluttonous curve of the American body. It's revolting. To me, that which creates beauty is good; that which makes things hideous is bad. And I'm not saying ugly people are bad, because ugly people can create beautiful things. Beautiful people can be hideous inside. This is all relative.
Sexual expression is not something I'm used to talking about, but it deserves a place here. Greed and violence can be indulged in the abstract, if done carefully, and thus turned into creativity, it can be sated without running rampant. Destruction can be creation too, but there are shady boundries that people need to take into consideration. Lust, too, can be turned towards creative ends. I am the last person who is going to stand here and tell people how to have sex, but I am going to say lust turned towards creativity is beautiful in every way. It's one of the greatest things two people - any two people - can share. And I am insistent on the presence of love, with or before lust or somewhere. If it's love, it can't be wrong. But you have to know it's love. And that is an elusive definition.
I guess I've talked about just about everything. I'm tired of typing.