Log (page 1)
This is the “blog” bit. All the wanky introspective stuff you’d expect – I’ll even try and throw in the odd post apologising for not blogging regularly. Seriously.
Niqab
The niqāb (the full-face veil, related to the burqa) has always distressed me a bit, but recently I’ve been feeling more strongly about it.
My thinking used to be that, while I don’t like it, it can be a valid expression of someone’s morals and faith, and I can see their thinking even while I disagree.
Now I find myself feeling that it’s entirely dehumanising. How can you treat a person as a fellow human being when you can’t see their face at all? How do you respect a faith that requires women to completely hide themselves inside a fabric tent?
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power seems, for all its flaws, to be the best bet for our future energy needs. ‘Read more’ for quotes and links.
Never Hate. Only Ever Destroy.
I came across these today; Giles Bowkett‘s two cardinal rules:
- Never hate, only ever destroy.
- Forgive everything.
He says of them:
Obviously, I don’t hold to these rules as perfectly as I’d like. They’re more perpetual goals, really. If I held to them perfectly, I’d be some strange Web 2.0 combination of Jesus Christ and Lord Shiva, a fire-breathing, forgiving, perpetually-twittering angel of death.
The rules appeal to me. My paraphrase would be roughly ‘deal with things as thoroughly and quickly as possible, then get over it and move on,’ which doesn’t seem a bad general principle. (Although it’s beginning to smell a bit Nietzschean.)
Punctuated Band Names
- !!! (pronounced ‘chk chk chk,’ not ‘bang bang bang’ as I had assumed)
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor, who are not actually a metal band
- …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, who are also not a metal band
Anti-Punctuation honourable mention:
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters “abbreviated as ATHFCMFFT.”
Zombs and Zombibility
Every Zombie movie has some variant of this scene:
One of the heroes, our human survivors, is scratched or grazed in an altercation with a zombie. It’s not a deep enough wound to kill, or to instantly turn him into a mindless zombie, but he’s now infected.
We, of course (having seen this sort of thing before), know that it’s only a matter of time before the infection destroys his mind and unleashes his flesh-eating depravity, turning him into one of those he is currently fighting, and threatening the survival of his companions.
How to be a Man
Steve Pavlina tells us ‘how to be a man’. There’s some pretty big calls:
A man who claims his #1 commitment in life is his relationship partner (or his family) is either too dishonest or too weak to be trusted. His loyalties are misplaced. A man who values individuals above his own integrity is a wretch, not a free thinker.
And some clichés:
A man is an active giver of love, not a passive receiver. A man is the first to initiate a conversation, the first to ask for what’s needed, and the first to say “I love you.” Waiting for someone else to make the first move is unbecoming of him.
(could be some truth, maybe, I guess.)
I don’t think it’s perfect, but it helps me begin to shape a few answers to some of my questions.
Impulse for Men
Slavery (and its reason, empire) is an evil thing. But slavery has been the engine behind some of the most inspiring architecture in the world. The pyramids, the Forbidden City—both were built by slave labour, but, once built, both were completely out-of-bounds to those who worked on them, and both are, still, inspiring.
Late Bloomers
(Recent) bands that didn’t get good until they figured out what they actually were:
- Good Charlotte were average punk until they starting making outstanding new-New-Wave pop
- Fallout Boy are average emo but great power-pop
- Panic at the Disco‘s new sound is more Queen than the single-note emo of their earlier efforts. Thankfully.
Notably, all started out in the pop-punk/emo tradition before branching out. Can you think of any others?
Go Gently
I’m not sure I want to grow particularly old. Slowing down is okay, as is the experience of years and all that. The bit that worries me is the bit where your body stops working properly. You’re no longer self-sufficient, you’re often uncomfortable or in pain a lot of the time, and in the worst case your mind is no longer working properly, either.
I Proclaim Myself a Victim of Fate
There are, in this world, two kinds of people. There are those people who make things happen—shaping the world around them through sheer willpower—and there are those people to whom things happen. I am not one of the former. [There’s more…]
Thursday fun
Thursday fun:
Narcolepsy Cat is sleepy. Kitty Wigs are… well, let’s start with ‘odd.’ Subversive cross-stitch is fantastic (warning: cuss words.) Also, here is a cute puppy. Don’t say I don’t give you nice things, kids. (Apologies to anyone who’s already seen all of these.)
“Money is an anonymous form of energy”
“Money is an anonymous form of energy”:
Money can facilitate exchange among friends and neighbors, but in essence money is an anonymous form of energy—almost by its definition as a universal medium of exchange. Among friends and neighbors, the usual laws of market economics do not apply. You don’t seek to maximize profit. You don’t raise your prices to the maximum just because you can. You are not doing it for the money; you are doing it for your family and for the neighbors. In an economy of reciprocation and social exchange—that is, in an economy that is not primarily a money economy—”economic efficiency” takes on a different meaning.
The more anonymous the customer, the more money stands as the sole motivating force. In today’s multi-level, automated and standardized food production & distribution system, the consumer is almost totally anonymous to the farmer, the commodity buyer, the processing factory and even the grocer. There is no reason to care about the wholesomeness of the product, except to the extent necessary to conform to whatever regulations are enforced, and whatever the public might find out about.
…
You cannot pay someone to care. You can pay someone to act as though they care; you can pay them to follow meticulous guidelines; but you can’t make them really care.
— The Real “Real Thing” (credit to Fraser via Brehaut)
See the fundamental of life hardly anybody notices
See the fundamental of life hardly anybody notices: Everybody on earth gets energy from the sun. Everybody, the just and the unjust. Even the energy running this computer comes from the sun. And the sun demands nothing back. Nothing. All energy is totally, freely given - that is, until it falls into human hands! That’s called Stealing Fire From Heaven, the universal myth describing what separates us from Nature, makes us fall from Balance. Our unique ability to control fire symbolizes our unique control of Credit and Debt. This is the Fire Serpent, the Trickster Seraph who brings consciousness of Credit and Debt. He’s called Promethius (Forethought) with his twin Epimethius (Afterthought). He is Ego, who dwells everywhere but in the Present Mind.
— Suelo at ‘Moneyless World,’ We’re Gods Crap Game
Suelo describes his way of life thus:
I’ve been totally without cents for over 7 years. I don’t use or accept money or barter - don’t take food stamps or any other government dole. I don’t see money as evil or good: how can illusion be evil or good? Attachment to illusion, called idolatry, is certainly tragic. I simply got tired of acknowledging as real this most common world-wide belief called money! It’s one of those intriguing things that’s real because you believe it’s real!
He lives freegan in town (if hospitality isn’t available) and off the land when he’s out in the country, and it sounds like it’s working out for him. I really want to find the guts to attempt something like this.
Tuesday Filler
Tuesday Filler: the ‘ways to live’ edition.
Ran Prieur describes a possible future for the human race in Beyond Civilized and Primitive. (Hint: not back into caves.) It answers a lot of questions some of you people have been raising with the whole ‘I hate oil but I want an iPod and running hot water’ thing.
Life and death of an urban recluse describes the existence of a Finnish loner. I’m not sure what to make of it; on one level it seems like a tragedy that people can live like that, but on another level, he seemed to live the life he wanted. What’s so bad about that?
A.J. Jacobs is my hero. Not only did he live biblically (as literally as possible) for a year, but he also made George Clooney watch ‘2 girls 1 cup’ during an interview. (‘2 girls 1 cup’ should not ever be watched. Seriously. I mean it. Read the Wikipedia page for it first. I’m not even linking it.) UPDATE: A.J. Jacobs is also the radical honesty guy. I am so in man-love with him right now.
Def Poetry Jam is pretty excellent
Def Poetry Jam is pretty excellent; contemporary beat poetry, most with a healthy dollop of humour. I found especially good Rives on deaf students and Taylor Mali on teachers.
For poetry of the more textual kind, try Robert Frost. I like My November Guest and Now Close the Windows.
A number of attempts to express an idea
(I had an epiphany last night, but it was in a dream, and is proving a lot harder to express in the daylight, and outside of my mind.)
Action is just a name for that which moves us from one state of being to another. There is no such thing as action, there is only the change of being.
Being, not Doing
That is the path to the sacred
Doing is an abstraction;
A view of Being through the restricted lens of time.
Being in each moment results in action.
Action flows through Being as effortlessly as water in a stream.
The stream does not move,
Yet there is constant movement.
If one were to focus fully on Being in each moment, with no thought spared for Doing, one’s actions would become effortless, flowing, simply an expression of transitions in one’s state of Being.
Can actions be things? How can they be? They exist only as changes in another thing. But Being – that is its own thing in every moment.
In the moment, I focused only on Being. I was mindful of my surroundings, my self, my inner thoughts. I did not act, choosing only to be fully present and aware in each moment.
Yet I found myself moving. I responded to each moment as if it were a brand new situation, and I were a brand new person. I acted as if nothing had come before, and nothing would come after; there was only now.
And I found my actions to be in tune with everything around me; I found plans and expectations unnecessary, irrelevant; simply Being in each moment was enough to maintain harmony with all around me. I had found the path of the sacred.
#239
Addressing a few apparent misconceptions and concerns from the sex post:
All of this should assume “…given the full agreement and consent and participation of my partner, with whom I have fully discussed all the potential issues, pitfalls, and dangers, and who is still keen.” Manipulation, coercion, exploitation, use and abuse are all completely uncool. Look, I’m not a selfish person, I would want what’s best for my partner too. Principle of least harm, okay?
This isn’t attempting to be a “should I have sex with X?” flowchart, this is just my attempt to think through some of the more glaring moral issues I can see. There are quite obviously whole swathes of things I haven’t even considered, and which I would consider in that situation. (Or which I have been considering, but didn’t fit easily in the original piece.)
I’m not saying everyone is incomplete without sex – Greg is correct, some people seem to do just fine without. All I’m saying is (in an intentionally vague manner), I feel incomplete without some way to (healthily) express my sexuality. Come on, I thought we were post-moderns? Subjective personal experience is all that matters, right?
There’s another whole question in there; that of how we relate to our (supposedly God-given) genetic heritage – the “animal bits.” Traditionally, Christianity says “spirit good, flesh bad,” but I think that’s pretty destructive and (here it is again) gnostic.
Jim raises an interesting point in asking: what should we expect to get out of sex? Is it about me getting my rocks off, or two people sharing a moment, or both, or something else? I set up a physical/spiritual dichotomy, but I really did completely leave out the emotional and mental, both of which need to be considered. These were outside the scope of the piece, but are important questions nonetheless.
I discuss extra-marital sex with my other self
An imaginary conversation between two sides of my self. The voices can be distinguished by the differing indentation. The Bible seems to have a clear ideal of sex and marriage[…]
#236
If Stuff White People Like is to be believed, I am very, very white. I shouldn’t be surprised, but it always stings a little when you get pegged so accurately by a complete stranger. I’m not as unique as I thought I was :(.
#235
I don’t intend to belittle the tragedy at all, but another campus shooting in the States has got to be a symptom of something. One? Maybe a freak occurrence. Two? Could just be copycats, or coincidence. The number of seemingly-random, public mass-killings since Columbine? It has to be considered a pattern. The only question is: if that’s a symptom, what lies underneath it? (I missed it at first, but the above article says that this was the fourth shooting at an American school within a single week. Holy crap.)