http://i.imgur.com/d2RW5gS.png
I feel like this needs explaining since apparently a lot of people don't get it. I never use my real name. Paranoia is only part of it. The biggest reason is that I hate it. It carries weight for me that I cannot bear and one of the best things about the internet to me is the ability to get a clean slate without a hundred preconceived notions about my character, not all of them unjustified.
As far as I'm concerned, it is my right to choose who I am; even if that means throwing away everything I was - or trying to. Even without the use of my government-recognized identity that shit still haunts me and is always coming up. I have a hard enough time as it is trying to function with so much shame and self-hatred, I shouldn't have to be forced to carry every mistake I've ever made around like a fucking badge and never be able to redeem myself.
Assuming it's even possible to be redeemed, considering how I've tried for years and still cannot be the kind of person I want to be.
My life sucks enough, I really don't need it to suck more.
I place no value on how we are born or what we are given anyway. All that matters to me is what we do.My name, my ethnicity, my culture, my birthplace, my age, my gender, and whatever else was forced on me without my consent are meaningless. They are also meaningless to me in other people. I don't give a damn what name your parents gave you, what color you are, or where you grew up. Whatever part of you they make up is too insignificant for me to consider judging you by them even partially, and I damn sure don't respect them as a point of pride or shame. If you're proud to be black, or female, or from Canada, that just tells me that you have not accomplished anything meaningful enough to be proud of, or that you're clinging to a label like a fucking highschool kid.
To my knowledge, most of us are gestated in a womb and each one is equipped with its own unique variety of shit sandwich dispensers that we're forced to eat as soon as our cells start dividing. Most of life is spent dealing with the aftertaste, and I think that's wrong. I rip the outward identities aside and give people a chance to define themselves by their choices and their actions and to hell with anyone who cannot see the wisdom in this.
The bottom line is I'm tired of this shit, I will not participate in any community or group that values such superficial things and personally think anyone that does value them is shallow and beneath contempt. Call me when you fuckers finish puberty.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Embers
Yesterday I shared my thoughts with a group of friends about anger, how I believe it's like a flame that, when not used up immediately, will seed itself into the hearts of those who kindled it and become a burning ember, hot enough to hurt its benefactor but tame enough to never go out, it will singe and crackle and deteriorate them from the inside out, and it will flare up when other emotions are fed to it, and it is very, very hard to dislodge once seeded in the human soul.
I sometimes feel I was born with such an ember, like I was born angry, disquieted, full of an unending raging fire that drives the engine of my hate and which rarely lets me feel peace. Even now, I can feel it in my heart as it simmers and makes my chest and stomach feel hardened by heat. I can feel the constant turmoil as smoke of unease rise from it and yet never smother it as they build up inside of me, and my only outlet is that sometimes, I need to blow off steam to keep it from festering. I have kindled such a fire my entire life, I do not know what it's like to never be angry, save for a few times in my life where I felt like it might be truly gone - but not gone, just at its lowest burning point when I knew what contentment and tranquility were.
Such is the nature of my being that I contemplate anger and rage often, I am very familiar with all manner of dark emotions, I am especially sensitive to and understanding of fear; fear drives people like nothing else, in many of our positive traits there is a shadow of fear, looming as we strive to not fail, to achieve before our short stints into the universe we call our lives run out, and the thing which we at the moment cannot possibly begin to fathom but which makes us more than the sum total of our parts diminishes forever and we become nothing but a resource to be used by the rest of the earth, recycled back into what I believe the true order of the universe. Fear has driven people insane, but it has also resulted in many achievements by mankind, it is the seed with which we might know understanding and empathy for others, it is the growing anxiety that promotes action and thought to overcome our hardships, and it is through fear that we come to know courage; true courage is to overcome a fear to accomplish a goal, to rise above it, without fear there can be no bravery, no progress, no courage, it is the darkness t our light.
But more than fear, the shadow behind us all, behind everything we do, making stark the contrast of the light, I know anger. I am an embodiment of burning rage, I am hate incarnate, behind my fear is always the heat of anger, its dim burning light suffusing the shadows and the light, and through this smoky light and heat I have come to know fire. Fire burns and sways whimsically, fire cannot be contained, it cannot be controlled, it must be respected or tempered, but it has great potential for destruction, and it is wild, so wild that when it unleashes its true power it can devastate everything around it, it can grow and flare out so much that it cannot control itself, it no longer has direction, except to burn and consume and grow and unleash its wrath on everyone and everything in its wake, and it is so absorbed in its hot rage that it loses any cohesion or sanity, and when nothing is left, it burns out, extinguished by its own fury, defeated by its own mad consumption of everything around it, a smouldering shadow of its former self, a black smattering of embers.
And yet those embers live, and they cannot be extinguished easily, as if fueled by some infinite supply of napalm they burn through the smoke and the blackened world the fire left behind, and they bide their time and grow, they grow into new fire and that fire continues to gain strength and momentum, and only the gods know when it will turn from its dancing whimsy into the violent display of naked rage that is pure destruction; the shadow of what I am, my personal fear, and what is always remembered about me by everyone, that I am fire and I am dangerous, I am wild and without restraint, I am capable of causing harm to everyone around me whether intentional or not, and though I dance whimsically through the air and burn with a luminous gusto, it only takes a little gasoline to turn that into an ugly and terrifying wrath. I am an ember.
But through these musings of mine, I have perhaps discovered a different kind of ember.
Fire is wild, perhaps that is my best definition for who I am, I am not grounded nor do I desire to be. I rail against being caged and do not stay in one place or on one subject for long, I become withered in any type of confinement, I must always seek new things, but this is not unlike the most elusive of human psychology, creativity, something so untamed and misunderstood, mysterious and whimsical, that it cannot be controlled, it cannot be bottled and stored away for later, it withers in confinement, like me, it needs to wander, it needs fuel, it needs freedom. It is also an ember.
But it is the opposite of me; where my greatest challenge is dampening or channeling the ever-raging fire inside of me, this ember of mine is but a spark that I have difficulty kindling. At a point in my life several years past now when I was truly miserable and angry, I could kindle my spark with my own fire, anger fueled my creativity, deep-seeded, passionate hate, but now the two burn in different realms, one is diminished though still potent, and the other is but a small coal in which I am only aware of in those brief moments when I feel a warmness unlike the heat of rage. Inspiration. And inspiration is the flint on which we spark our creativity.
Because so little is known about the creative process of humankind, I have no scientific basis for which to advise others. This is an issue of philosophy, it requires introspection on the part of the individual, but what I do know is that if anger is hard to smother, creativity is hard to kindle. It is like a wisp, a tiny blue flame burning so softly and giving off almost no light, but when it flares up to its full glory it spreads like wildfire through my entire body, motivating me to great leaps of creation and motivating me to do things such as paint or write these passionate entries. It does not burn slowly, it consumes every bit of inspiration in the soul, the world around, and then, like anger, it weakens and withers to the tiny cool ember it was before, and when it flares up again is an unknown to all, even the bearer of the tiny flame.
These two embers are so opposite, one of destruction and the other of creation, yet they are so frighteningly alike, they coexist in my soul and effect my being in profound ways, and I can feel both of them, see them in my mind, and when the flame of creation flares inside of me I can taste its smoke on the exhale, which does not choke me like the smoke of my anger, but stimulates me to act, to create, to burn lively and dance in the light of my own ember.
I sometimes feel I was born with such an ember, like I was born angry, disquieted, full of an unending raging fire that drives the engine of my hate and which rarely lets me feel peace. Even now, I can feel it in my heart as it simmers and makes my chest and stomach feel hardened by heat. I can feel the constant turmoil as smoke of unease rise from it and yet never smother it as they build up inside of me, and my only outlet is that sometimes, I need to blow off steam to keep it from festering. I have kindled such a fire my entire life, I do not know what it's like to never be angry, save for a few times in my life where I felt like it might be truly gone - but not gone, just at its lowest burning point when I knew what contentment and tranquility were.
Such is the nature of my being that I contemplate anger and rage often, I am very familiar with all manner of dark emotions, I am especially sensitive to and understanding of fear; fear drives people like nothing else, in many of our positive traits there is a shadow of fear, looming as we strive to not fail, to achieve before our short stints into the universe we call our lives run out, and the thing which we at the moment cannot possibly begin to fathom but which makes us more than the sum total of our parts diminishes forever and we become nothing but a resource to be used by the rest of the earth, recycled back into what I believe the true order of the universe. Fear has driven people insane, but it has also resulted in many achievements by mankind, it is the seed with which we might know understanding and empathy for others, it is the growing anxiety that promotes action and thought to overcome our hardships, and it is through fear that we come to know courage; true courage is to overcome a fear to accomplish a goal, to rise above it, without fear there can be no bravery, no progress, no courage, it is the darkness t our light.
But more than fear, the shadow behind us all, behind everything we do, making stark the contrast of the light, I know anger. I am an embodiment of burning rage, I am hate incarnate, behind my fear is always the heat of anger, its dim burning light suffusing the shadows and the light, and through this smoky light and heat I have come to know fire. Fire burns and sways whimsically, fire cannot be contained, it cannot be controlled, it must be respected or tempered, but it has great potential for destruction, and it is wild, so wild that when it unleashes its true power it can devastate everything around it, it can grow and flare out so much that it cannot control itself, it no longer has direction, except to burn and consume and grow and unleash its wrath on everyone and everything in its wake, and it is so absorbed in its hot rage that it loses any cohesion or sanity, and when nothing is left, it burns out, extinguished by its own fury, defeated by its own mad consumption of everything around it, a smouldering shadow of its former self, a black smattering of embers.
And yet those embers live, and they cannot be extinguished easily, as if fueled by some infinite supply of napalm they burn through the smoke and the blackened world the fire left behind, and they bide their time and grow, they grow into new fire and that fire continues to gain strength and momentum, and only the gods know when it will turn from its dancing whimsy into the violent display of naked rage that is pure destruction; the shadow of what I am, my personal fear, and what is always remembered about me by everyone, that I am fire and I am dangerous, I am wild and without restraint, I am capable of causing harm to everyone around me whether intentional or not, and though I dance whimsically through the air and burn with a luminous gusto, it only takes a little gasoline to turn that into an ugly and terrifying wrath. I am an ember.
But through these musings of mine, I have perhaps discovered a different kind of ember.
Fire is wild, perhaps that is my best definition for who I am, I am not grounded nor do I desire to be. I rail against being caged and do not stay in one place or on one subject for long, I become withered in any type of confinement, I must always seek new things, but this is not unlike the most elusive of human psychology, creativity, something so untamed and misunderstood, mysterious and whimsical, that it cannot be controlled, it cannot be bottled and stored away for later, it withers in confinement, like me, it needs to wander, it needs fuel, it needs freedom. It is also an ember.
But it is the opposite of me; where my greatest challenge is dampening or channeling the ever-raging fire inside of me, this ember of mine is but a spark that I have difficulty kindling. At a point in my life several years past now when I was truly miserable and angry, I could kindle my spark with my own fire, anger fueled my creativity, deep-seeded, passionate hate, but now the two burn in different realms, one is diminished though still potent, and the other is but a small coal in which I am only aware of in those brief moments when I feel a warmness unlike the heat of rage. Inspiration. And inspiration is the flint on which we spark our creativity.
Because so little is known about the creative process of humankind, I have no scientific basis for which to advise others. This is an issue of philosophy, it requires introspection on the part of the individual, but what I do know is that if anger is hard to smother, creativity is hard to kindle. It is like a wisp, a tiny blue flame burning so softly and giving off almost no light, but when it flares up to its full glory it spreads like wildfire through my entire body, motivating me to great leaps of creation and motivating me to do things such as paint or write these passionate entries. It does not burn slowly, it consumes every bit of inspiration in the soul, the world around, and then, like anger, it weakens and withers to the tiny cool ember it was before, and when it flares up again is an unknown to all, even the bearer of the tiny flame.
These two embers are so opposite, one of destruction and the other of creation, yet they are so frighteningly alike, they coexist in my soul and effect my being in profound ways, and I can feel both of them, see them in my mind, and when the flame of creation flares inside of me I can taste its smoke on the exhale, which does not choke me like the smoke of my anger, but stimulates me to act, to create, to burn lively and dance in the light of my own ember.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
True Faith
Around 1AM I made a speedpaint and posted it around the web around 2:30, after finally figuring out how to upload it as a jigsaw puzzle so people can play with my spontaneous art.
Why? Because I want it to make people happy, and ifs omeone comes across it and it brings them a little warm feeling in their day, I consider that a victory.
Around 3AM I started to have what I call a fear spike - that's when, for whatever reason, be it eating too much junk food, staying up when I'm tired, not getting enough vitamin K, or struggling with the horror that is existential crisis, my naturally extreme anxiety mounts into something that has a 50% chance of growing into a full-blown panic attack and if you have no idea what that looks like or god forbid feels like, I hope with all the sincerity in my heart you never do. Anyway, this happened frequently in Q2 and Q3 of last year, but around winter I finally was able to get adequate medical treatment and started getting really proactive about balancing the little things like diet and productivity that effect our chemical and mental health.
But even so, these things still occur. And when they do, they make me look hard at my life, because even though fear spikes amplify all of your issues by a thousand, when you're feeling better, the issues are still there, and the best thin you can do is try to deal with them.
In my case, I have dealt with this and several other problems related to my health for years - sometimes, my entire life. As a result, I am a very introspective person. Sometimes I will even dig into the parts of my soul that physically and mentally hurt to disturb so that I can understand a problem. Sometimes that only increases the intensity of my anxiety-laced depression but it also turns over a rock in my mind and shows me the absolute most disgusting things about myself, and when the shock and horror wears off, I can begin to accept those things, or try to change them.
I say this because I want to go back to that picture I made earlier in the morning. It's a very light, dreamy picture. It's supposed to make you feel good looking at it. In fact, aside from some of my vent art, all of my art is focused on vibrant expression and feeling good in different ways.
Sometimes, people believe I'm an optimist for that reason. I find that somewhat insulting because when I think of optimists, I think of people who deliberately turn the other cheek at the world's injustices and breeze through life by ignoring their problems instead of confronting them. I am a very confrontational person when it comes to my issues. So why, then, is my art so happy? Wouldn't it make more sense to draw your true feelings instead of fluffy happy things?
The truth is that my art does contain my true feelings - I have looked at some of the ugliest things about myself and I have been in a lot of really depressing situations. I acknowledge the world's evils, I rage about them frequently, I talk to my close friends about how depressing life can be sometimes and I am a very intense, serious person but in spite of all that, I still see the patches of light in the darkness of our world.
I consider myself a misanthrope - I don't hate people, but I hate some constructs of human society like anything having to do with money, separating people by class, the degenerate, petty ways in which we compete with each other for power and the aforementioned money, but don't hate individual people. I actually think humans as a species are incredibly flexible and steely at the same time. We are capable of imagination and even though the universe's lifespan has been calculated and is pretty much common knowledge, we continue to create, build, and thrive in the face of complete destruction. We are amazing in our ability to stare hard truths in the face and continue with our lives. In truth, I want to help people continue to do that. We are a strong species, and we hold each other up.
I also consider myself a cynic - the idea that the only thing between me and uncertain death is the network of people I surround myself with who all have their own emotional crap to deal with and the doctors, police, firefighters, and everyday heroes who are not infallible and just as capable of screwing up as the rest of us is terrifying, but at the same time, we've survived for thousands of years and we really can support each other. We all have emotional crap and flaws to deal with, and when we all hold hands we can help hold each other up. Sometimes, one of my friends or myself needs others to compensate for their falling down, but the next day I might be bearing up under one of my friends who just needs to cry for a while.
And that is beautiful to me. I am not putting a friendly face on a horrible concept; I'm acknowledging that there are things that frighten me but have genuinely found an aspect of something that speaks to me in a positive way.
That's what I want my art to reflect.I want my art to be very human, I want to show people optimistic images that also speaks to them or that they can relate to. That is a tall order, but I think when we really explore humanity - all sides of it - we gain true faith in it, and it makes everything less scary.
Why? Because I want it to make people happy, and ifs omeone comes across it and it brings them a little warm feeling in their day, I consider that a victory.
Around 3AM I started to have what I call a fear spike - that's when, for whatever reason, be it eating too much junk food, staying up when I'm tired, not getting enough vitamin K, or struggling with the horror that is existential crisis, my naturally extreme anxiety mounts into something that has a 50% chance of growing into a full-blown panic attack and if you have no idea what that looks like or god forbid feels like, I hope with all the sincerity in my heart you never do. Anyway, this happened frequently in Q2 and Q3 of last year, but around winter I finally was able to get adequate medical treatment and started getting really proactive about balancing the little things like diet and productivity that effect our chemical and mental health.
But even so, these things still occur. And when they do, they make me look hard at my life, because even though fear spikes amplify all of your issues by a thousand, when you're feeling better, the issues are still there, and the best thin you can do is try to deal with them.
In my case, I have dealt with this and several other problems related to my health for years - sometimes, my entire life. As a result, I am a very introspective person. Sometimes I will even dig into the parts of my soul that physically and mentally hurt to disturb so that I can understand a problem. Sometimes that only increases the intensity of my anxiety-laced depression but it also turns over a rock in my mind and shows me the absolute most disgusting things about myself, and when the shock and horror wears off, I can begin to accept those things, or try to change them.
I say this because I want to go back to that picture I made earlier in the morning. It's a very light, dreamy picture. It's supposed to make you feel good looking at it. In fact, aside from some of my vent art, all of my art is focused on vibrant expression and feeling good in different ways.
Sometimes, people believe I'm an optimist for that reason. I find that somewhat insulting because when I think of optimists, I think of people who deliberately turn the other cheek at the world's injustices and breeze through life by ignoring their problems instead of confronting them. I am a very confrontational person when it comes to my issues. So why, then, is my art so happy? Wouldn't it make more sense to draw your true feelings instead of fluffy happy things?
The truth is that my art does contain my true feelings - I have looked at some of the ugliest things about myself and I have been in a lot of really depressing situations. I acknowledge the world's evils, I rage about them frequently, I talk to my close friends about how depressing life can be sometimes and I am a very intense, serious person but in spite of all that, I still see the patches of light in the darkness of our world.
I consider myself a misanthrope - I don't hate people, but I hate some constructs of human society like anything having to do with money, separating people by class, the degenerate, petty ways in which we compete with each other for power and the aforementioned money, but don't hate individual people. I actually think humans as a species are incredibly flexible and steely at the same time. We are capable of imagination and even though the universe's lifespan has been calculated and is pretty much common knowledge, we continue to create, build, and thrive in the face of complete destruction. We are amazing in our ability to stare hard truths in the face and continue with our lives. In truth, I want to help people continue to do that. We are a strong species, and we hold each other up.
I also consider myself a cynic - the idea that the only thing between me and uncertain death is the network of people I surround myself with who all have their own emotional crap to deal with and the doctors, police, firefighters, and everyday heroes who are not infallible and just as capable of screwing up as the rest of us is terrifying, but at the same time, we've survived for thousands of years and we really can support each other. We all have emotional crap and flaws to deal with, and when we all hold hands we can help hold each other up. Sometimes, one of my friends or myself needs others to compensate for their falling down, but the next day I might be bearing up under one of my friends who just needs to cry for a while.
And that is beautiful to me. I am not putting a friendly face on a horrible concept; I'm acknowledging that there are things that frighten me but have genuinely found an aspect of something that speaks to me in a positive way.
That's what I want my art to reflect.I want my art to be very human, I want to show people optimistic images that also speaks to them or that they can relate to. That is a tall order, but I think when we really explore humanity - all sides of it - we gain true faith in it, and it makes everything less scary.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Rough Edges
A discussion on a forum prompted this entry, it made me think about what I consider the two primary opposing sides of the internet, and even though you could say this is true for real life as well, I find it reaches its extreme online, when people seem to devolve into the most basic components of their psyche. I'm talking about the polar opposites of people who are predators, tormenting others for fum and are seemingly untouchable, especially by the other side - the sensitive people who are easily hurt and more interested in genuine human contact than the distant relationships preferred by the former. It can usually be observed in its most primitive form when several callous individuals on a forum or in an IRC are verbally abusing someone who is probably crying into their keyboard as they type out rebuttals in all-caps.
My natural inclination is to side with the latter; Regardless of the circumstances, I don't feel there is any honor in harassing someone weaker than you and seeing people gang up on someone of a weak constitution appalls me. I have an almost predesigned desire to defend the minority, but objectively that does not make the tormentors instantly villains.
In fact, they're as much victims to a cycle I've observed over the years as the people they're hurting - because they're turning those people into them. All of these callous, pessimistic remarks people make cannot entirely be the result of trolling even if there are a few people who just want to stir the pot; no, most of it is just people repeating what the internet generation before them told them when they were probably crying into their keyboard, and most of them are too proud to admit that. They're spreading the toxicity of cynicism and misanthropy to the next generation and that generation will do the same thing to the next.
Possibly the worst thing about all that is that even though there are few people willing to admit they were once the naive innocent newbie they are now trying to turn into a miserable cynic, there are even fewer of them that are willing to admit that even in a small way, the vitriol of others' poisoned words still hurt them. We have created an environment where having your feelings hurt is not acceptable and in doing so we've repressed encouraging compassion and humanity from everyone. Instead, people demand that everyone be as thick-skinned as they think they've become, but nobody seems to realize, or care, that thick skin can have rough edges, and in most cases, those edges are barbed with the poison of misery.
Sometime ago I tried to be untouchable, I wanted to be able to bounce insults off my skin like others seemed to do so well, but after trying for a solid 3 years, I realized that it was not only impossible for me, but self-destructive. Now, my philosophy is that the healthiest thing to do for the sake of yourself and your relations with others of your species is to be honest about how you feel. I practice this in my daily life. If I see someone who looks like they're hurting, I try to reach out to them to the best of my ability and I am not afraid to be sincere even though I live in a time period when sincerity is viewed as weak and sarcasm is a mark of the strong and clever. I know that this makes me a target for people who are malcontent or for people who are just bored and trying to get a rise out of me, and I'm not going to pretend those people don't succeed because doing otherwise would mean they have no consequences to their actions, but what I'm more afraid of is that if someone doesn't show the kind of honest sincerity I demand of myself every single day, then there will be no example for others and we will always live in an emotionally repressed society.
We humans feel emotions and are influenced by them. To ignore them or force them down is to deny ourselves of an inherent part of our nature, and when we start to accept and understand those emotions, we can be more understanding of the people around us.
I'm a well-established misanthrope. I don't trust people by nature, but even with my innate suspicion, I don't believe the majority are trolls and the minor percentage of trolls that do exist are far outweighed by ordinary people who are hurting. My ideal world is one where people can freely exchange experiences of emotional pain without fear of being persecuted for it and I think that will be possible one day if we learn to shed our rough edges.
My natural inclination is to side with the latter; Regardless of the circumstances, I don't feel there is any honor in harassing someone weaker than you and seeing people gang up on someone of a weak constitution appalls me. I have an almost predesigned desire to defend the minority, but objectively that does not make the tormentors instantly villains.
In fact, they're as much victims to a cycle I've observed over the years as the people they're hurting - because they're turning those people into them. All of these callous, pessimistic remarks people make cannot entirely be the result of trolling even if there are a few people who just want to stir the pot; no, most of it is just people repeating what the internet generation before them told them when they were probably crying into their keyboard, and most of them are too proud to admit that. They're spreading the toxicity of cynicism and misanthropy to the next generation and that generation will do the same thing to the next.
Possibly the worst thing about all that is that even though there are few people willing to admit they were once the naive innocent newbie they are now trying to turn into a miserable cynic, there are even fewer of them that are willing to admit that even in a small way, the vitriol of others' poisoned words still hurt them. We have created an environment where having your feelings hurt is not acceptable and in doing so we've repressed encouraging compassion and humanity from everyone. Instead, people demand that everyone be as thick-skinned as they think they've become, but nobody seems to realize, or care, that thick skin can have rough edges, and in most cases, those edges are barbed with the poison of misery.
Sometime ago I tried to be untouchable, I wanted to be able to bounce insults off my skin like others seemed to do so well, but after trying for a solid 3 years, I realized that it was not only impossible for me, but self-destructive. Now, my philosophy is that the healthiest thing to do for the sake of yourself and your relations with others of your species is to be honest about how you feel. I practice this in my daily life. If I see someone who looks like they're hurting, I try to reach out to them to the best of my ability and I am not afraid to be sincere even though I live in a time period when sincerity is viewed as weak and sarcasm is a mark of the strong and clever. I know that this makes me a target for people who are malcontent or for people who are just bored and trying to get a rise out of me, and I'm not going to pretend those people don't succeed because doing otherwise would mean they have no consequences to their actions, but what I'm more afraid of is that if someone doesn't show the kind of honest sincerity I demand of myself every single day, then there will be no example for others and we will always live in an emotionally repressed society.
We humans feel emotions and are influenced by them. To ignore them or force them down is to deny ourselves of an inherent part of our nature, and when we start to accept and understand those emotions, we can be more understanding of the people around us.
I'm a well-established misanthrope. I don't trust people by nature, but even with my innate suspicion, I don't believe the majority are trolls and the minor percentage of trolls that do exist are far outweighed by ordinary people who are hurting. My ideal world is one where people can freely exchange experiences of emotional pain without fear of being persecuted for it and I think that will be possible one day if we learn to shed our rough edges.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Puppet Master
Today started like any other day, I ran into some asshat on a forum who I didn't like so I wrote up what I considered to be a pretty clever post stripping them of their dignity and tearing them a new one but since he happened to be a mod with no respect for other people's works of art he deleted that post and cried to his mommy about how I was mean to him so I had to remake a thread and exercise my infinite creativity and word my next post in a way that still made it clear that I didn't like him without giving him a reason to delete it. Unfortunately some other mod edited my post which I just re-edited back (and removed their edit message specifically to spite them because how dare you alter my art) but I think they got the message anyway.
SO, what was this about? Well, it started as just me being angry that I can't play Spyro on my new Vita which don't get me wrong, it's a good investment but not being able to play the PSX games that I actually give a crap about is a huge disappointment and I probably wouldn't have bought one if I knew that so because I can't be assed to dig up the old thread I'm just going to copypaste his response in the new thread and hopefully if you aren't a stupid soulless monkey worthy of my eternal disdain you'll know exactly why I don't like this asshat.
And the rest of this entry will make complete sense to you.
I'm also working off the assumption the thread will be locked because apparently having someone not play your shallow game of statistics justifies shutting down a discussion a passionate fan cared about.
"Sony clarified that statement well before the launch of the console. Those of us that bothered to read the Vita FAQ before buying the device knew that only Vita-certified Playstation Store content, meaning content that was specifically tested on the Vita, would be downloadable to the Vita. Support for PS1 Classics was not included until months after launch, and Sony at the time promised only that "at least 100" PS1 Classics would be Vita compatible. Sony passed that number within 3 months, so it doesn't have to do any more. At no time did Sony state that the Vita could run "everything" that the PSP could run.
False advertising suits are extremely difficult to win in US courts. You basically have to prove that the seller lied deliberately, and that is essentially impossible unless it was foolish enough to write down its intentions, or was recorded discussing them. Nobody ever received a penny, in or out of court, for any claims related to the Vita's compatibility with PSP content. People are entitled to their own wrong opinions about anything, but when it comes to the law, only the courts' opinions matter.
You are missing the point anyway. You have only made arguments for why a company could make the PS1 Spiro games Vita compatible. You haven't made a business case for why any company, whose objective is to make a profit, should bother. You have provided only anecdotal evidence of demand to play the games on the Vita, which does not even need to be refuted, because it is irrelevant to the publisher. The publisher cares about how many people want to buy the games in the future on the platform. Not how many people want to play the game on the platform. There is a difference, that makes all the difference. You haven't provided even anecdotal evidence that there is market demand to purchase the games, and you won't, because it doesn't exist. Sony knows exactly how many copies of the Spiro PS1 Classics sold in North America in the years before the Vita was released, and it was so few that the games were given to Playstation Plus subscribers for free. You will never convince Sony that there is money to be made in certifying the game here, because the data says otherwise. You are wasting your time trying.
As far as your jail-breaking argument is concerned, the rampant piracy of PSP games, especially in Europe, is the main reason why game publishers were reluctant to invest significant amounts of money in Vita games at launch. That is why we got mostly cheap ports of existing games, and indie games, from every publisher except Sony. Publishers want to see how secure the Vita proves to be, relative to the PSP, before they invest any real money in AAA Vita games. All that jail-breaking the console will do, in the long run, is to ensure that the Vita never gets more than a handful of exclusive third-party AAA games. If all you want to do is to play PSP games, then buy a PSP. Sony still sells them, for less than a Vita. If you want more AAA Vita games, then your obsession with PSP content is not helping; and your disregard for copyright laws is really, really, not helping. "
Note the legal babble, the general up-his-own-ass behavior that comes with ponces like this, but also note the thing that lack of any passion behind his words except to defend the most evil thing about any industry ever; the business-end.
Before you read my response to his bowel movement he's passing off as a post, let me give you some perspective on why I just insulted anything business like in the gaming industry or in any industry to ever exist:
"Hi there Mr. Bigshot Businessman, I'm an artist and a creative spirit. People in my field are usually doing all of the grunt work for, getting treated like shit by, and being screwed out of decent payment or recognition by people in your field. It's nothing personal, I just hate you and everything you represent. It comes with the territory, have a nice day."
So I have a slight bias just because if every CEO on the planet caught fire and burned down the entire highest tier of their respective slave operations they pass off as companies then I would convert to Mormonism and be reassured that good does exist in the universe, and the thought of the internet basically making it so that people can self-publish means that they're cutting off the middle-man and now every industry in chaos teetering on the brink of extinction honestly makes me frisky enough to feel up the corpses of the jackasses that created those power-structures while said power-structures crash and burn in a smouldering heap of what used to be their foundation.
So, knowing my immense contempt for living hell that is "The Industry", here's how I responded to this jackass:
"This is typically why I like dealing with indie developers a lot more than huge companies. If I asked this same question to an indie dev about their game, I'd get an answer from a developer, not some random forum users who think too highly of themselves, especially when they can't even spell "Spyro" properly.
What part of "I don't care about business mumbo-jumbo" did not clear with you the first time? I don't care, I have no intention of caring in the future, and you can sure bet that if I ever have the chance to develop and release games I won't care then either, because some of us have the moral integrity to care about other things besides money and you can get off your high horse right now because if you seriously think spewing a bunch of legal crap when some die-hard fan expresses an honest and passionate investment in a series they care a lot about is something to be proud of then you need to seriously re-examine your moral compass.
And please don't reply, just go get the other mod, I liked that guy a lot better. They were very direct. Or at least don't take three paragraphs to say what you can say in three words: "I don't care", because it's obvious that you don't in fact care at all and I'm really not interested in talking to someone who has probably never even played these games and can't relate to what they mean to people.
And by the way, maybe people wouldn't be motivated to hack their system if they're just release the content officially. Considering most of the content I care about on the Vita is Indie content anyway I don't feel that threatened if some triple-A company loses out, in fact nothing would make me happier, considering the way they treat their customers.
And by the way, playing PSX games on a handheld with dual-analog sticks was a huge appeal of the system for me but I guess that if anyone asks me if a Vita is good for that in the future, I'm going to say "No, I recommend saving up for an OpenPandora. It might cost $300 more but it can also do a lot more than PSX games without jailbreaking."
And as for respecting copyright laws, I can play Gameboy Advance games on my PSP as well as Genesis games, NES games, SNES games (although with horrible lag), GameGear games, and N64 games. In fact, the system being a portable emulator is a selling point for most people. I suspect that Vita sales will skyrocket once people can use it for the same purposes and if it chases off all the greedy triple-A companies who care so little about their userbase that they would actually not make a game available to them just because it won't sell well when it costs them nothing, then I consider that a victory, in fact, more power to the indies."
And in truth I wish Triple-A genocide for all consoles. This industry has screwed over too many people, from fans and customers to developers with dreams for it to deserve anything less than hate and contempt. People SHOULD rage against it, people SHOULD hate it, people SHOULD support independence from it, and people SHOULD be excited for the day when there is no industry, there is no middle-man, and there is no puppet-master businessman running the show anymore.
When we finally wash our hands of big companies dominating gaming, or music, or film, we will finally reach a point where people will no longer have their ideas shot down at the gate because it doesn't sell, and anyone who advocates this mentality that what sells is what gets done is 150% in the wrong.
Anyone who believes a developer being stopped from making a sequel to a game they care about by their superiors because it "doesn't sell" is a reasonable demand is wrong. Anyone who believes being forced to make sequels to a game just because it sells is a good decision is wrong. Anyone who believes in upholding copyright laws that ultimately strangle developers or take away their rights to do as they please with what they created is not only wrong, but a sick human being, and anyone who cannot see the damage these practices do to the industry is not only wrong, but blind with ignorance.
People should be excited for an age where video games, music, art, books, movies, cartoons, and any other form of creative media are published by the same people who made them with their own two hands and people should get angry when those people are made the industry's bitch and crushed and milked and abused until there's nothing left in them. People should get angry when developers quit their jobs because the pressure from asshats who have no idea what their job is like becomes unbearable. People should get angry when big companies have such disdain for their own userbase that they won't even have someone with knowledge of internal workings answer questions for the community. People should feel suspicious and distrusting of any institution that isn't open and transparent with how they do things and people should outright disdain any organized project or effort where the voice of that effort cannot even speak with passion and free will, like a human being.
Right now is how things are, I'm speaking for how things should be. Things should be open, things should be fair, things should be fueled by imagination and the desire to share your ideas with other people, the desire for people to like your ideas, and the belief that your ideas mean something. Art of all kinds is not a damn race to the finish, it's not a competition, it's not an institution, and it's not an industry and none of those things have any place in art. Those things exist to control and exploit talent and all the gain is made by the soulless jackasses who pull the strings.
These business-focused systems benefit nobody but the greedy. They should feel threatened with the current age of information-sharing, they should be humbled by the efforts for people to break free of the institution. They cannot adapt without giving the people power they always should have had to begin with.
Any enemy of this ideal is my enemy.
SO, what was this about? Well, it started as just me being angry that I can't play Spyro on my new Vita which don't get me wrong, it's a good investment but not being able to play the PSX games that I actually give a crap about is a huge disappointment and I probably wouldn't have bought one if I knew that so because I can't be assed to dig up the old thread I'm just going to copypaste his response in the new thread and hopefully if you aren't a stupid soulless monkey worthy of my eternal disdain you'll know exactly why I don't like this asshat.
And the rest of this entry will make complete sense to you.
I'm also working off the assumption the thread will be locked because apparently having someone not play your shallow game of statistics justifies shutting down a discussion a passionate fan cared about.
"Sony clarified that statement well before the launch of the console. Those of us that bothered to read the Vita FAQ before buying the device knew that only Vita-certified Playstation Store content, meaning content that was specifically tested on the Vita, would be downloadable to the Vita. Support for PS1 Classics was not included until months after launch, and Sony at the time promised only that "at least 100" PS1 Classics would be Vita compatible. Sony passed that number within 3 months, so it doesn't have to do any more. At no time did Sony state that the Vita could run "everything" that the PSP could run.
False advertising suits are extremely difficult to win in US courts. You basically have to prove that the seller lied deliberately, and that is essentially impossible unless it was foolish enough to write down its intentions, or was recorded discussing them. Nobody ever received a penny, in or out of court, for any claims related to the Vita's compatibility with PSP content. People are entitled to their own wrong opinions about anything, but when it comes to the law, only the courts' opinions matter.
You are missing the point anyway. You have only made arguments for why a company could make the PS1 Spiro games Vita compatible. You haven't made a business case for why any company, whose objective is to make a profit, should bother. You have provided only anecdotal evidence of demand to play the games on the Vita, which does not even need to be refuted, because it is irrelevant to the publisher. The publisher cares about how many people want to buy the games in the future on the platform. Not how many people want to play the game on the platform. There is a difference, that makes all the difference. You haven't provided even anecdotal evidence that there is market demand to purchase the games, and you won't, because it doesn't exist. Sony knows exactly how many copies of the Spiro PS1 Classics sold in North America in the years before the Vita was released, and it was so few that the games were given to Playstation Plus subscribers for free. You will never convince Sony that there is money to be made in certifying the game here, because the data says otherwise. You are wasting your time trying.
As far as your jail-breaking argument is concerned, the rampant piracy of PSP games, especially in Europe, is the main reason why game publishers were reluctant to invest significant amounts of money in Vita games at launch. That is why we got mostly cheap ports of existing games, and indie games, from every publisher except Sony. Publishers want to see how secure the Vita proves to be, relative to the PSP, before they invest any real money in AAA Vita games. All that jail-breaking the console will do, in the long run, is to ensure that the Vita never gets more than a handful of exclusive third-party AAA games. If all you want to do is to play PSP games, then buy a PSP. Sony still sells them, for less than a Vita. If you want more AAA Vita games, then your obsession with PSP content is not helping; and your disregard for copyright laws is really, really, not helping. "
Note the legal babble, the general up-his-own-ass behavior that comes with ponces like this, but also note the thing that lack of any passion behind his words except to defend the most evil thing about any industry ever; the business-end.
Before you read my response to his bowel movement he's passing off as a post, let me give you some perspective on why I just insulted anything business like in the gaming industry or in any industry to ever exist:
"Hi there Mr. Bigshot Businessman, I'm an artist and a creative spirit. People in my field are usually doing all of the grunt work for, getting treated like shit by, and being screwed out of decent payment or recognition by people in your field. It's nothing personal, I just hate you and everything you represent. It comes with the territory, have a nice day."
So I have a slight bias just because if every CEO on the planet caught fire and burned down the entire highest tier of their respective slave operations they pass off as companies then I would convert to Mormonism and be reassured that good does exist in the universe, and the thought of the internet basically making it so that people can self-publish means that they're cutting off the middle-man and now every industry in chaos teetering on the brink of extinction honestly makes me frisky enough to feel up the corpses of the jackasses that created those power-structures while said power-structures crash and burn in a smouldering heap of what used to be their foundation.
So, knowing my immense contempt for living hell that is "The Industry", here's how I responded to this jackass:
"This is typically why I like dealing with indie developers a lot more than huge companies. If I asked this same question to an indie dev about their game, I'd get an answer from a developer, not some random forum users who think too highly of themselves, especially when they can't even spell "Spyro" properly.
What part of "I don't care about business mumbo-jumbo" did not clear with you the first time? I don't care, I have no intention of caring in the future, and you can sure bet that if I ever have the chance to develop and release games I won't care then either, because some of us have the moral integrity to care about other things besides money and you can get off your high horse right now because if you seriously think spewing a bunch of legal crap when some die-hard fan expresses an honest and passionate investment in a series they care a lot about is something to be proud of then you need to seriously re-examine your moral compass.
And please don't reply, just go get the other mod, I liked that guy a lot better. They were very direct. Or at least don't take three paragraphs to say what you can say in three words: "I don't care", because it's obvious that you don't in fact care at all and I'm really not interested in talking to someone who has probably never even played these games and can't relate to what they mean to people.
And by the way, maybe people wouldn't be motivated to hack their system if they're just release the content officially. Considering most of the content I care about on the Vita is Indie content anyway I don't feel that threatened if some triple-A company loses out, in fact nothing would make me happier, considering the way they treat their customers.
And by the way, playing PSX games on a handheld with dual-analog sticks was a huge appeal of the system for me but I guess that if anyone asks me if a Vita is good for that in the future, I'm going to say "No, I recommend saving up for an OpenPandora. It might cost $300 more but it can also do a lot more than PSX games without jailbreaking."
And as for respecting copyright laws, I can play Gameboy Advance games on my PSP as well as Genesis games, NES games, SNES games (although with horrible lag), GameGear games, and N64 games. In fact, the system being a portable emulator is a selling point for most people. I suspect that Vita sales will skyrocket once people can use it for the same purposes and if it chases off all the greedy triple-A companies who care so little about their userbase that they would actually not make a game available to them just because it won't sell well when it costs them nothing, then I consider that a victory, in fact, more power to the indies."
And in truth I wish Triple-A genocide for all consoles. This industry has screwed over too many people, from fans and customers to developers with dreams for it to deserve anything less than hate and contempt. People SHOULD rage against it, people SHOULD hate it, people SHOULD support independence from it, and people SHOULD be excited for the day when there is no industry, there is no middle-man, and there is no puppet-master businessman running the show anymore.
When we finally wash our hands of big companies dominating gaming, or music, or film, we will finally reach a point where people will no longer have their ideas shot down at the gate because it doesn't sell, and anyone who advocates this mentality that what sells is what gets done is 150% in the wrong.
Anyone who believes a developer being stopped from making a sequel to a game they care about by their superiors because it "doesn't sell" is a reasonable demand is wrong. Anyone who believes being forced to make sequels to a game just because it sells is a good decision is wrong. Anyone who believes in upholding copyright laws that ultimately strangle developers or take away their rights to do as they please with what they created is not only wrong, but a sick human being, and anyone who cannot see the damage these practices do to the industry is not only wrong, but blind with ignorance.
People should be excited for an age where video games, music, art, books, movies, cartoons, and any other form of creative media are published by the same people who made them with their own two hands and people should get angry when those people are made the industry's bitch and crushed and milked and abused until there's nothing left in them. People should get angry when developers quit their jobs because the pressure from asshats who have no idea what their job is like becomes unbearable. People should get angry when big companies have such disdain for their own userbase that they won't even have someone with knowledge of internal workings answer questions for the community. People should feel suspicious and distrusting of any institution that isn't open and transparent with how they do things and people should outright disdain any organized project or effort where the voice of that effort cannot even speak with passion and free will, like a human being.
Right now is how things are, I'm speaking for how things should be. Things should be open, things should be fair, things should be fueled by imagination and the desire to share your ideas with other people, the desire for people to like your ideas, and the belief that your ideas mean something. Art of all kinds is not a damn race to the finish, it's not a competition, it's not an institution, and it's not an industry and none of those things have any place in art. Those things exist to control and exploit talent and all the gain is made by the soulless jackasses who pull the strings.
These business-focused systems benefit nobody but the greedy. They should feel threatened with the current age of information-sharing, they should be humbled by the efforts for people to break free of the institution. They cannot adapt without giving the people power they always should have had to begin with.
Any enemy of this ideal is my enemy.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Coinflip
Everyone who knows me knows violence and cruelty even in video games disturbs me, in fact it's a fanatical obsession of mine to raise hell about how popular mainstream shooters are because people like to pretend they're mutilating other people or living creatures and until recently, I've never understood why this is acceptable and mainstream. Why would you laugh at this? Why is it funny on TV but not in real life?
Well, everyone who also knows me knows that the last few months of my life have been...a relapse, of sorts. The abridged version is that I suffer from extreme anxiety, am prone to panic attacks (If you've never had one I hope to god you never do. If you've never seen one, I'd imagine it's the most pitiful thing you've ever looked at but it's a really severe problem and I recommend calling 911 if you don't know what to do.), and basically, I'm a nervous person in general. I've been a pretty relaxed person since 2009, but around February or so I started having those stomach knots that feel like you've got some kind of bug as well as all kinds of negative self-defeating thoughts, and this continued until around Memorial Weekend when...that thing happened I already talked about in 3 other blogs. Skip ahead a couple months and I'm basically in a state of mind where everything is worth revisiting, even the things that I am basically trained to hate on sight like modern Western animation and shootyman games. One interesting thing that I've recently learned from the doctor and on-call crisis worker was that excitement and terror are two sides of the same coin - just like love and hate. What this means is that essentially the same chemical reactions in our body are responsible for feelings of love as well as feelings of hate, give or take a few milligrams.
This really got me to thinking about what other human responses are essentially similar - a lot of what we view as opposite has often been described as a coinflip by other people, a good example that also happens to be completely on-topic to my intended subject is comedy versus tragedy.
I can't take credit for this little piece of information because it was introduced to me by two friends seeking to explain to me how humor works - I realize that sounds silly but to be honest with you, I'm not inclined to humor naturally. The sense of humor I do have was refined for the sake of socialization and because I associate being funny with being charismatic which is an extremely desirable trait for your average internet nerd, and that just happens to describe me fully. Anyway, my point is that there are aspects of humor I just don't "get" and one of those is the most popular kind of humor; the kind that comes at another person's expense.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been bothered by scenarios in cartoons or even some live action shows where the comedy comes from making one character miserable, even indirectly. My favorite Spongebob character is Squidward, I feel bad for him because I wouldn't want his neighbors either. Whenever Tom & Jerry was on CN regularly at some point in the 90s I always favored Tom. Whenever my cousin would watch Fairly Odd Parents (usually to get to Invader Zim ;v) I'd feel bad for the criminally insane teacher. You can ask my cousin about that by the way, if it's one of those days where he can even remember breakfast he'll gladly tell you what a hippie I've always been about wanting to hug everyone, especially the people with problems who are imperfect and very skewed. (People like that get full-featured episodes in anime. Probably why I like it so much.)
But anyway, I think you have a pretty good idea about the trouble I have with understanding "cruel humor" as I call it. One of the few western cartoons I like is Courage because aside from a couple characters, nobody is really evil and everyone just has their own problems that are usually resolved with hugs and empathy. (Also some episodes legit make me feel like crying. Space squids anyone?) But aside from MLP's recent phenomenal popularity, people don't like cartoons with hugs and empathy, they like cartoons where the cast are different breeds of jackass, and they like games where they can be a jackass themselves for the amusement value it apparently has. However, like I said, I just don't get it, and spent two hours listening to (and arguing with) these two people about it.
One of the things I took away from it was that humor is mostly cruel when you think about it, and that's because humor is how people deal with tragedy. Humor is how people overcome it, and after the fact we find humor in horrible memories because it makes those memories not so bad. It's a survival mechanism.
I'm going somewhere with this. While it is generally considered rude or insensitive to find humor in someone's current misery, it's common to make light of the bad times and even to relate to them. Thinking about it this way makes it easier for me to understand what it is about watching an interpretation of treating someone like shit that makes it funny - a lot of other people can probably relate to the character in those situations, and they might not be laughing at their misery, maybe they're laughing at past misery of their own. We as humans are also generally concerned with others in our lives, though to different degrees. If some stranger in IRC really needs to vent about their bad day, I will volunteer to listen, but I'm on a more extreme end of that spectrum. Some people would concern themselves with their immediate family and friends while others would be concerned with anyone looking down that they passed. Point being, we're all saps for a sad face - and seeing someone suffer through misery wouldn't amuse us - at least not to the same level. Maybe we'd have an "I've been there" moment, I get those sometimes, but we'd be genuinely concerned with that person even more because of it and we'd want to help them. Even though I feel this way about fictional characters or interpretations of human behavior, I think some other people might distinguish between "tv and real" by thinking of TV as a reflection of past experiences or registering it as an interpretation of a bad experience and not the same thing as a current trouble someone is having, which is completely different to them regardless of how it's portrayed.
Another thing I've considered are things that are not related. I used to believe intent and action were synonymous, but have been questioning that lately. I am not what you'd call an accepting and understanding person by nature, and I have to work very hard at being one, but on two separate occasions people have told me some of their nastier thoughts, and both people asked me not to say anything so I won't go into detail but basically, these are the kinds of things that we make villains out of - yet neither person would ever harm another. Then I reflected on the dark part of my mind. You know the cub thing? I get off to far worse, some of which is so despicable that the only time it doesn't make me hate myself is when I'm horny. Until this post, in fact, I've never been comfortable enough to post that in a public place because of how horrible a person I thought I was for imagining the kinds of things I did.
But the thing that I thought about the last time someone confided some really horrible thoughts to me was "This person would never hurt another person, they don't want to hurt others, they make a sincere effort to not be a jackass." And then something occurred to me. "There are no evil people, only evil acts." When I thought about it, the possibility occurred to me that thought and even intent do not make a person a bad person, and mutilating people on a video game is more equal to intent than action. Only acting on cruel intent - causing misery to a real person - might really be an evil act, and even in those situations, I have to ask myself if that person is really evil, or if there's something else going on. Obviously cutting up a completely innocent person is not acceptable and jail time is warranted. I don't want anyone to suffer, and I do mean anyone. But, even Hitler wasn't an evil person, he just allowed evil things to happen - he also chose to be a vegetarian because he hated animal cruelty and dragged his country's economy out of the gutter. You could say there are no good people either, but there are good acts just like evil ones.
This is important to me because it means that even someone imagining bludgeoning in someone's face for holding up the drivethru is probably not going to do it, and even if they're really thinking about it, their clear premeditated thought only becomes evil when translated into action, and if it never is, it's just that person's private thought that might be forgotten as soon as the line starts moving again. I'm sure every human has thoughts like this, few of them act on them. People talk about shooting their wives on facebook, blowing up schools in texts, and punching that indie developer in the face for saying PCs are for spreadsheets all the time, and is that inherently evil? No, it's free speech and still only in the intent category. All of this probably sounds really obvious to some people, but I've given a lot of though about the subject for a week, especially tonight, and thinking about it like this hopefully can help me become more accepting of others on the whole.
Those are just my thoughts on some things, I have a lot of thoughts I need to write down lately, but that's enough for right now else it'll get off-topic.
Well, everyone who also knows me knows that the last few months of my life have been...a relapse, of sorts. The abridged version is that I suffer from extreme anxiety, am prone to panic attacks (If you've never had one I hope to god you never do. If you've never seen one, I'd imagine it's the most pitiful thing you've ever looked at but it's a really severe problem and I recommend calling 911 if you don't know what to do.), and basically, I'm a nervous person in general. I've been a pretty relaxed person since 2009, but around February or so I started having those stomach knots that feel like you've got some kind of bug as well as all kinds of negative self-defeating thoughts, and this continued until around Memorial Weekend when...that thing happened I already talked about in 3 other blogs. Skip ahead a couple months and I'm basically in a state of mind where everything is worth revisiting, even the things that I am basically trained to hate on sight like modern Western animation and shootyman games. One interesting thing that I've recently learned from the doctor and on-call crisis worker was that excitement and terror are two sides of the same coin - just like love and hate. What this means is that essentially the same chemical reactions in our body are responsible for feelings of love as well as feelings of hate, give or take a few milligrams.
This really got me to thinking about what other human responses are essentially similar - a lot of what we view as opposite has often been described as a coinflip by other people, a good example that also happens to be completely on-topic to my intended subject is comedy versus tragedy.
I can't take credit for this little piece of information because it was introduced to me by two friends seeking to explain to me how humor works - I realize that sounds silly but to be honest with you, I'm not inclined to humor naturally. The sense of humor I do have was refined for the sake of socialization and because I associate being funny with being charismatic which is an extremely desirable trait for your average internet nerd, and that just happens to describe me fully. Anyway, my point is that there are aspects of humor I just don't "get" and one of those is the most popular kind of humor; the kind that comes at another person's expense.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been bothered by scenarios in cartoons or even some live action shows where the comedy comes from making one character miserable, even indirectly. My favorite Spongebob character is Squidward, I feel bad for him because I wouldn't want his neighbors either. Whenever Tom & Jerry was on CN regularly at some point in the 90s I always favored Tom. Whenever my cousin would watch Fairly Odd Parents (usually to get to Invader Zim ;v) I'd feel bad for the criminally insane teacher. You can ask my cousin about that by the way, if it's one of those days where he can even remember breakfast he'll gladly tell you what a hippie I've always been about wanting to hug everyone, especially the people with problems who are imperfect and very skewed. (People like that get full-featured episodes in anime. Probably why I like it so much.)
But anyway, I think you have a pretty good idea about the trouble I have with understanding "cruel humor" as I call it. One of the few western cartoons I like is Courage because aside from a couple characters, nobody is really evil and everyone just has their own problems that are usually resolved with hugs and empathy. (Also some episodes legit make me feel like crying. Space squids anyone?) But aside from MLP's recent phenomenal popularity, people don't like cartoons with hugs and empathy, they like cartoons where the cast are different breeds of jackass, and they like games where they can be a jackass themselves for the amusement value it apparently has. However, like I said, I just don't get it, and spent two hours listening to (and arguing with) these two people about it.
One of the things I took away from it was that humor is mostly cruel when you think about it, and that's because humor is how people deal with tragedy. Humor is how people overcome it, and after the fact we find humor in horrible memories because it makes those memories not so bad. It's a survival mechanism.
I'm going somewhere with this. While it is generally considered rude or insensitive to find humor in someone's current misery, it's common to make light of the bad times and even to relate to them. Thinking about it this way makes it easier for me to understand what it is about watching an interpretation of treating someone like shit that makes it funny - a lot of other people can probably relate to the character in those situations, and they might not be laughing at their misery, maybe they're laughing at past misery of their own. We as humans are also generally concerned with others in our lives, though to different degrees. If some stranger in IRC really needs to vent about their bad day, I will volunteer to listen, but I'm on a more extreme end of that spectrum. Some people would concern themselves with their immediate family and friends while others would be concerned with anyone looking down that they passed. Point being, we're all saps for a sad face - and seeing someone suffer through misery wouldn't amuse us - at least not to the same level. Maybe we'd have an "I've been there" moment, I get those sometimes, but we'd be genuinely concerned with that person even more because of it and we'd want to help them. Even though I feel this way about fictional characters or interpretations of human behavior, I think some other people might distinguish between "tv and real" by thinking of TV as a reflection of past experiences or registering it as an interpretation of a bad experience and not the same thing as a current trouble someone is having, which is completely different to them regardless of how it's portrayed.
Another thing I've considered are things that are not related. I used to believe intent and action were synonymous, but have been questioning that lately. I am not what you'd call an accepting and understanding person by nature, and I have to work very hard at being one, but on two separate occasions people have told me some of their nastier thoughts, and both people asked me not to say anything so I won't go into detail but basically, these are the kinds of things that we make villains out of - yet neither person would ever harm another. Then I reflected on the dark part of my mind. You know the cub thing? I get off to far worse, some of which is so despicable that the only time it doesn't make me hate myself is when I'm horny. Until this post, in fact, I've never been comfortable enough to post that in a public place because of how horrible a person I thought I was for imagining the kinds of things I did.
But the thing that I thought about the last time someone confided some really horrible thoughts to me was "This person would never hurt another person, they don't want to hurt others, they make a sincere effort to not be a jackass." And then something occurred to me. "There are no evil people, only evil acts." When I thought about it, the possibility occurred to me that thought and even intent do not make a person a bad person, and mutilating people on a video game is more equal to intent than action. Only acting on cruel intent - causing misery to a real person - might really be an evil act, and even in those situations, I have to ask myself if that person is really evil, or if there's something else going on. Obviously cutting up a completely innocent person is not acceptable and jail time is warranted. I don't want anyone to suffer, and I do mean anyone. But, even Hitler wasn't an evil person, he just allowed evil things to happen - he also chose to be a vegetarian because he hated animal cruelty and dragged his country's economy out of the gutter. You could say there are no good people either, but there are good acts just like evil ones.
This is important to me because it means that even someone imagining bludgeoning in someone's face for holding up the drivethru is probably not going to do it, and even if they're really thinking about it, their clear premeditated thought only becomes evil when translated into action, and if it never is, it's just that person's private thought that might be forgotten as soon as the line starts moving again. I'm sure every human has thoughts like this, few of them act on them. People talk about shooting their wives on facebook, blowing up schools in texts, and punching that indie developer in the face for saying PCs are for spreadsheets all the time, and is that inherently evil? No, it's free speech and still only in the intent category. All of this probably sounds really obvious to some people, but I've given a lot of though about the subject for a week, especially tonight, and thinking about it like this hopefully can help me become more accepting of others on the whole.
Those are just my thoughts on some things, I have a lot of thoughts I need to write down lately, but that's enough for right now else it'll get off-topic.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Universal Fallacy
Some of my recent posts have been on a dark note, I thought I should give some background as to why.
I am not in a rush to die, but I do not, and never have, wanted to live in a universe like ours. Our universe is fatally flawed in terms of fairness or morality, in that neither concept has a place, even in human society both are often ignored. I want no part of it, I hate it, and I want somewhere else to go.
So, I play video games. I read books. I create art. I write stories. I escape.
Because there is nothing here for me, I do not belong here, I was never given the choice.
And the truth is, I only began to actively seek the miniscule amounts of contentment that I could in our horrible, broken universe when I realized that I couldn't kill myself and reach an afterlife, a rebirth, or some other state of being with absolute certainty those things exist. To me, that was the only way out, and that was 6 years ago.
Now, I believe there is none.
Animals used to be my example for peace. I thought hey lived together in forests in harmony, free from human flaws like greed and malice, but nature is cruel and horrible, perhapse worse than humanity in some ways. No even the animals live in true idealism, what hope do humans have of it?
And why is our universe so horrible to me? There is no such thing as fairness. In nature, I would be killed by my own mother for being weak. There is no justice. In nature, many things kill not just out of need, but out of spite and hate. Bullying is common in nature, aggressors go unpunished. There is no objective good. What is right and wrong is fickle and gauged by the majority of humanity, and changes depending on who's in power. Often those concepts are created or built on for corrupt ends.
We are taught from birth not to take people at face value - to expect dishonesty. We are taught that our opinions should be kept to ourselves in many social situations - to lie. We see people gain success and power through underhanded means - cheating. Some of us learn there are no consequences for bullying others - violence. Most of us look away when others are being oppressed - cowardice. We are taught virtues, and slowly, subtly, insidiously discouraged from them by society - hypocrisy. We are truly a species worthy of scorn and hatred. Whatever greater agency may pass by our planet should not look on us as anything but despicable savage animals, like rabies-infested dogs caught in the light of an incoming bus we are easily frightened into paralysis, never moving to act on our behalf or the behalf of others. But the universe is like this, not just us. Therefore, no greater enlightment is expected of us. Nothing is expected of us at all. We are meaningless. Everything is.
Everything is without purpose.
There is no way to know if we are good people. I need this information, I cannot live without it.
I have built my entire life around the concept of justice and fairness. Without these concepts as objectives, I am nothing, I am worthless and have no reason to exist. I lose the will to exist. My purpose loses its meaning. I become nothing.
I do not want to be here. I want to go somewhere else.
I am not in a rush to die, but I do not, and never have, wanted to live in a universe like ours. Our universe is fatally flawed in terms of fairness or morality, in that neither concept has a place, even in human society both are often ignored. I want no part of it, I hate it, and I want somewhere else to go.
So, I play video games. I read books. I create art. I write stories. I escape.
Because there is nothing here for me, I do not belong here, I was never given the choice.
And the truth is, I only began to actively seek the miniscule amounts of contentment that I could in our horrible, broken universe when I realized that I couldn't kill myself and reach an afterlife, a rebirth, or some other state of being with absolute certainty those things exist. To me, that was the only way out, and that was 6 years ago.
Now, I believe there is none.
Animals used to be my example for peace. I thought hey lived together in forests in harmony, free from human flaws like greed and malice, but nature is cruel and horrible, perhapse worse than humanity in some ways. No even the animals live in true idealism, what hope do humans have of it?
And why is our universe so horrible to me? There is no such thing as fairness. In nature, I would be killed by my own mother for being weak. There is no justice. In nature, many things kill not just out of need, but out of spite and hate. Bullying is common in nature, aggressors go unpunished. There is no objective good. What is right and wrong is fickle and gauged by the majority of humanity, and changes depending on who's in power. Often those concepts are created or built on for corrupt ends.
We are taught from birth not to take people at face value - to expect dishonesty. We are taught that our opinions should be kept to ourselves in many social situations - to lie. We see people gain success and power through underhanded means - cheating. Some of us learn there are no consequences for bullying others - violence. Most of us look away when others are being oppressed - cowardice. We are taught virtues, and slowly, subtly, insidiously discouraged from them by society - hypocrisy. We are truly a species worthy of scorn and hatred. Whatever greater agency may pass by our planet should not look on us as anything but despicable savage animals, like rabies-infested dogs caught in the light of an incoming bus we are easily frightened into paralysis, never moving to act on our behalf or the behalf of others. But the universe is like this, not just us. Therefore, no greater enlightment is expected of us. Nothing is expected of us at all. We are meaningless. Everything is.
Everything is without purpose.
There is no way to know if we are good people. I need this information, I cannot live without it.
I have built my entire life around the concept of justice and fairness. Without these concepts as objectives, I am nothing, I am worthless and have no reason to exist. I lose the will to exist. My purpose loses its meaning. I become nothing.
I do not want to be here. I want to go somewhere else.
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