Phonetically Frenetic.

For any of you who might be wondering when the new Lifehouse album would be coming out; the answer is very soon; which is great. Anyway… our good friend Wikipedia says that Jason Wade’s father was a marriage counsellor… but his parents divorced when he was 12. There likely isn’t an organization who would hire him now, based on his credibility, but in my opinion… does that not give him the most comprehensive of vantage points? It’s interesting to think that the anachronistic probability of this apparent dichotomy is so incredibly remote that its occurrence is all the more intriguing.  There tends to be a pre-conceived notion that simply by following the formulas prescribed by people with successful marriages that achieving the same results should automatically be replicable. Success and failure are about as predictable as the whiskey jack who follows you down a nature path simply because you’ve piqued his curiosity.

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My personal data isn’t worth the time and effort of those who seek to sell it to the people who say they aren’t buying it. I don't really have any particular desire to feed the system any more than I have to though, so I’ve rather deliberately chosen to pursue a lifestyle of technological distancing; well at least theoretically .Unfortunately the economy of scale is all powerful and isn’t really interested in listening to querulous borogroves. - Certainly not when you could be drumming up market share by bringing the internet drone to whichever continent finds itself deserving of the most lucrative government contract. 

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

                                                                                             – Aristotle; Great Grandfather of the Goognormous Empire.

I am planning to cancel my internet subscription for the summer and I’m quite looking forward to it.  I don’t have any intentions of boycotting indefinitely, as it would come at the expense of losing connections that I wouldn’t otherwise have. It's interesting to think how thoughts and lives that are shared in the online is something that no previous generation has ever experienced. I’ve been part of an art community called Deviant Art for quite some time and I recently happened upon the following:

5:30 am, get up and get ready for them to pump poison into my veins. I don’t mind my hair falling out, it’s this damned pain that always returns, no matter what new medicine they give me. Four hours of sitting, doing nothing, then feeling weak and disoriented afterwards. Fun times, huh? I only need thirty-seven naps a day. Try to make myself eat and drink water. 124 lbs I weigh… my girlfriend looks at me with sad eyes. She thinks I’ll die soon. Maybe I will, I don’t know. But for now, it’s off to chemo.

Several people posted tributes in his memory. You can read one of them here if you wish; it’s short.  For Ron    Much of his work can be found here: http://bark.deviantart.com/

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I don’t have any sort of fancy conclusion… but I will include one last quote.  Just because…  :P

A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
                                                                                                 –  Milan Kundera

Prescient Concomitance

Painters will tell you that first you start with the broad brush strokes… and then you fill in the details afterwards…. writing is sort of the opposite. You write about the things that you are thinking about, and then pray and hope that somehow it comes out right.

You can talk all you want about the armchair cynic, and about how ridiculous human nature is; It wants what it wants... until it has it, then it doesn't. Unless of course when you consider that the number of topics is illimitable, it makes the declaration of a stated direction more of an ambiguous prevarication than anything else.

Longing and desire goes further than instant satisfaction; that's human nature. - Anna Sui

Believe it or not, mastering of the art of public manipulation isn’t a particularly flattering self descriptor, but it will guarantee you a job pretty much anywhere. . However, for us melancholics sitting in the back row, it’s not difficult to see that the puppeteers hardly have to move a finger and yet they almost always get the desired result. There is a most peculiar correlation between genius and the coinciding belief in conspiracy theories. Even in the face of categorical and logistical evidence that points out inherent flaws, a fundamental belief isn’t easily overruled.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.- A. Tennyson

It’s easy to see how the argument for establishing a state of equilibrium via introduction of law + order quickly culminates with gradational equivocations. There is nothing particularly insightful to be gained by observing the world in the most perspicaciously unobtrusive way possible, but it’s even more curious still is the abundance of novels that feature reclusive gravediggers and courtesans.

You can only be so warm, so dry, and so full… after that it’s irrelevant. – D. Wells

I’ve never been very good at writing poetry, but often times it captures those rather curious incidents in life and expresses them… in the only way that they possibly could be.
That’s the beauty of writing, it’s black and white on the surface, but it’s so much more than that.

A Spigoted Entendre

It took me a long time to get the first words of this blog on paper, but as I sat there with my mind aimlessly wandering I noticed that several keys still have their factory texture. It’s rather strange to think that giving voice to the susurrous murmurings is as simple as assigning individual characters to their respective places. However, it really doesn’t matter what particular topic I settle on because:

"The audience waits in a kind of hebetudinous fixation, perhaps astonished at the perfectly sustained level of mediocrity." - Kevin Kelly

My girlfriend suggested that I talk about how I rescued her rabbit from certain death, but it just chewed through my cell phone cord, so now it’s just an extremely lucky rodent who has been spared twice.

In this sequestered vale of star and spire… shadowed among the embers, furled in flame, the splendour and the sadness of the world.  – Fitzgerald 

I came across a news blurb about this guy, who just might be on to something: 

Danish director Lars von Trier fears he won't be able to make more films because he has quit drinking alcohol and no longer uses drugs.

* I promise you that I am not currently under the influence of any foreign substance, nor are my rather sporadic, if not entirely accidental, strokes of genius derivatives of such an obvious and well proven channel of LSD induced creativity. 

It’s quite possible that financial accounts managers make more money selling their advice than they do on the stocks they trade. The long and the short of it is that if you can turn a hobby into something that generates cash… you’re smarter than the guy who isn’t. There is much to be said about how a happy employee is more profitable one. Depending on who is making the argument it all comes down to this; the references provided on a resume will either confirm or refute one’s ability to repeatedly execute a variety of mundane tasks.
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It’s not difficult to form opinions, and weigh in on a multitude of pertinent social issues. I was listening to the radio today, and no matter which station I chose it was either playing Christmas tunes, or some talk show host was talking about volunteering or post-festivity weight loss. I'd much rather be escorted through time and space in a saga such as Interstellar, than in a seasonably dependent drama in which Ebenezer Scrooge is escorted by incorporeal beings.  - Needless to say… I have need to busy my mind with quietude. 

Sublunary Denizens

Life has a most uncanny way of following a predetermined trajectory. We tend to concern ourselves with the wish to make a difference in the world, but the greatest of human accomplishments are brought to reality on the backs of those who will not benefit from them at all.

Big Brother does more than hide behind closed circuit security cameras; he spends most of his time pushing a political agenda. The U.S. announced that they will crush Islamic State of Iraq by whatever means necessary. ISIS responded by saying that they are going to fight back. The media then tells us that the “backlash” is propaganda.  You would think that when you send troops + news agencies to wander aimlessly throughout unappreciative foreign countries you should expect that they might take issue with it, would you not?

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. -Leo Tolstoy

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Most people say that the nice thing about living in a small town is that everyone knows everybody. The weekly activity is religiously documented, and having ones picture featured in the newspaper isn’t even a novelty. - I see that they’re looking for a new reporter, if anyone is interested they should definitely apply.

Are monsters born, created, or are they simply fed? Is it any wonder that they are very likely to re-offend? Thankfully there is at least one group who has made it their mission to rehabilitate these types of people, and by all accounts they have had very positive results: Circles of Support and Accountability

Everyone wants to believe that they’re doing something worthwhile and that they have some sort of unique purpose. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but I am persuaded that both of those things take a great deal more effort than most people are willing to exert. 

   

“I am what happens between the maternity ward and the Crematorium”
― Alan  Watts

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse

Recondite Loquacity

I’ve been trying to determine what the topic of the day should be, but I find that navigating by land description… NE-14-23-35-W5… is easier than searching for new topics brindled with inspirational mirth. So, I will lean on some of the good folks who have posted on Deviant Art to weigh in with some of their thoughts:

For what is right in contexts so complex we cannot test? - Colornote

We could debate the issue of moral absolutes for eternity… and yet we will always manipulate the argument so that they provide some sort of justification for our own actions.

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Told he has cancer, he’s been given 3 months to live. He’s already dead, or so he says.

Pointless words.
Pointless actions.
All leading to what?
If this isn't life and we can't hope for death...
What else is there?
- JDWate

I’m not sure why it is that we admire it when people who know they are facing imminent death have a positive attitude about it. Why is it so uncomfortable to witness someone concede defeat so easily?
…

There is no escaping the thoughts and endless repetitiveness that constitutes the human component that is said to separate us from other life forms. It’s most interesting to note that we have such an incredibly difficult time with being labelled different than the group that is considered the majority.

The list of problematic symptoms that Borderline Personality Disorder brings is endless, and I’m still reeling from the shock that I even have it. No one really knows what causes it exactly; a cocktail of neurological, environmental and genetic factors seems to be the most common cause. It’s something I didn’t even bring upon myself, but is in part thanks to just the way my brain was wired from the start. It makes me feel kind of helpless, almost. To know that this was something unavoidable, something that was always going to afflict to me no matter what.   -itselliegasp

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When faded falls to monochrome just stay calm and carry on.

Massey Ferguson

I find that as a writer it is always difficult to talk about current world events, because they are so quickly forgotten. The interesting thing about stories is just how dramatically they change when they are presented from another point of view.

...

Cops are killing black guys for no reason at all; or so they say

While yet another aboriginal girl is found in a plastic bag

Racism is alive and well; so they say

An American journalist is headless

 It's an all out declaration of war

...

History is simply the documented record of the most popular narrative. It kind of makes you wonder how differently things would look if it was possible to integrate cultures seamlessly.  

A lady in Winnipeg inadvertently destroyed her husband’s chance of winning the current mayoral race, because of a comment made several years ago.  She said that she dislikes walking downtown because of all the drunken Indians. The media is in a uproar and the general public is upset that she would make such an insensitive comment.  The truth is that it’s a problem because we have allowed it to be one.

I would hate to be the guy that gets hired for a job on the basis of a mandated ethnic diversity policy; rather than by a  perceived ability to perform the task. However, that's how they pick candidates for university, so I guess there isn't really any difference.

You may point out the brokenness of the justice system and all the ways in which it fails, but you can’t say that it doesn’t have a purpose. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if I were to tell you that selfishness is the most influential motivation of human behaviour.

If it wasn't for religion and politics... we might all have the wherewithal to co-exist in a more harmonious manner. Maturity is simply the ability to comprehend the needs of others as well as your own.

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human." - Kurt Vonnegut

Malfeasance of Solecisms

I find that it’s much more difficult to write during the dog days of summer than in the drudgerious* throes of winter. It’s not that I don’t have all sorts of pleasant things to talk about, but anachronisms aren’t an appreciated novelty so I’ll simply carry on. Airplanes are dropping out of the sky nearly every day, and they keep telling me that death by Ebola is quite likely.

It seems that I’m up to my knees in bees; when you work at an apiary sleep is nothing but a distant memory. Much like the thousands of moths left clinging to the side of a steel clad building in the early morning; completely oblivious to the absence of the night that was.

Controversial as they may be, Vonnegut + Ondaatje paint the world in such a way that fiction and reality coalesce so as to be entirely indiscernible. The following quotes are evidence enough:

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.
And God said, "Let us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.”
―Kurt Vonnegut


“Death means you are in the third person.”

" Everyone has to scratch on the walls somewhere or they go crazy."

―Michael Ondaatje


Both of these authors make a living by vividly descriptive aberrations of human existence, laced with tantalizing satire. They do very little to inspire change, but neither did Obama really. However, neither one of them comes close to being as profound as this:

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

― Pope Francis

* Drudgerious -  A word that I happily invented.