Had to write this

Feeling something right now that I believe is an interesting consequence of an online lifestyle. For so long now, Twitter has been my ... shall we say outlet. I post my immediate thoughts and reactions to things I encounter, and usually if it's about something/one I know then I make it incredibly vague and cryptic (and usually attemptedly witty in some description) so the person involved will never read it. Other times I do the same thing on Facebook, but usually that means I'd be okay with that person reading it.

And I can do this with impunity on Twitter because hardly anyone in the Canberra region (by which I mean within my circle of friends) is on Twitter, or at least following me and could potentially decrypt my tweet. If not by its content then at least by the timing with which it occurred. Imagine talking to someone and then finding a tweet from them saying something like "I am so bored right now, lol" or whatever.

But what does one do when the person you're chattin' to is a friend on Facebook and follows you on Twitter? And potentially may read this blog? What do you do then?

The normal peeps amongst you might shout out "say nothing! Be silent! Unvoice your thoughts and you'll be safe" you advise. This too was my initial decision, that I'd just let that particular thought go by the wayside.

But I couldn't let it go. I walked away for a bit to do the dishes, all the while that little tweet trying to compose itself in my mind. When I came back I started actually typing it into Twitter before I realised why I didn't tweet it before washing the dishes. So I opened up a forum and started reading new posts, only to feel that need to publicly broadcast my thought grinding away at me.

Fairly interesting experience. Like I suggested before, I can't imagine it a consequence that I would have this feeling if I didn't tweet about all the minutiae of my life onto the internet. As such, when I am confronted with a cognition that must remain locked within my mind, I'm forced into this bizarre feeling.

And with that I've come up with a loophole. I am writing on this blog about the feeling that particular untweeted-tweet induced in me and thereby will alleviate myself of its influence. I am free!

Further more!

... as a  continuation of yesterday's post, a small point I totally neglected to mention ...

If you yourself have a personal distaste for the game, have the balls to admit it yourself. Trying to dress it up as some kind of objective property and failing to do so with any capability just makes you look like a fuckwit.

"Grow up"? Seriously? Fuck off.

Let me set the context for you. At ANU for the next few weeks we have a Humans V Zombies tag-esque game happening across campus, basically involving a whole bunch of people carrying nerf guns and dressing in game-related accoutrement, such as headbands/armbands/capes/team-affliliators and such. For the record, no I am not apart of this game, yes I do know some of the people partaking, yes I do yearn to join.

(And I would've join, had numbers been better. I'd maintained before that numbers of 300-400 people aren't enough for me, and should they ever reach 1000, that's when I'd join up. I do think the idea is neat and potentially very fun, but I would rather do other things at this moment)

So, with this understanding in mind, imagine me coming home from a long day at uni, to see a status update on Facebook that was telling these folks to grow up. Seriously? Fuck off. I should make it clear now that I am not interested in defending them, I'm attacking the sheer stupidity of what was in the status update.

Do you know what's intrinsic to the idea of "oh you're playing with toys and therefore you're childish and need to grow up"? The notion of "Look at me! I'm not playing with toys and therefore am the epitome of mature and have no need to grow up".

And the great irony here is that this isn't all that surprising coming from this individual. Being one of the most superficial people I know, is it any wonder that their lives are arbitrated by even more superficial ideals?

Identity is a state of mind, not the byproduct of the archetypal behaviour. You're not a lad for going out partying, drinking and sexing. You party, drink and sex because you're a lad. You're not an adult for having a job and being condescending. You have a job and are condescending because you're an adult. You're not a child for playing with toys. You play with toys because you're a child.

You carry an umbrella because it's raining. It's not raining because you carry an umbrella. Get the fucking chain of causality right.

It's exactly this kind of attitude that I despise in the nature of adults. That what makes them adults is their behaviour, rather than the other way around. Because when you start thinking like that, you start getting all these ideas of what adults should and shouldn't do, what adults can and can't do, and the entire spectrum of human experience is impoverished.

I have no trouble reconciling the idea of people running around with nerf guns playing tag, wearing capes and carrying flags and being considered mature, responsible adults. Why the fuck do you? [person to whom this is addressed to, though you, in your arrogance, will never read this]

Some kickass quotes for March

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. "I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to its day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

-- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

-- Isaac Asimov

In an universe full of inanimate material, sentient beings are gods.

-- spire3661, in a Slashdot post

"It is said that those who appreciate legislation and sausages should not see them being made. The same is true for human emotions."

-- Steven Pinker

"There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you."

-- J.K. Rowling, Harvard commencement address.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotions are the lubricants of reason.

-- Nicholas Nassim Taleb

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

-- Nietzsche

"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."

-- Isaac Asimov

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

-- Leonardo da Vinci

"Successful zealots don't argue to win. They argue to move the goalposts and to make it appear sane to do so."

-- Seth Godin

Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression.

-- Amos Bronson Alcott

“Still seems it strange, that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more.”

-- Edward Young

You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.

-– xkcd

The reason you feel most comfortable with a job (unless, like me, you're in the minority - a job would destroy my psyche) is that you've been brainwashed by many years of school, socialization and practice. I pick the word brainwashed carefully, because it's more than training or acclimation. It's something that's been taught to you by people who needed you to believe it was the way things are supposed to be.

-- Seth Godin

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

On favourite Lost seasons

I was musing last night about the nature of Lost and what would be the best seasons of Lost. And it occurred to me that the season 3 finale, that is, where it was revealed what was presented as a Jack flashback was actually a flashforward, could be seen as a question that would come to define the entire season 4. From a literary point of view I would definitely say season 4 was the best season (ignoring the fact that The Shape of Things to Come, my favourite episode happened during it).

And I say best because what happened was we were presented with an over-arcing mysterying, that is, how did they get off the Island. Both the flashforwards and the present storyline both advanced towards answering that question, though not revealing anything until the very final episode and doing it in a way that is emotionally satisfying.

Using that criteria, I guess one could definitely say that season 6 also will work like that. In the season 5 finale we were presented with the scene of Jacob and MIB at the statue, setting up one basic question: Who the hell are they and what the hell are they talking about? Indeed, it seems like this question, as MIB calls is, is the most important question of the show. As for the flashsideways, without know what they are or how they reconcile, it's far more difficult on concluding whether or not it will provide a satisfying conclusion.

In the same way season 1 could satisfy this criteria, with the question of: Who are these people? As we got all our flashbacks many of the character driven mysteries were revealed.

As for the seasons left out ... I would say season 3 doesn't fit probably because the announcement of the end game totally changed the entire focus of that season (Which I think would've been based all around the Others and explaining their story (the non-temple Others, that is)). Season 2 did not feel that way because there was a cliff-hanger which was resolved pretty quickly. Season 5 is more difficult. I've always felt it felt like two mini-seasons, the time-flashes and then DHARMA. If anything, one could argue the entire season was based around the notion of the Island moving and the chrono-consequences, an idea that was expressed right until the very end with the dropping of the bomb, though the Ajira 2007-timeline did not cover this.

Just some meta-musings outside of my usual episodic thoughts. I do have some thoughts about Lighthouse, which I will probably get around to in time. Tomorrow maybe.

Growltiger

Just discovered that someone has finally uploaded footage of "Growltiger's Last Stand" from a proper production onto Youtube. Ever since I saw the stage show in 2001 in Sydney I've wanted to rewatch it, since I could not see it from my seat. It's by far my favourite sequence from Cats. Just watch it as an enclosed story within a story. So good <3

It's almost enough of a germ of an idea for a pirate story. Loosely modeled on the ballad, but extended in length, with this perhaps being the climax. Or maybe the beginning. And then go back and explain how the story lead to there. That'd be really neat! :D