all i can do is keep breathing

i don’t know why, but i feel really fucking hateful right now.  anything that anyone says, i just want to rip it apart.  i want to fight with all my friends.  i want to make them hate me.  i want to get drunk until i can’t feel and then sleep for three days.  i want to be in a room filled with smoke.  “what do you carry the torch for my young man?  do you believe in anything?”  no.  “do you carry it around just to burn things to the ground?”  yes.  i just want to burn it all fucking down and walk away.

oh christ.

dry: rethinking galactism

hmm de dumm.

so for anyone keeping tabs, i’ve finished 101a (sort of) and have started 101b, and have finished rough outlines of each episode for season one (think of what you would see in the jacket of a LOST dvd: “jack fights with the smoke monster while john does drugs in a tent. meanwhile, charlie goes crazy and luke skywalker flies his x-wing to ben’s secret lair which he shares with old gregg.” that sort of thing).

but, again, this is why i’m pretty hesitant to start publishing anything, or even get too far ahead of myself: in 101a, there’s a portion explicating the concept of galactism, which is championed by one of the characters in the show. basically, galactism is — or was — at its core, the idea that all religions from all people groups from all planets are actually in harmony despite beliefs that among members of each particular group that the other religions are in fact wrong. but as the season, and thus, whole series, started evolving, i’m beginning to realize that i need this character (“bell” is his name) and his “religion” to play a much different role. i realized that while my idea of galactism would probably evoke ire from millions of people across the galaxy, it probably wouldn’t itself militarize. and i need it to. the story needs it to.

the idea i had today was to make it a staunchly anti-modernist cult, and i think i’d like to keep it as morally ambiguous as possible. though i haven’t done any research on the topic, if i had to guess, i’d say that generally in writing and filmmaking, anti-modernism/anti-industrialism, or, put differently, pro-naturalism or environmentalism, are given a more favorable view. two examples come to mind quickly: tolkien’s lord of the rings and cameron’s avatar. the former, of course, does a much better job of the latter in communicating its point, and, in my opinion, has a better point to make.

a strength of tolkien’s presentation is that he does not cram it down the reader’s throat with a sledgehammer and a railroad spike. (actually, let’s be honest: i’m just talking about the movies. i know tolkien didn’t make them, but according to most, the books are a pretty fair representation, so i’m going to refer to the films as tolkien’s work because they are visualizations of his stories and ideas.) one of the big ways that element of his story is communicated is in the dichotomy of the ents and of saruman. treebeard speaks of “no one care[ing] for the forest anymore,” while saruman is seen ripping trees from the earth and casting them into the “fires of industry.” the author has a clear bias here, but it is not dominant in his work. unlike cameron, tolkien was more concerned with telling a good story than making known his person views on “issues.”

avatar, unlike rings, could be considered a propaganda piece. advanced special effects notwithstanding, the film is less concerned with telling an original and compelling story (including interesting and deep characters) and much more concerned with make damn sure the audience knows that the white imperialist is bad and the technologically-poor but spiritually-rich unindustrialized people are good.

in any case, the point of this isn’t necessarily to discuss the pros and cons of either lord of the rings or avatar. for a more complete discussion on avatar, please see the image below. the point is that in both of these cases, and a few others that come to mind, the idea of anti-modernism is romanticized. a corollary of this is the idea that modernity and technology separate humans from one another and that less advanced, “tribal” societies (e.g. the blue people in avatar) lead much more fulfilling lives. (we should note the particular irony of such a message being preached by the maker of the most expensive film of all time.) 1984 and other books/movies like it come to mind (THX 1138, Brave New World, Equilibrium, The Matrix series, just to name a few off the top of my head).

now, i’m not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with this idea. but i do think it’s a little weak for, say, james cameron to make a film with this kind of message in america with lots and lots of technology and for the gain of millions of dollars that probably won’t be spent to build him tepees and buy him loincloths and spears. and i guess i see that message as extremely simplistic and impractical. here’s a few reasons why.

one, i think that “tribal” life is over-idealized. sure, there’s something to be said for connecting with nature and community. but if we think that unindustrialized cultures are only large groups of people sitting around happily in drum circles, i think we misunderstand history. it is true that technological advances have made possible more horrific forms of violence today than ever before, there are myriad examples of large-scale violence in many if not all pre-modern societies. maybe advancement brought us the atom bomb, but the human nature that dropped it has been present since the dawn of man.

two, i think the simple fact of human population growth makes extremely simple living impossible. the earth isn’t that big, and there are a lot of us. we can live stacked on top of each other now because of technology. if you look at places with high population density and high incomes, they’re generally okay. if you look at other places with similar (or even much lower, absolutely, but still high relatively to other areas) populaiton density and much lower incomes (i.e., much less technology) it’s hard to argue that the quality of life high, or that it is based on avatar-esque “connection to nature.” when there are eight billion of us on the planet, it will not be possible for us all to live in low-density villages; we’re going to live in huge cities, and if there wasn’t technology to develop them, they would be disastrous.

[ as a sidenote, i don't mean to imply that high-technology, high-density cities do not have other consequences, particularly of the environmental type, but that they are generally preferable in a set of imperfect solutions. ]

so, all that being said, i think it might be interesting to take what seems to be an alternative view: perhaps anti-modernism can be destructive and counterproductive, at least when taken to an extreme. since dry is set in the future, the idea of anti-modernism would have perhaps an even more dramatic impact. at this point, humans are spread out throughout the galaxy, interstellar travel is routine, etc., so the idea of going back to older times is an even bolder statement than it would be now or has been in the past.

i think it would also be interesting because in such a universe, technology would be required to spread such views to numerous planets. such a contradiction might be fascinating: it reminds me of the idea of fighting a war to get peace. it seems paradoxical to engage in violence to achieve the end of peace, and that idea itself is something that will be explored in the series.

the backstory of the religion would be interesting, too. if it’s going to be religion rather than just a philosophy, there has to be a spiritual element. hmmm…i think i know what it is, but i can’t tell you, because it would ruin the surprise.

so, i think i’ve made up my mind. the details are still to be worked out exactly, and i have to come up with a name for it…but galactism is scrapped in favor of a violent and self-contradictory form of anti-modernist religion. now i have to rewrite it into the series.

thanks for being a part of my thoughts.

love.

computer frustration

so, i know no one really cares about this, but i’m alone at home and i just want to bitch about this.

so we have two computers: my desktop (a rather old dell) and val’s laptop (a somewhat old dell). as of yesterday, my computer gives me the blue screen of death when attempting to open windows. i think i have a virus. so, i did some reading up on val’s computer, and you can install windows to a jumpdrive using this free applet, launch the computer form the jumpdrive, do what needs to be done to get your real OS working agian, and go from there. great!

except not. both computers were purchased with windows, so i/we have paid the rightful price for it, and should be able to install it again on our own computers legally. except that we don’t have the disks. okay, so i’ll download it; i’m pretty savvy, i’m sure i can find it (i have before).

except here’s the stupid thing about val’s computer: no programs, except firefox, will connect to the internet. no idea why this is. i’ve done google searches, gone to tech forums, asked people, everything. itunes, internet explorer, even programs like flash-updates won’t connect. so, that means that torrent programs (the type you’d download windows with) can’t connect either.

refusing to give up, i wonder if there might be an in-browser solution, since firefox can actually connect. there is one. great! actually, there’s a few! even greater! i try one. doesn’t work. so i try another one that looks more hopeful. ohp, you need at least firefox version 3.0. no prob. download it. run it. OH WAIT FIREFOX THREE DOESN’T CONNECT TO THE INTERNET EITHER ONLY FIREFOX 2.0 WHICH CAN’T RUN THE PROGRAM I NEED TO GET THE SOFTWARE TO FIX MY COMPUTER.

so now i’m back in firefox 2.0 trying to figure something out. this is ridiculously frustrating. i don’t work with computers that much, but now i know why people who do are usually half crazy.

zee. oh. emm. gee.

i am so close…and yet so far. there are so many times where it seems like everything is going to be okay, only to have one more stupid, inexplicable roadblock thrown in my way. christ. i’m going to have a smoke.

a few words on dreaming

so i recently got a “promotion” which offers me a few more dollars an hour and brings me a few steps deeper into the malfunctioning inner bowels of national retail chain. whereas before, i simply put in my hours, clocking in and clocking out, working hard enough to do well and to have a clear conscience, but still maintaining a distance, i now have one-on-one meetings with the illustrious store manager, (whose services are apparently worth over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year), have a key to the building, carry my work home with me, etc. this got me thinking.

the one calm eye in the tumult of my thoughts’ cyclone was this: what the fuck am i doing? it is supposed that it is good to be ambitious; no one looks up to the guy still working at burger whop for the fortieth year, especially if he were smart enough to do something “greater” with his life. and yet it is also supposed that what makes you the happiest is the most important. this isn’t really my point, but i do ask: what if forty hours at fry-town is bearable and the other one-hundred and twenty-eight hours are grand? and if those repetitious hours pay the bills and enable one to live the rest of his or her life they way he or she chooses, then “what they hey?” as the saying goes.

but still, it is better to be ambitious. so i have a “promotion.” there are more experienced people at my job who were turned down for the position because they don’t have the “leadership” and whatever else qualities that i have (or, put differently, they don’t kiss as much ass as i do, depending on one’s perspective). yay? *weak firecracker goes off in the background* but i realize that i’m becoming part of the kohl’s machine…and while i can stand working there, doing mundane work for a paycheck, i have a really hard time stomaching the fact that i am becoming part of the gears of retail.

the same thing can probably be said by anyone who has any serious job in almost any industry in the united states or elsewhere, but the truth is that retail eats your soul and spits it out in the form of cheery after labor day sales. just by way of example, when you buy a shirt at kohl’s that’s on 80% clearance, and tell your friends about the sweet deal you got, you don’t realize that, even leaving out the whole design-raw materials-production-distribution aspect, once the shirt gets to the store and has been there long enough to go on clearance, there are district- and regional-managers, all making six figures, breathing down the necks of store managers to get “clearance marks” up to a certain percentage, percentages which have been determined by a cold and heartless corporate center in parts unknown, which then translates into them calling in people for overnight shifts, overworking their subordinate managers, bitching people out left and right, holding meetings about our district score, posting graphs in the breakroom with our “clearance statistics” on it…blah blah blah. it’s so fucking stupid. it’s a shirt.

anyway. long rant. boring to you. the point is, no one cares about this shit, and yet i see people around me every day who live, breathe, and die by things like “markup figures.” and i see myself getting sucked into this self-mutilating juggernaut enterprise. and while i commend the kohl’s corporation for being an efficient member of a capitalist society, and acknowledge that some people really are in to that, i have to recognize that it is absolutely not for me.

so, after this very long introduction, i will give a few words on dreaming.

tonight i was asked to “run the truck,” which, long story short, means more responsibility (i.e. a step further into the machine) without any more pay but, despite the extra pressure, my particular job while the truck was being unloaded was as mindless as ever, and it gave me time to think. i began thinking all the thoughts that have appeared earlier in this blog and necessarily began to feel depressed.

but then i thought of the words of an old friend: “you’re most alive when you’re dreaming.” well, that’s not verbatim, but that’s what i took from her words, anyway. the point being, i decided to start dreaming. and here’s a bit of what i thought.

i’m smart and creative. not the smartest, nor the most creative, but i suppose i am reasonably apt in both departments. i also have lots of friends who are similarly apt, albeit with quite different expressions of knowledge and creativity. for example, jon knows a lot about finances; i know nothing about them. karl writes amazing songs; i can barely hold a tune. jorie can design webpages; i can use google only adequately. and i just thought and thought about what it would be like if all the people i love ganged up to do something great.

my thoughts bounced around a lot, and where they settled was a most ridiculous place. it’s ridiculous for a lot of reasons. one, i’m probably the only one of us who would actually like this idea. two, it requires start-up capital, of which i or we have none. three, it requires us to all be in the same place, which we aren’t. four, it requires, you know, planning and leadership, two things i’m horrible at. yet, when i let myself actually dream about it, i was happy, for a time, imagining me and my loved ones doing this thing and making a place for ourselves in my most beloved city: grand rapids, mi.

i’ll share this dream with you, despite its inherent absurdity.

when my wife and i were visiting dear friends in the nations capital, they took us to one of their favorite places: busboys and poets. it’s sort of a restaurant/bookshop/bar/lecture hall that took me quite by surprise. it had this odd juxtaposition of families, progressives, intellectuals, and scene kids, perhaps interlaces by a few who were just there to drink. there’s no place like it in grand rapids, and it satisfied some of the qualms that i’ve had with all bars that i’ve gone to here. for one, i haven’t gone to one where there seems to be an intellectual core. yes, of course, any bar is a bar and people go there to drink, but maybe some people also want to think while they indulge.

i dunno. my thoughts are scattered. instead of trying to draw direct comparisons to busboys, i’ll just explain what i’m thinking and give a nod to that place as inspiration.

i saw myself running an establishment that was a bar, yes, but was also so much more. it was intentionally quiet, so that people could talk, always. it was moody, atmospheric, yet not numbing; in fact, the ambiance made the customer more aware, and encouraged them to engage with their surrounding the way that i believe alcohol, at its best, can. more importantly, it was also a hub for the community. it held lectures, perhaps once a week on designated evenings, by (mostly) local speakers, who addressed anything from politics to art to comedy without any particular bias other than that of forcing the audience to think. following the lecture, rebellious young college kids and thoughtful middle aged women sat at tables over pitchers of PBR and bottles of red wine and discussed what they’d heard, all while a local mechanic and his boyfriend drank vodka and red bull’s next to a muted television set. that happened on thursday, and friday was the big exception for the week. some of the tables got cleared out, and either a band came in or a DJ, and it was our “loud night.” people danced in dim lights to throbbing but beautiful music, the kind of music that makes you want to make love to the earth. they all had fun, and laughed, and did drunken high-kick to the house beats, but more than that, loved. saturday, maybe, was acoustic night, and some local artists played smoky songs while, again, people relaxed and discussed politics and facebook and the national football league, unobstructed. sunday was a special day, too: that was the day we introduced our weekly mystery. the mystery would start by the reading of a hundred-word set up, which would be followed throughout the week by clues on our website, our facebook page, maybe a local radio station, and on the bottoms of a few random coasters served under frothing beers throughout the week. those clever enough to pay attention to the clues would be able to submit a solution to the puzzle, which would be revealed the following sunday (the winner of course would get a gift certificate or something sweet). most nights would be “normal bar nights,” with maybe a seven-to-eight-pm segment on tuesdays reserved for slam poety and a few half-hour stand-up routines on wednesdays. but the place had a buzz about it, because people thought there, and they wanted to do something in the community, not just serve drinks. they wanted to inspire thought and love and life, and that’s why they were special. they were fair and friendly and fun. they sponsored events that brought awareness and funds to causes that needed both. they developed community.

and they…were us. that was my dream. i’m not saying it’s my life long goal to “run a bar,” but to be a part of something like that…to create something like that…just seemed…amazing to me. and to do it with people whom i loved and who loved me and who shared my dream and who shared their dreams with me…that thought was what sustained me through work tonight. the dream that something like that might someday happen.

*sigh*

…but i’m not the only one. (i hope.)

love.

- matty

finished: “dry,” 101a.

so draft one of episode one (part one) of season one of my show is done. *sigh* it’s a small accomplishment of about fifteen thousand words, the intended length of all 15 episodes of all four seasons. i’m not posting it yet for a few reasons.

1. it’s not really done. very early draft. and because of reason two, significant parts of it might change.

2. i don’t have the whole story done. i don’t expect to have every detail of the entire story figured out before i start posting episodes, but i need to have a better idea of where everything is going to there are no (or at least very few) inconsistencies between the beginning and end.

3. i want to be able to post episodes weekly, or at least almost as often. i don’t want to go three then two then eight weeks between posts…i’m serious about this story and about its format, and i want to be able to do it legitimately if i’m going to do it at all.

in any case, i just wanted to announce it’s completion, because i’m happy about it.

as many wannabe writers do, i always have lots of stories bouncing around in my head. i’ve decided recently, inspired by the brilliant isaac asimov, that i want all or most of them to exist in the same universe, even though many of them take place at drastically different periods of history (or future-history). thus, i’ve decided to compose a “history of the universe” in which i will outline all the major events from the creation of our universe to the death of the last living human being. each various story then, be it a book, a screenplay, a short story, or this serial, will occupy a portion of this fictional history. this is proving to be a massive task — more so in demanded creativity than in actual volume, since it is only an outline — and is diverting my energies from dry to itself, thus stunting the progress of the serial for which i hoped to begin posting episodes in january. that won’t be happening, but i think that in the long run this project will prove worth it.

for a bit of trivia, here are some of the ideas i already have that will fit into this universe, to which more will be added as time passes: dry, an episodic online serial; for such a time as this, a screenplay; the astronomer, a novel; a yet-unnamed story of yet-undecided format that will chronicle the end of civilization (though not life) on the earth; druvalsen, a medieval fantasy epic (ala lotr), most likely in screenplay format; etc. i also have in suspension a 1970’s cop drama screenplay that i would love to work in somehow, though the connection seems dubious at best at this time. (i’m sure i’ll find away, though.)

this is all theoretical, of course. i’ve written very, very little of any of this so far.

anyway, that’s the story update. on a personal note, today was supposed to be my only day off the week before christmas and i was told fifteen minutes before leaving work this morning that i had to come in tonight. i was really pissed, and i think made a bad impression on the store manager at kohl’s (who refers to herself as “mama” and who is offering me a promotion). i’m calming down, though. i have a lot of stuff to get done today, and i think i can still do it. it just means i won’t get to hang out with my wife, of whom i have seen very little in the last week and of whom i will see very little of until christmas.

on an even more personal note, i’ve been oscillating a bit more lately between feeling fairly depressed, though never greatly so, and feeling really contented and confident about life. not sure what’s up with that. maybe it’s the weather. maybe it’s lack of interaction with loved ones. i’m not sure. it’s a vicious cycle, which i have written about previously, where i get down on myself for not doing anything with my life, only to comfort myself by playing video games and watching movies, and thus moving myself nowhere in life.

as a parting word, number one fan, god rest its soul, will always be one of my most beloved bands.

“the symphony in your head; the kind of things i wish, that were never said.”

well, hey.

i wanted to make a quick post. i saw an online comic the other day in which the protagonist was writing his blog…all posts were about his desire to write more. he never actually wrote anything. i identify with this a bit currently…particularly because my internet access has become greatly restricted due to, well, not having internet at home. i get online about once a week.

anyway, for what it’s worth, a quick update: i’ve been working a lot, which is good for the cashflow (student loan repayments begin very shortly, which sucks, massively) but not good for the, well, everything else. i don’t hate my jobs. washing dishes at famous dave’s isn’t my great career choice, but it’s over as soon as i punch out, and other than the feeling of drowning in unwashed bar-be-que pans and dirty buffalo soap water, isn’t all that bad while i’m there. kohl’s is a bit of a problem because of their constant, “let me only schedule you for an un-livable 24 hours a week, forcing you to get a second job, but then let me add you at less-than-twenty-four-hours notice and guilt/pressure you into working whenever i want.” again, i don’t hate it when i’m working there…the work is benign, and since i’m not a manager, i don’t really have to get caught up in all the holiday-at-a-retail-establishment bullshit. and since i’ve recently been loading asimov audiobooks onto my mp3 player, i can pass the time relatively easily. to repeat, though i really, really wish that my schedule at the beginning of the week at least closely reflected the hours i’ve worked at the end of the week, it’s steady employment, and i can’t complain that much.

anyway, i’ve never really viewed my blog as a “this is what’s been going on in the mundane aspects of my life” sort of thing, i do not wish to labor on that extensively here. there are two purposes for which my blog has use, and i will attempt to briefly address my failure in both regards in the following paragraphs.

the first, and most important to me, is my writing. i doubt seriously that anyone cares deeply about my little stories, or has missed with any consideration the generally meaningless updates thereof. but, as stated, it is very important to me. and if any reader has given it the slightest thought, take this as reassurance: i have been writing. dry, which i am becoming more and more convinced will be the title of my science-fiction serial, is still under construction. the ideas are developing, albeit slowly. still, progress is being made. i have, in fact, precociously began the actual scripting of the first episode. this, despite my plan to begin writing episodes only in twenty-ten’s january. i have a half-written blog post, saved, which will explain this a bit more, and so i won’t belabor the details here. in brief, i have developed a character that i believe will by my focal point, and his story is evolving handsomely, if slowly. so much work to do. these things don’t come easily to me…but i love them. so we’re working. it still think january is a realistic target.

the second are my thoughts on, plainly put, god. i was told the other day that i think about god more than most people who believe in him. this might perhaps be true. i have some more thoughts, but do not have the time to write them as of now. perhaps one day soon.

lastly, i would like to say that issac asimov has become my new hero. i have read the first of his foundation series, but have listened to the second and third, and am currently listening to the fourth, on my mp3 player. the man is epic, and interestingly, i think now that i have done a small amount of research on him, believes many of the things that i do. all the more sense it makes, then, that i love his novels. i’m sure i’ll be writing a considerable bit on him in the future. stay tuned, for any who might be interested.

that’s all for now. if any of my friends read this, i miss hanging out with you. i hope to develop a system soon where i might see people that i love while simultaniously working my odd hours. i have hope. know that i love you.

“…if he is neither, why call him god?”

- matthew

yahweh as a ganglord, and as dane cook: some analogies

again, with my thoughts on religion. think of that verse that jules always quotes in pulp fiction: “…and i will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and fuuuuurious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. and you will know my name is the lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” then, think about this dane cook bit: he’s talking about being remembered, and he says, basically, that you could walk up to a kid eating an ice cream cone, smush the ice cream in his face, and say, “you will remember me forever.” as silly as cook’s joke is, there is some truth to it: that child would always remember the bastard that smeared vanilla goodness all over him as a child.

but think about cook’s joke. it seems obvious that this is an asshole thing to do, born out of an arrogant sense of self-importance. cook does not want to do good in the world; he simply wants to be remembered. i think we all could agree that doing something simply to be known has, at the very least, some ethical concerns. these follow.

perhaps good can be a result of actions that make one famous; evil can also result from actions that make one known by all. if you think of many of the people that are known for doing good, they are characters like mother teresa, dr. martin luther king jr., and ghandi, to name a few. these folk in all likelyhood did not set out to simply make a name for themselves; they set out to do good, and the fruits of their labor made them in to a household name. now think about dane cook: in his joke, he did not set out to do good; he set out to be known. it could be argued that, especially without some sort of justice system, works that are antisocial are easier to perform than those that build up society. it is easier to smash ice cream into a child’s face than to fight the indian caste system. thus, if one was setting out to do something simply to be known, it is arguable that one would almost certainly perform an antisocial act than one designed to bring justice.

with this in mind, look again at the statement from the old testament god. “you will know my name.” there is a certain emphasis here on the importance of those in conflict with this god to know exactly who he is and who he represents. ask yourself this: does this god sound more like ghandi or more like dane cook?

consider also the gang mentality. imagine that there is one gang called the “hoobs” and a rival gang known as the “doogles.” if one of the doogles killed one of the hoobs, it is demonstrably the case that a member or group of the hoobs would retaliate, likely through murder. and they would not be satisfied that one of the doogles was dead; no, they would ensure that the doogles knew that it was the hoobs that did it. thus we see the escalation of gang violence that plagues many urban areas.

imagine further that, the hoobs’ ganglord, while particularly demanding of his subordinantes, also exacted revenge with extreme predjudice and efficacy whenever a member of his gang was accosted. most gang members would almost certainly submit to such a lord, and would rejoice in the bloodsoaked death of their rivals, further making themselves known through the practice of “tagging.” to repeat: it is not enough for the hoobs to know that their leader led them in a successful act of revenge, but also necessary is the spread of their fame (i.e. they must be known).

as an aside, it should be noted that the same comparison could also likely be made for sectarian, tribal, factional, ethinc, or political violence that happens all over the world. note here that all of these forms of violence are seen largely as negative, and are considered something to be solved by most outsiders. terrorists claiming attacks would also fit in this catagory.

the comparison between the aforementioned gang violence (and violence of other, related types) and the actions of the israelites, as encapsulated by jules’s pulp fiction quote, should not be difficult to make. you have all the same ingredients: different groups at war with each other; a leader who is trusted, demands obedience, and is thought by his followers to be the most powerful; the idea that all killing is justified either because it is “revenge” (and therefore the fault of the other) or simply because the leader commands it; a strong importance placed on making one’s group of one’s leader known though the claiming of violent acts.

if similarites with dane cook make god seem silly and a little mean, similarities with ganglords make him sound downright vile. but there is another possibility that i believe is ultimately the point: by and large, the power of any given leader is based simply on the willingness of those ruled to obey him. put differently, while the people obviously to not create the body of the leader in a literal, physical sense, they create the idea of a leader through the submission of their trust and fear. in a previous post, i made the keyizer soze reference, and it seems appropriate again here. perhaps it was true that verbal kint was keyizer soze in the literal sense: he was born with that name, and, through his acts of will and violence, made that name feared. but it must be acknowleged that, if that was the case, there is nothing in particular about kint’s physical embodiment that necessitates submission. or, more likely, the ciminals in the world of the usual suspects created this “god” of sorts to create a sense of fear that would be weilded by some to control others.

thus, imagine that you are a leader of the israelites. what better way to rally your troops than to create a fictional being which garuntees victory and ensures that his name (and hence your name, and the name of your people) will be known throughout the world. as with all mythologies, you can maintain this god’s consistant image despite the difficulties of life: although god ensured victory, we lost, but this is because we have made him angry–he still has the power to make us win, but it is our fault, not his, that he did not lead us to victory today. if we make sacrifices–then, it was goats; today, it is our “selfish” desires–then god will make his name known. he is the final victor, and all who opposed him will weep when they learn the truth of their doom. who wouldn’t want to be a part of that gang?

in our culture, we rely on a justice system to bring offenders to their just desserts; vigilante justice–or the eye for an eye mentality–is supposedly a thing of the past. however, while humans have “evolved” in our functioning socities, this idea of god still clings to either ancient tribalism or modern methods of gang warefare. acts that seem antisocial now–indeed, acts such as gang violence against which followers of yahweh rage–are unashamedly perpetrated by the god of the old testament. if he is real, he is arguably evil, though it is more likely that he is a myth that, while morhped into a religion over the course of history, began as a tool for the destruction of one ethnic group by another.

some thoughts on faith

stream-of-consciousness writings on topics of religion have been no strangers to any social website that i can log in to. perhaps most of my thoughts tonight will not be new–certainly, i should say, they will not be new to the world, but also–to my little slices of cyberspace. but i had a conversation with ben vanderwerp–i’m not actually sure if that’s his last name; i simply know him as sarah’s ben, or sweater-vest-ben–this weekend that prompted me to revisit this topic. he is an atheist, or at least a “protestant atheist,” and, though he supposes there “may” be something “out there”, seems to be anti-theistic in general. along with my own thoughts, a few of his statements have led me to this blog. among them: hell as a moral high ground; rules imposed upon god by his followers; and, for my most beloved ponderance, the absurdity of one absolute religion. if i stay focused, i may also touch on: faith as a necessity of religion, but also as a paradox; and relatedly, the idea of attempting to demonstrate the rational superiority of one’s religion/”knowledge of truth”. notes on all these topics will be the epitome of my commitment; i will attempt no further discussions, though i have them in me. maybe faith as fire insurance if a) i’m in real luck, or b) it doesn’t get included in the above discussions, which it may.

to begin: hell as a moral high ground. this thought comes entirely from ol’ sweater-vest, though it slantedly speaks to some questions i’ve had for quite some time. (it should be noted that i will not attempt to speak for ben, though i will paraphrase a few of his statements, as best i can remember them through the haze of sleep deprivation and margarita punch.) he put it to me basically like this: if there’s a god, and he willingly sends people to hell, though he could easily let them into heaven, such an action would be evil. as such, i would rather go to hell than heaven, knowing that i have the moral high ground. .. ben put it certainly more precisely than this, but for the purposes of my thoughts, this summary will do. (by the way, it lately becomes clear to me how someone could write a book. upon making a statement, i want to take it seven different ways, which, i suppose, would all be their own chapters. it is hard for me in this format to figure out which one way to step.)

by way of preface, a few assumptions are evident within this statement. first, there is some objective standard of good and evil which is not only independent of us, though known, to a degree, by us, but also independent from god. second, god has the power to send anyone wherever he wishes for eternity, regardless of what any book of religion says he must do. third, and most interestingly to me, that eternal torment would be worth telling yourself that you were not manipulated by some all-powerful deity bent only on self-service (i.e praise and worship to him and him alone).

keaton always said, “i don’t believe in god, but i’m afraid of him.” well i believe in god, and the only thing that scares me is keyser soze.
i think this line–well, at least the first part; the second part i left in just ’cause it’s fucking badass–fits well with my views on hell vis-a-vis ben’s above statements. if you asked me, and i was being honest, i would say that i do not believe in hell. this stems from the fact that i do not believe that the bible is an absolute record of all truth, and thus that there is not a place of eternal torment. if i was writing a paper, i would research the point in the jewish tradition where hell came into the picture; it wasn’t there from the beginning, certainly. no, at some point, the idea of hell was introduced. (in fact, i am quite certain the the idea of an afterlife was not even an everlong part of judaism–then again, neither was jesus, so there goes that argument, i guess–these fuckers have an answer for everything: more on that later.) arguably, then, the idea of hell was created to scare the living shit out of people until they committed to your social/political structure.

regardless of whether or not you think that hell is real, you have to admit that this scam worked wonders for the catholic church in the middle ages. there are few things that i’ll agree with most protestants on (religiously) but indulgences? are you serious? the fact that an ancient tradition was basterdized for profit in no way means that said tradition was false, but it does illustrate that fear tactics can be used to generate money and poular support (subservience).

it’s funny how culture and society evolve. think about music: perhaps, in its earliest forms, it was hunter-gatherers banging on logs to communicate. it evolved into early instruments, then to all the various ancient musical schemes, then to (from a western perspective) classical music, itself a varied field, which somehow (skipping a few steps) got us to grunge and somehow ended up with lady gaga. it goes without saying there are many schisms and cross-influences along the way, and certainly intentionally-variant forms as methods of rebellion against an existing structure (which is, interestingly, still something of an expression of that dominant form itself, or at the very least does not operate independently of it). when nirvana sat down to write their songs, were they necessarily consciously thinking about everything from west african highlife music to beethoven’s symphonies to the songs that geishas danced to (i couldn’t find a name for it in forty-five seconds of google-searching)? doubtfully. were all those branches of song, in their own way, be it direct and strong or distant and indirect, in some way related to the ultimate progression that brought nirvana to the place it was? yes.

all that to say: when a modern pastor talks about hell, is he necessarily, consciously and deliberately trying to scare people into following his religion so that he (or occasionally she) will gain political and/or financial power? no. i’m not trying to argue that here. but did whatever developments in western religious history (e.g. the invention of the concept of hell) lead these men and women to the point they’re at? arguably.

but again, only arguably. like i mentioned earlier, chrisitans have an answer for everything. it’s not always convincing, but enough to make me–someone conditioned by their teachings since i was born–think twice. in this case, as in all others, a christian might say: well, that’s the holy spirit trying to tell you something. what’s he trying to tell me? relating to the usual suspects quote: i don’t believe in hell, but i’m afraid of it. do i think it’s all of this shit passed down from originally-manipulative sources and now canonized into conservative theology’s thought? yes. do i still fear the idea of having my fingernails ripped off for all of eternity, over and over again, while having my eyes burned out with torches over and over, my ball sac continuously cut from my body, all while feeling the most intense emotional/spiritual pain every conceived by man or god? (oddly, that sounds like something out of greek mythology, don’t you think?) of course that scares the shit out of me. and like i said, maybe the reason i fear it is because i’ve been conditioned to, or maybe because the holy spirit is trying to knock on my heart’s door and alert me to the dangers of hell. how am i to tell? am i to risk it and find out? am i to suppose as ben does that this hell would indeed be preferable, if for reasons not yet discussed (briefly: that as much as people say god is “sad” to send people to hell, he still pushes the red button, and willfully)? to me, any “moral high ground” is negligible to eternal damnation. jesus tries to tell us that we should take the moral high ground for suffering on earth, knowing that our treasure lies elsewhere. so i feel a bit guilty in rejecting a supposed superiority. but if there is no treasure, only more ass-raping (presumably) at the end of it all, then why would i ever accept a moral high ground?

this last bit, in its ultimate point, has been generally unrelated from my primary foci, but something that has been weighing on my thoughts. it does make me think this, though: if i’m not willing to take the moral high ground, knowing that ultimately it will lead to destruction and torture for me, i wonder if christians would take the moral high ground if it did not mean heaven. christians believe that they are on the winning team. huh. think about that. if i knew that the wings were going to lose every year, for all of eternity, would i cheer for them? if i knew they were going to maybe lose the next few seasons, but then win for all of eternity, would i cheer for them? the answer should be obvious. god. so, really, christians–by their own logic–just jumped on the winning bandwagon. what if the devil was still “evil” but was going to win, and cast jesus into a lake of fire for all of time? would you still be on god’s side? (easy to say yes, i suppose, when it’s hypothetical.) anyway, off track. enough for point one.

fifteen hundred words into this bitch, i’ll move to point two. this may be briefer, though no one can say. the second point–this time as a question–is: can/does god have rules imposed on him by some outside force, or even by himself? there’s this paradoxical question: can god create a being more powerful than himself? if the answer is yes, then god is not all-powerful; if the answer is no, then there is something that lies outside of god’s power. while creating a logical paradox isn’t all that hard, i think the question, silly as it may seem, has significance, even in terms of claims that christians themselves make.

i think that perhaps one answer to the above question illuminates the first few steps on my thoughts here: well, he wouldn’t choose to. that is to say, he could create a being that could control him (again, this all assumes that god, if he exits, is a being as we understand them) but he wouldn’t. a similar answer may be given to my question, which will follow shortly.

people say that jesus was necessary because god is holy, and we are not; unholiness cannot tarnish god’s holiness. jesus was required to be an intercessor–to serve as our propitiation–such that us, the unholy, can dwell with he who is entirely holy. there is a massive underlying assumption in this argument: god cannot do something. there is a thing: god letting sinners into heaven even though they didn’t believe in him. from what i understand, god cannot do this: he is holy; we are dirty.

do christians understand what they are saying here? think about this phrase: god cannot. he can create the universe, but can’t hangout with an unrepentant teenager without someone else standing in the middle, or without that teenager verbally confessing the divinity of that middleman? says who? the laws of the universe? didn’t god, according to christians, create the universe?

the rebuttal almost writes itself through the aforementioned answer to the paradox: he wrote the bible, and god doesn’t lie (again, an assumption imposed upon god), so if he put it into the bible, that you need jesus to get into heaven, i mean, and without him, you’ll spend eternity getting your skin burned off, then that’s that. done. so who cares if god could let into heaven someone who didn’t verbally confess his name and believe with their hearts that he was god, because he said he wouldn’t and so he won’t. again, is the simplicity of the rebuttal evidence of its truth of proof that some clever propagandists used circular logic to control people? of course, a christian would say that the fact that i’m even thinking about it, again, is jesus or whatever knocking on my aorta, or whatever.

thirdly–and this is all i committed to–the absurdity of one true religion. (and it should also be noted that i’m getting a bit drunker as this post goes on, so take that for what you will.) whenever i enter into thoughts or conversations about religion, or about anything for that matter, one thought always looms: there are many people, throughout history and in the present, that have done a million times more reading than me, that are a million times more clever than i am, that have better capacity for abstract thought, that reason better, that process paradoxes more reasonably, and can actually write when they’re completely sober. and, as is my tendency, my self confidence crumbles and i waver into a nihlistic mindset in which nothing matters so what’s the point anyway?

i’ll say this about my whole post, continuing the theme of the above paragraph: you could probably google any one of my arguments and find some PhD theologian who can refute it in 750 words or less. does that make all my thoughts worthless? probably. but we all have to try. so here’s my stab, banal and uneducated though it may be, and with less vocabulary and keenness than most can call upon, in all its pedestrian patheticness.

to me, the whole thing is just goddam fucking silly. forgetting my fears, i honestly believe that the concept of one religion that has been found out by one group of people is simply ridiculous. the thought process, if taken to it’s logical conclusion, of many christians, reads something like this:

- i hear directly from god
- god keeps speaking to me, thus my interpretations and attendant actions must be very close to correct. (that is to say, my theology.)
- i believe in absolute truth.
- thus, the truth that i know is absolute truth, at least theologically.
- if my interpretation of truth is correct, and truth is absolute, any other interpretations of truth are incorrect.
- thus, any expression of truth that diverges substantively with my expression/interpretation of truth (absolute truth) is wrong, or, at best, flawed.
- all other sects of christianity, both present and past, are at best flawed and at worst entirely wrong.
- thus, the only people with whom god has imparted his one, true, absolute truth is our group of believers in this current time in this current place.

..

stop me if my logic is brutally flawed here. i don’t think it is. if it isn’t, do you realize how fucking crazy that sounds? there are now over six billion people on the planet at once. though there have been many less than that for most of history, that still, by my unscientific estimations, totals among the trillions of humans who have ever lived. look: the aztecs, those of the mali empire, the muslims, the hindus, the confusciouists, the egyptians (i’m sure there is a name for their religion), the astrologists, the gnostics, the mormans, the different militant factions of christianity in ireland that bombed each other, etc. etc., all thought/think they were/are right. each of those trillions. again, does this logic prove that christians are wrong? no. it doesn’t. so to them, i guess it might as well not even be talked about.

i have to be totally honest: in most of my thoughts on this matter, one person comes to mind. when asked, “but how do you know it’s true,” this person responded, “i just do. god told me.”

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

asfd l;4wt vijum

well god told that one guy to fly a plane into the world trade center.

oh, wait, that was a false god. yours is true. that’s right. and even though his god told him that he (the god) was true, your god telling you that he is true obviously trumps that. *blank stare*

*

kay, i still have to proof read this, so i think i’m tapped out for the night. like i said earlier, i’m sure that there is nothing new here…but it’s just stuff i felt like typing about. if you have a rebuttal, please post it, because i’d love to read it and i’d love to debate it. the way my mind works, every time i make a statement, i think of three rebuttals, and also think of some responses for them…but i because i’m unambitious (and thus will never make anything out of myself) i don’t have the discipline to write them all out one by one. but if you post one, i’m loaded.

coincidentally, i’m also going through a personal confidence crisis. i write all this this, and assume that one person will respond, and that one person only out of sympathy. i think this crisis largely stems from the fact that i have failed to close down the dish pit at my bar-be-que restaurant properly even once in over two weeks of working there. as jack lemmon once said: “a man’s his job, and you’re fucked at yours.”

i’ll pick up on those other points later. night, ladies and germs.

- matty

a letter from the war

dear mrs. albracht,

we, as the officers of the seven-hundred and fourteenth division of the american empire’s LEO (Low Earth Orbit) assault unit, regret to inform you of the expiration of your (former) son, matthew albracht. he died a whimpering coward, and the piss dampening his left leg was disgracefully already present before the senegalese spear ripped through his upper aorta, triggering massive blood loss leading to an almost immediate conclusion of matthew’s mercifully short life. furthermore, the shit sifting from matthew’s soiled boxer-briefs was, like his urine, already deeply acquainted with his undergarments long before the involuntary muscle relaxation so necessarily a part of a wasteful demise such as matthew’s would have released his bowels to their ultimate desination.

we, as the commanders of the seven-one-four, do not wish you to believe that matthew’s death was entirely in vain. that would be a slight exaggeration. as ranking officers of the american empire’s military, we do not often or with flippant disregard use the term cannon fodder, and we do not wish to sully the term with matthew’s name here. however, we do wish to inform you that, while inanimate objects such as mannequins, stuffed animals or spare parts from the long-forgotten automobile would have served the purpose in all likelyhood equally as well, your departed son, private albracht, provided a forgettably-honorable service to his empire by absorbing the opening salvos of the enemy such that our soldiers–those with training, equipment, and some nominally identifiable amount of wits, we should add–could easily and with extreme prejudice eliminate the senegalese threat. (as a secondary point here it should be noted that the term soldier has been used in clear distinction from your son.)

lest you feel that matthew’s mission was one of little consequence, we will attempt now to place a salve on those thoughts. as your son’s home-bound letters, sloppily written and poorly composed though they may have been, surely have made you aware, LEO’s mission is to engage enemies of the american empire from an altitude of roughly seventeen-hundred kilometers. our dropships, as they are known in common parlance, arrive suddenly on our target, giving them one minute or less of forewarning. the intention of the american empire in these tactical situations is to reduce the number of american casualties by lowering enemy preparation to almost zero. it will be pointed out here that the american empire’s mission was, as it is and has been in all cases across the derelict and dark continent of africa, successfully completed with minimal loss vis-a-vis property and personnel to our empire.

knowing that the mission was a success, and knowing that american losses were minimal, you, mrs. albracht, may wonder why your son should have died on the windward shores of a barbaric west africa. know this: matthew was not alone in his american death. another member of the seven-one-four perished on that day. the life of private leah johns was also lost to the american empire that day, though her sacrifice was considerably more noble than your son’s, given the fact that she volunteered for a notoriously-dangerous LEO airwalk to repair a broken manifold on the BW-07 transporting the empire’s troops. while her life saved the mission in its entirety–and let us make clear that her death was the only one that mattered on the senegalese mission–your son is rotting and will continue to rot among the dust-covered corpses of the slaughtered blacks, as a cost analysis determined that, while his now-secured fatigues were worth recovery, the retrieval of the corpse of such an unskilled and low-level employee of the empire, who had little if any value to very few beyond perhaps yourself, was simply inefficient.

as i final note, if your son was dumbfuck enough to die by the spear in such a time as this, it is the opinion of the seven-one-four that his death was not only deserved but was indeed an improvement to both this division and the empire that is serves. as such, please attend to the following notice:

stain removal and stitching of uniform: $780.32
training fees: $24,620.13
discharged ammunition: $240.43
taxes, fees, and levies: $18.96
administrative costs: $43.43
postage for this letter: $1.21

for recuperation to the empire for your son’s futile life, please remit payment of the total $25,704.48 to the return address of his notification.

sincerely,

your saviors, the 714LEO.

plot: the beginnings of season one, part ii

hmm. it’s been a while since i updated this, due in relatively equal parts to business, laziness, and developing nebulous thoughts. since i originally framed this as a movie, the plot was much more focused: there was the explosion, the revolution, the invasion, then ultimately the war to end all wars. there characters were also quite a bit more streamlined. needless to say, all elements of the story require expanding as the overall length has expanded considerably. as such, i’ve spent the last little bit thinking about how the universe wants to expand and exactly how the more protracted story should unfold. i’ve also been watching a lot of ghost in the shell, which has inspired me a bit.

i’ve come up with a couple conclusions: the explosion at gorshen plant should not occur until at least halfway through the first season. in the screenplay format, it made sense to have this event at the beginning of the story as the inciting incident. in this format, though, i think that the explosion will have more impact if we are already familiar with the characters and have a better grasp at what is at stake. the obvious question, then, is what happens before the explosion to propel the plot and move the series forward to that point? i’ve got a few ideas, but more on those later.

another conclusion is the need for additional characters. there are two ways that i know right now that i want to do this, and they are related to two other decisions that i’ve made. first, taking a cue from ghost in the shell, and other sci-fi stories, i want cyberization to be a more central theme in this story. or, more accurately, the relationship between technology and humanity. these theme will express itself in a few different ways, and the blue aliens will come to be a significant part of that. these aliens, actually an experiment rejected by scientists from the ring, are one aspect of it, and i want to create an android character that is a second part of it. he will be another link to what i think i want to call division zero, the top-secret research and development branch of the klin’s central government. the basic idea is that division zero wanted to create a cybernetic being that they could use for mining purposes. evan, our android friend, is (perhaps) the only surviving member of the fourth and final generation of androids. as it turned out, they droids were not cost effective and if they were intelligent enough to work properly, they began to close in on human-like consciousness, becoming self-aware and exhibiting the qualities of sentient beings. the project was scrapped, but as these creations had developed a high level of artificial intelligence, they banded together to attempt escape. evan was, presumably, the only one who survived. he fled to dayside, where he joined cillian’s group. (i think we’ll try to reveal the fact that he’s a cyborg in the first episode, what it will be a revelation of sorts, albeit a minor one.)

second, i’ve come to realize the importance of developing structures that will allow for more self-standing episodes. obviously, my hope is that each one is important to the story, in that you would be at least a bit confused if you missed an episode or two. (unlike, say, CSI, where every episode is almost entirely self-standing.) at the same time, each episode has to have a clear beginning, middle and end and not be merely be an arbitrary excerpt from a longer story. one of the ways i want to do this is by increasing the prevalence of the evelyn character. i want her character to be a bit more complex, and part of that is going to be her double- or triple-life. first, she is a reporter for an as-yet unnamed media corporation in the ring. second, she is a licensed agent/informant for the patriarch, generally working against corporations and other threats to public security. finally, she is–or at least seems to be most of the time–an ally of the rebellion. she helped free cillian from prison (whether it was with or without the help and sanction of the patriarch will be ambiguous), after which they had a relatively short but intense affair, and continues to supply the rebellion with information. when she is exposed, however, she begins working for the corporations, though it will be unclear whether she is doing simply to get in with the corporations as a double agent whether she has turned on the rebellion as a result of cillian’s spurning of her love.

so i want to develop her more, and i want to create a character, her producer, to create an opportunity for a little more dynamism in that area of the story. i’m also dabbling with the love-triangle idea…i won’t want it to get too soap-opera-y, and it’s hard for me to decide what i think about inserting romantic drama where it may be unnecessary–and is it unnecessary…that’s the real question. i think that it is beyond dispute that evelyn will love cillian, who loved her in the past (or does she think that he merely used her?), and that cillian and aimee will hook up. this is necessary plot-wise because evelyn’s anger at cillian’s rejection will create much of the ambiguity surrounding her allegiance later in the series. the idea i’m tinkering with is that of having evelyn’s producer at the news agency fall for her. while i don’t want to create too much artificial drama, this could also serve to effectively complicate things. perhaps he learns of her other exploits and volunteers to aid her, perhaps putting himself at great personal risk, because he loves her. this would also add a layer of moral ambiguity if and when cillian and evelyn reunite: if evelyn has benefited from her producer’s love-born help, then her decision to get back with cillian will be a betrayal in and of itself.

*

lost makes the large ensemble cast work because its member interact almost exclusively with each other. a problem i’m having is that there are three main groups in three disparate locations. they’re all related it, and will all interact to a degree, but not frequently and often indirectly. right now i’m still struggling with ideas for introductions. i’m pretty settled on the first bit (cillian playing at bywel, being observed by samuel) but beyond that, i haven’t got much. without the gorshen explosion as the inciting incident, it seems like there needs to be some large event that occurs in the opening episode that really propels the plot forward, that changes things for the characters. i don’t want the first episode to be just another day-in-the-life; it needs to be something big that shakes shit up. i think that maybe until i have that, it’s going to be difficult to move forward with the plot in general.

*

i’m going to try to post ideas for individual episodes as i come up with them, even if i’m not sure how they’re all going to fit together yet…because if i don’t write them down, i usually forget them. i had at least one good idea at work the other night, and i didn’t write it down, and i now i can’t remember it. hopefully it will come back to me. anyhow, that’s about it for now, i think. hopefully that elusive inciting incident will come to me sooner or later.

tune in later for part iii.