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"I didn't write this"

Old George Orwell got it backward.

Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed.

He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled.

And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead.

You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction.

These people with a dead child, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself.

There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is to just watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.

The music and laughter eat away at your thoughts. The noise blots them out. All the sound distracts. Your head aches from the glue.

Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion.

Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.

Their car stereo, broadcasting their grief or joy or anger all over the neighbourhood.

This isn't anything new.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occured to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.

At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

You tell yourself that noise is what defines silence. Without noise, silence would not be golden. Noise is the exception. Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet where your wife and kid wait. Silence, not heaven, would be reward enough.

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.

The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details.

This is how we must look to God.

As if everything's just fine.


---------------------------

I didn't write that, I just edited it a bit. It's from Lullaby, written by Chuck Palahniuk.

I just found that probably the most truthful and honest thing I've ever read in my life.

He's a fantastic author. If you liked that, buy his books.

I want a degree that will allow me to communicate easily through a few more ways. Because communication is one of my basic happinesses.

I like to communicate what's in my head, what I think, what I design, etc. Oddly enough though, I hate talking. I just find it difficult to make words with my mouth and it's annoying.

Which is probably why I talk so much on here. :0) Added to the fact it's hell easier to talk through a screen than face to face. Most of the time.

Is your degree self enhancement, or a medal? I guess that's the real question.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

--Albert Einstein

I really love that quote. I like posting quotes because it gives me a false sense of security that there's actually some good material in what I write.

But imagination is a whoollleee different topic. Kinda.

As I was reading that it occured to me that (while there may not be a conscious conspiracy behind it) education could serve a similar purpose, as a distraction.
Of course, like a major hollywood film distributor, it has it's practical advantages.
And you have to question what kind of intelligence you really want, but if your degree is comparable to the 30 years of pop charts knowledge the local pub quiz nerd has...

Not sure how that thought would stand up to close inspection, and i have to go revise now. Hopefully the thread will live until I'm done, because whatever the spark in that thought, I still want a decent degree.
:^)

Maybe so, but when was the last time do you think the average gubbin watched a film and thought "Oh, that was good, I wonder who wrote it?"

Scriptwriters names are not written in the walk of fame. When was the last time you saw a film and thought "hell, she looks damn pretty."

Because we're not thinking about how talented the makeup artists are and how the costume designers can make her look fantastic. We're wondering if she's done any nude shoots. We see the icing and expect a cream filling. Or something.

I just laughed at cream filling. Bed's so tempting, but so is typing at the moment.

I think Fincher did the right thing.
He made exactly the film he wanted to. Took a salary cut to ensure artistic control and fought for his cut to be final.
Ok, so it bombed at the box office but it's Fincher doing his best work to date.

My point was more that it took a major Hollywood movie to bring Chuck to the public's attention. He owes his popularity *solely* to Hollywood. So to be moaning about how shallow the world is doesn't ring true with me.

But what do I know?

Mr Snuggly wrote:

"Thoughts? Surely there's nothing wrong with releasing a film like Fight Club through a major corporation?"

Nothing at all.

You grow strong as something, reach a small audience which loves you, you try and reach a larger audience, and you sell out.

And yet we still complain that the charts are full of crap.

You just can't win.

Goatboy wrote:
"You have no mind of your own. You must think for yourself. You
> are not a beautiful and unique creature. This world sucks. You are
> victim to commercial pressures. Buy my book and see how to think for
> yourself. See how I point out all that is obvious in today's society.
> Aren't I witty and shockingly honest? I'm fearless me, I'll tell you
> how shallow and stupid you all are. But only if you buy my
> book"


A friend of mine brought up a similar point about Fight Club. He pointed out that it was hypocrisy for Fincher to be saying 'ooh, smash society, down with capitalism' when the movie was released by a major Hollywood corporation. He argued that if he really felt strongly about the subject, then he should have released it through an independent company.

I can't remember what I said, but I'm pretty sure I disagreed with him. After all, if it wasn't released worldwide by a huge Hollywood company (New Line?) then I, and thousands of other people would never have seen it.

Thoughts? Surely there's nothing wrong with releasing a film like Fight Club through a major corporation?

Read Invisible Monsters on the plane back from Egypt. Actually, it's pretty damn good... it's one of those things though that won't make much sense unless you read all of it, and for that it's a pain. But as I said, one sitting.

Lullaby is excellent so far. And being the absolute knobtop that I am, just like with Invisible Monsters, I just found myself browsing quickly through the back pages of the book, and reading a single sentence that changes everything.

Bogger. :0D I'll learn one day. Or at least teach lots and lots of people.

I read this a few minutes but couldn't think of a reply so I will instead give you two facts about George Orwell:

1. Did you know he got shot through the neck by a sniper in the Spanish Civil War? Strange injury

2. Also he started 1984 in Hairymyres Hospital... what? I hear you say. Well it is the very hospital that I pass everyday on the way to school and is about 200 metres from my house which I think rules especially after I read all his stuff. They don't even have a thing up on a wall, I'm going to make them when I work there in the Summer. IF not I'll make one out of a bit of paper.

Excellent, I started reading the beginning of that and thought 'Hmm, that sounds like Chuck.' And I was right!

And I'm off to buy it now. Just finished reading Choke recently, thought it was excellent. I'm too scared to read Invisible Monsters though, because it sounds crap. In fact, I'm off to order Lullaby now.

There's a difference between being entertained, and being numbed, I think. :0)

Irony? It's not a point of saying "you are wrong for being this", it's just saying "this is who you are so deal with it".

We have natural instincts to hide pain, cut off the cause of it, natural pathetic instincts that trap into the belief that we're really happy to be living the life we are.

It's not saying "you are weak and deserve little", it's saying "stop pretending to be happy."

It's not saying "you're needy and pathetic", it's saying "realise you're needy and pathetic."

We live in a world of pretence, ego, and defense systems that spring up any time we're remotely challenged. We fight back to any degree of attack on our lives with things that we can show off like medals. Me and my mates. My girlfriend. My family. Anything we can possibly show to prove that we're honestly happy. Really.

I wish life was easy enough for me to be able to do everything I wanted to right now. But it isn't. So I have to work like hell to make sure I can get to the point where I can see as much of the world as I could ever dream to. For the stuff that gets me down, I either make stuff myself, or I escape too.

I don't want to rely on my imagination, and at the same time I don't want to forget it. I don't want to be numbed to the point where a office job is fine, because well, at least I can forget about it when I'm drugged up on dvds.

Which, as I said, doesn't make me a bad person.

And as parrotish as this may sound, at least I can say I work hard, because I enjoy it. And I can be proud of anything I want, because that's just me.

And I'm writing this because I want everyone to smell my urine on the tree too. But that still doesn't make me a bad person.