Challege: Find me a more talented musician than Peter Mulvey. 

His lyrics are cunning and his fingerwork is stunning

Let's take a break from the serious shit to appreciate that I may be a grown up but I can still rock my socks off to Taylor Swift!

Age is something you learn not something you grow into!

When life is easy, comfortable, convenient, who cares? Who bothers to become alert? When a friend dies, there is a possibility. When your woman leaves you alone—those dark nights, you are lonely. You have loved that woman so much and you have staked all, and then suddenly one day she is gone. Crying in your loneliness, those are the occasions when, if you use them, you can become aware. The pain is not to make you miserable, the pain is to make you more aware! And when you are aware, misery disappears.

Osho (via liberatingreality)

Well I'm excited for this!

"To give a text an Author" and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it "is to impose a limit on that text." - Barthes

Sooo... I'm looking to get Barthes' legendary and seminal (what a word) essay on literary interpretation over the next few days. I'm really interested because of the importance of the essay in the field of gender and media. It's the epistemology that interests me. If there are any small chinks in the theory, there is some fun levels of questioning that we can inflict on the gender and media feild. 

I'll be sure to post some updates. Maybe a summary and a recappish conclusion. Maybe even an application to some topical text. Stay tuned for updates!

You have a choice in who you love. Use this choice consciously. 

All Power To The People (Released: 1996) Japanese-American Human Rights Activist Yuri Kochiyama

Apologies, turbulence ahead

So a few days ago, I wrote on how I had been inspired by my mother to write down my thoughts on the need for positivism. Well, I ended up writing a really long piece on the thoughts on constructiveness and the problems of corporatism. Over the next few days I will be publishing chunks of this piece. I think it will total around 4 posts. 

If you don't like the longer and more academic posts then give this one a miss. But if any of the themes I've mentioned then stick around for something I might just live my academic career for!

I've been feeling pretty shitty over the past few weeks, the move to a new uni has not been the easiest and the tightness of money has made me angry, tired and stressed. When you think you don't heave enough for yourself you will be less likely to give what you have to others, whether it is your time, your help or your possessions.

Last night I talked to my mother and she had the presence of mind and centredness to praise an idea I had. Think of listening to your child talk for 5 minutes on a subject that you left behind long ago. I talked of the need of positivism and afterwards, she had given me the confidence to write, to write until 1 in the morning on utopias.

Then I wake to this thread. It is so perfectly encompassing what I feel at the moment and it so clearly applies it to my life. What we think and what happens to us is inherently linked and in reading this, in re-reading some of my old favorite books and papers, I find that the old me still lives. 

Philosophy has given me purpose once more. 

I don't think I could be anything other than what I am today 

Burning flags is not the way to stop ISIS 

I heard today that the viral craze on facebook is to nominate and burn isis flags. Hell, I even heard that this was a good thing... 

As a worker in the social media industry and as a politics student, this is not the way to beat ISIS. To burn their flag is to give them opposition and, to an organisation that is thriving under being the opposition to western values in the middle-east, this is fuel on the fire. Any on the fence about joining the campeign will see the burning challenge and see a binary, an us or them and this is no the way to deal with a group that is composed of extremists. To create a pinary makes crossing the line harder and the conversation on understanding this debate and conflict all the harder. 

Here is the  question; Are there more religious extremists (All characterized by a lack of debate and unquestioning devotion to god) or are there more political extremists (an area where debate and talking through positions is a mainstay)? 

Propaganda is manipulation. 'Countries are just lines drawn in the sand with a stick'

Finishing an internship and perspectives on labour

Today I finished my internship as a social media marketeer and as they presented me with the card I came to wondering whether I should be thanking them and if so, should I be? Strange question but it comes from the idea that any employment is inherently unfair. We as workers are a commodity that the company is making a profit out of by paying us less than we make. I still don't know the answer so are none the wiser but suspect that the true question is whether you can separate the organisation from the people and whether genuine malice can be attributed to ignorance of the exploitation. I know the managing director and the main shareholders and the thing is that they are nice people. It seems strange to think that they are conning me but at the same time these doublethinks are an everyday occurrence to them and the point may be that they have just got used to them. I have yet to send a card or flowers so I guess I have time to think.

At one point all that will be written will be written. 

We cannot maintain the velocity we are accelerating at. There is no end to the creativity that we display. 

I only hope that we can truly understand the medium of communication before we transcend it. 

With male suicide a recognized issue with modern masculinity, its a little strange that well known writers on gender can get away with being utterly oblivious to it. 

I recently came round to the idea that art is a language and an expression of cultural concepts. In essence it is a way of saying what is going on in an abstracted representational frame.  In my rough ponderings I beleive there can be seen a progression;

communicational: humans created language and used art and drawing at represent this way of sharing ideas and concepts.

Metaphysical: the depiction of gods and otherworldly things in an attempt to represent the fear of the world and a craving for order and causal chains.

representational: the recognition of time and the beginning of existential awareness crystallized the focus of human culture on the moment and art mirrored this in representing a moment in time.

abstracted: what can you take out that still leaves the original.Kind of a meta riffing on representational art.

Conceptual: the aim of expressing the cultural concept as clearly as possible, often going too far and representing not enough.

The question then is.. what next? I suspect that the meta awareness of this progression may change art for itself to be aware of itself. The depiction of loops and cycles will be the next small change but I believe the coming to terms with the infinite is the next true change but the way of doing that will be complicated and probably require a transcendence in the art form and materials themselves. This will link nicely with the coming of the singularity and may even define the understanding of the singularity itself. 

It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.

Hugh Laurie (via liberatingreality)

We must remember however that there is no real point in anything. We make our own purpose in our minds but on the path to our actions chaos steps in and we cannot be held ultimately responsible.

 If he puts his mind in thoughts of his opponents intention to strike him, his mind will betaken by thoughts of his opponents intention to strike him.If he puts his mind in his own sword, his mind will be taken by his own sword.If he puts his mind in his own intention of not being struck, his mind will be taken by his intention of not being struck.

Takuan Soho