Hm..secret.

Sometimes I almost cry when listening to American Love by Haste the Day.
Fucking Zao rip-off, God fearing fucks, tear me up >_>

Band: Haste the Day
CD: Burning Bridges

Song: American Love

Exchanging beauty
For the ashes
Given my heart
To nothing real
[X2]

I've given my heart away
To so many things
So many times I've failed
Help me stop this endless cycle
Remind me of how it can be

Take me back
I surrender all
Without you
My heart is broken

I never should have let you go
I never should have let you slip
Through my arms
[X5]

As the sun sets tonight
I'll hold you with all that I am
[X3]
I never should have let you go
Promise me
You'll stay with me forever
Forever
[X3]

Forgive me
For running so quickly to the outside
[X2]

...languages must be organic, because like flies they fall and die.

I Resign

Behold the eyes that haunt us.
The one who set no limits, who set no boundaries.
Living on a line of blasphemy.
Living without a seconds regret.
I walk this line, straight trippin’.
Not a slave, not some mindless fuck.
I’m just a faggot reeking of death.
Thought myself better than the rest.
Manipulate my ego, give it a little boost.
To play innocent before God, and the rest of the onlookers.
But the path of life I drew, narrow only enough for me,
I find in flames, and myself lost in the entourage of all else.
Drowning in all our ignorance.
And grasping for their acceptance.
Should I resign myself to death, to live just like the rest?
Or should I continue down this shithole to claim myself my own?
All else failed. The way I took left me lost to them.
If they cannot follow, they cannot understand.
Standing before the throne of judgment,
My sins confess themselves in appearance.
Will they even know my name?
Who do I run to when I have no one else to blame…
What do I say when I know I’m guilty…
When will people allow for lives to be lived as their own,
And not see this as vain…

Looking in the mirror tonight,
I see myself as others do.
Judge with good intention, but without reason.
Guilt. No pity given.
Despite what the Godfearers say, we alone can offer mercy.
None given.
For the first time in my life I do not shatter this image.
I embrace it, if only to change it.
Deny myself me, become we.
Another shell in this empty sociality.

I hesitate to speak…
If God exists, then to Him I pray.
Rain down your power.  May you be mercy.
For in my heart I know, that I wish for all this world to burn away.

You’re all sinners just like me.
See through this vice you call a cornerstone.
Look in my eyes and see the lie in my final line.
If God there be, look in my heart and see that this is not who I was born to be.

Looking into my own eyes, I speak..
“I resign.”

-----------
At the moment I am being stalked by someone across about 500 million forms of virtual back streets and unlit alleyways. Oh technology you imbibe me. I am also currently listening to a mix of Showbread's No Sir, Nihilindsm is Not Practical, and The Fear of God.


                and  

Intro to Honors Lit Review

Consciousness; something we hold so dear, and so sacred to our human-being has faced quite the criticism through the field of cognitive psychology. From the pitfalls of short-term memory, to recency effects; maybe all we have left is our practical ability, our common knowledge, that at least when we actively, and extensively, engage in dilberation on any problem we know we can be mostly sure of our conclusion.  So, when Ap Dijksterhuis’ (2004) article “Think Different” The Merits of Unconscious Thought in Preference Development and Decision Making” fucked that all up, researchers around the globe got pissed.

Yaaargh, Matey!

Yep. I'll be spending today reading 200 pages of the driest book I've ever seen printed.  Then writing a 4 page essay on it.  No biggie. Did I mention I'm also starting and finishing another 25 page essay today as well? Probably didn't. But, I am.

Band of the day:

GIANT SQUID

These people have put Mastodon to shame, while just as pretentious and artsy, this band has managed to make something far more beautiful, and far more intricite than their competition. While their first album may have been labeled "squidcore" and a total rip off of Mastodon, their latest release, The Ichthyologist, is, I guess, post-squidcore, and I'm just simply floored.

Song: Sutterville

Finally, the horrible river has crawled back to bed
Leaving our bog like streets now damned with the dried up dead
Did you think it wise to build on the swollen banks of this delta?
When news surfaces of the latest death toll, will you rethink your new capitol?
Will our streets ever be dry again?
Festering pools left behind will be the death of this city
Breeding things with wings will only be the beginning
When your governor rowed down J street to the inauguration could he smell the cholera?
My offer to stands to build my land uphill
You need only name it after me, Sutterville
We will raise our streets fourteen feet above the river's reach

On a personal note, I need someone to talk to. Or at least I think so. World is rather crashing down all around me, I have no outlets, or anyone to yell at. I shake sometimes.  Last night I was sitting outside of Drew Hall, smoking a cig and listening to “I Never Wanted” by As I Lay Dying on repeat.  When the song took that last verse of :

In this vicious circle
We are all brought back to life
Only to die

I had a thought. I contemplated suicide. In other news…

I've never seen you shit grey before...

A very shitty review of: Synecdoche, New York.

We all ask the existential question of “Who am I?” but often times we pretend we know, and we are thus happy.  But those few who venture farther may very well find the answer, or they may find something far more dreadful.  This latter possibility is what is being explored in Synecdoche. As the viewer we are forced to see how the main character’s self is a psychological gestalt, a synecdoche, of all those he is involved with.  In this world people do not have identities separate from each other, but are all aspects of the main character, but facing the harsh realities that even the main character has no true identity.  I will call this a film exploring the darkest aspects of taking a psychological enroot to the Flux Doctrine.

For the past several months I have picked up and put down this moving at least once every week. While its outstanding cast has caught my attention, its summery, and the fact that it came out at the same time as several documentary-like movies, cause me to always put it back. However I was missing two important points.  The first was someone to tell me “you idiot, this movie is awesome” - which thankfully a friend of mine, Rack, more casually pointed out.  He also pointed out it is the same director as films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation (two very good films), Charlie Kaufman. WHY THE FUCK HAD I IGNORED THIS?!

First, I must say I do not at all regret having not seen this. This was by far one of the most horrifying films I’ve ever seen. If you notice before I did not name the main character, because I have doubts as to who that is.  Though for practically that main character is Caden.  Who is Caden? Caden is the heterosexual, homosexual, once married, twice married, dying, healthy, asleep, awake, male, female….person whose life, dreams, or fantasies we are forced to endure. Of course we assume his name is Caden, it could be Ellen, or Eric and to take it a step farther, you can find a list of character names on IMDB, and all of them may be the main character’s name.

THE FUCK?

There is one thing I love to do when watching a film: if it is an art film I like to find the philosophy or psychology or concept it is exploring. And my God, is this an art film. It is about as pretentious as a 5min black and white, silent, indie short that wins the attention and praise of all those who have not seen the light of day since they gave up being human in 6th grade. There is also a thing I despise doing, and that is looking at a film piece by piece.  But I am forced to do this, as this film doesn’t allow me to explore its main concept without doing it.

The film spends its first chunk teaching us about a repulsively dysfunctional family. From obsession of obituaries and death, to the examination of people’s shitting habits reminiscence of Augusten Burroughs. For this first chunk we are already aware we are dealing with dysfunction, somatic exploration (ending in proposed death) of said dysfunction, and hypochondria. I’ve seen films exploring these concepts before, but what made this special is its humanity. Now that is cliché to say as this film is taking an approach that is far from realistic, but think about this.  We all faulter, right?  When we do these we often catch ourselves, upon doing so a crazed race of thoughts occur, including imaginings of how much worse it could have been.  This film SHOWS that lines of thoughts in the most somatic of ways.  Not only somatic in how it affects the character but how it affects the entire world around the character.

Weird, huh? That aint nothing yet.

To summarize the rest of the story is pointless.  It’s on the back of the box. But I have a little left in me that I want to say:

Now I’ve said this film is about familial dysfunction? I was wrong.  After this first chunk the wife leaves the bastard and takes their daughter with her.  To our view a week has passed, and Caden is having to deal with dedication to his wife versus fucking the sexy co-worker. Eventually the co-worker mentions that it has been a year since Caden wife has left (to the viewer’s shock, Caden doesn’t seem to care that it really hasn’t been a week..).

TIME FUCK

This is the first of MANY time-fucks we have. In this film time has no meaning. A day may pass, a year may pass, 10 years may pass, without us noticing.  The only real way to figure out the time in any given scene is to judge my Caden’s look.  But even that fucks up in the end when Caden gets younger (it’s like Curious Case…, on crack). 

And from here on out reviewing the movie on any sort of bit by bit basis is impossible. Why? Because of this:

ALL REALITY IS SUPEREMPOSED INTO A PLAY THAT IN TURN BECOMES REALITY…which as it turns out might be just because Caden is asleep, or he’s dead, OR FUCKING SCHIZO.  A play about the life of Caden, which ironically has a lot of stories but no content whatsoever. And an endless pool of delusion, despair, and somatic expression.  By the end of the film we no longer have any ability to say “we are working from the point of view of the main character” because we learn we know NOTHING about his character.  He may be Ellen, a cleaning lady, and lesbian lover of his former wife. He may be Eric, the homosexual lover of Caden.  He may be Caden…who’s dying throughout the many many years this film takes place in.

But but but! Jesus Christ, I am left with nothing. I am a person who can talk about a film or a book forever, and while I know there are things I could talk about…this film is such a jumbled mess of inconsistency, and confusion that I am UNcertain of claiming ANYTHING about the film. This movie is simply a mindfuck that has left me fully drained of rational thought about it.

That said, do I recommend this film to friends? NO.
To Blockbuster customers? NO.
To people who want to see something where the best describer is “what the fuck…”? YES.

I fall into that last section. So I give this a 9.5 out of 10.
I would have given it a 10 out of 10, if I hadn’t wanted to die violently after viewing it. But I guess that is also a reason to give it a 10+, but…I’m sticking with deducting a point because I’m still freaked 24 hours later.



Thursday night I watched MONSTERS v. ALIENS with Josh.
That was far more enjoyable. I recommend that movie to everyone. I laughed a lot, surprisingly. Has a fair bit of "adult" humor, and great slapstick to keep anyone amused for the short running time it has.

Currently listening to:

Sunn 0))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

Currently reading: The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Appiah

...and the dead dream of living.

Back during the time of the Ancient Greeks there was a somewhat universal understanding of creation.  This was not the Christian creation ex nihilo, that concept would not have made sense to the Greeks.  Unlike modern day Christians, the Greeks used rationality and logic to make their claims. Back at that time it was not comprehend-able that something could be created out of nothing. It was simply illogical. Instead creation could only come from something.  That something was an event, it was the coming together of kaos (chaos) and noesis (mind). From these things came all. Disorder is thus natural in the world. So, lets say your child dies.  While a Christian would damn God, a Greek would have merely look at it as "hey man, crazy shit happens." Now one must wonder with the philosophical advancement of the Greeks how could they have ignored the idea of ex nihilo? The Greeks were natural scientists, all knowledge came from the senses.  An obvious fact.  It didn't matter if the senses are real or not, it's all we got to work with. To think less of that is just ignorant foolishness.  It wasn't until the time of the Moderns was such foolishness permitted. Not before the Moderns did anyone really conceptualize the question "how can you PROVE I exist, how can you prove YOU exist... maybe Christians are not wrong about creation ex nihilio, but maybe they're wrong that we exist at all."  Of course the people who said these things spent the majority of their lives trying to prove that God can exist alongside such questions. Which of course had nothing to do with the fact that the Church was also the publishing company for anyone and everyone at the time.  This did have its problems though. Suddenly we may not exist. Prior to then...of course we exist. What but what exactly "exists" varied among different Greek philosophers.  Perhaps all things are one thing, that one thing may be: wind, aer, earth, logos, the undefinable, etc.  Or it may be two things as others thought.  Or it may be an infinite number of things. "Or it may be four things and one of the four is my puppy" (- Prof. Dr. Stephen Kellert). But now we are in the post-modern times. We may or may not exist.  If we do we may or may not have been created. Quantum Mechanics agrees with the Flux Doctrine, so if we exist it really doesn't matter. Though Quantum Mechanics also agrees with the view that if you add everything "that is, and that isn't" it equals 0, so again, it doesn't matter. Myself and Einstein are the only people who still worship Spinoza's God, because David Hume killed all the others, and Kant didn't resurrect Christ, he merely opened a "space" for Him, which is a priori, necessary, and a product of pure intuition. No one has added to that since then, only torn it apart.

In the end what are we left with?
We are left with Albert Camus, we are on an endless search for meaning, in a universe that is not offering anything. And yet we can't help but look.  So, cry yourselves to sleep you poets, you philosophers, you psychologists, you dreamers. Philosophy is a dead thing, and every other science is an ignorant fallacy that should have long before it.

Hello,
My name is Doug McQuarrie. I am a philosopher, a poet, and a psychologist. This is my blog.

Currently listening to: Across the Dark by Insomnium
Currently reading: Critique of Pure (theoretical) Reason by Kant.