Thought Dump

Ned Braden wrote:Which illustrates an oft overlooked fact - the ocean is really really big

Kind of amazed how much I've had to explain this lately.

Ned Braden wrote:aliens.

Knew it!   

I spent the whole night trying to figure out my motivation to confront weird, somewhat esoteric questions about Marxist philosophy tonight and figured out that I just think that people should always have the social potential to have a really good time and any impediment on that is stupid, lame, and evil. There is no reason for a teenage kid from an affluent suburb to actually start caring about Foucault and it is easily dismissed as a cliche. But whatever, dogs. It's actually cool and important to think that we can all live in a better time and place and that we can actually have some historical effect on our collective condition.

A friend of mine has been putting in such intense on work on this piece that is being performed at the music school in a couple days. It is really just such a great thing to see. He really cares and it fulfills something in him and helps make our subjective experience in the world really beautiful. The problem is that we have all decided that it is okay to saddle this guy with crippling debt because he decided he wanted to pursue an awesome, world-affirming interest that doesn't have immediate monetary trade-offs. Everyone, everywhere, at all times should be able to figure out that this kind of shit is beyond evil and ugly. Where would all of us be without the likes of Lou Reed, or The Mats, or whatever other formative dudes helped to shape our identities? It's actually scary and fucked up for me to think about.

I was on a walk the other morning and went to the zoo at 7am. On my walk back I was staring at the Lake and having a great time and some dude walked past me and was talking about stocks or some bullshit. It was the ugliest thing to hear. People's interest in the stock market is fucked up and insane. Everyone becomes a weird nihilist where they just make profit in this weird void of nothingness. It's like some sort of spiritual, Buddhist-inspired void that we have colonized with financial capital and everyone just accepts that as fine, or reality, or something that shouldn't be confronted.

Efficiency is not an actual virtue and we need to stop accepting it as such. Really intelligent people always forget that. We all just need to resist bourgeoise ideologies of work and spend the rest of our time doing hard boarding and cultivating really dope relationships with our loved ones. Otherwise, what the fuck?

It is funny to think that everyone somehow has an opinion on Marx even though very few Americans have ever actually critically engaged with anything that he has ever written. If you asked someone about what they think about Marxism they immediately have some response that probably is something like 'it sounds cool in theory but like, it isn't realistic, dude!' Why don't people have knee-jerk reactions to Heidegger or Aristotle?

No doubt my initial attraction to things like this was some dumbass contrarian mentality where I needed to exist in conflict with things around me. That's problematic but it can be cultivated in a cool way as I mature and start to actually construct a well-formulated global outlook.

We are inundated by weird, nonsensical educational apparatuses that are impossible to describe or explain that force us to become really stupid and self-absorbed. Marxism is a revolutionary tool for describing and developing a material science to explain complex social and historical relationships that are alterable and can be qualitatively bettered through direct political action. That's fucking cool and worthwhile. Marxism is not some assumption that we can live in a world of unicorns and rainbows.

My own biggest flaw is possibly constructing a lifestyle around engaging these sorts of questions that maybe nobody else is worried about. And that is actually a real problem because it make me deeply unhappy, self-alienated, and basically retarded. But I guess I like Foucault's formulation that he needs to talk about and express things like this so that he doesn't have to think about them tomorrow. The goal isn't to have some elite, unfuckable-with knowledge of esoteric disciplines but to interpret the world so that you can start to participate in its qualitative change for the better, hopefully in a non-impulsive and problematically reactionary manner.

I drink beer, eat pizza, listen to AC/DC and fuck all week long. I don't have time to think about this shit.

My generation basically cheated me out of a meaningful teenage experience and now it is seeping into whatever is forming into an adult life. I'm already balls deep in the worst sort of never ending summer doldrums. Not really doing or feeling much of anything.

Been just going backwards in time and listening to some music with real heart and soul, y'know. It is actually pretty fucked up that I don't even get the simple pleasure of awaiting an album release or anything.

You should kill yourself.

Harsh. I was driving a car around Naperville pretty late the other night and AC/DC's Highway to Hell came on the radio station. Thought of you, Nick.

That is a start. Think of me more often & how I'd slap you in the face & ask what's the matter with you when you post shit like that.

there are new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Prince and Scott Walker albums coming out this year, so there's a few releases to look forward to!

Sad to think it will be Ebola that ends this board.

I don't like thinking of any of you shitting yourself to death. Or leaking blood the way an '88 Oldsmobile leaks oil but please keep updating board the best you can.

Songs To Shit Yourself To Death To

I'm in full on panic mode about Ebola and I handled that SARS shit pretty calm back in the day when it was all the rage.

yancy wrote:Songs To Shit Yourself To Death To

also, Thought Dump, lolz.  every one of our emoticons is someone taking a dump.

             

My new favorite thing is American culture. Fuck the other bullshit. I wish it was my major so I could write a dissertation on The Last Waltz or some shit. Maybe someday I'll have the motivation to write more than three sentences and I'll sort of explain what the fuck I have been up to lately. Good shit though.

Do you ever worry the description of someone the cops are after fits you too closely and someone on your morning commute will try and turn you in by mistake?

yes. especially when they describe a vehicle involved and it matches mine.

I wouldn't worry, Nick. Naperville cops are really bad at their job. Oh wait...shit, be worried....

I see my dentist once every 6 months. He shakes my hand and then sticks his fingers in my mouth. Such a bizarre relationship.

Although, last night he turned to leave the room and ask, "Have you been eating granola?" And I said on a flight 3 weeks ago I had a couple bars as a snack. He goes, "Don't do that ever again. Granola is setting off atomic bomb in your mouth."

Then he walked out.

Something about that exchange is chilling.

I'm eating granola right now and I've got a cleaning tomorrow morning.

I'm basically fucked, right?