I feel stupid

for not having realized earlier that I can also change the font of my blog posts' text, so now that I have I will compose all posts from here on using my favorite font "Courier New".
There are multiple reasons for my fondness of this font: first and foremost it is because it looks like a typewriter, which is something I really enjoy, it has a classic time-less appeal that speaks to me on an artistic and aesthetic level; secondly my mum had an old typewriter on which I'd write the occasional nonsense as a child, but unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire that burned most of my parents' and my old stuff that had been put into a storage container when we moved to China in '07, enhancing my emotional connection to this font; and finally the Hunter S. Thompson book collection I am currently reading is written entirely in this style, and as you know I idolize the guy, making this font the only appropriate choice for me to use for my blog.

I have to say that lately I am even more compelled to write than usually, seeing as I am receiving loads of positive feedback in real life recently, which is definitely a nice motivator for me to continue working on my posts. Not that I wouldn't have done that would I have gotten no or even negative feedback. But it's still nice to feel a certain sense of recognition, that people are actually impressed with what I have to say. It warms the cockles as it were. Actually, I am still seriously contemplating writing a book, or maybe try to get an unpaid columnist position somewhere, and aforementioned feedback makes these ambitions thrive like well-planted seeds being tended to by an attentive and loving farmer. Knowing myself I might be too lazy to actually get started though. I mean a book. That's a lot more pages to fill than my blog requires me to. It would still be nice to produce something in print however. Or maybe these are just day dreams that I will give up again at some point soon. I will let you know albeit most of you probably not caring.
But if I were to actually write a book, it would most definitely not be fiction per se. I can't imagine myself imagining a whole new world and stuff, that would not be something I would terribly enjoy either I think. I'd more write like my own personal manifesto on everything that I consider to be wrong with this world, or perhaps an opinionated analysis of society through the eyes of a third-person narrator. Or just a series of cynical essays that will resemble my blog posts. Or not even go the extra mile to create new material and just compile my posts into a book. But I don't know about any of that for now. 

For now, I'll just stick to writing this blog and entertaining you guys. Or offending or boring or whatever your sentiments towards my little slices of the great ham that is the art of writing are.
Meh, the ham analogy doesn't really work for writing,does it? More for like, a butcher. But you get what I mean, my few little ramblings here are hardly more to the writing community and its history than ants are to us or we are to the universe. Just a tiny almost non-existent piece of the whole, whatever that happens to be. 
But I am getting off track here, I am in no mood and way too sober to start discussing the meaninglessness of life compared to the entirety of the universe, or discuss the individuals worth in a high-speed world that is rushing to anonymity and conformity. No way, not today, not without getting seriously fucked up first, these are no topics for sobriety, period. 
I am not even sure why I am already writing any of this, my next post is not due for another week or so. But I am too lazy to change the DVD, I have seen the menu animation of "Final Destination 2" for what feels like the millionth time already, and am too bored with the movie to watch it again, meaning that I am stuck sitting here, with essentially writing as the only thing to do apart from the usual pastimes of the Internet of which I'm growing more and more weary seeing as they are a relentless repetition of semi-comedic material about as meaningful as a dog turd on the sidewalk. Yet I still fully indulge in them as soon as a flicker of boredom comes up. And it's not even like I don't have anything else to do, I am sure that if I looked into it I would find lots of things in need of completion for my studies. I could also start writing lyrics again. Instead I am sitting here, looking at this sterile screen in front of me wishing I was writing on an actual typewriter instead of just in a font that looks like one, and slowly drowning in a sea of pointless words and formulations, fading away into the illusion of contributing to the prevalence of common sense simply by writing about it. Or maybe it's not an illusion after all, maybe there are actually people being reinforced in their own use of common sense and decency in a world where these virtues are so quickly lost and replaced by shallowness and egoistically biased judgement. 
It is so easy, almost encouraged to behave like an asshole nowadays; it's unnerving! I can not understand these people. Well that is not entirely true. I can comprehend why someone would behave that way. Personal gain is a powerful motivator that often overlooks humanity and compassion. I have been there as well, the opportunities to throw someone under the bus in order to get something out of it are almost omnipresent. But I have rarely acted on it, and if I did I either felt like shit because of it or had very good reasons to do so. Either way, I have seen it far too often that people do not only act insidiously out of impulse and circumstance, but rather actively seek opportunities to deceive, manipulate, and use others, and when these opportunities are found exploit them like there's no tomorrow. And honestly, this saddens me. I mean it's not like I haven't learned to recognize these bastards from a mile away and avoid them like hell, it's not like this a completely new phenomena to me or in general, but still I feel like a little part of me dies every time I hear about or see that kind of behavior. 
The reason for this is mainly that in my mind, and those of many others, it is so easy to behave decently. Respect those that respect you, and those who show disrespect or insult you you ignore or avoid. I am not saying you should "turn the other cheek" either though, don't get me wrong, some people simply need an ass-whooping from time to time. But this senseless negativity, this back-stabbing, this pointless hatred that some exhibit are simply not understandable to me. Live and let live for Christs' sake, it's not that fucking hard, is it? 
And the most surprising thing to me is that everywhere I go the people surrounding me mostly fully agree with me on this, but still I see mankind behaving like goddamn retarded assholes not even remotely trying to just leave others be and worry about their own issues. Why do these lunatics think that they're solving anything or making life better for themselves when they so clearly are not? This has to be some sort of mental health issue, there is no other reasonable explanation that comes to mind. Or maybe my non-egoistic way of thinking is a symptom of mental deterioration after all, and all those I consider to be assholes are the healthy ones. But then again, this could all just be the dream of some over-sized mongrel that ends the second the beast wakes up from the sound of its own farts, so I don't see any point in speculating beyond my observational sphere on this, meaning that I will stick to my original utterance: Most people are egoistic assholes with a mental condition, and those that recognize this trend in their surroundings as well are a dying breed of decent humans, just like I like to think I am.

But essentially, it's egregious to assume anything based on one's perception of oneself, because it can not be anything but heavily biased, usually towards, but sometimes even against oneself. 
This bias in inherent to our nature and is not something to be ashamed, but just something to be aware of. It is possible to assess your own works' worth, but you need to realize that you're looking through tainted glasses when doing so, and adjust your self-assessment accordingly, which is a skill that develops over time. As the years go by you and what you create will be submitted to tons of judgements by various kinds of people, and you will see how and to what degree that varies from your own perception, which will in turn allow you to adapt your own appraisal of what you did to that of your audience, which is usually more accurate simply because it's a stew of many opinions from people who may not even know you instead of just your own. I can not emphasize enough that this does not mean to let yourself be influenced by others' opinions in your doing though, remember that most people are assholes that don't know what they're talking about at all, but don't forget that there are honest souls out there as well either; meaning that singular negative feedback from idiots should not get you down, but neither should singular praises from idiots lift you up, both would be fallacious feelings and lead to you not working the way you would want to, ultimately resulting in depression and failure, because you'll either produce good work thinking you're producing crap or vice-versa, ergo not being as productive as you would probably want to be. But vis-à-vis the aggressively mediocre taste of humanity nowadays actually being productive is of no value to the entertainment industry; pandering to the lowest common denominator amongst today's brainwashed TV-addicts however, is. Not that I haven't talked about this what feels like a million times already, but still it is true, be it in music, film, or writing that the corporate giants are turning true creative output into a cheesy, slimy mass properly cut into easily digestible pieces ready to be served to the brain-dead masses, thinly disguised as valuable nutrition for the mind. 

And of course, the driving force behind it is money. But despite us all realizing this we're not only condoning this behavior, we're even endorsing it by showing these corporations that it's easily possible to make billions of dollars off of untalented, crappy musicians simply because we, or some assholes among us, are buying into their shit! But this has already been discussed at length in one of my earlier "Food For Thought" segments, and I will not subject you to this torturous discussion once again, and am myself in no mood to get all aggro about this now. So, let's just keep in mind that money makes good music go bad, and that it's the corporations', "the man's" fault combined with our inability to resist their bullshit lies and propaganda. And I am using the word 'propaganda' explicitly because of its tremendous historic meaning, because I think that planting an ideology in people's brains is no more or less worse than using similar schemes to push bad, commercialized music, films, or books onto unsuspecting audiences, and thereby thoroughly ruining the essence of these arts, essentially ruining the artistic side of these arts. Of course the repercussions of selling crappy art are not as easily visible or as shocking as those of indoctrinating an entire nation with an ideology, but are not to be underestimated nevertheless. 
I mean think about the entertainment that will be here 20, 30, or even 50 years from now considering its development from the late 70's until the first decade of this century. Do you begin to see what I mean? We've gone from "The Great Shark Hunt" to "50 Shades of Grey"; from "Master of Puppets" to "Wrecking Ball"; and from "Pulp Fiction" to "Titanic" and "He's just not that into you". Mind you that I'm not trying to undermine the fact that there are indeed great artistic creations of this decade that managed to restore enough of my faith in humanity as to not jump off a bridge, but they're not as prevalent anymore, they're being reduced to the tiniest of niche. The big stars of the past were those that had actual worth, be it musically, artistically, or linguistically. Even those that sucked were better than today's "Top 50" or equivalent rankings, and that is just a sad sign of deterioration within the humans' understanding of the arts. And if we allow this rotting to continue, we will ultimately end up with horrific corporate industries managing an artists' every thought to make sure it is sell-able, and otherwise force-ably dismissing it. Oh wait, that's not a prediction at all, that's what's happening right now, but this seems to be the most extreme perversion of artistic integrity that I can come up with on my own. But well, in a few years I will surely be proven by one of the large entertainment industries that I just lack imagination, they'll find a way to making sell-outs even worse, I guarantee. And isn't it just sad that I can already predict that now with a fairly high amount of certainty? But that's the nice thing about it being only a prediction - it may or may not come true, and I certainly hope it doesn't, although I have to say that given the developments of the past decade I'm pessimistic about it.

Anyhow. This topic has been rehashed so many times in so many different ways already that my little take on it here should suffice considering I have myself already dealt with it before on this very blog, but not on the meta-level that I have elevated the theme to here encompassing essentially all forms of art.

Well, looking back on the text so far, I have to say that I am currently quite fond of dealing with multiple topics in one post, individually brief or long. Which was not a conscious decision, but rather just happened in the course of my writing. Maybe you have noticed it too, maybe I'm just imagining it, I don't know. But should you have noticed it, let me know if you like it or if you prefer mono-topical posts. Because I myself am usually drifting through thoughts and ideas whilst writing these posts, and am not really following a clear structure or trying to make a main point, but rather series of small points that add up to a nice, almost-weekly dose of 'wisdom'. I use quotation marks here because I am ambivalent when it comes to defining my ramblings as actual wisdom. To some extent I obviously consider them to be, hence the title of my Blog, but still I can not shake the feeling of sounding like an asshole with overblown ego wanting to impose his own opinions onto other people by declaring them to be wisdom. But as indicated before, I do think that there are things to take away from these posts. I just do not want them to be taken as being what they are, I want you to question every syllable I utter so as to form your own notion of the topics dealt with here. Hence my ambivalence towards the use of the word 'wisdom' as a description of my literary productions. But I still firmly stand behind this Blogs title, especially considering that it just has a nice ring to it, and that it does describe what I want you to attain by reading and thinking about the themes dealt with in these posts. Yes, you heard that right, I want to you to gain a feeling of "music and personal wisdom" within your daily life, I want you to subject yourself to philosophical lines of thought each and every day, preferably whilst listening to good music. But I know that you won't do this anyway, I mean neither do I to be honest. It is a nice thought though isn't it? To actually sit down with some nice writings on philosophy, drinking a cup of hot chocolate, and listening to some good old classic Rock. But it rarely happens that people actually do that nowadays, unfortunately. Even reading in general seems to be declining. Well at least when it comes to actual books that is. At least when it comes to my generation. Or, well, parts of it, I'm not someone to bash an entire decade of people, but it does feel like with every passing aeon less and less brain-mass is being passed on to offspring, slowly turning them into brainless zombie-like creatures more resembling primal beasts than fully developed homo sapiens sapiens. As part of the generation "Y" as sociologists put it, a lot of people may think that I am too young to be making these kind of calls, but to be honest I kind of doubt that using your brain to recognize patterns of mental degradation around you has an age-restriction. But it all seems to come down to this anyway. Every single one of my blog posts, and every line of thought I think. Maybe it's just me being a cynical asshole as always, maybe it's just me being condescending to way too many a soul. But I doubt it. Unfortunately.

Well, once again, a post that resulted in me criticizing society or rather developments within society caused by itself. But you all knew that that was going to happen, and so did I. Still, I do think that this beast of a post holds a lot of vital points I have not made at any point before, and should all in all be a long but entertaining read. Or at least that's the underlying intention, and I hope that I succeeded. Well, this concludes this 3000-word result of three days of typing, and here is some good music: 

Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song 
-> Great Band, great track, and I love to play this introductory riff on my guitar, it was such a great day when my guitar tutor taught me how, and yeah Led Zeppelin needs featuring here and will be quite a few more times in the future... Enjoy! 

Dub FX - Society Gates 
-> I have definitely had a Dub FX song on here before, but I am almost entirely sure that it was "Fly with me". Well, whereas "Fly with me" is rather psychedelic and elicits a feeling of drug-use in me, "society gates" is a nice piece about society and the norms it forces its inhabitants to conform to, which fits nicely into the final paragraphs of this post, so... Enjoy!

Twisted Sister - The Price 
-> Well I had Twisted Sister on here before as well, but definitely not this song and needed featuring here! It's an epically beautiful tune that holds many truths on many levels, and is musically great as well, so... Enjoy!

Black Eyed Peas - Joints & Jam 
-> "A chick-a-doom, a chick-a-doom chick-a-doom doom" - The Black Eyed Peas were so great back in the days, what the hell happened to them? I mean yeah, money and corporations, but can they really delude a band's essence this much? Apparently they can. But anyway, great track, funny video, so... Enjoy!

Twofold - All Around 
-> UKF does not disappoint, this is an epic song by Twofold, an artist I've seen a couple of times on the UKF Dubstep Channel lately which is usually a good sign, and this guy definitely deserves the spot on this 'exclusive' playlist that is UKF; amazing song, so... Enjoy!

50 Cent - I'll Whip Ya Head Boy
-> Upon re-watching "Get Rich Or Die Tryin'" a couple of times these past months I decided to include this great song that a friend of mine used as introductory music for his boxing match. I've never been the biggest 50 fan to be honest, but I've always liked his tracks and this one is definitely awesome, and you will see a few others of his works on here at some point, so... Enjoy!

At Vance - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Summer)
-> This is a great metal interpretation of the Summer-part of the Vivaldi's Four Seasons by the German band "At Vance", whose music I've been enjoying for about 4 or 5 years now. I had to include this amazingly crafted piece of music here at some point so might as well do it now, bring a little bit of sunshine into the darkness as it were. Anyway, this is an awesome interpretation of a classic piece, so... Enjoy!


Well, this post turned out to be a real beast of over 3000 words of ramblings, that I hope are enjoyable to you. I have addressed multiple topics in various lengths, but I think I managed to keep it all revolving around somewhat of a red line throughout the erratically uttered thoughts.
But anyway, creating this entry took a few days, and now it's again midnight soon, so I'll go to sleep and let you enjoy this literary creation of mine.


Peace!

So, here we are

at the very top of western civilization. And is there anything to take away from this maddening scheme that is our time? I am not so sure that there actually is.
I mean we have all these amazing achievements, mankind has come such a long way since the first ape decided to walk on two legs, but still I am ambivalent when it comes to defining what worth there actually is in our existence. And I am not even going to touch the whole big question thing here. I am simply trying to wrap my mind around the ego that us humans have developed in the course of evolution. All we're doing is fucking, drinking, and slowly killing each other, we're essentially playing GTA with the world. And I'm not even sure of that.

What I am sure of though is that I am sitting on my couch right now, showcasing my inner makings to an anonymous public with my roommate snoring on an air-mattress next to me, slowly drifting through various stratospheres whilst watching Californication and smoking. My eyes are somewhat focused on the screen of my laptop and on the TV at the same time, and I can't help but feel a certain resemblance between myself and Hank Moody. I know it's fucking cliche, and I also know that everybody likes to think that they can identify with their favorite fictional character, but goddamn, I have been where this guy is portrayed as being in my own way, so I feel somewhat of a strange relation between myself and the idea of "Hank Moody". Not the person per se obviously, seeing as we're talking about a fictional character, but much more the idea of the guy. The free-lancing writer, the crazed, erratic, gonzo-influenced author, the anti-hero essentially. The other extreme so to say. The anti-gravitational pole, the scapegoat, the punching bag.

I think that we all create our lives in a way so that we are the protagonist of our own little tale, we all want to be the martyr, the chosen one, we all want recognition in some way or another.  What we're all essentially striving for is immortality of sorts, be it by monetary success, literary excellence, musical masterpieces, or anything else that can enable us to buy a place in the expensive neighborhood called 'history' forever. By expensive I do not mean any actual value, but rather the effort and sacrifice that is necessary to achieve such a place, the relentless pursuit of having one's name remembered by the world that costs its high price in its own way, simply because remembrance is almost exclusively created in destruction and despair. In order to be known you need to have suffered, seems to be the most common denominator found among ïtoday's audiences, which is pretty rough on those creating entertainment because albeit leading to works of staggering genius, these rough patches that are the root of excellence do fuck you up quite intensely over time, and results are usually just a coincidental side-effect of these lows, which in themselves are not defined by a feeling of contributing to the literary pedigree by using the blues to create an epitaph to these periods of sadness, but rather just by wallowing in narcissistic despair and self-loathing until the brink of collapse, at which point words are the only thing keeping one from entering an eternal drug and drinking binge. Still, these fruits grown from sad soil using depressed fertilizers are usually the rarest literary gems that authors have to offer, making the fear and loathing leading up to their creation a necessity for actual greatness, which is a pretty hard blow on the writing and entertainment community seeing as no-one really wants to suffer for an essentially unknown audience, but everybody has to in order to achieve true greatness, at least that's what it seems like.

But this tangent about immortality through depressive genius just coincidentally appeared above to be honest. I am still unsure, once again, about the actual points I was thinking of making when I started to write this about two days ago in a hazed frenzy in the middle of the night, completely strung out and manically trying to recognize the letters I was typing, which I did up to a point of complete desperation, then I stopped continuing working until now. But even in retrospect I am quite contend with what I wrote, I believe I touched on some interesting issues in there, but this is not the time for self-flattery. No, I think I will now address a different topic altogether, namely that of communication.

Sounds boring enough when put like that, but I can assure you that it's not. Think about it, in all of its aspects. We communicate to express things in a way that other individuals can understand and respond to, that much is obvious. But why is it so hard still, after a few million years of practice, to actually say what we want to say in a way that people understand? I mean, the biggest problems usually arise from miscommunication, and its the simplest things, the smallest of words, the slightest of mistakes that can set into motion a chain-reaction of unforeseeable events leading up to huge altercations or similar nuisances. And why? Most words aren't even that ambiguous in themselves, but it's the context in which they are used combined with the humans natural need to over-analyze and interpret utterances by others that renders them indecipherable to some, making these individuals prone to misunderstandings, which is not their fault per se, but they are rather, in most cases that is, to be seen as mere victims of circumstance. But unfortunately, there is an equal amount of people either too stupid to understand the actual essence of what they are being told, or too biased by their own preconceived notions to even try to understand anything but what they want to understand, making fruitful communication damn near impossible. We have now essentially made out that there are people that are enticed by circumstance to misunderstand, that there are people too stupid to understand, and that there are people who don't want to understand what is being said because of their own prejudice. So, why do we even bother communicating anymore? 

The answer to that is, as many things are, based on the basic human need for social recognition by others, we are social animals after all, driven by the instinct to express and impress ourselves and others, meaning that even though most people we will encounter will not understand, not properly at least, what we're trying to tell them we will still keep on uttering sentences and opinions in their proximity because of the slight chance that at least one of them will be able to grasp the intended meaning. Because we need our personal meaning to be conveyed to other people, we want others to understand the essence behind the sentences, but unfortunately the understanding usually does not match the intentions, which is just sad because messages and opinions are easily deluded simply by misinterpretation, by ambiguity. 

Even these words right here will not sound to you the way they sound to me, will not convey to you what they convey to me, and will not reach you the way I mean them to, and I am very aware of that. But I know what I want to say, and I know that the people who feel as I feel can usually understand underlying themes and subtle references in these texts, and those who do not feel that way are not meant to understand anyway and will therefore read and understand whatever fits best into their narrow perception, and not what I actually want to say, which is fine, because it separates the wheat from the chaff, separates those that see actual value in what I write from those just along for the ride.

"The ride". The inexplicable yet omnipresent journey, the basic drive forward that compels us all to move towards an unidentified goal. This crazy roller-coaster of life that jolts us up and down in completely randomized and erratic patterns with seemingly no logical adjacency. We all know it to be true, life is composed of its highs and lows that in the long-run cancel each other out to create a comfortable drift in retrospect. In retrospect mind you, an up always feels like an up, and a down always feels like a down, but looking back it was all just somewhere in the middle. And isn't that exactly what we're programmed to be striving for? The passive middle, the inactive acceptance, the elemination of all the extremes, a dulling numbness of the senses? Searching for what's right or what's true is no longer perceived as necessary, no, just finding what works, however badly, has become the most prestigious achievement attainable. But unfortunately that's nicely aligning with my point about mediocrity being the end that is in itself a mean to obtain personal gratification, meaning that I am actually part of the root of this problem to some extent. But then again maintaining that level of constant mediocrity essentially boils down to being well above average in order to be able to seem mediocre enough so as to not having to do more than needed and expected at that level, which in turn means that the search for right and true has already been done personally, just not publicly. Notwithstanding it is just small percentage where this applies, most people seeming to be fine with what works and allegedly not searching for truth or rightfulness are actually like that and do not pretend to be just to have to do less. Or maybe we just don't know it yet.

But anyway. I have been drifting around between topics and ideas way too much in this post, which is why I'll put a stop to this madness now, and leave you be with some music, as always: 

Iron Maiden - No Prayer For The Dying
-> Great track from the Maiden' album of the same name, beautiful guitars and vocal, legendary band, and the rest of the album is definitely worth listening to as well if you haven't yet, so... Enjoy! 

Leonard Cohen - Hallejulah (Rufus Wrainwright Cover)
-> I first heard Cohen's original version back in the 2000 or so when my I was riding in my mum's car to somewhere, heard it again in the Watchmen movie like eight years later, and now found this awesome cover of it. And albeit not being the least bit religious I find this song to be amazingly beautiful and somewhat inspiring, so... Enjoy!

Bob Marley - Jammin' (Live Version)
-> Unfortunately I could not find the studio version of this on the mobile version of YouTube, don't know if it's there in the desktop version, but it doesn't really matter, you all know this song anyway, and it's an all-time classic that needed featuring on here, so... Enjoy!

Alborosie - Kingston Town
-> I haven't listened to this song in what feels like forever, a friend of my showed it to me in 2009 or 10 I believe, during a weekend of camping that consisted solely of getting too messed up for words, which was fun, and the song reminds me of that and is in itself really awesome, so... Enjoy! 

Keizer - Niet Haten
-> First of all, I want to emphasize that I neither condone nor endorse the whole "hashtag" craze that has taken over the internet, I am thoroughly despised by it actually. Nevertheless, Keizer is a fucking beast and one of the fastet European rappers to date, make sure to listen to the complete track, the third part is the most mind-blowing (starts at 1:50 for all you impatient people), but the whole song is pretty cool, so... Enjoy!

Ice Cube - Hello (ft. Mc Ren & Dr. Dre)
-> Did I put this on here already at some point? If I did I'm sorry, but I don't think so... Anyway, awesome classic track, first heard whilst watching the "Up In Smoke" Tour on DVD and on numerous occassions since... Enjoy! 

So, this turned out to be a somewhat disorganized post, dealing with my multiple lines of thought throughout, but I do hope it's still enjoyable, I completed it in multiple sittings and usually in an altered state of mind, so it may seem somewhat erratic at some points, but I think I managed to mostly keep it together. Anyway, I am uploading this from my mobile phone in a Coffeeshop, and seeing as I have never done that before I don't know whether there are any adverse effects on layout or links when accessing it from a PC, please let me know if that is the case!

Peace! 

Edit: it was the case, the spacings and paragraphs were off, but I took care of that now. And btw, that kind of thing is what the comment section is there for, someone could have said that it looks weird, there were at least 8 people that read it before I fixed it, and in my opinion it was clearly visible that the spacing etc. were not the way they're supposed to, but maybe that's just me...  

Food For Thought #4

Hmpf.
I could not get around to writing anything this weekend unfortunately, seeing as my rich, snobby-ass landlords forced me to renovate my fucking apartment, which is not something that I completely opposed doing seeing as renovating was kind of necessary, but in principle I disagree with being forced to do anything, especially by some shady clause in a shady-ass contract, and especially when it makes me postpone my new post until the next month, so that now there are only three posts in February. Good job, assholes.
But now my apartment is renovated and looks nice and new, which is great. Just great. Especially considering that I am moving out in two months. Awesome. I love working for other people, because I am such a fucking humanitarian. It just pisses me off that I was conned into signing something that forces me to actually renovate my flat not because I feel like it but because my landlords feel like it.

I am getting lost in raging thoughts though. I mean I am at fault too, but I really didn't have a choice either, so I guess in the end, everyone and no-one is to blame. The peaceful way of the middle, as always. But all of that is not the reason I am posting tonight, no, as the title already gave away, I have decided to actually sit down and finally write a new "Food For Thought" segment in which I will be tormenting you with my thoughts on my latest obsession, which is essentially just pissing out of my ass and venting about random things. There is only a slight problem. I am lacking a topic, like literally drawing a blank. I sat down, knowing that I wanted to write a new "Food For Thought", ready to bust out fifteen hundred words of compressed wisdom, yet here I am, getting lost in meaningless ramblings once again, unable to formulate a sentence that has more meaning to it than the sum of its words. It's crazy, I've already struggled with this in my last post, and had promised myself to start this month with something of actual value to you, my readers. So, here goes nothing.

Have you ever wondered about the problems stemming from people projecting their own inadequacies on others that are situated below themselves in whatever hierarchy they happen to be in and the harm that these people are actually causing? You probably haven't, so allow me to elaborate.
What I mean is something we have all encountered at some point in our lives, be it at school, at university, at the workplace, or anywhere with an enforced hierarchy. In these places there are always people who have managed to stay in a company or organization long enough to move up the ranks without drawing any attention to their utter lack of competence and social skills. When these people then arrive in a position that grants them a certain amount of authority they see that as the perfect opportunity to make everybody pay for their lack of skills by trying to make people feel as unfit for life as they actually are. And the worst part is that, since they are backed by authority they are actually succeeding. At least that is the feeling I am getting. The first time I even noticed the existence of this phenomena was back in elementary school.
I was in France, and had German classes, and the teacher insisted on teaching us a wrong conjugation of an irregular verb, so I told her that she was telling us complete and utter bullshit. But alas, seeing as she had the authority, my entire class was taught wrongly until I managed to get the headmaster to talk to the bitch. And even he was reluctant to do so at first, but seeing as he was a good person he listened to reason. And grammar. But let's examine what happened here. The teacher somehow managed to cover up her failure as an educator up to this point. I then stumbled upon that burden by uncovering a common mistake that could have been dismissed by her as such. But her inability to admit that error shows that she feels that her underlying insecurity and inadequacy is being exposed, making her take a defensive and aggressive stance towards my correcting her because she feels threatened in her authority and authenticity.
This behavior is not typical only to elementary school teachers, but it's prevalent everywhere in life. And in my example it was clear-cut case, which it usually isn't, making it extremely difficult to distinguish the actually well-meant influences from those that simply arose from underlying imperfections the influencing person finds in him- or herself. Let's for example take the manager whose wife is always nagging him about him being too busy with his job and not making time for his family. He knows this to be true, but does not want to face that it's his own faults that led to this being the case, meaning that he will now try to pass these inadequacies onto his subordinates by making them work longer and bashing the results of this extended work, leading to them feeling incompetent and worthless, and ultimately reducing their chances of having a successful career because their self-esteem is thereby steadily decreasing over time. These parasites that can not handle their own pathetic lives are slowly grinding down the motivation of the intelligent visionaries stuck in lower-management positions, poisoning the creativity and spirit of those hierarchically below them.
And you know what? It is our motherfucking fault. Yes, we are all once again to blame. We've let these stupid insecure assholes go through high school, college, and university without even trying to properly educate them. And by that I don't mean just factual data from books and general knowledge. I also mean that these people were never taught to be secure about their insecurities, these people have never been taught that being wrong is okay, even if you're hierarchically higher than the person who's right. And you know why they have never learned all that? Because it is not taught anywhere. Those up the chain are always right, their authority is without question, we are not taught to ask and defy anymore but rather to accept and obey, which is a practice that creates the kind of people I was talking about earlier - the kind of people that only understand the alleged superiority of those in power, do not bother questioning things, and think that they're on top of the world anyway, until the moment comes where someone in a lower rank is smarter. That's when all hell breaks loose. That's when these assholes try to suppress any criticism directed towards them, which in turn makes those criticizing insecure in their right and finally shuts them up for good until they reach an upper-management position themselves where they will, out of experience, repeat the same bullshit again and again, until every shred of initiative and intelligence has been squashed and these creatures remain in their ignorant positions of perceived power forever. Because being smart doesn't matter. Doing the right things doesn't matter. Behaving like a decent human being doesn't matter. Knowing right from wrong doesn't matter. Nothing fucking matters except for your ability to kiss ass, take names, and shut the fuck up. Don't think that management is making mistakes, because they aren't. And if they are, they still aren't. Or they are, but it's really the employees' mistake that have caused repercussions that made it seems like management is making mistakes when it clearly isn't. That's as simple as it gets in today's ugly corporate world. And we're still wondering why less and less employees actually aspire to move up on the rotten and foul construct that once was the career ladder. We're being taught that bosses are assholes, because we've let them be assholes for way too long, and are actually creating new, even assholier assholes to follow suit, reducing the whole concept of hierarchy to a gigantic shit-throbbing asshole that spews out pieces of diarrhea in form of inappropriate criticism and manipulative conversation from time to time. It's sad really, that the only way to prepare people for authority is by placing authority over them in order to make them feel how it needs to be done, which is sad because most authorities placed over individuals nowadays are either working but in themselves corrupt, or incompetent and insecure but very convincing. I am not even sure which kind is better, it's like choosing to get either AIDS or cancer actually, if both were still equally incurable that is.
The convincing one convinces by being big and loud, and in itself doesn't know anything, which it wants to cover up, making a very large impression on its subordinates and thereby training them to be incompetent but convincing as well. The corrupt one, on the other hand seems to be working flawlessly and is usually more than knowledgeable in its field of expertise, but alas, has chosen to be controlled by those with money and/or the lack of moral fiber to blackmail, meaning that its subordinates are trained effectively in being seemingly perfect but constantly enriching themselves by less-than-reputable means. And that is the kind of education that was being dropped on our ancestors, is being dropped on us, and will be dropped on our offspring, and there is close to nothing any of us can possibly do about it, simply because it is as usually only a small fraction of people actually realizing these adverse influences stemming from the wrong people being at the wrong end of chains-of-command everywhere. If everybody realized these issues, a whole lot of bastards would lose their jobs overnight, and an even bigger lot of decent people would get the jobs and positions they deserve, not those kind of positions that don't fit anyone involved but still require everybody to bend over backwards for them. But that is, as always, not going to happen. Not a chance.

Which is why I'll leave this topic be for now, I am getting depressed writing about it and have covered the most important points that I wanted to make, so there is no real reason to continue ranting about this.
The central theme here is omnipresent throughout most of my posts anyway, we're being enslaved and turned into mindless parodies of individuals, barely resembling decent human beings anymore, just functioning in a crooked system that turns us into crooked puppeteers only existing to ensure that our puppets will be equally crooked when they inherit the same strings given by the same masters, just equipped with new puppets, and so on. Technology is advancing but mankind is caught in a downwards spiral with at best slim chances of ever recovering. And it's been this way for so long, people that have died before I was even born had already realized it, and people that will be born after I have died will realize it again, but something is perpetuating the status quo with such a force that nothing seems to be able to throw it out of balance. I mean, it already took us a few millennia to get rid of monarchy and dictatorships, and not even close to everywhere yet. And with the stupidity and greed of people steadily increasing, I doubt that we'll see any changes for the better anytime soon. Yeah, of course, we're getting new freedoms here and there, the first nations are starting to realize what the Netherlands had already realized a century ago: Weed is relatively harmless and has the potential of becoming a gigantic cash cow of tax-related profits, so we're going to regulate the market for it. Which is fucking awesome and about damn time if you ask me, but the system in itself remains. Society remains. And that's the root of the problem, the only reason that drugs were ever illegalized to begin with. Amongst the corruption, greed and "political favors" that led there.

But that's a different story, and will not be dealt with now. Now I am just glad to have finally finished this post that I started typing yesterday evening but didn't get around to finishing seeing as I had to get up way too early today and therefore went to bed before I was done typing.

And looking back on this post, I must say that I struggled at points to keep on topic, it' so easy to stray into different areas especially on these kind of issues that all relate to my favorite central theme. But I do think I managed to get different points across than in the "Food For Thought" that concerned itself only with aforementioned subject. At least I hope so, if you thought it to be repetitive please let me know, I want to annoy, but sure as hell do not want to bore people.

Wrapping this all up though, I hope this post was enjoyable to you, and, well, I know it was pretty sinister again but it has to be for this topic, and I don't really think that you guys will mind anyway, so I'll leave you be with some music now:

Fedde Le Grand & DI-RECT - Where We Belong (Zomboy Remix)
-> Hmm, crunchy! Zomboy is a great artist, and this remix is nicely done, it has this awesome "in your face" feeling to it which I really enjoy, so all in all an amazing piece of art... Enjoy!

 Don Dibalo ft. Dragonette - Animale (Datsik Remix)
 -> This is a great song that I discovered completely by accident a couple of years ago, and I have never even heard the original to be honest, but Datsiks remix is fucking sick, so... Enjoy!

Geto Boys - G-Code
-> What a classic song, can not believe I hadn't put it on here earlier, Geto Boys are an awesome group, great artists, and amazing lyrics, all in all a great package, and this song is an epitome to the groups greatness... Enjoy!

N.W.A. - Fuck Tha Police
-> An even more classic song than the previous one, and I am even more astonished by the fact that this track was not included earlier, I mean this is one of the most famous tracks in the history of Hip Hop, and well, 'nuff said actually... Enjoy!

Cheech & Chong - WEed are the world
-> Hahaha, this is an awesome song by Cheech&Chong, mainly outlining that they're still alive, kicking ass, and smoking more weed than most of us will ever get to see! These guys are the living embodiment of every stoner to have ever lived, and are still rocking it today, big up to them... Enjoy!

AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long
-> classic track, and all in all AC/DC are fucking awesome and need to and will be on here a lot, seeing as they're on of the best fucking bands out there, and their music will last throughout the ages, including this great great song by them... Enjoy!

So, I am finally done with this beast of a post. It took me almost three days to actually finish this thing, and I apologize for taking such an eternity to do this, but somehow I was way too busy to actually finish it in one sitting like I usually would. And yesterday I couldn't add any music because my roommate was already sleeping and I need to turn the volume all the way up in order to properly listen to the songs I am going to dump on you, so I had to wait until this morning to actually finish this post, which is unfortunate, but gave me the opportunity to write a lot more than I had expected to and choose high quality songs over a period of almost two days, I hope you guys will appreciate it.

But anyway, this is really all I have to say for now, take care.

Peace!