No One Likes a Smartarse, Nietzsche.

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Your mustache is irrelevant, I wish you were too.

What a tool. You ever get that realization that someone you've always despised for being so damn cynical is actually wise about one of his damn cynical quotes? Well I've just had that realization and I can tell you as much as I dislike it, accepting new knowledge and wisdom is (tainted) enlightenment. If you're the sort of person who grew up with happy endings or rather enjoying happy endings, you know the sort.; the lovable loser overcomes his demons, the antagonist and still walks away knee-deep in love interest. When you grow up with that sort of hope ingrained in your psyche, finding out the reality is real endings don't happen, you tend to get frustrated.

You're waiting for the ending, the resolution, the plot twist that unravels everything into sense; it doesn't come, but that doesn't stop you hoping. You wait and writhe in hope, it's all you have left. You feel it the most when you're alone because what else can you do? Then Nietzsche para-bombs in and wrecks your shitty excuses and dreams with the sad fact that you are in fact miserable in hope. Truth is, the only resolution in your life you'll ever have is death (sounds like something Nietzsche might say). Everything up to that point is just exposition on a life you're living until you don't (so do your best, I know I will).

The dude speaks truth.

Okay sorry, time to turn this around now. Hope sucks right, it alone can trick you. You'll chase shadows, you'll become content to sit and wait ("a resolution is coming right?"), you'll kid yourself into believing you have some sort of control. Hope alone sends many a man to the sirens. You need something more than hope, you need resolve and man let me tell you...there is such power in resolve (over 9000 in fact)!

Growing up, I really admired Vegeta's stupid resolve to better
himself, his reasons were a bit suspect though.

Yes, the official hero of hope is resolve. What do you want? Go get it, do it now! Resolve is our true hope, because we can determine what we want and just get it the hell done, no hope required. My hope conflicts with my resolve. I resolve to accept no less than I deserve, yet my hope has me thinking I want less or rather to go back to the only life I've ever known. So push on, keep your eye on the prize, get it done, go for it, break a leg on the your goal's face. Wreck yourself, make mistakes, break hearts, just for the love of yourself do something, keep some steel and resolve. What resolve does, it enlivens action. Action doesn't give a rat's ass about hope, it just does what it's meant to do and the consequences are what's left. Hell, you could quote me on that.

"Resolve in action is the most volatile of realities because it doesn't give a rat's ass about maybes. There's always a result with resolve." - David R. Knott (not eloquent, but who listens to eloquence these days)

Yeah Nietzsche, turns out you're only good for one thing.

Yeah, I just stole a mustache, looks good if you ask me. 

The Social Deathtrap

Chances are, if you're reading this, then you belong to a social network. Seeing as the only place I link this blog is on Facebook, you're on Facebook. Unless you're a random visitor, welcome. With proper consistent access to the internet anyone might find themselves part of a social network. Twitter, Facebook, forum or MSN, you're connected to other people pretty much constantly through these social networks. Even offline they have the ability to see your activity. I think we can all agree that is both a scary prospect and one we will continue to allow.

I'm not going to go into the why of social networking, we just do; we always have and we always will. I'm talking majority here, I've met more than a few people who swear off social networking and they might just be the smart ones...no offence. What I will delve into is perhaps the implications of being so closely weaved into people's lives without always being able to participate in them ourselves or in some cases being excluded altogether. Also, some other dangers cause by social networking that were not present in relationships of the past. A bit of a meaty subject, slightly salted with cynicism complete with a side of personal experience.

Bon appetit bitches!

Remember that time where if you did something regrettable to or with someone, you'd just pass that person by in life, learn a lesson and move on? Well no, neither do I in my adult life, but this used to happen all the time. I'd imagine in the 80s more than any other decade, seems a lot of people from the time have regrets about hair and clothes and stuff. What are they talking about, I love the 80s.

Today however, because of social networks, you might get caught up with the person (or situation) on a social networking site. This leads to photos, wall posts, friends of friends and an entire plethora of semi-permanent reminders that are there for all the other people in your life to sort through. No longer are your problems your own. Okay they definitely are, but you're so weaved into the fabric of the bigger picture that it's there for everyone to gander. As we've learnt from nature, observed behavior is not natural behavior. Any problem is only perpetuated by the wake of reminders, we can delete them or set the privacy level higher, but even that is an action that will carry with it certain implications.

In the past, you'd collect memories in a private photo album, store that away and pull it out when you were feeling nostalgic. There was a process to this that allowed reflection. We don't have that anymore, it's instant good or bad. We hear about intimate personal life changing stuff on the web and most of us brush it off, but what if it's not something we're supposed to hear. I mean, IS it something we're supposed to hear? Engagements, breakups, hookups, weekend retreats, jobs, getting fired, we all share things we'd usually have to meet up for drinks to discuss.

TMI!!!

Personally, this bigger picture, the connections through connections is really having a negative effect on something I'm trying to learn a lesson from. Everytime I'm in the clear, them albums come up or I hear about a sharing of a friend through a friend. It really slows the process of moving forward down, feels like an ichor of tar holding me down. Being so connected and so distant at the same time means I can't respond. It's not a phone call, it's a telegram.

Infamous telegraph time.

But it's the human condition to share. I do it, we all do, and we've all had it done to us. We deal with it as we can and the one consolation about social networking is that we're all definitely in it together, good or bad. It builds communities, it builds relationships, but also how we share can create the illusion of a relationship when it only exists in an online format.

Unplug your internet, unplug your friends.

Waking Up After Lost Time

So I let the blog slide quite a bit, got caught up and lost space and time. This instance was on a micro-level of approximately 5 days. What am I talking about? In Science the faster an object moves through space, the slower time passes for said object...or so the theory goes. What I'm proposing is that this can happen to our inner psyche too. For example when you're bored time slows down because you're moving through life slowly; time flies when you're having fun.

Trolling time and space since the 1st Dimension.

Anyway, I guess I've had a chance to formally sit down and write a blog and although I had my sights set on facing a demon in my hero, I will put that aside for another day. Today, I'm not sure what to write about. One second, I'm going to try find some sort of inspiration.........

Bit of inspirational tunes?

Nope. Not today and that's okay because there's 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week for all eternity...until I die. They can't all be winners. I've have been making progress on another front that is exciting, being a certain screenplay I blogged about. I'm at least a third into the first draft which is still early days, but the writer's block I had has been destroyed.

For the curious, I'll post the screenplay up when it's finished on the blog, or at least a link to download it. That way you can see the formatting of a screenplay and be entertained by a classic display or good vs evil in a contemporary setting; well maybe, they can't all be winners.