In defense of fanfiction and of course rats

I saw, on YouTube, recently one of those videos wherein a chatshow host shows to some celebrity fanart and fanfiction about them. Firstly, this is always cringe-worthy at best. The celebrities always look really uncomfortable - and rightly so: they didn't particularly want to see it, and it inevitably brings up thoughts to them and the audience of what they're like in bed, how they are emotionally, kinks and the sort. To be honest, it's a bit like public humiliation really, as the show host brings up subjects that are totally not their, or the audience's, business. Secondly, it's rather humiliating for the artist/writer. They never asked to go on TV, and the nature of fanworks is often very personal and emotional to the creator, and while they're comfortable posting this online, where likely only like-minded and therefore less judgemental people will see it. Now it is forced down the throats of those (the wider public and the celebrities themselves whom feature in the works) who were never really supposed to see it, and then the creator is humiliated and laughed at for their work - treated like degenerates because of a creative hobby.
 The internet has an implicit "don't like don't read" policy, and I find this fad among chatshow hosts to be a gross invasion of everyone's privacy. You wouldn't bring up specifics about porn and kinks on a chatshow, so why fanworks?

Furthermore, the whole nature of fanworks totally goes over the heads of the audience and celebrities. To those of you less than well-versed in the nature and motivation of fanfiction, this may come as a bit of a suprise, but fanworks are not actually about the canon material. When people write a 150,000 word epic about the journey of a serial killer and bookshop owner discovering their passion for BDSM, it doesn't fucking matter what character or person the writer uses to portray this story. The characters aren't the point. The characters are merely tools to help convey an idea, usually very personal and emotional, so that it's applicable to a wider audience that will appreciate it. Furthermore, by using non-original characters, the creator can assume a general knowledge of the character in the reader, and therefore can miss out a whole bunch of mundane, boring introductions which usually plague books. The writer can quickly get to the heart of a question or journey, explore (often taboo) ideas. Therein these works are much more interesting - not only because they're far more honest about human nature and desires (as there are less social repercussions to the creator), but also because they are usually written so quickly, without much editing, giving them a real rawness that can be fascinating. The pure honesty and freedom to post some really crazy shit, without having to worry about selling lots of copies, creates some of the most interesting writing around.

Fanworks allow people to unite in their differences and similarities, and explore ideas in a very creative way. The works also explore heavy topics, such as disability, mental health issus and depression - and by talking about these topics, it really helps young people feel less isolated and alone in their troubles. Furthermore, it has huge implications for feminism: namely, porn! There is very very little mainstream porn aimed at women. However, fanfiction allows women to not only take control of their sexuality - taking pride in enjoying sex, without shame, in the same when teenage boys do - but also explore different realms of opportunities open to them, in terms not only of relationships and sex, but also careers and ways of life. So, while staying indoors all day on your computer, isolated, isn't really the best way to be happy, if taken in moderation (as with most things in life), fanworks are actually brilliant for liberation and mental health. Furthermore, the online environment itself is also extremely positive, filled largely by very positive reviewers and fans of each other's work. Indeed, people actually make friends and fans in the community. The freedom and generosity to share one's thoughts is very valuable to society, I believe, uniting a previously-isolated minority.

I'll end with an extended metaphor to explain why, also, celebrities shouldn't flatter themselves or be creeped out by fanworks - back to this idea about how the works aren't actually about them. They are merely a convenience. When one sees a great painting of a beautiful man/woman, indeed one does appreciate the beauty of the model. However, that is totally not the point. People admire, to a much larger extent, the artistry of the painter themself. The painter indeed needs a model to showcase their own thoughts, emotions and talents, but the painting isn't about the model. Fanworks are the same: people who read fanfiction are admiring the thoughts and ideas of the fanfiction writer. And while the reader and writer certainly appreciate the original work (canon), that is totally not the point. Very often, characters take on whole new identities in fanfiction, across the board, because people are simply using the character as a partially-blank canvas - a sketch, to fill in, or a muse. On the whole, I think people don't read fanfiction to appreciate the canon, but to see the thoughts and creations of young writers/artists. To the extent that sometimes, people only watch/read the canon so as to access subculture beneath. E.g. most people who write for Teen Wolf think the actual canon is total shit, but instead provides an awesome set-up for their own creations.

Austen (obviously), Lawrence, Ian Curtis and of course rats

I'm going to carry on with the theme of Austen's Persuasion's "I am half agony, half hope." because I can't stop thinking about it.

Tonight I have limited time so these thoughts will be very half-formed.

I like characters who are torn up inside, like a chimera. Half-breeds. A friend of TE Lawrence, EM Forster, once said of him, "He has... a profound distrust of himself, a still profounder faith." Again, this idea of being torn in two contrasting ways, not out of personal indecision and weakness, but out of a recognition of the fallibility of humanity (and especially someone as smart as Lawrence who doubtlessly recognised more of the ills of humanity in himself and those around him than us normal folk), and yet still remains hopeful.

Indeed this balance is eerily similar to agony and hope. Perhaps it is an idea of looking past one's own many flaws, while hating oneself but loving things outside of oneself. It's almost like a "perfect" love - loving unselfishly. A willingness to dissolve into everything, as if camouflaged into the beauty of the world to hide your own ugliness. And yet, the "agony" from Persuasion is different... I don't have time now to explore!

To finish, a line from Joy Division, from "Isolation" (a very fitting song for this word vomit), that's always stuck with me:

 a blindness that touches perfection.

T E Lawrence, God, Austen and of course rats

I am half agony, half hope.

[Persuasion, Jane Austen]

There's a mangle of blood and hair on the floor and it beats with low thumps contracting and relaxing like heartbeats but obviously not heart beats.

I want to dig my heel into it and feel it pop, and blood bubble out from between my toes

like the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, or better yet a valley that doesn't already have a name or visitor track. There's a certain faraway look on T.E.'s expression in almost every photo of him - a distant, sad humour buried in sand and it always makes me wonder what he's looking at, what sad faraway world and memory he's drowning in.

distance on the look of death

[Dickinson]

Well I suppose wherever he'd buried himself, that's where he is now, in spirit and body. That place just out of the frame of the photograph, location, thought. He often speaks about a "household God", and indeed his journey in Arabia seems as much a philosophical odyssey as a political one, and describes remarkable events "like design"; a man goes blind from the brightness of the sun ("sun-blink had burned them out"), and creeps to him "chilled", "Lord I am gone blind", and Lawrence feels that he "shivered as if cold". According to the man (Aid, his name, the Harithi Sherif), "in the night, waking up, there had been no sight, only pain in his eyes". Lawrence mentions this story quite purposefully and precisely and yet gives it no conclusion. Needless to say, this obviously resonated with him deeply. Perhaps he too felt blinded by the immensity of his operation (both the literal political and emotional one), or by God and nature around him. Or perhaps, as he wrote this all with good hindsight, this memory resonates with him, how the sun and the outcome (read: failure) of his journey made him, to a large extent as I believe, lose his sense of direction and understanding of morality in life. Therein afterwards, in his lost-looking photos, he is blinded by sun-blink. Although it is of course notable that famous picture of him and his many brothers, as teens, wherein he is the only person who doesn't ever look into the camera. His whole body faces away. But I suppose then he was deeply lost in his dreams of knights and the Crusades. He calls the landscapes of his childhood imagination "vast and silent". Perhaps his thoughts and landscapes too were silent - a non-verbal humour and sadness, perhaps linked to God.

I shan't give context because, to an extent, it doesn't feel necessary here.

"The dark came upon us quickly in this high prisoned place; and we felt the water-laden air cold against our sunburnt skin." reminds me a bit of when, in Macbeth, the "sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care". 

Fascinating chapter LXIII. Lawrence decides to bathe his "soiled body", "I lay there quietly, letting the clear, dark red water run over me in a ribbly stream", when a "ragged man with a hewn face of great power and weariness" (very interesting here. "hewn" is an important word for Lawrence, in that "Wisdom hath builded herself a home. She has hewn the Seven Pillars.") comes up to him and groans "the love is from God; and of God; and towards God." which is a revalation for Lawrence as he had, before,  "believed the Semites unable to use love as a link between themselves and God" (herein he goes on interestingly about different kinds of love and understanding of God). But also hrere he explores the roots of Christianity which I find fascinating: that the only reason it even happened was because it originated in Galilee which the Jews saw as "unclean"; then it proceeded to become very popular in Europe because of the "stuttering verses" of the Gadarene poets, which "held a mirror to the sensuality and disillusioned fatalism, passing into disordered lust, of their age and place". Absolutely fascinating. Lawrence is a pool (although he sees himself as a "white thing splashing in the hollow beyond the veil of sun-mist").
Lawrence then gets this man to come with him and "utter doctrine" (discuss), and gives him a meal. However, the man only made groaning sound and eventually "rose painfully to his feet and tottered deafly into the night, taking his beliefs, if any, with him." Apparently "the man [life-long] wandered among [the Howeitat] moaning strange things, not knowing day or night, not troubling himself for food or work or shelter. He was given bounty of [the Howeitat], as an afflicted man: but never replied a word, or talked aloud, except when abroad by himself or alone among the sheep and goats."

A man and idea lost to history, but not his story, evidently.

Endless questions from here, accompanied by a distant, humoured looked. 

Geography GCSE, wilfull ignorance and of course rats

What I've learnt in my Geography GCSE (aside from a head-full of statistics that are wholly outdated and likely incorrect) is how we are taught about the huge wealth disparity and suffering in the world - from a carefully unbiased perspective - and how people come out of the exam with no better empathy or understanding at all.

Indeed, the course dryly confronts floods, earthquakes, migration, rivers (and yes, the infamously boring Ox Box lake), birth control and a whole wealth of information which, credit due to the exam board, was actually pretty interesting and useful.

However.

Never once in a lesson have I heard even the slightest tone of outrage or upset when reading aloud how mx + c people die when badly built factories collapse because we wanted our trainers cheaper and so the MNC (look, I'm learning and repeating!) cut down on the building structure.

It is remarkable that people nowadays need things to be presented to them with an obvious slant and bias for people to actually think about and/or/perhaps/ifyou'relucky have an opinion about any of it. In fact, it is an indicator of the dangerous level of reliance and ineptitude that our generation possesses.

The "West" (we also learnt that there is more to development than what side of the map you live on) has bloody hands. We 20% produce 60% of the pollution, stirring up Global Warming, leading to worsening tropical storms killing 1,100 in Bangladesh. We consumers cause the deforestation of the rainforests and extinction of the creatures we have cheaply printed onto canvases for our living rooms. We self-proclaimed humanitarian charity-donors are stirring up civil war across the world due to the wealth disparity, corruption and suffering we create across the world.

Furthermore, our fuse is burning down.

I saw the film "Interstellar" a while back, and one scene really stuck with me. We're talking a few generations into the future. Land is infertile. Most people have died. Humanity has only a few years, winds of dust and corn, left. The protagonist (a father) has a meeting with the headmistress in a "careers guidance"-like meeting. He talks of his daughter wanting to be an engineer. The headmistress replies that the world doesn't need any more engineers. It needs farmers.

And indeed, how many more bankers/marketers/programmers/yoga teachers/film directors does the world need. And how many can it support? "Education" is held up as the redeeming path of all evils of humanity. I want to finish by questioning this.

In my History GCSE (the best one. Seriously.), I read a letter by a Holocaust survivor, addressing the UN. Begging. Begging for education to be given a moral compass. For the engineers made bombs, the chemists made extermination gas, the politicians condemned millions to death and the people allowed it all.
The survivor asked what the point of education is if it doesn't make the world a better place.

Emily Dickinson, agony and of course rats

I like a look of agony,
to quote Dickinson

I LIKE a look of agony,
Because I know it ’s true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.	5
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.

this is the poem that really first made me realise that she's totally different to everyone else.

The image combing "beads" and "anguish" on the "forehead" recalls (to me) Jesus on the crucifix [which may have been her intention. Dickinson definitely found more genuine meaning and personal connection (and comfort) with God and Jesus (and religious passion (in the agony sense)) than most other people. Somehow she manages to make all her poems about God not feel trite or a following of the establishment. She conveys a more real image of God, I think). And yet, this image of Christ dying is interesting because "the eyes glaze once"- and of course, Jesus doesn't really die once, or at all. Some may see his death as "feign[ing]". Perhaps (now this is on a real limb. An "alternative interpretation" to the obvious one) this poem is partially reconciling the impermanence of life and death and agony with the permanent afterlife; the simplicity of "and that is death" mirroring the holy simplicity and restfullness of it all. And all the agony and life and death and permanence is crystalised by the real truth of agony and pain, which she indeed saw as "homely" - perhaps something grounding and comforting, as she is used to agony. Maybe she saw this constant agony as a gateway to the better, "true" existence, similar to a purgatory.

I love the image of a kind anguish, stringing beads upon her forehead (like a crown or Indian jewelry). However, it makes me question what "beads" mean: one assumes it means "beads of sweat", or perhaps rosary beads? Or like a child, when they make you a necklace out of shitty yellow wooden beads. Either way, this poem overall conveys to me this image of a woman totally at one and affectionate for the agony that plagues her and fellow humans, a link between all the superficial shit she encountered. The delicacy of a row of beads on her forehead giving whispers that the pain isn't permanent: the eyes "glaze once" and the calmness of that juxtaposed with anguish gives a sense of acceptance. This association makes it unclear whether she sees (in this poem) death as painless. "anguish" feels like a resignation. the simplicity: she "like[s]" a "look" of agony.

it's all rather quiet.

Jane Austen, IS, Foucault and of course rats

I've recently been trying to read "Persuasion" by Jane Austen - partially as a distraction, and partially because the name has always jumped out at me in that singular way that only Jane Austen can: there is something so dry and enigmatic, and yet unpretentious about her titles (and portrayals). Also, the idea of a less-beautiful, aged but wise heroine feels more than a bit poignant. Also I fucking love sailors.

I'm only at the beginning and I keep having to re-read pages because my eyes keep dripping from the page in fatigue (and probably also because Austen's characters generally take a bit of wearing in before they fit and become interesting). This means that I keep staring at sentences, when they suddenly jump out of context and feel abstract - or rather, bizarrely relevant. 

Specifically, this keeps disquieting me:

"It was painful to look upon their deserted grounds, and still worse to anticipate the new hands they were to fall into; and to escape the solitariness and melancholy of so altered a village, and to be out of the way when Admiral and Mrs Croft first arrived, she had determined to make her own absence from home begin when she must give up Anne."

This is in the context of a man having to rent out his home to Admiral Croft because he is very deep in debt due to his... unwise purchases. This is a man consumed by his own self-worth: he is obsessed with his own (and others') beauty, as well as the social status of his family. 

Anne is a quiet but admirable woman (unmarried, late twenties). The person whose thoughts these are is greatly fond of Anne, although many others are embarrassed by her - as one who has lost the bloom of beauty and was reaching old-spinster territory. So far, she feels tossed about like a hot plate between people, and filled with regret (and many loud despairing and nervous sighs).

This idea that is was "painful to look upon their deserted grounds" - an image of house, still furnished with many generations of a family's possessions, empty of the people who define it as home, left for those whom have the money to afford it - felt reminiscent of how I imagine it looks and feels in Syria right now. And perhaps, the "pain" is felt not only as the genuine loss of the house for the family, but "still worse" that the place will become occupied by people who will not see it as 'home' but as a 'house' - a "ground". 

In the same way that (Foucault) words take on different meanings depending on who and where and when they are said, places too lose and gain meaning from the same factors. The room in which your father died is seen as merely a room, perhaps with some coffee stains on the table. Indeed, I think this is the "solitariness" that Austen describes at seeing a place move on. In Syria (and elsewhere in time and place), land which to a family means the whole context of their life is degraded to a mere political conquest. Having to flee one's home is more than just losing what you own and to strip yourself of familiarity and memory, but also to strip the place of the same - leading to a feeling of injustice and many other complex emotions I cannot possibly understand, never having been forced to flee my home. Perhaps Anne here, one hand always tracing her footprints, can be the symbol of memory and a time left behind. 

This book, apparently, explores how Anne retrieves a past and possibility she'd thought was lost (and her fault). 

Persuasion. 

I anticipate that I shall learn a lot from this book. 

Purgatory and of course rats

Sometimes we need to go back to heaven and hell to give ourselves context. Sometimes I miss the definitive sense of direction and hierarchy that the priests I knew as a child would instill in me, sitting in the corner of a pew at church.Christ's pale wet face, a confusing yet poignant sign of redemption, a beacon between the arches. Or (my favourite) chancing upon a near-empty church on a Saturday afternoon, hearing that distinctive clop of my shoes across the cool tiles, standing before the heart-warm prayer candles when an organist begins to practice. At first, a few big heavy chords, before the harmonies break and the roof of the church seems to swell and splinter with the discordant cries of ancient longing, "O, O," like lost whales.

When we burn in purgatory, our past is burnt off of us and we become free of our memories. All conception of self  - our pride, our presumed morals, our likes and dislikes - vanishes, alongside our pretension and guilt. 

I, for one, think purgatory sounds like just what I need right now. And I bet that idea curled some pangs of longing in your belly, just now. 

And here comes the obvious leap: what is stopping us from visiting purgatory right now, tomorrow, this evening, when you're lying in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, unsure if you can actually see or feel or think anything at all. 

Broadchurch and of course rats

So I've been worrying about a few things recently. Mainly small, but grating, permanent things. Ultimately insignificant, but disturbing none the less. Things that are gonna stay with me forever. Been trying to get over them, cos ultimately, things are only significant/painful if you allow them to be.

I've also been watching "Broadchurch", ITV. It's one of those who-dunnits about an 11-year-old boy in a small Dorset town. It was good (despite being ITV). At the end, they hold a funeral for the boy.

There is a church service, in which the priest quotes Ephesians, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you". Earlier, a man with a very painful past had said on the beach on which the dead boy was found, surrounded by huge cliffs (very similar to the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom"), "God will put you in the right place in the end". Later, after the funeral, the family and community had gathered on these cliffs and lit huge torches, and up across the whole coastline, other communities joined in solidarity. The mother "saw" her dead son standing before the cliff. 

As I was watching this, I had my (blind) cat purring on my lap, and these images and words roused in me this sense of acceptance and peace over my "things". I'm not a hugely religious person - much of me wishes I were, but lo! I am of scientific soul by blood - but I try to believe in a God, because I would like to think that the world isn't as lonely as it sometimes can feel. I find it so easy to brush through each day without a true thought towards our relationships with people around us, and the context of our existence. It is like when you see an old man, back hunched, unable to look up, only able to stare at the ground as he walks around. When was the last time he saw the sky? He would be incapable of lying down in a field. To what extent is he conscious of this lack of sky? Does he angle himself so that he can catch the reflection of clouds and sun in the windows of buses and trains? What is it like to feel rain on your back, and not be able to see where it's coming from? I suppose that's a bit like what it is like living in a world with no proof of God. One must have faith that there are clouds above.

But "Broadchurch" did give me a sense of hope that there is a context. That in time, I will be "Put in the right place", provided I do what I see as righteous. I think this is true regardless of God, as if you do what you think is right, you shall be spared guilt and feel strong in your cranny in the world. But I do like the idea of an angel (especially if they are the original meaning: not furry birds, but ancient warriors of the afterlife) somewhere nearby. I'd had a revelation recently in a mock exam: an image came to me, of myself standing in a forest, by a hut, alone. The realisation that, despite family and friends, one is always ultimately alone, as one looks out for oneself better than anyone else ever can. We all have goals. See divorces, abuse and murder. As "Broadchurch" tries to remind us: you can never truly know someone. And, as I believe, you can never truly know yourself: ultimately, we may in fact just be vessels for bacteria anyway! Why bother with goals!

But with a God or angels, you're not alone. 

I've also been thinking about death a bit. Sitting their with my cat in my arms (staring into his fragile ears), at that present moment, it was just wonderful to revel in the feeling of not having lost something yet, that one day, I will lose. 

We must remember to always appreciate and love the moments we share with people, because one day, we are going to lose each other.

Peace and love, faithful readers.

Ahab and of course rats

O, if it were in my grasp, Ahab, I would. 

And I would tell you, dear procrastinator, about him and the woes which surround himself and myself.

But Alas, that would be weird. 

So instead I shall speak in  an awkward and strained, vague tongue, so that I may look dear Ahab in the eye again and not feel yet more guilt. 

Consider this, O intimate friend, an exercise in self-expression - which, due to my British heritage, I have naturally lacked since birth - and a reconciliation of heart and fingers.

Separated by near every conceivable social constraint (and your own indifference, admittedly) I stand a figure below the cliffs, hazy in the fog as you come into harbour on your worn whaling boat. A brief periphery. Irrelevant and quiet, but peaceful only because there be no words that could change a thing. It is said the sailors could smell the perfume of their ladies of Salem even whilst amidst the tumult. But where does that leave me, if not sitting quietly on the rocks, the tips of my dress wet in the swash, and waiting aimlessly for no one.

Yet perhaps this bough tearing in through the mist is but a mirage - a nod from Above, a reminder to keep watch and faith, as if there can be two marvelous people on earth, then there can certainly be three.  

Therein, I shall sit still and enjoy your coming and going, Ahab, from my harbour, and wait for a seaman of my own to part the waters.

Secrets and of course rats

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, you have lent me your ears.

And so now I think it'd be cool if you told me a secret. As a comment? Or by bottle in the sea.

Regardless: secrets are fun and humanising and it's damn swell to share them.

I'll start: I'm a time traveler from three days in the future and I've come to tell you that something awful is going to happen soon.


Your turn.

Ahab and of course rats

Remind me to, at some point, tell you about my lovely lovely Ahab and why it's so totally awful. I can't now because I'm seeing them tomorrow and it's apparently late (in relation to when I have to peel myself out of my bed tomorrow, at least).

But for the mean time, so you know what I'm feeling, trying giving this stuff a listen:

Piazzola's Kicho (especially the slow movement. The fast sections portray the angst though I suppose)

Mahler's 4th symphony, movement 4 (this is just a general feeling towards everything. But especially Ahab.)

Rapunzel and the like and of course Rats

Johanna (Sweeney Todd) and Rapunzel. Both two beautiful, delicate blonde girls (not women) that scream chastity and virginity and submissiveness, with their clean uncut hair (is that literally a hymen reference?!) and pale skin, symbolising that they are untouched by the cruelty of the real world.

And why are they seen as symbols of beauty and perfection? Perhaps it is the "possessive alpha male" that wants a woman untouched by any other man (raised only by the Witch, or in Johanna's case: the judge, who intends to keep her for himself) and wholly innocent to the cruelty of the real world. Wanting to love something "perfect", totally separate from the horrors of the world that the other has experienced - the girls offer an escape and alternate reality. Or perhaps (back to the big scary [read:vulnerable] alpha male) it is the girl's total reliance on one other to take care of them (protection, and providing food and shelter) that satisfies the possessive, insecure part of the man/woman. These girls are the naive virgin archetypes. 

And yet, they can be feminist figures too! Past their appearances and "femininity", these girls actually also show how when women are kept as children, kept naive and sheltered, they resort to deep longing and (ultimately) escape and rebellion! These girls are so inspired by their cages that they rip their way out, beaks and feathers plaited into an escape rope. Johanna tries to run away with that blond guy, and obviously Rapunzel has her prince. (Oh hey a pinch of salt to the feminists: it is the men that steal them away, rather than their own individual efforts. But none the less: girls, breaking free of their oppression.)

I was trying to think what these girls would actually look like, if they lived their whole life locked up in a room. 

No sunlight: sickly palor [read: pale as fuck and blotchy skin]. Rickets. Weak bones and teeth. Sensitive, mole-like eyes. Also, depressed as fuck. 

No exercise: (obviously) fat. Inability to sleep. Very low muscle development and a bad circulatory system. Look older. 

All in all, a crazy ugly ill person. I'd love to see a representation of Rapunzel like this, rather than the perfect blonde that they show. It'd be way more interesting to see a rabid girl ensnaring a prince and then hijacking his horse and riding into the distance. I think a lot more people would relate to her that way too.

I bet afterwards she'd become a bandit. 

Wishes, Longing, the Princes’ “Agony” and of course rats

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the emotional depth and significance of music (esp. see Mahler. Always see Mahler.) and stories and poetry with the mundane life, full of faults and boredom.

                It’s so easy to be over-romantic about it all – that imperfections are what make things so brilliant and all that jazz – but really, as much as that’s true, it doesn’t make anything more fulfilling (although yes, perfection would presumably be unfulfilling too).

Lydia gave me a wish bracelet, with sea-glass on it and it’s given me a lot of thoughts. When the bracelet falls off, your wish comes true. And so I’ve been thinking about wishes. Again, trying to reconcile the romantic, huge efforts (“an end to war!” which in itself I find difficult. Is an end to war actually a good thing?) to the mundane (“good results in exams!” which I’ve deeply been trying to purge from my head because ew). Into the Woods has great wishes – “go to the festival”, “want a child”, “she would go with you” etc. These are all specific and mundane and yet grand and romantic.

I can go for the big dreams “hope that I’ll end up in a forest with a good dude”, but the bracelet will fall off before I’m 40! I think that’s what’s great about the bracelet: it forces you to think about what you want in the next few months. Makes you think about immediate dreams. I don’t really have many immediate dreams (that are achievable anyway… Ahab….)

I love the sea glass so much. Keep on thinking about how it was once something mundane (and repulsive) and yet that wonderful physical feeling of a glass bottle! That it’s spent years in the depths of a cold, anonymous sea – connected to all the places I want to be in the world. Just letting things (violence) happen to it, at the mercy of nature. Sounds totally unreal. Like that Catullus,

 “And there you are – on heat and tossed

                                                so differently, just like

   a baby boat in a big sea

                                                                caught by a roaring storm-wind.”

So here, for now. Wishes huh? It can’t be vague, otherwise I’ll never have truly fulfilled it.

I caught sight of that book, “Twenty Guiding Principle of Karate” and it made me think of that brilliant quote that my dad told me from his karate magazine: “youth is wasted on the young, wisdom is wasted on the old”. And, I think, my wish will be that I find the strength (actively) to use my youth to become what I want to become. I’m thinking, motivation to be kinder and more generous, and better with people. More tolerant and enthusiastic. I want to appreciate people without it being an active effort. More carefree and openly loving. More like Lyds I suppose. Less secretive. Less ashamed. Exercise more. I think that if I can find that, it’ll be the most sustainable gift around. I suppose it’s hard to measure… But I guess it’ll become obvious eventually.

Action points: less computer. More writing. More going out. More night time going out. Running. More dog walks. More double bass. Nicer and more interested in people at school. 

Morals, Travel, Technology and of course rats

                What has become increasingly apparent and disturbing recently, to me, is that our society has no guidance. We are a part of such a complex system that we destroy without real conscience of our actions, and without any kind of moral guidance.

                Looking at travel: I’ve been extremely fortunate and gifted with having parents who love to travel. Really fortunate. I’ve been through Brazil, America, Vietnam, Southern Africa, Norway, Denmark, and so forth. I’ve seen countries which seem relatively untouched by tourism, and ones where it has become the sole provider of resources. And of course, tourism is extremely important for these countries, and it is in no way my place to say “we must hinder these countries development from poverty so that they maintain their status as genuine specimens of a working culture!” because that’s totally unfair, and if anything only consolidates the idea that the rest of the world is a freak show for the wealthy westerners, with their silly fanny packs and bottled water.

                What I’ve noticed in the last few years in which “moderate adventure travel” has become more popular is that the countries really change. When I went to Jordan only eight years ago, we drove out in a shitty jeep, frequently having to dig ourselves out of the sand, and lying on a rug in the middle of a Wadi for a few days. Now, in the last few years, the price for holidays there have skyrocketed, and you sleep in hotels that have been dug out into the ancient rocks which have been their many many millennia before ourselves.

                And the same is felt elsewhere. For example, Angkor Wat in Cambodia: what was one a genuine cultural fountain with kings and kingdoms is now a place for selfies and sun cream – at the expense of the landmark itself, which is beginning to chip away with each tourist. It’s so pathetically Post-Modern: that places that once had meaning now have less than a postcard for $1 at the giftshop.

                Everywhere you go, people are becoming the same: same phones, same shirt brands, same music taste. And maybe that’s good. Maybe we need similarity to survive in such a huge society. Or maybe this is the beginning of the end of culture, and the start of the rise of mass corporations feeding us ideologies with that order of chips.

                And where this is ultimately leading: if you ask anyone in travel if this loss of culture is what they intended, they will likely misinterpret the question and disagree with you, they’ll agree, or they’re stupid and misinformed. This loss in culture cannot be anything worthwhile.

                And where is our use in technology going? To make life more sedate and easy? Sure, in some ways that’s good. But anyone that’s had a summer holiday before knows that sitting down aimlessly is only fun for about a day. Hard work keeps the body and mind healthy. Stops you from becoming a Mississippi racist homophobic Baptist housewife. People should have livelihoods, and not just jobs for money for computers for… For what, exactly?

                I deeply worry that technology is taking us somewhere, at an exponentially fast rate, and that we have no moral guidance taking us there – instead only a scientist’s curiosity and a tired, unfulfilled worker’s boredom. We should be striving towards an ideal, or at least have some kind of moral compass in mind before we start driving towards a horizon in self-controlled cars (does it count as driving if it’s only a computer doing it? Where does the sense of accomplishment come from?)

                I heard an interesting thought today in an old broadcast of the “Radiolab” podcast, from the episode “Limits”, in which they met the man who designed a very intelligent computer which could derive physical laws from data which we humans are unable to comprehend due to the size of the numbers involved and complexity of the system. This computer could create equations describing how a system inside a cell worked (when humans had drawn a blank pretty early on), but gave no reason why it worked. The episode ended with the sombre thought that perhaps machines like “Eureka” are taking us to the great secrets of the universe that we, as monkeys, are simply unable to comprehend. And I ask, what will happen when we try to utilise equations describing laws we don’t understand. Who knows what the aftermath will be. And furthermore, how much value is there in knowledge that we don’t actually understand?

                Some thoughts to end with: should, or can, morals be taught? Have morals changed? And where is the modern world, governed by seemingly inevitable advances in technology, seeking to find fulfillment?