Zadig's Chronicle

Children of the Cyclone

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:57:00 +0000

Rays from a distant sun charge some of us with ephemeral importance.

As we rise, tense and sweaty into the cool air,

We are nothing but wasted potential.

Yet we are, for that moment, alive.

Friction, static, fronts, gusts,

Batterings, depressions,

Shattering downpours,

Wreckage,

Cyclones,

Mind.

Gradually at first, haphazardly always, and most singularly by nature,

We rise, forego ebb and flow, and bring the elements' onslaught,

To the the grime and decay of human efforts. And more.

Without effort we tear, shatter, flood, submerge,

With no aim, but simply being drawn,

Past the circle of torment,

To the stillness beyond,

Disembodied,

Static,

In the Eye.

Short Changed? [Othered] Views on Economy, Greed and Wealth...

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:52:00 +0000

In the context of the growing #Occupy movement, the on-going financial crisis, the fantastical which has evolved from a credit crunch, to a recession, to a double-dip recession - there's has been a long series of material posted on the internet about alternatives to the current strategy of extent credit via Quantitative Easing (QE). Ever a social pragmatist, I tend to believe problems (and their solutions) are best described when several separate opinions and social movements (however slated as populist or sensational) converge, and the videos below imho show a fair bit of convergence. Crowds, through their volatility, are able to show both stereotypical madness (e.g. Mackay, 1841) and/or wisdom (Surowiecki, 2004). As as budding scientist, all I can say is that the mounting evidence worldwide is quickly raking the 99% confidence interval for both proof of inequality and the moral imperative for DOING something about it.

Disclaimer: I also fully concede that I do not fully comprehend macro-economics; I gather there is mounting evidence that Macro-Economists do not really either (see for instance the current polemic regarding financial CEO bonuses as philosophically meticulously argued by Michael Sandel for those out there seeking neat arguments. If yet unconvinced go to: 'Nation Waiting For Protesters To Clearly Articulate Demands Before Ignoring Them')

Paul Grignon's 'Money as Debt I' - circa 2006(2002 actually)

Zeitgeist: The Movie - 2007 by Peter Joseph from ZeitgeistMovie.com on Vimeo.

Charles Ferguson's 'Inside Job' - 2008 (actually 2010)

'Zeitgeist: Addendum' - 2008

Paul Grignon's 'Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed' - 2009

Edgar Cahn - TEDxAshokaU Talk from AshokaU on Vimeo.

Berard Lietaer's 'Future of Money: Time for Change' - 2010

Robin Hood Tax & Bill Nighy's 'The Banker' - 2010

Positive Money's 'Why Do Banks Make So Much Money?' - 2011

Paul Grignon's 'Money as Debt III Evolution Beyond Money' - 2011

'Zeitgeist: Moving Forwards' - 2011

NEF's 'Where does money come from' - 2011

Peter Joseph at #OccupyLA - October 2011

Noam Chomsky at #OccupyBoston - October 2011

More to come as they pop up... send links!

[...]

Some references for the bookworm types:

MacKay, C. (1841) Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841; New York: Harmony Books, 1980)

Surowiecki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Little, Brown

A personal statement in (1)100 words

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:58:00 +0000

100 words or 1100? You decide.

Life’s taught me there are myriads of viewpoints; few we understand and fewer thought pathways we adhere to. Sometimes, we change the view.

The future, for me, is clear. We live in an era of unprecedented international migration and, with 2 billion internet users; cross-pollination of cultures, languages and scientific thought is reality.

It is also a challenge. William Gibson said ‘the future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet’. I tick ‘Mixed-Other’ on Ethnicity forms; I am trilingual, a positivistic scientist, a social constructivist, and also an artist. I am ready.

Spirit Levelling and Loose Morals

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:12:00 +0000

I really find it odd that it takes approximately three centuries of rationalism and a partially failed Enlightenment project to have a scientifically sound and cross-political discussion (notwithstanding a consensus, that'd be too much at this stage) on why inequality is actually bad. Yes, I wrote it, bad, a loaded and word to be avoided in parlance and written works.

Of course, it did take Darwin over two decades to gather the academic credential moss allowing his stand against chauvinistic creationism to take root and Simone de Beauvoir a collection of novels before her vision on the retrograde sexuality of the era became more than libidinous fantasy; so why not stall some more on the clearly controversial issue of inequality?

Well, we should not simply because it is wrong and, to put aside Scientific Arrogance or Nihilism and attempts at keeping the status quo: 'Every being in the universe knows right from wrong'

And so...let's dream of pink cows and yellow carrots under a green-blue sky

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:02:00 +0000

Yes...to bed, to embrace felicitous unconsciousness and temporary oblivion. Why not, indeed, savour temporary relief from the wakeful and flawed grasp on a reality irremediably betwixt with the glacial shears of arrogant consciousness?

I'd choose corny dreams of pink cows and yellow carrots any day, for sure. Some might scoff my sugary landscapes; even mock me for loving the intermittent pitter-patter of its beloved feature: lukewarm honey crystals showers falling out of a blue-green sky at sundown. Corny, I am and stay, and you haven't visited the valleys of formerly confused marshmallows reading this, or the unfortunate space station of grumpy non-sequiturs.

But, hey, go back to bed Timmy, I say; so you can, instead of under-pricing my pink cows, nurture your wet dreams of hot IPO market analysis. Tucked away in your dutiful duvet, you'll be able summon a kerfuffle of zombies to mine out irreducible statistics from the black box of your own ravaged privacy. Staring at them, later in the night, you'll merrily find that some numbers look the same, somehow...

And somehow, I'll be able to see you from here, too. You'll have a stripy red and white pimp's suit and an equally morbid top hat. Forcefully, you still be oozing out the mysterious appeal of your asexual prostitution across dreamscapes, until one night all dreamers left on Earth will fall foul of your incessant attacks on marshmallows and relegate you to an obtuse space station where your mindless hordes won't follow.

HOWTO: Plan your mid-life crisis in one session

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:04:00 +0000

DAWN
1) Start early, there's little point pussy-footing around. Get a useful book such as 'The 7 Habits of Highly Void People' ; '10 Tips To Increase The Speed of Your Vacuous Lives' ; '3 Ways to this One One'. When confident in your forlorness, attend several motivational speakers talks about any subject, really. Get signed copies or T-Shirt, and sell them on E-bay. Write down all insights, record them on audio, video, mixed media, and discover you're in business and thats it's truly happening - you're doing it through your own life!

ELEVENSES
2) So, jump in, if you haven't already, wallow and experiment with form, and merge with the utter pointlessness of finding a defining moment in a time of transition in these post-modern time. Grow a moustache, then decide on a goatie. Buy 5 copies of 'The power of Then' and give them freely to your friends in a passive-aggressive way. Before that, sell 10 copies of 'Long Way To the Top' in another pyramid scheme, get ready to go to Peru.

BEFORE SIESTA
3) Interrupt the journey, have a lukewarm pint in the pub outside Stansted, and use your tickets artistically to symbolise the realisation by roaching them into an animalistic figure characterising your emerging state of turmoil. There, you've externalised it. Watch football for starters, or the shopping channel if that's your thing now

AT IT
4) Remember it's your crisis. Make sure to shape it the way you want, don't forget to forget all the restrictions that were put on your as a child/daughter/son/bro/sis/preteen/teen/weirdo/chum/adult/mum/dad/bore/burden/mid-lifer. Put these aside as illusions. Remember its only you who is paranoid.

THEN
5) Evaluate your actualities and externalities against your initial business plan, do a SWOT analysis, as well as an in-depth review of your incompetencies. Cultivate a shallow interest betwixt with occasional disdain for combined refracted shadows in and beside columns in multi-lit rooms.

AFTER TEA
6) Have a burger, a kebab, a pair of tonsils, two pakoras, a DVT and a bypass. Find yourself yet again outside Stansted, with a pint and a faux designer ticket to Peru.

MIDNIGHT
7) Collect a sense of the session, and of all the avenues generated, in your favourite medium. Put this online, or in any convenient form of storage, ready to unpack and apply efficienty.

GET TO IT
∞

In the Name of the Ancient and Fatherly Ninja; the Up-your-Street Apprentice Ninja, the Ever-Cloaked Ninja and, shhh - don't mention Mum

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:57:00 +0000

The Go-spel According to Zadig:

Christianity is and was great in this aspect: be tolerant, get outside your own little world, understand that you are flawed, see that other people are flawed, oh dear, so: strive to better yourself, you lazy and grumpy sod - and don't make a fuss if you or anyone else fails: it's only human. No big news, but a good insight, which is still relevant now as it was then - and damn right it should. The whole world would be a better place if some effort was put in either developing compassion or some enlightened self-control or personal development; even better if both were practised in tandem; yet a thousand times better if that was without hypocrisy; and true paradise if it were to happen through love rather than Health & Safety guidelines and life-long learning.

Incidentally this is where it went wrong: the mounting hypocrisy of its practitioners led to the deification of human figures and followed onto incessant quarrels about which version of the divine Health and Safety scriptures was the almighty one and only. Nothing like a bit of struggle to get to the truth or to the bottom of things, you would say. Indeed, a bit of a philosophical and metaphysical wrestle could be health and bring in a form another some progress and cerebral evolution, but unfortunately, there was not much variations in the versions of the mighty manual, since they were coauthored by innumerable but similar balding men in robes and their heterogeneous hordes of translators.

So indeed, heathens, you will be saved from your god-forsaken livelihoods of difference, clearly you would not have any more of that (we won't either) - might you be a lowly native, some random savages, who are most likely of colour(i.e. not like JC), surely sexually deviant and - yes - even female.

[in hush tones and encrypted invisible cyber-ink]

Indeed, even females could be saved in the encompassing mantle of christian tolerance. But where would they belong in the cosmic picture, in between a profusely bearded yet invisible fatherly figure; a less-so bearded but definitely public figure with a certain penchant for allegory and an also public but undoubtedly enigmatic motivational speaker with very advanced ninja skills? Actually, even the public-speaking dude did disappear for a bit, so he might have an invisibility cloak. But I digress: So, if ninja powers are involved, maybe christian symbolic females are the ultimate ninjas who never uncloak(!), and whose following you can only indulge in by finding out the meaning and, hopefully, the location of the secret ninja school? (see what I did there?)

[warning great secrets ahead]

Well, poof, dispelled the smokescreen, and ninjas begone: the magical formula of the Father, Son and Holy spirit camouflages one tip of the cross, or if you prefer, shhh, don't mention Mum. Thousands or re-interpretations for this silent treatment exist already and there's no need re-iterating them, the web does a wonderful job for an enquiring mind, but an enquiring mind does not necessarily need the web. But since this is Zadig's version, here's what was meant, for real:

[Ooo]

The cross is simply, yet deeply, an exercise to become centered. The top of the cross represents the more subtle consciousness, not so much timeless as forethought and hindsight, the bottom of the cross represents here now, i.e. the place and time where the previous has little influence. The left and right, or right and left, depending whether (1) here now, going forwards with this line of thought and looking at this argument from the inside out or (2) out there, inspecting this argument from the outside and retracting from this line of thought are poles between tangibility and intangibility, between what you can imagine and what you can accomplish.

Pretty straightforwards Kaballah, really. Does not cost much, can help you make some more poised decisions, and give you a better chance at exercising the tolerance we mentioned above - you can do that, daily, or simply get to work, you lazy sod. Only thing missing, is love; but since you cannot point to it in the here and now, it's better keep quiet about it. And so, shh - don't mention Mum; or she'll awaken and tell tales of how a three-pronged cross is the most unbalanced figure of the first dimensional plane; and all sorts of incoherent horrors ensue from such a coherent, and wonderfully conceited, error.

Since we can observe, understand and maybe forgive, let's not forget.

In Response to Scotland’s Political Football?

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:55:00 +0000

Scotland’s Political Football?

Aye, right.

With primary schools barely managing no more than 2 or 4 ‘periods’ of PE in a week it is no wonder that any sport does not summon much enthusiasm. The younger generation must be taught at school the basic concepts of sportmanship, i.e. training, improving, trying your best, and the camaraderie and enjoyment of competition.

Competition is distinct from inclusion, and will always be, so there is a need to grow up from the educators/trainers side and make the clear distinction in our heads and it will become so for the younger folk. Some PE sessions should by default be inclusive and forment cooperation; some should be competitive and and train young people to win and lose – the role of the educator/teacher/trainer is different in these circumstances and the approach must change.

Personally, I am not a fan of football, in fact I am now pretty much against it, now that I have seen what it represents for so many. There is no way I would watch it on TV or support a team; but I’d gladly play a few friendly or competitive games, keepie uppies, 1-on-1, 5-aside, or the whole court 22-people experience, and not break into a fight if on the losing side, or dive to get a penalty – but try my damned hardest to play well and enjoy it.

Indeed, I say 11-v-11 because, no, I would not need a referee to tell me whether what I or someone else did was against the rules – it should be pretty obvious. If it isn’t obvious, well maybe the players should go back to training. The fact there’s a referee in-built in every game is a political message: it makes footballers want to circumvent the rules. It is the perfect transposition for a bunch of unruly kids making fun of the teacher, testing who will get caught out.

Maybe one way forwards would be to phase out referees out of football (professional and amateur), and altogther cancel games that can’t proceed in order? It would be a lot of trauma, but maybe different values might surface. Or maybe retire all current footballers earning more than the national average that can’t play a straight game without a shout match or referees? – surely they have something yet to learn about society and should not help to skew it’s unfairness even more.

Obviously, I am taking the mickey, but compared professional footballers, I’ll gladly excuse myself and foul again.

As a disclaimer, I am not a sports professional, but a youth worker, and in 10+ odd years of youth work in Scotland, I can see that culturally, most young people are expected by the age of 5 to ‘support’ a team, i.e. a loud and clear message from the adult world to take a back seat, watch the older players at it, moan and groan if they fail, and start lambasting – with adult approval – anyone who supports any other team.

So, football – a great obsession. Why it fails to deliver young sportspersons (and I skip discussing the inherent sexism) is neither rocket science, nor complex politics. At least playstation games have some rules.

Hmm, this might work

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:32:00 +0000

Back to Zero

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:47:00 +0000

How does being at zero (or, even worse, being a zero) summon negative connotations?

Didn't the end of history bear a certain touch of positive thought, however innocuous?

Maybe zero is simply too close to the origin, an uncomfortable middle of nowhere,

Where, to the West lies debt, and the creation of someone else's riches,

While in the East, wealth is but the measure of one's vacuity.

Maybe zero is too much like an impeding stillness,

And like the minor deaths we experience,

Each time we cross the line.

Time for a snack

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:18:00 +0000

Re: #debill - A letter to an MP

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Dear Gavin Strang,

I am writing to ask you as my alter-ego's MP to voice my concerns about the digital economy bill.

His concerns are two-fold:

1) Firstly, the manner in which the bill was passed, particularly in regards to the lack of attention paid to the repercussions on freedom of speech of clause 8, illustrating the problem of democratic deficit which many in the community feel.

The problem is simple, if as MPs you do not actually represent public opinion you act so as to invalidate the basis of democracy, i.e. the consent of the governed, and so undermine the foundations of your political power.

This concern is growing across members of different communities, across generations, and traditional political groups. If you do not voice it, a new political structure will be created and you will in fact be putting yourself out of a job.

2) Secondly, since the average age of MPs is around 50, I can assert that not one MPs today is a 'digital native', but moreso 'digital immigrants'. While they may have some legal vision for the digital medium, in no way do they have a cultural understanding thereof, and there is no sense in pretending to. However, a degree of cultural sensitivity would be commendable in a plural democracy.

The stupendous blunder of Stephen Timms thinking an IP address is Intellectual Property tells me straightaway that there is more than just IT protocols that the current MPs need to gain awareness of before putting forwards a bill shaping the culture of today.

Yours sincerely,

[Zadig's Chronicle]

44B4ZDSD7NUC

(Original message signed with an electronic signature in accordance with subsection 7(3)of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.)

Schrodinger's (un)Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:41:00 +0000

"An unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates

'Hmpff' -- Zadig

That´s not very Zen, however mindful of the old bugger. But, nevertheless, did Socrates set-up, through these innocuous words, our post-modern condition, which I'll as qualify as a general state of Schrodinger's (un)Happiness?

On one hand, this era sees pundits of the human mind - neural scientists, life coaches, hypnotists, psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, past-life regressers and plethora of future and new-life encroachers, all claim to be able to the mind bare, and fix it.

Yet in this saner world, someone named Bush got elected three times (Im counting the dad and the later less-abled clone as the same entity), and the world bowed to the mass hysteria of the War on Terror. Meanwhile the insanely obese, yet untouchable, banking felines keeping feeding on the fat of the land, which is no longer.

In this world, it is not sanity per se that matters, but rather upholding a state quantum (un)Happiness. Socrates might well twist and turn in his ashen grave, but examination of oneś life does not sell, or - more exactly - not if it is taken to its logical conclusions. Rather, the mind sciences serve more as a buffer and helps contruct life experience as a convenient wee box of localised probabilities, never mind the larger view.

In the snug box, funny interactions between belief, disbelief, mindfulness and zen-like instants of pure being pull together a wonderful show, a great and wonderful ride.

Yet, on the other hand, the sheer egoism and je men foutisme of this era could not be more zenly immersed in the undeniable immanence of the X-factor-fill-the Big-Brother-emptiness-of-my-life frenzy, seasonal football fanhood disorder, daily sitcom lobotomies and the eternal spam streaming through the letterbox.

Is it escape? Is it living now to the full? Maybe that in that most peculiar box of human belief, lost socks turn themselves into wasted flyers, and that short-sightedness is the key to happiness? Indeed, in the box, happiness is no longer an experience, but rather a duty and the onus is on the boxee to get to it.

The cat is no longer in the bag, in fact the cats have become the bag. This new series is unfortunately as chirpy and puntastic as a repeat of Bagpuss. What is in the box is the dream of happiness, which, just like the cat, dies if examined.

Well, most probably.

Engrish vs Google

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:34:00 +0000

The Last Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:29:00 +0000

A honeyed charm flows,

From the poet dreaming, immersed,

In things insignificant, tiny, minute or otherwise peculiar.

Akin to a child, carefree -

Beauty and horror savoured at once,
In the glow of Becoming.

Yet, the charm ebbs

From the former poet, defused,

By things insignificant, tiny or otherwise peculiar

As time slays, carefree, minute by minute,

Childish acts oh so unbecoming

In the way of ageing.

Zadig, or the Book of Fate

noreply@blogger.com (Zadig) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:36:00 +0000

Ahh, the wonders on the internet...If you're able to digest french audiobooks, head over to: http://www.audiocite.net/livres-audio-gratuits-philosophies/voltaire-zadig-ou-la-destinee.html

As for text, the whole book linked from the wonderful Project Gutenberg's online library at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18972/18972-h/18972-h.htm

unleash

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:32:00 +0000

unless done already the need for punctation and pause when it is time as it is your time not some other time it is only your life in staccato in the eye of the author hitherto notwithstanding the loneliness of me poor little me in the ebb and flow of no one oh no need for that either wean and pause once and forever so you'll know you've been mistaken, taken the wrong turn, cast underneath by a jeering trickster, overshadowed by a gormless cedar and clumsily shelved by a jester in the attic by a missing arm statue leaning her albino head on the left well your left but her right to be there at once staring back yes there was but one moment with no leash

A.K.A

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:46:00 +0000

The AKAs below are a compendium of opinions and nuggets of insight about the untold abilities, skills and experiences of contemporary careers - those not mentioned in the job descriptions. The list will grow as in time Zadig becomes more acquainted with these life paths:

The Economist, aka:

The one scientist that really has founds loads of ways to justify knowing nothing at all whilst having the allure of knowing it all and being dubbed having the insight as to where the next well of wealth will spring from...if you -and only a few others-buy it, in time, that is.
To be contrasted to social scientists who find loads of ways not to justify anything while actually knowing where the next funds will come from...if you sell yourself in time and in the right discourse, that is.
Also known as the weaver of words and webs of deceit able to make the next blatant ponzi scam as marketable and trustworthy as your local supermarket's 2-4-1 offer on cheap and nasty sausages.
The one profession that in relates solely in phonetic terms to the word "economy", which is wrongly perceived as its etymological root. The quality of being efficient or frugal in using resources rarely applies to the modern practice of economists - with their high salaries, untouchable pensions schemes, unsustainable exploitation of the environment and recurrent ponzi scams (yet again).

The Youth Worker, aka:

One of many practicians that has founds loads of ways of appearing like not doing much formally whilst actually doing a lot informally and getting burnt out in the process while actually creating more formal work in the long run. And informal evaluations.
Not to be contrasted with social scientists.

The Modern Art Curator, aka:

A pesky irritating twat aspiring to timeless grandeur whilst punting tack. A glorified shopkeeper able to find depth in artpieces(or concepts) from shallow artists as a function of its market value.
(Re: Modern Art: 1) is very much a pile of dung, from which rich manure fertilises thousands, and it is a good thing, 2) Modern Art, however, does not mandate a curator and so,
this post will be replaced by explicitly money-grabbing yet useful online auction sites as ebay as soon as possible, as part of a cost-cutting / bullshit-shedding exercise.

The Academic Researcher, aka:

A pesky pedant twat attaining posterity by punting futile papers rehashing argument followed by (Author, Year:Page) as a backup, since nothing if more tautologically convincing. Very often a venered bearby person, able to weave some allure in the shallowest of arguments and with a tendency of weaving the slightest (none too radical) idea into an unsurmountable wall of prose.
However, is it pointed here that, this proposition, as aforementioned, neither is sufficient, nor essential, in the utterance of the proposition which ensues. Hence, there you have it.

Dream Dimensions

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:55:00 +0000

Some dreams always ought to be caught...

Clubbing in a many-eyed birthday suit...

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:23:00 +0000

And so I step into the shimmying pit of darkness, a carved out lair dripping hard-earned rancid and unfashionable sweat, yes, a club. Oh, what a cosy sordid place where one-eyed sharks circle round, where immodest and wilful victims step onto the stage staging oblivion with a series of, rhythmic, acts of immolation. This is where I've been

Lovin' it.

Yet again the usual strawberry smoke screen blasts into the uneasy space, just in time to hide the weary smiles, the *grins* and falsely loving beady eyes. At least the floor now gets less occasional stares from a roomful of chronically gaze-averting singletons and one can truly be alone iwith the sisters and brudders of the swarm

Diggin' it.

Well, no. This is getting personal: I am starting an allergy to the damn stuff and instead of the usual itchy spots of redness, emerges a myriad of dazzling white eyes, tearing through the shoddy baggy clubby stylee clothing. In less than 5 odd beats, I was but a humanoid in a many-eyed birthday suit,

Looking out of place. Innit?

Skeptical Gulliblianism and the ying-yang coin of futility

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:08:00 +0000

Skepticism, believe me or not, in its best form is really Pyrrhonism but without the funny name and the pitfalls of its academic cousin. It also not to be confused with another relative which is ethical hedonism, no no no – there’s fortunately more use to reason in this philosophy than mere deductions of the type ‘pain = avoid / pleasure = seek’ and hence there is more depth in its practice than simple beefcaking.

Gulliblianism, and trust me on this one, somehow is the diametrical opposite as the pyrrhonism mentioned above but yet exactly the same due to its non-committal characteristics. It is like flipping/rotating/inverting the fabled ying-yang coin of futility: there is no point coming, and that is a good thing (or maybe not, what was it we were talking about?)

The combined practice of Skeptical Gulliblianism, however, pushes interpretation to a new level, as well as the general tartiness of the philosopher’s character: you don’t really believe what’s proposed but you’re are happy to go along with it in a limited world of credulity which makes up the social space. In brief, it is a practice of arcane psychological Aikido more substantial than nihilism and nihilism-lite.

The question is: Why Bother? Well, in my humble opinion, indulging such a level of turncoatiness would make most politicians squirm as it reclaims personal freedom in a world that legislation and bureaucracy has made stale and inert beyond the natural inclinations of the human spirit.

However, you would not trust me to believe that point now, would you?

Dead Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:05:00 +0000

"...I wont be dead matter I tell you, I will be alive, kiss the new dawn in eagerness and mindless expectancy of things yet to come, and yes, I haven't dreamt of them yet and so much the better...and then, when the day is done, I'll sigh at what I missed, despair, sob, and wish I would go back, albeit reluctantly."

Q:"But what's wrong with dead matter?"

A:"Listen, there's nothing wrong with dead matter, I am only telling you I am there no more."

In two words, Zadig is:

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:00:00 +0000

1) A recreational drug
2) An onion

Why:
1) I am addictive, fun at weekends, bad in the week
2) I will make you cry

Across the times...

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:41:00 +0000

This man shared out lould that he had only found out that his daughter, after 14 years of separation and silence, wanted to speak to him and meet him, this very night.

Leaving tears, violins and drama aside, this woman simply asked 'what for?'

Aye, that's right, what for, ever?

Yet, I could but understand the forsaken dad... it is after all the only role men are cast into that actually means anything past the temporal erection - its the impersonation of the castaway; the one that strays from the rightful path/bloodline, yet only to come back in capers and disgrace - for sure, but are still the ones that estrange, separate and are forever distant from the soul of the world.

For most, it seems, the distance is no problem, no pain, no mark upon their souls, as they fill them with wonders and gadgets, achievements and skill, coldness and wisdom. Yet, futility remains and until the last heart beat, the unspoken question 'what for' remains... and no distant daughters suddenly appear in the frigid desolation of a barren heart, No - nothing...but the remnants of a hope, made ever more significant in its impeding oblivion.

A message in the shattered mirror...

noreply@blogger.com (Elric) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:19:00 +0000

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

Carrion Comfort - by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

AS the mirror shatters, and the shards clumsily dangle,
Appears listlessly a blunt message written in absent wax,
At once, a rainbow ode to human defiance of fate,
and, as much,a memento of the soul's annihilating defeat.

From then, this mere child, once mine, would never comprehend, or even accept,
the disgrace, the emptiness and the pang of hunger in his forlorn heart.
Yet innocence preserves forever the moments of grace and infinite beauty lying therien,
Beyond our lifeless reflections, our deadly paradoxes, and the sordid decay of daily banality.