Balance: The Great Pendulum of Life

Hello, audience. I'm not going to lie. This blog is fifty percent because I had a topic, and fifty percent because I feel obligated to write after not having done so for most of February. I'm not sure where the last month went, but I have my suspicions, and I'll give you more information in a bit.

Also, I feel like I should inform you in advance that this blog is in intentionally shorter than usual. I tend to write a lot to begin with, but I've been getting longer and longer as time has gone on and I feel bad. So this one will be short, sweet, and to the point.

For a few years now, I've been interested in the concept of Universal Balance. Cultures since the dawn of time have also been fascinated by balance and have exhibited such in various displays of duality in their religious, mythical, and spiritual beliefs. Light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong, male and female, day and night, hot and cold, fire and water, earth and air, time and space, etc.

Lately, I've been pointing out little moments in life where it seems like things are really fantastic, and then everything sucks two or three days later. I have really stretched my belief in universal balance because of that, seeing all these instances of things staying balanced over some period of time. At some points, it even seems like the flow of time runs on a system of balance. Some days, time drags on and on and on, and others, it flies by so quickly, you're not sure you were even awake most of the day. A good example of this is that January took like five months to pass, and February took about two days. Or so it seems.

I get frustrated by this balance, blaming Murphy for ruining things once they started looking up, but that's not the final conclusion I've come to about it. I decided that it's like a pendulum, something that isn't by any means an original thought, but is still a great picture.

I couldn't find any pictures of a swinging pendulum, so you get this diagram instead.

Life is a pendulum, swinging between the good and bad things in life. It goes back and forth, into one half, then back to the other. Now, if someone were to put their hand on the bad side to try and keep it from swinging into that half of the spectrum, the pendulum would lose its momentum and therefore not be able to swing as far the other direction. Its range decreases on both sides if you limit one. So by limiting your ability to experience the bad, you also limit your ability to experience the amazing things in life that make it worth living. You can't have one without the other.

A good example of this is living cautiously. If someone is always afraid something bad is going to happen, then they  take all sorts of precautions to keep things from going wrong. They don't do dangerous things or exciting places, they don't do anything reckless, they always keep to the plan and live so as to preserve their life the best. Now, this person would surely be safe from danger, but they would also be safe from doing anything fun or exciting. They'd never go sky diving or rock climbing, they'd never listen to loud music, they'd never drink irresponsibly, they'd never stuff themselves silly with junk food,they'd never meet anyone exciting or new, they'd never go on adventures or do much of anything at all. They'd have less bad, but they'd keep themselves from just as much good.

Of course, this also works the opposite way. People who over-indulge in good things open themselves up to a lot of bad in equal amounts. The solution to this is the adage that has taken my group of friends by storm: Everything in moderation.

A pop culture example would be the movie Equilibrium, with Christian Bale. In the movie, mankind suffered through the tragedy of World War III, and decided that IV would leave no one alive. So they sought the root of humanity's problems and realized it was emotions. Hatred, anger, greed, lust, etc. To solve this problem for everyone's sake, an intravenous drug called Prozium was created to suppress emotions. There's a lot to the movie, but the eventual point is that though the drug gets rid of the root cause of violence, it also gets rid of the positive spectrum of human emotion. The decision must then be made as to whether or not allowing ourselves to feel the good emotions is worth the cost of the bad.

Also, lots of action-y violence and fight scenes. Cleric John Preston is way cooler than Batman.

In my opinion, it's worth it every time. Life wouldn't be worth living without all the good things. Sure, the bad things suck, but they're not everything. And if all you spend your time doing is focusing on the bad, of course that's all you'll see. I'm learning to accept the bad and hold onto the good. I've found this amazing new appreciation for life in understanding the balance of life and what it really means.

So don't forget, audience. Life may suck now, but it won't always suck. The pendulum will swing back around and things will be okay again. Till next time, just keep swinging.

Playing Guitar: Tips and Tricks From A Fellow Musician

Hello there, audience. My last blog was about music, and I decided that I would continue the trend in honor of the new addition to my musical family. A quick story first, and then I'll get to business.

Once upon a time, I played cello. I got really into guitar, and my parents traded in the contract on my lease to own cello and got me an electric guitar starter kit from Ibanez. It's a nice deep blue GIO, and his name is Ray Charles. Yes, I do realize Ray Charles played piano. I've had Ray for about four years, maybe five now, and he's still playing strong. A couple years ago, I got a Peavey Predator for Christmas/Birthday (they're close enough together that I get presents all at once, but far enough apart that I don't get them combined and get half the presents. :D). It was bright red, and I named her Anna Lee after the song by Dream Theater. In the last year or so, I needed money to repair Ray Charles and decided, after much deliberation, to sell Anna Lee to procure the funds necessary. It was sad, but it had to be done. This last week, my mother went to Arizona on business and took some of her down time to visit relatives living there. She visited my great uncle, who had a few guitars left to him when his son died in the early 2000's. He decided to present one of them to me as a gift, and mother brought it back to me last night. It's a dark red Epiphone SG Special. Her name is Roxanne, or Roxy for short.

This is one of me and Ray Charles, way back when I started playing. I've come a long way since.

In playing Roxy for a few hours, I sort of rekindled my passion for playing guitar. I've been feeling a bit stale lately, as I don't have much material to learn or any specific direction to practice in. Getting this new guitar as a gracious gift, and it being of better quality than Ray Charles, I decided to run over a lot of old songs I know in E standard tuning. Roxy plays smoothly enough that it was an absolute joy to play, and I ended up sitting around for hours playing old material from memory. Now, I'm sitting on the couch next to my gorgeous new guitar, and I decided to try and take some pieces from my own guitar playing experience and try and pass on some tips to aspiring fellow guitarists, whether I know you personally or if we have never met and doubtfully ever will. So, without further ado, here are some things I have done in the past or still do to keep up my skill and continue to improve.

Don't laugh. This is where all great guitarists started out.

Always always always start with a strong foundation.
If you don't know how basic music theory works, put down your guitar and go sit in on an elementary school music class. You need to understand what scales are, sharps flats and naturals, chords, time signature and meter, and how to read basic sheet music, tabs, and chord charts. These are VITAL to getting a proper base in music. You can learn everything and anything if you know just a few basic things that you can pick up from any 

music class or book on the basics of playing an instrument. Take the time to learn it.

Along with that, you need to understand the fundamentals of the instrument. Know what all the parts are and what they do. I know it sounds childish, but it really is important. Think of how foolish you would feel talking to another guitarist about playing and not being able to even talk to them about your instrument, let alone how to play it. Learn how to hold a pick, or how to finger-pick or strum with your nails if you would rather not use a pick. Be able to play all the strings at once, or one at a time, or isolated groups of two or three. Know how to place your finger on the frets to get the proper tone, how to palm mute, how to alternate pick, etc. Basic guitar techniques. If you don't know how to do any of these, go out and get a starter book for guitar and begin to learn there. Or, look it up online. Or ask a friend. Or get a teacher. But don't move forward until you have those basics down. 

Everything is 200% more frustrating without them. This is where a lot of aspiring guitarists slip up and then quit when things get hard. I wouldn't have made it this far without a firm grounding in basic music theory and guitar playing technique. So learn it.

Start with what you know.

The easiest place to begin is somewhere familiar. Pick a band you know and love, and choose a song by them you've always wanted to learn. Go online and try to find tabs or chord charts or sheet music of their songs. There are countless sites for archiving music for guitar, but my personal favorite is [ultimate-guitar.com]. If you can't find it online, then try listening to the song and picking out parts by ear. This is more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, as it trains you to actively listen, to seek out pitch and teach yourself by repetition how to listen to guitar parts. If you do find an outside record of the music, sit down with it and read it over while listening to the song. Familiarize yourself with the flow of the song, the order of riffs, which melodies repeat or are varied upon and where, etc. Really drill it into your head. Then, start playing.

No snarky remarks here. Just do it.

Take it one step at a time.

Pick out individual riffs or licks, starting from the top, and play them by yourself. Do it over and over and over again until you're comfortable playing it straight through with relatively little mistakes on most of your runs. No one is perfect, but if you strive to play it perfectly, then you'll always do better. Once you're comfortable, try playing along with the song. Again, do it over and over and over again, until you can keep up with the song and play it as much like the recording as possible. With that piece down, go back, pick up the next portion, and start again. When you have that down, play the song from the top. Keep going until you can play everything straight through comfortably with the recording. Take it piece by piece one step at a time until you're playing the entire song straight through. After that, you can shut off the recording and play through it by yourself to ensure you've really committed everything to memory.

Don't get discouraged if you're not very good. Most of the songs I learned for the first year or so of playing were played entirely on the low E string, and were very very simple. You have to start somewhere, and that's why starting with something you like will help. It's a song you like to listen to, one you know, and one you really want to play, if only the simplest part or your favorite melody. Every hour of practice you put in strengthens your callouses, builds muscle memory, reaction time, and overall comfort with your instrument. The best way to ensure you never learn to play is by choosing something too difficult or a song you aren't familiar with and then giving up because you can't do it right away. It takes lots of practice to learn an instrument, and guitar is especially hard because it hurts your fingers to be pressing on the strings for long periods, as well as frustrating your brain when trying to make your fingers move in the correct order or with the proper timing and speed or to go to the correct positions without much difficulty. Just keep trying over and over again, and you'll be sure to make progress.

Trust me. Everyone has one of these moments.

Keep broad horizons.
As much fun as it would be to learn every song by a single band, most artists only have a few tricks up their sleeves as to the way they write songs. Once you learn a few songs by your favorite artist, pick another and learn some of theirs. Pick different genres, styles, tempos, and difficulty levels. If you know four fast songs, start learning some slow ones. Balance is key to becoming a well rounded musician. That includes genres as well as difficulty levels. If all you know how to play is super fast songs, you may not develop proper technique for keeping rhythm. Super technical songs are fun, but they get you accustomed to memorizing patterns, not actual song structures. You should be able to strum the guitar to a soft rock song as well as you can shred your technical metal songs. The same applies the other direction. Don't learn all slow, easy going, simple songs. Pick some faster or more upbeat songs, or ones with riffs rather than chord progressions. Or just learn the lead guitar parts to simpler songs.

I started off playing Metallica and The Misfits on one string, then taught myself some Dio. I picked up tabs for Iron Maiden and Megadeth, some AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. Eventually I got into Dream Theater and burned blood sweat and tears trying to learn it. I got some simpler things like Ludo, or some pop rock songs with simple tunes. I also played for the worship band at my youth group, so I learned songs with simple repetitive chord progressions but specific strumming patterns or rhythms. I learned fast songs and slow ones, easy ones and much harder ones. 

Sometimes, I only knew two riffs out of a song because the rest were too difficult to play at the time. Eventually I came back when I was better and tried again. Now I can play a stack of Dream Theater songs, a lot of Megadeth, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains, The Human Abstract, some Red, some Forgive Durden, I learned to play and sing a bunch of Ludo, I've even learned some classical songs I transcribed for guitar. I let my playing repertoire reflect my taste in music and spread out the type of things I learned to encompass a lot of it. It keeps things interesting, and it keeps my playing from getting too shred heavy or too slow-strumming filled.

Use your senses to improve your own playing.
Listen carefully to what you're doing. There are plenty of guitar tabs or chord charts that were put together incorrectly, and what you play can end up sounding very different from what the song sounds like. Listen to the parts that sound incorrect and determine whether it was a mistake in the written music, or if you're playing something incorrectly. If something feels awkward to play, try to find a different way of playing it. Move the notes around on the fretboard to a place that might be easier for you to play. Run through the song over and over and try to discover what notes are wrong and correct them for yourself. There's almost nothing quite as rewarding for me as discovering an error in a tab and figuring out the right way to play it on my own by ear. Especially when 323 people gave that tab a 5 star rating and told the author it was perfect and awesome and magical.

Ear horn is optional.

Above all, trust your senses. After listening and playing to a song a few dozen times, you should be able to tell if something is wrong or needs adjusting. If you find out you're playing something wrong, play it over and over the right way to correct your muscle memory. Constantly check up to make sure that everything is falling properly into place before you go on playing. There's not much worse than learning to play a song, and then realizing weeks later that you have been playing it wrong the whole time and having to re-teach your fingers what to do.

Constantly practice and refine your playing.
Practice may not always make perfect, but it makes it damn close. You have to set aside time to play regularly or else you will lose callous, finesse, muscle memory, or just forget entire songs. If you're really serious about learning, you'll find the time to play an hour or two every few days. Start by warming up your hands with something simple, some exercises you get from elsewhere or you come up with yourself. Things that get both hands awake and ready to play. Play things you know really well first, to keep them solid in your memory and to refine whatever techniques those songs use. Then move onto things you're learning or are having trouble with. Dedicate most of your time to working out mistakes and correcting them. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over should be exactly what your practice time looks like. Until you get it right, or you've made progress and want to move onto something else.

Never stop learning new things. Always try to find something new to play that challenges you in a new way. Something that requires more finesse and attention to strumming or picking patterns, something that stretches your muscle memory by using weird chords or chord progressions, learning new riffs or techniques that make your hands do things you haven't done before. Keep it diverse, keep it interesting, and keep it challenging. If everything you pick up to play is really easy, look into another artist or genre of music.

Along the way, pick up as much music theory as you need to continue getting better. Learn about different scales or keys or modes or chord progressions. Look into blues and jazz and learn about improvising. Start trying to come up with songs of your own using techniques or styles you have learned and become comfortable with. Nothing stretches your ability with your instrument like putting all your knowledge on the table and trying to create something of your own out of it. Write your own songs, then come up with lyrics. Write chord progressions and fun licks to play on them. Come up with riffs or lead melodies. Write solo parts. Write harmonies. Find another guitarist to play with. Always try to find something new and challenging to present yourself with when you become comfortable and capable with the last. The greatest guitarists in the world are still learning and growing and practicing and developing their abilities every single time they pick up their guitar.

Even now, when they're playing for crowds like this.

Most important of all, Have fun.
If your practice sessions consist of you getting really frustrated at a new song or a difficult riff, and then giving up and storming away, try to lay off on the new stuff for a while. The whole point of playing guitar is to have fun making music that you enjoy. The second it stops being fun, you're crossing out of the zone you should be playing in. Now, if you're just giving up because you don't want to try, then maybe you should push yourself a little harder. It takes lots of practice, and sometimes things just seem impossible. But if you keep at it, you'll work through it and learn to overcome whatever difficulty you're facing. And then you can be proud of yourself for having learned that really difficult song, and you can show it off to all of your friends. If you give up, you really never will get any better, and you might as well sell your guitar, because it's not that you can't do it. It's that you're choosing not to try.

So there you have it. A bunch of things I spewed off the top of my head to try and help point you in the right direction. I hope that you find something useful in there, because it's these kinds of things that helped me get as far as I am today. I've been playing for 6 years now, I've learned probably more than 50 songs, written a handful or two of my own, I've played all different styles of music at all different kinds of concerts, from talent shows to worship sets to actual paid gigs at a local venue, and with all different kinds of musicians of all different styles and music tastes and backgrounds and skill levels. If you stick to it, and you really want to go somewhere with guitar, you will. But it's constant work, and it's not always easy.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this, audience. I hope I could help. I look forward to seeing albums with your names on them in music stores soon, or at least getting the opportunity to play with some of you sometime. Farewell for now, my invisible friends.

Maybe I'll see you again someday soon.

From Sludge to Ambrosia: Popular Music and Why I Hate It

Hello again audience. It hasn't been too long since I last wrote, and some personal thinking and a couple conversations and such in the last few days have led me to want to write this blog about music.

Before I begin, I want to explain that music is so ingrained into who I am that it's practically an organ in my body. When I was still a tiny growing fetus, I would go completely nuts as soon as the worship portion of Sunday morning church service began. As I grew up, music continued to fill the air around me, and as soon as I learned to whistle, my fate was sealed. I'd pick up jingles from commercials on TV or the radio and whistle them over and over and over again until my dad was ready to glue my mouth shut. I sang at church in plays and in front of the adults during Sunday evening services. In fourth grade, I was introduced to the cello and began playing in my elementary school string orchestra. My sister was interested in playing piano for a while, and I took what I knew of reading music and such from cello and taught myself how to play some things on piano. I picked up guitar around seventh or eighth grade and fell totally in love with it. My brother played bass for a while and I used to sit in his room every once in a while and listen to him play. I played cello up until ninth grade, and then my parents traded my cello for an electric guitar halfway through tenth so I could pursue that. And I've played it religiously ever since.

My music tastes started humble, listening to classical music and contemporary christian from the radio. I got into some christian rock, and then my friend Alex introduced me to classic rock, punk and metal. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Doors, The Clash, The Ramones, The Misfits, The Offspring, Beastie Boys, followed closely by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N Roses, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, that kinds of stuff. Some more modern stuff came up, like Disturbed, System of a Down, Korn, Slipknot, Breaking Benjamin, Chevelle, secular radio tunes and such. I stayed pretty close on the christian side of things for a while, but eventually branched into heavier metals. Dethklok came really early, along with Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, then heavier stuff like Psycroptic and Quo Vadis, then even heavier stuff like Origin and Fleshgod Apocalypse. I got into hardcore, growing into liking early Haste The Day, As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, The Devil Wears Prada, Underoath, earlier All That Remains, Anterior, Trivium, Killswitch Engage, and eventually more southern style stuff like Every Time I Die and Norma Jean. Everything changed pretty drastically when I was first introduced to Dream Theater.

All of these men are better at music than I'll ever be. Especially the little Asian one.

Progressive metal became my thing, and I fell in love with Andromeda, Pain of Salvation, and Cynic, and Coheed and Cambria on the lighter prog rock side of things. I got really into technical stuff again around then, discovering one of my very favorites, The Human Abstract, and getting into Meshuggah thanks to obZen. I started really liking the subgenre some call 'djent' this last year, picking up one of my other favorites, Periphery, and being introduced to bands like Textures, Heart Of A Coward, and Wayfarer. Now, between all of those, I found some more indie or alt rock bands I liked, including some stuff I can only honestly label as pop punk. Those bands had less influence on me, but are still things I like to listen to. I've carried a stereo to and from school because I didn't have a smaller cd player to listen to music during study times or such. I eventually got an iPod and filled it to the brim, then got a bigger one and now that one stays consistently full, around 3500 to 4200 songs or so and at least 150 artists if not more. Its headphone jack and screen broke and I cannibalized another iPod to replace them, and now I've ruined the headphone jack again. I constantly whistle or tap my feet of click my teeth back and forth against each other or hum or sing to myself or listen to music in my head. As long as I'm awake, there is some form of music going on, either physically or just where I can hear it.


I say all of this to make one point clear: When I say 'Music is my life,' I don't mean what most people mean, being 'I like to listen to some top 40 songs off the radio that are kinda catchy so I can memorize the lyrics and not be a social outcast at school.' Music really is my life. I've been doing something musical for as long as I can remember and I really don't go a day without listening to at least two to four hours of music and playing music on my guitar for a similar amount. It's my favorite thing to do, my primary way of connecting to people and getting to know them, and it's the first thing I have ever been dead set on doing for the rest of my life.


All that being said, I'd like to return to the title. Recently, while listening to Meshuggah in bed, I listened to the final track off their album Nothing, titled Obsidian. It's almost six minutes long and completely instrumental. Due to recent events and general stress, I had a strange ache in the pit of my stomach. Now, I'm usually affected by music in a way that is sometimes tangible, feeling warm and fuzzy or indestructible or getting the chills or whatever, but I have never been made to feel ill by a song, up until I listened to Obsidian that day. It took my stomach ache and made it twist and wrench and grow in an uncomfortable manner. I thought about it for a bit, and it's definitely not the heaviest or most extreme music I listen to, but it's probably the most extreme I've been exposed to in a while.


I talked to my metalhead pal David about it, and I asked if maybe it would have an even stronger effect on people less accustomed to extreme music. He suggested the idea that maybe it was like ambrosia, the food of the ancient Greek gods. It was reserved specifically for them and kept from mortals, and it was said that consuming ambrosia and nectar would cause ichor to flow through ones veins rather than blood. The gist of that being that extreme and technical music is powerful and amazing, but that it isn't meant for mortals to enjoy. Which would explain my reaction to such a strong dose of the stuff. Here it is for you to listen to and understand.






Along with that, I have a continuing hatred for popular music, and here's why. The artists may be passionate about what they do, but the product they put out is written and produced and designed purely to sell to the widest audience possible. Their goal in creating music is to sell records and make money, while doing what they enjoy and performing for audiences and such. My problem with this is that their music lacks integrity. It is shaped to be liked by as many people as possible, and therefore has to be simple and catchy and repetitive and talk about topics people like and want to hear about. Some examples of this are just about every song on the radio about dancing, going to the club, having sex, doing drugs, hanging out with friends, being happy, being sad, or partying. You know exactly what I'm talking about, Party Rock Anthem, you despicable piece of useless noise.

A lot of the artists I admire these days are the ones who play exactly what it is they love and are damn good at it. They find influence in really creative and unique musicians or bands, and then write and perform songs grown out of that influence. They end up with a really particular and interesting sound that sets them apart from most music these days. It's usually not the most popular sound, and they don't even end up on the radio a lot of times. In times before the internet music sharing craze, bands like this would gather a devoted cult following and then they would end up having to call it quits due to lack of support. Now, bands from cities all over the world can get their names spread out there and gain publicity and momentum without having to meet all of those people in person or reach them in a physical manner.

Periphery, as I mentioned above, is one of the primary forces in the 'djent' subgenre, finding influence in both progressive and heavy places. They have sounds ranging from light, melodic, and beautiful, to thick, chunky, and gritty grooves. They blend the two with clean and distorted guitars, sung and screamed vocals, and some techno fillers inbetween songs that act as a sort of palate cleanser and interlude. The band started as a result of the lead guitarst Bulb writing and creating music he posted free on the internet, and then pulling together a band to perform it live. Periphery's audience was primarily scattered widely at first due to their birth on the internet, giving them a wider base of support than a band who starts gaining popularity in one city and moves on. The greatest feat of the band is having achieved such success in a generally less popular genre without the help of a major record label, radio support, or large scale promotion. Their music spoke for itself.

All of these men are also better at music than I'll ever be. Especially the ones with hair.

There are plenty of groups like Periphery out there, striving to remain unique and true to themselves while still trying to gain popularity enough to make a living off of their music. But, due to the shape of the music industry today, this just isn't possible anymore. Huge record labels and widely sponsored popular artists make millions, while honest musicians just trying to make it playing what they love get choked out and have to rely on other means to support their music careers.

Here's where it all ties together. 


Popular music is like sludge. It's colorless, shapeless, has a disturbing consistency, and there's plenty of it to be had. It's consumed in small amounts no matter what you do or how hard you try to avoid it, and it's very easy to spread over a large area. You can tell people it's anything and everything you want them to think it is and they'll pay you for it. And it makes me ill.

Mmmm... sludge.

Honest, creative, inspired music is like ambrosia. It's valuable beyond words, difficult to get a hold of, and impossible not to crave once you've tasted of it. It is what it is, and is unmistakable when you find it. It can't be covered up and it can't be diluted. It's not for the faint of heart or the casual consumer, and once it has its hold on you, it changes you inside forever.

The Human Abstract - Digital Veil. Ambrosia.

Music today is either sludge or ambrosia, with very little middle ground between the two. Either it was made to be consumed by the masses, or it was made simply because the artist wanted to write it and it is consumed by the discerning. Either it belongs to the crowd, or it is kept apart from lesser mortals and reserved for those who can understand and appreciate it for what it is.


I hope to one day be able to stand proudly and say that I wrote and performed music that I wanted to play, and not that I sold out and played what would make me popular or liked the most. I want to listen to my own creations years and years down the road and still be proud of what I made. And it would be nice if I wasn't the only one still listening to my songs that far in the future, if my music had gotten under someone else's skin and lodged itself in their brain, if it meant something to them and inspired them, if it made any difference at all to anyone, if it was something more than just noise to even one person. Then I could say that I had been a success. It's not about the money or the fame or the fans or the lifestyle. It's about creating something you're proud of and wanting to share it with anyone willing to listen and appreciate it.

So, audience (who I only assume is still there because blogger continues to tell me I have more page views), what kind of listener are you, and what kind of music are you consuming? Do you believe that all music created to please the masses is sludge, or do you think i'm being harsh in my judgement of popular culture today? What kind of music do you think will still be around forty or fifty years from now, when our children's children are growing up and starting to really listen? Which artists do you think will look back and smile at what they've done, and which do you think will laugh in nervous embarrassment and wish you hadn't brought that album up? I know what I think. I want to hear what you think.

Egoism and Arrogance

Hello, audience. It's been a while since I've written last. A lot has transpired; much more than I'm willing to post willy-nilly all over the internet. Let's just say that the entire structure of my world has been collapsing at a pretty rapid pace lately, and it has changed things a lot. There has been lots of confusion and hurt going around, and it seems that i'm to blame for a lot of it. But, despite all of that, I still found the time to sit down and read. And the book I read, ladies and gents, is one of my very favorite books.

Can you guess?

It's this one.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Close to 700 pages of amazing literature that draws a picture of Rand's philosophy, egoism. Now, before you all freak out and call me an egotist, let me explain what egoism is.

The philosophy revolves around placing the self as the highest thing of value in your life. All of your decisions and choices, everything you do, revolves around what you want for yourself. The idea is that you remain true to yourself and stay in control of your own life by refusing to submit pointlessly to others wants and needs. An egoist does not feel obligated to help someone less fortunate, does not feel obligated to give others things they want, does not feel obligated to give up anything. Unless they want to do so. Everything depends on their personal opinion. If they do not want to give a beggar change, then no one can make them do it. No amount of guilt or sense of duty can make them change their mind. They will not be swayed by the opinions of others, unless they decide for themselves that it is the course they wish to take. Egoism is about freeing your decision making process from other people and taking it upon yourself.

The idea is that people today sell themselves out and try to be who other people want them to be. They spend all their time trying to look fashionable and watch the right movies and say the right things to fit in with the people around them. It's all about being who people want you to be so that they will like you. Public opinion decides who you are and who you'll be in the future. And it makes me sick to think about.

I've have worked for several years now on developing myself as a person, and as an individual, set aside from the public opinion mindset. I am by no means a pariah in this, as plenty of other people strive to do the same. I don't think this makes me special. I just think it makes all of us who choose to live by our own rules much smarter than the rest. Because we don't live to please others. We don't live to make other people feel happy or comfortable or content. We live to make ourselves happy, to do things that please us, that make us feel comfortable or content. And that's all that matters.

The Fountainhead is about a man named Howard Roark, a modern architect in a world that doesn't want to move forward. He is an architect because he loves buildings and designing structures. He designs buildings based not on what will look pretty or please the public, but based on what is the most efficient design for the building. The shape is created by the rooms, and the rooms are created by their purpose. The entire building is shaped and designed to fit a specific purpose, and only to meet that purpose. No added ornamentation or additions that have no actual purpose. He dropped out of school after he failed most of his classes for not completing the requirements of the assignments. He designed the buildings he wanted to rather than the ones the professors wanted him to, simply because he saw no point in it if he hated how they would turn out. Roark is driven completely and totally by his passion for architecture, and nothing else matters to him but what he wants. This is the image of the egoist.

"Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to be so damn serious? Can't you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else? You're so serious, so old. Everything's important with you, everything's great, significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. Can't you ever be comfortable--and unimportant?"

"No."

-Peter Keating asking Howard Roark

On the opposite side is Peter Keating, another architect who designs exactly what people want. In fact, his entire purpose in life is to please other people so that they will like him. He wanted to be a painter, but instead, he became an architect in order to please his mother. He sucked up to all of his professors so they would like him, graduated head of his class, and joined a big firm so that he could become famous. Everything he says or does is to please someone else. His entire self is empty, containing only a mirror, because that's what he wants to be. Exactly what you want him to be. He relies on Roark's ability on many occasions, because Peter isn't good enough on his own, and he needs help from someone who is.

Peter is what Rand calls a Second-hander, someone whose lot in life is to feed off of the ability of another. All he knows is how to be a parasite and devour the fruits of someone else's labors. He does everything and anything he can to be liked, because he has no self-esteem. He derives his esteem entirely from what others give him, because without them, he would be nothing.

Roark is the Prime Mover, or the force that creates the world. He is one of many over thousands of years whose sole purpose was to find what they loved in life and to do it to the best of his ability. They are scientists, architects, musicians, industrialists, tradesmen, poets, authors, engineers, people who create things for the sole purpose of having created something. They do it because it brings them pleasure, not because anyone told them to or requires them to.

"I often think that he's the only one of us who's achieved immortality. I don't mean in the sense of fame and I don't mean that he won't die some day. But he's living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict--and they call it growth. At the end there's nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him lasting forever." 

-Steven Mallory, about Howard Roark


The Second-handers feed off of the Prime Movers, taking their creations and using them for their own purposes. They can not create anything of their own, so they must take from those who can to survive. Otherwise, they are lost, and their world would end quickly. The Prime Movers are the reason they exist, because without someone to create or produce, the Second-handers wuold starve and die out.

Egoism is about doing what makes you happy, about finding something you really love and sticking to it, no matter what. Throughout the book, Roark faces hardships and trials that test his resolve, but through it all, he never wavers, never falters, and never gives a single inch in the face of adversity. He is solid all the way through to his core, and it is beyond anyone's ability to break him, or to even know where to start trying. And it's not that Roark finds it difficult to stick to what he believes and do what makes him happy. It's just his nature. He can't conceive of a person doing anything but exactly what makes them happy. He doesn't concern himself with impressing people who don't matter or changing himself to make others comfortable. He's completely arrogant, but is completely innocent about it, because he doesn't do it on purpose. It's just the way he is.

Needless to say, I admire the hell out of Howard Roark, and I want to be like him. I want to be so dedicated to what I want from life that no other person on the planet can ever drive me from my course. I want to live for me, to do the things that make me happy, to reach my highest potential in life, and do if for no other reason but that I wanted it. I don't want to live to please others or to meet their expectations. Damn their expectations. If I meet them, then it was by coincidence while on my way to please myself. That kind of passion and dedication would make me unbelievably happy.

Now the downside to all of this is that it's incredibly hard to do in real life. Roark, as a fictional character, was written to be hard and cold all the way through. But in most real people, being hard and cold isn't something that comes naturally, nor is it something most desire. Arrogance and egoism are considered undesirable traits. I'm still confounded as to why wanting to make yourself happy is a bad thing, though the decision to consider everyone else as less important unless determined otherwise by one's own mind is less mysteriously undesirable. It makes some small sense that people are offended when their opinion is not taken into consideration. 

Here's the deal, though: Nine times out of ten, I genuinely do not give a crap what anyone else has to say about what I think or say or do. Those things are my own personal business, and outside opinions have little to nothing to do with it. So I don't apologize for doing things my way or for thinking or saying what I want. It's my right as a human being. I won't tread lightly in order to keep from hurting someone's feelings, and I won't refrain from saying what I think when I deem it appropriate. Within reasonable bounds of common respect, I will hold my tongue. But not every minute of every day. As an INTP, my personality type makes up a very small portion of the population, and I am therefore outnumbered greatly in everyday life. This means that in all but a very select few social situations, I am expected to submit to the way other people would prefer things be done. I have to do things the way others want in order to keep them happy and pleasant. But that's just not how things are going to go.

I'm not going to submit every single time I am faced with another human being so that they can be comfortable. I'm going to continue being who I am and doing exactly whatever I want, and everyone else can get out of the way or get stepped on. It's not exactly a nice or polite way of doing things, but I never said I was either, and I never intended to be.

"Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important--what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right--so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic--and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand." 

-Howard Roark
That's about all I have to say for now, audience. The Being Angry portion came without notice at the end of my discussing Ayn Rand's wonderful book because I'm sick of always having to submit and it was time for me to yell about it. If you haven't read The Fountainhead, I recommend it, though only to those mature and understanding of you readers. It tends to be dense at points, and there are some controversial and complex themes running through the whole book that must be read with an open mind in order to be understood fully.

So, until next time, be whoever it is you want to be without question. Good day, audience.

Being. Just Being.

Hello, ever reading audience. Allow me to paint you a picture.

Imagine a place devoid of stress, worry, thought, understanding, and reason. A place where everything you want to be and everything you think you are comes to an end, and everything you are is made to feel complete. A place that allows you to stop trying and stop doing and stop everything and anything. You feel peace, resonating from inside you, a warmth and a comfort, as if this place had always been home and you had just returned from a long, long vacation. The feeling that nothing else in the world even matters or compares to the moment you are in now, and that no other thing or place in the world could ever match up. You have thoughts and worries and questions, but they can't touch you, as if they're on the other side of a wall of glass. You're detached, but aware. You know that life is still there, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't hold sway, it has no gravity. Because the life you've been living is just a facade, a bad replica of the way you feel now. It's but a reflection of a shadow of a dream. In this place, time slows to the perfect speed, where it's moving slowly enough that you get to draw the enjoyment of every second out, but quickly enough that you know that it is really happening. Everything else comes to a halt, and you just are. You're just alive. You're just being.

 Have you ever felt like that before? That still, and yet full of life? It's not something many people can say they've experienced. It's a feeling unlike any other you can conceive of. Everything in the universe just feels right, and you think that all the pain and sadness faced in life is worth feeling like that, if even for a moment. In that moment, everything lines up perfectly and you let go of everything and anything. You lose yourself in it, immersing yourself in it, basking even.

But all things must come to an end, and you can see the end of this one from a mile away. You dread it, because you don't remember how reality feels and you don't want to remember. You just want to stay put and never have to move, or breathe, or feel anything else ever again. But you know you have to, and you let the peace you've felt walk you right up to that line. And then you stand there, time slamming to a halt for a final second, and you realize where you are and where you're about to be again, and you have that one last contented sigh, and then you let go. You stare that moment in the face, and then you let go.

"...it's like I've been sleeping underwater..."

And then reality hits you. Sometimes its solid, like a wave in the ocean. It's massive and unstoppable, and it washes over you and knocks you flat on your back and carries you away. And other times, it's slow and subtle, like a cooling sensation that starts at your fingertips and slowly but surely fills you with that familiar sensation of having just woken up, where everything is fuzzy at the edges. In either case, you're not sure whether or not it really happened, and the feeling falls more and more out of touch over time.

So you're back in reality, and you remember having that dream, you remember how real it felt while you were there, and you'd give anything to be back there again. Life isn't as easy as it seemed while you were dreaming, when you could still feel that alive, and you just want to throw all of the bad parts out the window and hide somewhere cozy and warm and pretend that life isn't happening. You sink back into your "the future scares the living hell out of me" fetal position and you stay there until you fall asleep.

'Just Being' is the feeling that I think everyone in the universe would sell their souls for. It's the kind of thing that you bottle up and peddle like a drug lord, getting everyone addicted and then slowly but surely taking control of their lives and twisting their disposable income to your own use.

 

This could totally be my life, if I could just figure out how to bottle up that feeling...

Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? Or have I just had the most unreal few weeks of my life and no one will ever be able to relate? Because, honestly, I think that's something I could really get used to. I'm selfish like that. Until next time, audience.

Getting Older: Life, And How It Ages You

I feel old, audience. I'm not, but I feel it. In fact, I hardly have any room to talk. I can eat whatever I want and not gain a pound, I can pull all nighters like nothing else, I love soda and candy and energy drinks and video games. But, despite all of that, I feel old.

I love books, but especially old books, and the smell and feel of them. I'd rather take a walk in the rain or sit and stare at the city off of a cliff than play video games. I wear out the seat of my pants faster than the soles of my shoes. I prefer a nice cup of coffee and a good conversation over a crazy party, or even a mild party. I often catch myself wanting to say, "What is with kids these days? When I was their age..." or "Ugh, stupid teenagers. They have no respect." I like philosophy, classical music (Mozart makes me want to weep on occasion), and jazz. I used to play the cello, and I've always loved acoustic or string instruments. I think society has gone to the dogs and I don't understand music or fads these days. I actually want to build my wardrobe entirely of sweater vests and collared shirts, because I really like how clean cut and snazzy they look. I use the word snazzy or spiffy at all. And I just got my first summons for jury duty.

Now, there are probably a lot of you saying, "Yeah, what? I like a lot of those things too. I still feel young and fresh." But it's not that I like a lot of those things. It's just that when I'm in a modern setting, or I look at society today, I feel like an old book. I feel like I've been around forever, and that I don't belong on the same shelf as all the new books. I feel like I belong in an antique shop or an old bookstore, or on the bookshelf of an avid collector of rare literature. I just feel like I don't quite belong in society. And, still, a lot of you are saying, "Yeah, what? I feel like that too. That's not a unique feeling."


I half expect to see this guy in the mirror every  morning.



Let me make this clear: I'm not talking about nostalgia. I'm talking about the feeling that you get when you look down at the envelope in your hand, read JURY SUMMONS, and realize that you aren't 13 anymore, before your first girlfriend, your first kiss, talent show, junior prom, big break up, R-rated movie in theaters, huge party, graduation, whatever. You have a moment where you feel like you were about to wake up and get ready for ninth grade, but then you realize that almost six years have passed and you don't know where they went. I can remember my thirteenth birthday like it was yesterday. I remember where I was and what I did. But all of the years between then and now feel like a huge blur. It feels like they were ages ago and that I don't know the world that I knew then anymore.

Honestly, I feel like I could relate well to Rip Van Winkle at this point. You just fall asleep one day and then wake up and the world has changed. It has, to quote Stephen King, "moved on," and it just keeps moving. Time just keeps rolling on and on and it's harder and harder to grab onto. I can think of one song that always says exactly what I'm thinking, and that's "Can't Repeat" by The Offspring.

 

I woke the other day
And saw my world has changed
The past is over but tomorrow's wishful thinking
I can't hold on what's been done
I can't grab on what's to come
And I'm just wishing I could stop, but

Chorus:

Life goes on
Come of age
Can't hold on
Turn the page

Time rolls on
Wipe these eyes
Yesterday laughs
Tomorrow cries

Memories are bittersweet
The good times we can't repeat
Those days are gone and we can never get them back
Now we must move ahead

Despite our fear and dread
We're all just wishing we could stop, but

Chorus

With all our joys and fears
Wrapped in forgotten years
The past is laughing as today just slips away
Time tears down what we've made
And sets another stage
And I'm just wishing we could stop

Chorus

I heard that song for the first time somewhere around my thirteenth birthday, and I used to like it because, duh, it's The Offspring, and because a couple of the lyrics sounded pretty cool and kinda deep. Now that I'm older, the song rings truer and truer every time. It's exactly what I'm feeling in audio form.

Everyone has those times when they feel old. It's usually at the kind of point in life where I'm at right now, where there's a huge change about to happen and you realize just how different your life is than what you thought it would be when you were young. I couldn't have guessed that any of what has happened in the last six years was going to happen when I was thirteen. I couldn't even imagine the experiences I would have, the people I would meet, the things I would do, what I would learn, who I would become. I had no idea what a blog was or that I'd be writing one. I hardly knew anything at all, and I can say that comfortably because I don't remember anything about being thirteen that hasn't changed violently at some point or another.

So here I am, at 2am, typing a blog about feeling old, seven days away from my nineteenth birthday, singing "Can't Repeat" along with the video link, and feeling like my life started without my permission long ago and that I was too young to recognize the sound of the starting gun. And now I'm too old to start running without feeling like I'm going to finish last, and my knees are going to give out, and the arthritis in my hips is going to keep me up all night, and why did I sign up for this marathon anyway? Now I have to dig the cane out of the back of the closet and hobble around like i'm seventy or something. Oh, and now look, the audience is out on my lawn again. I thought I'd seen the last of those whippersnappers when I threatened to beat the freckles off of em if they didn't leave my hedges alone. Now I have to call their parents, who are obviously ill fit to be raising children, didn't teach them respect when they were kids, and now look where the world has gone to.

You tell em, Clint.

You see what I mean? Old. Minus the arthritis and yelling at whippersnappers about my hedges, this sounds like my thought train most days. I feel like my soul is old and it doesn't belong in this young body. And, to make it worse, my soul is only going to continue to age as my body does. Because life never stops moving, you never stop aging, and every day you're closer to dying. I've decided that I want to die young so I don't ever have to be a person that can truly say they don't know the world they live in anymore. I don't want my body to break down and have to rely on drugs or medical treatments to keep my body kicking, all the while forgetting more and more and never feeling like I belong in this world anymore. I want to die at a good age, where I've experienced life to the full and I'm ready to settle down and relax. And then I want it to end, before I start to lose that feeling that life has been good and that it's time to step back. I want to die feeling that, and have my death be that retirement.

I'd like to close with another quote from Stephen King, this one about aging, but I can't seem to find it online, and I don't have the book with me right now. I'll have to update this later once I can track it down, because it's about as powerful as the song above for me. But, until then, I need to get back to my comfy chair. I've been hunched over this keyboard for too long and my back is starting to stiffen up. Till next time, dear audience.

The Fantastic Fox, and Why I Love It.

Hello again, audience! Time for a less depressing, less obligated post, and a more fun, witty, topical post about something I happen to love. The fox. :D

For those of you who have been lurking around my blog for more than the last few weeks, you know that it used to be called "Shells From The Peanut Gallery". I chose that title because it described what I figured my blog posts would be, just a place for me to toss around the ideas and opinions floating around in my head. I decided to change it a few weeks ago because I like to revolve around the idea of the fox and what it has come to stand for in several cultures around the world. So! This blog will be dedicated to talking about foxes and what many cultures think of them.

That's right. A blog all about these guys.

The fox, or 'vulpes vulpes', is an omnivore who both hunts and eats plants. They are adapted toward making quick kills, both physiologically and instinctively. They aren't usually pack animals, but live in small family groups that hunt as individuals. Foxes have developed in various species and many locations all around the world.

Now, the general consensus about foxes is that they represent trickery and cunning. Some cultures portray them as evil, others as just mischievous, and a few that are reverent of them with an almost worshipful attitude. Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, foxes were burned in effigy, as they were tied to Satan due to their tendency to be wily and generally untruthful. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tales turn the fox into a spirit who becomes a woman in order to seduce men. They lean toward the mischievous angle over the morally higher cunning angle, giving a slightly dubious temperament to the fox.

Finnish mythology places the fox as cunning and tricky, seen as superior to the brutish bear and vicious wolf due to its use of intelligence rather than force or sheer malevolence. The ancient Moche people of Peru were known to worship animals, and featured foxes in their art alongside many others. Greatly in contrast to the Asian take, they viewed the fox as a mental warrior, who would use its mind to fight rather than a weapon. Western culture has come up with 'foxy', which is used to describe an attractive woman who may or may not be mischievous. We have much less history and deep-rooted culture, so the best we could come up with is a highly shallow term related to the animal

Though, if there was any animal that could make a flattering term for a woman...

 My very favorite of the cultural references to the fox is the possible origin of the word 'shenanigan'. It is believed to have come from the Irish phrase "sionnachiughim," meaning "I play the fox," which may or may not be loosely pronounced as shenanigan. I personally like the word shenanigan a lot, so its relation to the fox is quite amusing and it makes me happy.

Now that you have had a full helping of knowledge, let me explain why I love foxes and how that pertains to their reputation as an animal and a cultural symbol. First off, have you ever looked at a fox? They are freaking gorgeous animals to say the very least, although some species look kind of odd.

We're all looking at you, Tibetan Fox.

 Foxes stand as the symbol of wit and cunning in most cultures around the world, and I admire that. Society today undervalues intelligence in popular culture, as some of the most idiotic and absurd people become popular and famous. Jersey Shore is evidence of that. Did you know that 'Snooki' has 'authored' *coughghostwritercough* more than one book? It hurts me too, audience. Actual intelligence is on the downslope, and it looks like Idiocracy might be more than just a fun look at a possible future.

Next to that is the warrior who uses intelligence rather than force, which goes along with a lot of Eastern philosophy, as in Sun Tzu's Art of War. He emphasizes that the greatest warrior is the one who never has to engage the enemy, or, barring that, the one who dispatches his enemy through cunning and skill. Foxes excel at using their smarts and making the quick kill, making them a great model of that perfect warrior. It's actually a bit strange that the Chinese weren't the ones to call the fox a mental warrior.

I'm always a fan of wit and good humor, and foxes tend to have a good helping of both anywhere they show up in pop culture. Honest John from Disney's Pinocchio is one of my favorites, though the ultimate fox in my mind is the one and only Mr. Fox. Roald Dahl's interpretation of the wild and cunning fox has always and will always be my favorite, and this love affair is made even better by the film rendition of the child's book. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, I highly recommend both.

Seriously. Stop reading this blog right now and go watch it.

So, after all is said and done, the fox is a beautiful creature, and a symbol of the power of intelligence, cunning, and wit over force or strength, not to forget the mischief and shenanigans often attributed to them. As such, I like to think of my blog as a place to house, encourage, and cultivate intelligence and wit, a figurative fox den for the modern mind. Not to mention, I just love the freaking things, and I'd be one if I could. Three year expected lifespan thrown to the side, life as a fox would certainly be an interesting experience.

That will be all for now, audience. Go with the example of the fox in mind. And, do me a favor. Give me some feedback on the blog. You have been suspiciously silent since my first real post, and I'd like to hear from you. Tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you want to see more of, and maybe some tips on how I could keep you awake through a whole post. I'd even like to hear some ideas of things you'd like to hear my take on in future blogs. So throw me an email at cm.ludeman@gmail.com. Thanks a bunch, audience.

Seriously. I'm all ears, audience.