Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

-Calvin Coolidge

Music and Life - the pot of gold : An animated quote, 2 min. 20 sec.

Do these two ideas sound somewhat contradictory to one another? I’m not sure… One is telling you to push onward and achieve, the other is telling you to slow down and enjoy life. I want to think of them as having two different messages, speaking for different ends, but they both seem to discuss being goal-oriented.

The Coolidge quote I find motivating, especially for huge tasks that need to be broken into several smaller steps. That’s how I succeed when I take on problems. Sometimes I want to say this exact thing to those people in my life who sometimes feel unmotivated to complete a nearby and achievable goal. I want to show them how easy it can be to solve problems when you stop and do the steps one at a time, but I have found that to be a folly on my part. Almost always I am attempting to influence their attitude, their fundamental disposition. An unstoppable force hits the immovable object and things just ricochet everywhere and I want to pick up the broken mess and put it back like it began.

The Watts video is an alarmingly accurate truth about the sadness of Western culture. It is an understated critique of the “pot-of-gold” that people have midlife crises over. Some people manage to hear and sing to the music when they are young enough, but I think most people do not.

Maybe the combination of these problems is causing a huge rift in understanding between two distinct groups of people in America today.

Coolidge people: the people who uphold traditional “American Dream” values. I think people who uphold these values can be truly happy. We all know people whom we think personify these values and their success stories, but I think most people (lets quantify… 90%) can’t find happiness this way. The number of factors that have to align in their favor (intense preparation, opportunity, a personality of perfectionism to achieve lofty goals) is startlingly high, and their definition of success is difficult to accomplish. In fact, even when some of them get there, they might find that Watts has been ringing true all along and they feel cheated in missing out on the journey. Sometimes, we hear the more vocal ones (I’m talking about you, Sean Hannity) feel they need a scapegoat for why their life is shitty, and they have turned bitter. They might blame other people who don’t uphold the same values. They tend to think out loud: “Those worthless human beings who don’t succeed are worthless because they are too lazy to pull themselves together. They are bringing the value of society down.”

Watts people: the people who are disillusioned about Western ideals of “success” and who don’t identify with the expectations (or value system) of society. Interestingly, I find that more often these people tend to show their happiness more freely throughout their life. However, for those Watts people who haven’t figured out that they are Watts people, they seem to be a generally depressed bunch who are holding on to something they don’t really believe in.

I don’t mean to suggest that everyone should be Wattsian. But I think most people would be happier if they were.

I’m sorry to have dragged this on, I really just wanted to post the two ideas about life. Which group do you most identify with? Or rather, what group do your choices and actions identify you with?

My life choices seem to indicate that I’m a Coolidge person. From the outside it looks like i’m aggressively chasing the American Dream. But I feel like I’m really a Watts person who plays a Coolidge person at work, perhaps moreso because of the people whom I work with.

If you really want to know, I find that I am undeniably fortunate to have enough interest AND ability AND education AND determination in an industry / field that allows me to pursue the things I want, or the things I think I want anyways. I may actually be in that 10% who can “make it” and be happy with it. But I think sometime in my adolescence, maybe ten years ago, I found the music of life to dance to, if you’ll pardon the cheesy metaphor.

Post Scriptum note about Hannity: He and his ilk are like a terrible virus infecting and festering in an otherwise perfectly habitable and progressive America. Shameful. What, did I go too far?

Notes on Rhetoric is an excellent starting point for those wishing to hone their casual debate skills, but I also find it a depressing reminder of how difficult it can be for people to actually understand one another.

Though I’m more interested in conversation than critical argument these days, I’ve noticed that skilled casual debaters almost always “win” arguments based on their ability to manipulate various rhetorical devices rather than say, actually being factually correct. Some of the tactics listed above are so demoralizing to would-be debaters that most people would rather simply concede than have to suffer through even a few minutes of thrashing.

Frustratingly though, in the age of Google, everyone considers themselves an expert on everything. Every piece of information, every fact, is up for debate or dispute. Qualifications and real world experience don’t matter - opinion is everything and it is the great equalizer.

Is anyone else really tired of this? What happened to people’s willingness to actually defer judgement (or at least listen) to those who are clearly more objectively qualified?

Today at work I met someone from California and he congratulated me on the Saint’s recent superbowl win.

I really enjoyed getting congratulated for something that I didn’t (help the team) accomplish, so consider this my open letter to the rest of the United States:

Dear States,

I am still accepting congratulations for the recent superbowl victory by the New Orleans Saints. If you haven’t sent me congratulations yet, you should consider doing so now. All congratulations and well wishes will be taken in until tax day - after that you can move on to congratulating yourself for doing your civic duty.

Talk to you later,

Jon

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn’t enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that’s not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end.

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman please finish and release the Book of Dust, soon. I’m only reading magazines until you do. Thnx!

You know what, I had an enjoyable time watching Avatar. Well, enjoyable until the 2 hour mark - at that point my eyeballs felt like they were going to ooze out of my head from exhaustion. But until then, it was fun.

Let’s be honest, though. Normally, I hate big stupid blockbusters and if I hadn’t gone to the theater with such nice people and been in such an exceptionally good mood, I would have written a review similar to the one posted here.

Avatar is a nineteen-hour long film about a stupid ex-Marine who is employed by one of those The Companys one often hears about in science fiction movies to infiltrate the native American Indian/blue panther population of a planet because all the good stuff—a propertyless mineral called unobtanium (haw haw, I write scripts and look at the Internet!)—is under their giant tree. The Marine, who was injured and without the use of his legs in his human body, is named Sully (because he is SULLYING a natural world) and there is a careful scientist named Grace (because she is not exploitive and horrible and can be said to live in a state of GRACE) and an old soldier in charge of blowing things up whose name I didn’t catch, but it was probably something like Colonel McEarthrape. (Because he likes to RAPE the EARTH, even when he isn’t on it!)

Really, go and read the whole thing, because it’s some of the funniest writing I have encountered on the internet in years.

And if you don’t bother to click through, I’ll just post the end here because it really is too good to miss:

Avatar is as stupid as Transformers 2 and for those with a brain in their heads is twice as offensive. I’m not easily offended; I even think the White Guy Becomes An Indian thing can be done well on rare occasions—Howard Waldrop’s Them Bones comes to mind—but this movie was just awful. How awful? I left as soon as the credits started to roll, but even as I ran for the lobby I heard a snippet of lyrics from the end credits theme. Here’s the first verse:

Walking through a dream, I see you
My light and darkness breathing hope of new life
Now I live through you and you through me, enchanted
I pray in my heart that this dream never ends

Now imagine your school days, and someone handing you these lyrics in the form of a note. And when you open up the note to read it, they start crying because they just love you so much and wanted to share their feelings for you through poetry. Wouldn’t it be better if aliens just came down and killed us all? See, I knew you’d see what I mean.

One of the great things about the internet is that it confirms that there are people out there just like me. Keep signaling the aliens people, keep signaling.

san diego

Pardon the crappy quality, it was a disposable film camera. At least it looks retro.

*Updated 1/15/10 to include titles and second roll.

I totally have the first post for 2010. WIN!

I really enjoyed this infographic from information is beautiful.

Although it focuses on two major political stereotypes (and nothing in between), I still think it’s a great graphic.

This December is the last month of the decade. Some people like to reminisce about the passing of a significant division in time. I will do so now.

What was I doing 10 years ago? I have no idea. I was like 15. Playing guitar and mackin’ on chicks at Trinity school.
What about 6 years ago?

• I was smugly enjoying my first christmas break home from college, complete with characteristic exclamation marks.
• I released Gentle Giant as well as some other songs (Jon’s Creole Belle).
• I was lamenting the fact that my ancient iMac wasn’t going to run ProTools Free when i upgraded to OS X 10.2 Jaguar. (this kind of stuff was blog-worthy back in the day… wow.)
• I won a guitar in a raffle at Mercer.
• I exuded an intense love of life beginning my ever-so-hopeful second semester of college. I must say that i’m jealous of my former self. Reading the words I wrote back then makes me realize how much life-crap has really transpired between then and now… so many incredible changes, so many painful experiences, so much hope and lost passion. Going through the years, i can almost pinpoint events that drastically altered me. I can hardly bear to summon that level of pure excitement now. Is this maturity? Have I really turned into some even-keeled job-holding home-owning married man? I don’t know whether to smile at my former naivete or grimace at my current blandness. It’s incredible, the things I have now, the direction my life has taken, I’m very happy with almost everything, but I’m not so sure that I’m getting the most out of life these days. I think i’m capable of getting much more. Maybe i’m wrong. Save this for another post.
• And finally, I wrote this old-testament style psalm about christmas:
  

  HARK! CHRISTMAS BREAK IS NEAR!

  REJOICE, IT IS SO CLOSE THAT
  I CAN SMELL THE KIND OF SOAP IT USES!
  I FEEL ITS TINY ARMHAIRS TICKLING MY OWN!
  ITS SWEET BREATH, I KNOW!

  FOR WHEN I COME FROM THE HILLS
  DOWN INTO THE SWAMPLAND,
  I WILL FIND IT THERE!
  BEHOLD, YOUR SEASONAL FREEDOM HAS COME!

“A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it’s not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavoured dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street. ” - George Carlin

I recently watched the movie Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. The original broadway production was written sometime in the 40’s and premiered onstage in 1950. Hollywood was still oblivious to the building civil rights movement, and the traditional roles for men and women had not been challenged. Men drink liquor and gamble, women are homemakers and pretty things to look at. Milk has an interesting role in this movie.

A hardened mobster called Big Jule is seen at a bar drinking a milk shake. Another character remarks, “Do not think that because Big Jule drinks milk, he is a softie.” Big Jule proceeds to threaten Sinatra’s character with the gun in his coat. Sinatra’s character then asks to have a sip of the milk. Later, Brando’s character is ordering drinks in a bar in Havana, Cuba for his religious female companion, who thinks drinking alcohol is sinful. She demands milk. He orders “Dulce de Leche”, which he translates as “Sweet Milk” for her. Brando explains that they have to put some Bacardi in the milk to keep it from going sour in the evening hours.

Drinking milk appears to be for women, children, and men who are weak and submissive. It’s interesting that they use milk-drinking as a trait of significance. I, for one, am somewhat of a dairy addict. I drink enormous amounts of milk compared to the majority of modern American adults. Sometimes I drink nearly a quart of milk at dinnertime. I also eat a lot of cheese and yogurt. Does this say anything about me today, in the year 2009?

One thing that I’ve considered is the technology of milk. These days, milk from hundreds of cows is homogenized, pasteurized, packaged and shipped across the country at close to freezing temperatures. How much energy goes into this milk, from the feeding of the cows to the running of my refrigerator? How many megawatts of electricity does it take to enjoy a milkshake? Or a buttered grilled cheese sandwich? In the future, when we ration our energy usage in a reactionary post-apocalyptic attempt to be “green”, dairy consumption outside of farms and cooking purposes could be outlawed. I’m just doing my part to exploit the current system and consume as much dairy as possible before this harrowed day arrives.

“If you cannot find happiness along the way, you will not find it at the end of the road.” - Thomas Paine

“I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.” - Mitch Hedberg