– feeds your head
“Oh, please don’t make me despise you.” I find myself thinking that more often than I would like. About men I thought I liked. Men I though were cool. Men where I saw friendship potential.
“Oh, please don’t make me despise you.” But he does. They almost always do. Why is that? You see an advance coming, you decline in a nice and polite way. A respectful way, a way that let’s them save face. You give them a really nice,hassle free exit, but they don’t take it. Why is that? I just don’t get it. Why do nice, sensible, intelligent, socially capable, intellectual men turn into irrational, despicable troglodytes? How does that happen? I really don’t get it. Men who are able to make intelligent and rational decisions and who are capable of highly sophisticated argumentation and analysis all of a sudden lose all capability of critical thinking and reason. How is that even possible? Or rather: how can you be so nice and still be an asshole? Read more of this post
“Riot – worthwhile work for everyone.” I have a t-shirt that says that. I bought it because I thought the message made sense. It was back in 2001, just after the riots at the EU summit in the Swedish city Gothenburg had happened, and I was appalled by the reactions from the general public. First there were lots of very violent demonstrations and clashes between the protesters and the police, and then a guy was shot by the police, in Sweden that’s not something that happens every day. In fact, it was pretty much unheard of. But the strange thing was that it was the protests themselves that were questioned, not what the police did. Suddenly the “fight for your right” credo seemed to belong more to the police than to the people. I thought that was scary. And i think that’s why I bought that t-shirt. To make some sort of statement about the right to protest.
So does it help? To protest and challenge the establishment? Is there a point? Yes, I hope so. I hope it helps to raise your voice when you think something is wrong. After all, that is one of the fundamental rights in a democracy, to speak your mind. As citizens we do have a right to protest. And that right should be exercised. Thankfully most of the political establishment realizes and recognizes this. But what strikes me is how few conclusions are drawn from this realization. Read more of this post
Foreigners. Immigrants. There’s a lot of talk about that these days. About how problematic it is. And sure, it is problematic, but not half as problematic as the ugly, brown stained, so-called far right movement that’s emerging from the sewers all over Europe right now. That’s far more problematic. These people who call themselves nationalists and are all about preserving the purity of the race and culture, they are more than problematic. They are actually becoming quite a significant pain in the ass. They are really fucking annoying. Racist, homophobic, xenophobic, paranoid loudmouths that just never shut up about how the immigrants are ruining Europe. As if they themselves weren’t…
I was watching a comedy show the other night and one of the guys was saying: “with all this talk about immigrants and second-generation immigrants, I’m just wondering, when do you actually get there? When are you done with the whole immigration business and just fucking arrive?” Yeah, when indeed. Let’s face it, we’re all immigrants. One way or another. It’s not like there has never been any inflow in the gene pool, otherwise we’d be a world full of really awesome banjo players by now. Mating with close relatives isn’t good, we all know that and we have known it for a very log time. Read more of this post
The truth. It’s a problematic concept but we like to treat it as if it wasn’t. We as a society seem to have this prevailing idea about the one ultimate truth that can be revealed. Almost like a law of nature. The one truth. Like a holy grail, a sacred quest. The real goal of all efforts, be it in science, in law or everyday life, is to find that one single truth. The one answer to everything. The truth. We like to think that we cherish truth in our culture. That once we see the truth we will immediately and almost automatically be able to identify it as such and thus fully embrace it. Like an inherit mechanism in our culture. We like to think we have a very profound love for truth. Do we really? Do we even know what truth is, what we really mean when we talk about truth? I am not so sure. Read more of this post
This whole life long monogamy thing, it’s a pretty new invention. This whole couples and romantic love thing. And I am wondering if it’s not just a way to keep us passive, occupied. A way to hold us back. We are fed with the dream of that perfect partner that will make your life complete. It’s all up to you to make it work. Love as the one salvation. The one and only thing that will make your life complete. The main theme of your life. And somehow it seems a bit like a hype. Unsubstantiated. Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against love per se. I like I love. Love is a good thing. I love. It’s not about that. I just wonder if we may not have a very warped and twisted idea of what love actually is. This whole idea of romantic love. What does it actually mean? “And they lived happily ever after.” Did they? And just what the hell did they do while they were doing that? The two become one, and then what? And even more important, what happens before that? Is it all just about that one long search for the perfect partner? Is that the whole purpose? And what if you don’t find that perfect someone? What then? Does that mean you failed? Read more of this post
There are a lot of puzzling phenomena in this world. One of the more puzzling ones is nationalism: The idea that you can somehow acquire value by-proxy, without actually having to do anything actively. Passive superiority. Just because I happened to be born in this particular country I am intrinsically better than everyone who wasn’t. Seriously, how can anyone be arrogant enough to actually believe that? How pitiful are you? How mind bogglingly stupid? “I am proud to be [insert any of the hundreds of artificially constructed nation concepts here].” Why? What possible reason could you have to be proud over the fact that you happened to be born within a certain artificially constructed geographical area? Exactly how did you contribute to this random event? It’s stupid on so many levels. Not only because of the total randomness of the whole event, but also because of the simple reason that the concept of nations is a pure construction. They are not predetermined. They exist only because we have constructed them through our language and our actions. We have defined their borders and their meaning and it is an ongoing process. Constantly evolving with borders being redefined over and over again. And it’s a process not driven by a desire to better the world, but as a means to ensure the prosperity of one group at the expense of others. Us against them. It’s the tribe blown way out of proportion and taken far beyond the boundaries of the absurd. Taken to the level of idiocy. Read more of this post
I have been thinking a lot about blame lately. Casting blame. People seem to have a very strong need for doing that. Finding a scapegoat. If something goes wrong, when terrible things happen, there has to be someone to blame.
I first got to thinking about this through something that happened to a friend of mine. A terrible, tragic thing happened and hence there was a need for a scapegoat. There just had to be someone to blame for it all, because people cannot simply accept that yes, sometimes very bad things happen and it’s not always possible to find that one person whose fault it is. So blame was cast. And this is what made me think. Read more of this post
There are a lot of intoxicating substances that are illegal in our society. They have been given this status because they are claimed to be a threat to public health, and through their status as illegal all consumers of these substances become criminals with all the stigma that involves. In addition to this, since these substances are propagated as being dangerous, anyone who uses them will also be considered stupid and destructive. Then there are some intoxicating substances that are not illegal, like alcohol, and this puzzles me because if there is one drug that really makes people stupid and destructive it’s alcohol. Drunk people are extremely annoying for so many reasons. They are slow, clumsy and violent. When you are drunk you turn into a more primitive version of yourself. A person that will do and say things you wouldn’t dream of when you are sober. But for some reason this is ok because you are drunk. It’s sanctioned by all social rules. You go out, get drunk and make a complete fool of yourself and forget half the things you have said and done and wake up with a headache and nausea and then you tell yourself you must have had a really great night last night. Yeah, for sure… Read more of this post
stupidity always makes me angry. and most of the time the political opinions about graffiti are insanely stupid. “we must wage war against graffiti. it is a danger to society and creates an environment of insecurity and encourages crime.” ok, like how? how is it dangerous that people create art on walls in our public space? how does that create insecurity? and encourage crime? people see graffiti and think: “oh there’s graffiti here, let’s go mug people and break things”? i don’t think so. there is a huge gap in the logic here. so huge that i am surprised anyone actually believes this shit, but people actually do. and that is scary. i just read a survey in a newspaper and according to that 70% of the people said they were bothered by graffiti. ok… what about all the huge advertisements that are everywhere that are trying to make you buy even more shit you don’t need? anyone finding that annoying? i sure as hell do. but they are allowed to put their shit everywhere. they are not considered a threat to public safety. so it’s better for the public to have a huge advertisement that further feeds the idea and the notion that the only way to get happy is to consume than to get to look at art for free? is that the real problem here? that it is for free? they didn’t ask for permission and they didn’t pay for the space hence it has to be bad for society? there is no money here yo! no one payed and no one is trying to make anyone buy shit. oh scary! Read more of this post
jc.tryps 