Life is not that complicated

Sometimes when you’ve had too long of a day at work that’s just annoying you want something humorous and true to just get you through the afternoon in a good mood once you are free from the daily grind. George Carlin comes to the rescue with this absolutely perfect quote. RIP George.

Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, eat three meals, you take one good shit and you go back to bed. What’s the fucking mystery?!

Bioshock As Inspiration

One of the most impressive games that I have played on the current generation of consoles would absolutely have to be Bioshock. It had no multi-player worth speaking of and the single player action was “okay”, not even one of the top fun factor games that I have played – what did it was the plot, quotes, ideals, and characters. Primarily the character worth mentioning was Andrew Ryan – a scientist that had practically forsaken morality to build a better tomorrow.

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

With this statement we are thrown into the world of Rapture. It instantly is telling us that we are entering a world with an ideology unlike anything we have experienced. (Sure if you were playing the video game the fact that you were traveling to an underwater city could have said the same thing but.. that’s not the point!) It brings up a good point though. We are not slaves and we are what we make of ourselves.

No Gods Or Kings Only Man

To further the premise of this is the idea of “Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?” Andrew does not allow you to question it but says it as fact that only man matters. Only man should control his destiny.

A Man Chooses A Slave Obeys

Now this is a fun one, “A Man Chooses A Slave Obeys” is basically saying that there are leaders and followers. Leaders are men. Followers are sheep. This one has a particularly strong feeling in my life as I’ve been thinking a lot about work, what I do, what I want to do, what I can do, and what I should be doing as of late and the 4 are just not lining up as they should be.

We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.

The break down is that we all have the free will to do as we please but in the end who we are and what we’re able to do with our lives is defined by our choices, not by what we are given or who helps us. It again goes hand in hand with the concept that we make ourselves and we are each in charge of our own ability to fulfill our potential – or create it.

What is the difference between a man and a parasite?

What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks ‘Where is my share?’ A man creates. A parasite says, ‘What will the neighbors think?’ A man invents. A parasite says, ‘Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God… ‘

Another great one that plays off of the concept of “A Man Chooses A Slave Obeys” in that a man will DO and not worry about what other think. A man will create, move forward, do something with their life and not just sit there and be a waste of their life condemning others who try to move forward.

What Is The Greatest Lie Ever Created?

What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It’s the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism. Whenever anyone wants others to do their work, they call upon their altruism. Never mind your own needs, they say, think of the needs of… of whoever. The state. The poor. Of the army, of the king, of God! The list goes on and on. How many catastrophes were launched with the words “think of yourself”? It’s the “king and country” crowd who light the torch of destruction. It is this great inversion, this ancient lie, which has chained humanity to an endless cycle of guilt and failure.

To be fair this one doesn’t really apply to life or my thought process at all right now but it’s one that is so open ended AND a great Bioshock quote that I couldn’t very well just leave it be. There are more quotes from Andrew Ryan and the series itself but I personally believe that those are the best and, when you think about them in a selfish manner, very motivating. Why am I doing so much that I do not for myself or to only really get by and not better myself? It’s an easy pattern to fall into and one that really has to be changed.

Admiral Adama On Military Police

In Egypt the government has resorted to using the military to help police the country in order to attempt to relieve the internal strife that they had caused. This is a mistake for so many reasons. This quote though I think sums it up best

There’s a reason we separate military and the police: one fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.

Battlestar Galactica, entertainment aside, touched on a LOT of political, social, and religious aspects that will allow it to be a show that is relevant for decades to come. With the strife currently going on in Egypt the government has decided to use the military as part of it’s police system. Trying to keep a revolution that they have caused down. This quote quickly and efficiently sums up why this is a bad idea. There is a lot of things going wrong in Egypt right now past just the civil war that is brewing. Primarily is the inactions of the United States. I won’t go overboard on this since no one comes to my blog to read about politics but if our country WANTS a democracy in Egypt as we have stated for the past 4+ presidents then we shouldn’t just be sitting on the sideline and watch as the current leader is trying his damnedest to make sure he stays in power and prevents such a democracy from existing. At any rate. As I said you aren’t hear to read politics so all you have to take away from this is Battlestar Galactica rules. Ahh yea!

QUOTE: Nothing Is Original

This is an interesting take on creating something new that I both agree and disagree with.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.

— Jim Jarmusch

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
– Albert Einstein

Why Are Clams So Happy?

So my friend Rick mentioned last night that he was as “happy as a clam” in a conversation and that got me thinking. Why exactly are clams so happy? After a quick Google search I found phrases.org.uk which gave me this reasoning:

Why would clams be happy? It has been suggested that open clams give the appearance of smiling. The derivation is more likely to come from the fuller version of the phrase, now rarely heard – ‘as happy as a clam at high water’. Hide tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators; surely the happiest of times in the bivalve mollusc world. The phrase originated in the north-eastern states of the USA in the early 19th century. The earliest citation that I can find is from a frontier memoir The Harpe’s Head – A Legend of Kentucky, 1833.

So there you have it. Clams are happy because they “LOOK” happy at a certain angle. I’m not convinced of this though. When it really boils down to it (mmm boiled clam….) hundreds of thousands of clams are massacred on a yearly basis for our culinary delight. They are a species whose very existence has come down to being grown and exterminated by humanity for two purposes- food and money. The money end of things of course being forced out of the water so that those wonderful pearls that are found within them can be harvested and turned into jewelry. Oh the proud mollusk is a great creature and one of them was even found to be the oldest living creature on the planet (until I assume it was sauteed before the pearl it had within was raped from it.) One of these days this noble species will rise up from our starving need for all things tasty and overthrow the shackles that we have placed upon them! Until then I will of course gladly munch on their succulent meat on any occasion I am out for seafood. (I wonder if Attack Of The Killer Clams has been made into a movie yet? …and if not why not?)

[picture via: a random flickr search.]

Just as a heads up, I’m not currently in or out of love so this isn’t directed at anyone or anything. I just stumbled across it while trying to decide on what to post about (yes I know I’ve been lazy.) I find it to be really quite amazing that one of my favorite authors can so completely share ONE of my views on Love. (Anyone who knows me knows all too well this isn’t my only view on love *laughs*)

Have you ever been in love?
Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up.
You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘Maybe we should just be friends’ or ‘How very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.
It hurts.
Not just in the imagination.
Not just in the mind.
It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.

-Neil Gaiman

“There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.”
- Viggo Mortensen

“I’m afraid of nothing except being bored”
- Greta Garbo

“When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.”
- Eric Hoffer

“Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.”
- Lin Yutang

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasonable, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt / first inaugrual address, 4 March 1933.

“I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller, Fear is the little death, That brings total Oblivion I will permit my fear to pass, Over me and through me, And where it has gone, I will turn the inner eye,Nothing will be there, Only I will remain.”

- Frank Herbert / Dune Series

“Okay.You’re gonna tell me your sorry assed story over and over again. When you understand that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, 1999