the-mythical-norm

[the-mythical-norm]

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[the-mythical-norm]

where have we been? where are we going?

WARNING! This is gonna be a long ass post. Read on only if you dare.

Where have we been this semester? Who have we examined? Whose minds have we tried to get inside? Too many to count. So in preparation of my final paper for which I don’t even know where to start I thought I would make a post containing all my favorite people, poems, songs, outfits and pictures that I loved from this semester. 

So lets start at the beginning. Who better than Nietzsche? My man. That dude was seriously fucked up and an old white dude which takes away from his likability but his quotes are some of my favorites because they are still so true. 

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

“The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.”

“What is needed above all is an absolute skepticism toward all inherited concepts.”

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”

Can you say foreshadowing of basically the entire 21st century. This is the entire basis for the mook and the midriff. If you don’t control of yourself and who you want to be in this world someone will come into your house and feed you a consumerist product made for your generation. 

—–

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. - Fredrick Douglas 

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.     - Fredrick Douglas 

—–

So since I’m still here livin’, I guess I will live on. I could’ve died for love– But for livin’ I was born Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry– I’ll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die. Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

- Langston Hughes 

—–

Oh and I have to include the O.G. cool man himself, Lester Young. The man who started it all. The man who mastered the art of improv, spoke in code, “wore sunglasses in nightclubs, sported a crushed black porkpie hat and tilted his saxophone at a high angle “like a canoeist about to plunge his paddle into the water” (Whitney Balliett).

—–

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. -  Oscar Wilde

Illusion is the first of all pleasures. -  Oscar Wilde

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. -  Oscar Wilde

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. -  Oscar Wilde

Lauren Bacall

—–

James Dean

—–

Marlon Brando

—–

Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, perhaps, in heart and life and longing… but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. -  W.E.B. Du Bois

—–

The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.  But those that will not break it kills.  It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.  If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. - Ernest Hemingway

In modern war…you will die like a dog for no good reason. - Ernest Hemingway

What changed the world more than anything else. War.

—–

I am not a heroine. But I have chosen the person I wanted to be. - Coco Chanel 

Dress like you’re going to meet your worst enemy today - Coco Chanel

—–

You don’t have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive. - Diana Vreeland.

—–

The problem that confronts us today… is how to be one’s self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one’s own characteristic qualities. - Emma Goldman

—–

I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste - Marcel Duchamp

—–

Elizabeth Eckford, turned away from entering Central High School by Arkansas National Guard by order of Governor Orval Faubus, is followed by hostile whites, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. - Albert Camus

I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.  - Albert Camus

Hang on, hang on… life’s long, energy creates energy, things are all-right, hunger piles up, love waits… and when found… grows. Hang on. - Jack Kerouac    

Little Richard

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. - Walt Whitman

Many of the idols I have included in this post took this Whitman to heart. A sign that the rest of us should too. Keep your cool.  

Woody Guthrie

Do you have a reason to live? One you would die for. Do you have a why to get you through any how?

Are we on the rise of a new revolution? Are we still capable of revolt to that degree? Can we still tap into the energy of the youth from the 1960′s? These pictures say maybe.. just maybe there is hope.

A central lesson of cool… suffering is not just a part of life… but most of life. However, we live in a society that makes us feel as if sadness is a sin. A society that instead of teaching us to utilize our sadness (muck to gold), tells us to hide it deep inside because it is a sign of weakness and vulnerability. And if you do tell someone… they will prescribe you drugs to get rid of it.

Black Panther Party

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. - Martin Luther King, Jr

You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem. - (Leroy) Eldridge Cleaver, 1968

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure. - Malcolm X

John Lennon

Every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.  - Marshall McLuhan

Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks

- Masters of War, Bob Dylan

Pablo Picasso

People are always so boring when they band together. You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting. - Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground

Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what.’ That’s one of my favorite things to say. ‘So what.’ - Andy Warhol

If I am being totally honest I was never a fan of Andy Warhol’s stuff before this course. I looked at it like a lot of people look at modern art and say well I could make that. But now I am realizing but I don’t.. most of us don’t.. make the effort to create anything, even just a silkscreen (or a silly drawing of a fish like Picasso would sketch). I also never took the time to think about why Warhol made what he did or what the significance of his work was in the time period. I still think he is a pretty weird snd freaky but he’s also probably one of the coolest people I have learned about. And sadly I don’t know if I ever would have made the effort to really look into a lot of these people if it wasn’t for this class. 

Edie Sedgwick

Forever wishing I was this funky

Kurt Cobain

How many of us are just meat puppets really? Probably a lot of us. But we can make a decision at any moment to change that can’t we. Make a decision to change anything about ourselves at any moment. Endless possibilities.

If you made it to the end of this post. Bravo.

[the-mythical-norm]

Responding to Zach

@the-real-tarzan​

Great post Zach.

    The question is what if people’s lives weren’t filled with “studying, test taking, being bored, working…”? What if people could do what they want all the time? It’s sad to say but humans are lazy, and for many people, I think a life without work would mean they would just become even more preoccupied with the entertainment industry that we’re surrounded by. Just look what people do in their free time when they’re not following the trail of yarn rolled out by society. People don’t take bike rides or relish in the sunset; instead, they tap tirelessly at their phones or stare lifelessly at Netflix. And part of that, as you said is a distraction from their unwanted life, but part of that is because it’s simply the easiest thing to do. It takes a lot of effort to be Cool, to choose sitting over a lake over laying in bed, and frankly, a lot of people are not going to voluntarily become Cool if the necessity for work suddenly disappeared. And this is not a new idea. Leaders all throughout human history have known that, if given a choice, people will take the path of least resistance. Those rulers knew that you had to force people to adopt a lifestyle, be that a lifestyle of work, a lifestyle of conformity, or even a lifestyle of Cool. A lot of the Cool people we studied over the course of this class adopted Cool as a result of necessity, they didn’t take it on because they wanted to but because they needed to. It’s funny but a lot of people rely on getting told what they do, and when they’re life is not dictated by some external force they’ll spend their time on their phones, or sleeping, or just being bored until they’re told what to do next. Do you know how many people I’ve talked to who said they were bored during spring break? Far too many. Is this a byproduct of the culture industry or will most humans just waste their time if they’re not forced to study or work? Would people even turn to Cool if they no longer had to go to college or to get a job? I don’t know the answer but from what I’ve seen of how people spend their summer breaks, which should be a time to slip from the choke-hold of the culture industry, even if just briefly, I think the answer is no.

    I think Cool relies a lot on the side-effects of society’s preoccupation with work and progress. After all, the blossoming of art only came after humans had found a way to sustainably produce food, establish shelter, and efficiently utilize resources. And the more technology develops, the more people can focus on art. After all, I doubt you could be a professional painter in 10,000 BCE where the majority of your time was focused on how to find your next meal. And that trend continues today where the more productive, efficient, and technologically advanced humans are, the more people there are who can enjoy a bike ride or watch the sunset instead of searching for water or fighting off hunger. Yes, places like Africa which don’t have that benefit were actually the birthplace of Cool, but is that really the circumstances we want people to have to be Cool in? Pablo Picasso was also Cool and I think it can be universally agreed that the Cool lifestyle he could practice in a more advanced society is far preferable to the one forced upon to African tribes. And therefore, I think societal progress is critical not because it helps alleviate human suffering, but because it allows more people to be Cool. After all, if you were born having to get a job so your mother could have food, I can imagine it would be tough to escape the labor market in which you’re now confined.

    And that’s the problem of Cool…it won’t progress society. If all our ancestors just acted Cool, we would not be close to the sophisticated and advanced society in which James Dean or The Beatles could enjoy being Cool. So I guess my question is, shouldn’t Cool actually want a certain subset of the population not to be cool? After all, people’s willingness to progress humanity by getting a job and contributing is what has allowed others like Brandon Davis to wander the country instead of worrying about how to eat. The United States has become advanced enough where even if you have no money you can still find a way to get food. And that can only be possible in a society that has a large portion of its people working to make that possible. So, with Cool’s classic paradox, does Cool need the uncool if Cool wishes to grow? Does capitalism have its advantage in the fact that when more people are running in the hamster wheel, that means more people can get off knowing that the wheel will continue to run? I think that uncool has an intimate relationship with Cool in the fact that the society in which Cool flourishes would fall apart if not held together by those who choose not to live the Cool lifestyle. And I guess this ties back to the beginning of the post because even if people no longer felt the obligation to make money or go to work, I’m not sure they would turn to Cool. And therefore, money has to excite people, or else society would stall and go backward till we are back at the point where the arts were just a luxury, and you didn’t have time to take a walk because you weren’t sure if someone was going to mug you. As sad as it is, if people didn’t chase money, then no one would work and the society in which Andy Warhol or Lester Young had the chance to become Cool, wouldn’t have existed. As we said in class, slaves couldn’t be Cool because they didn’t have enough freedom to do so, and so if our society doesn’t maintain its productivity and sophistication many people wouldn’t have the freedom to become Cool either.

    And so Zach, I guess my extremely long-winded question is: Is the marketplace essential in the fact that it allows society to progress both technologically and socially thereby giving the opportunity for many more to become Cool? Do people who are uncool and propel the hamster wheel actually lower the barrier for others to become Cool? And hence, should Cool view the culture industry not as an enemy but as an unfortunate but necessary force to progress society and help others become and enjoy a type of Cool that isn’t thrust upon them through extreme hardship but rather adopted through a newfound freedom?

[the-mythical-norm]

Responding to Varun

@varun-krishnan

Great post Varun, thank you for making disagreeing so enjoyable. I mean that sincerely. Its the things that keep you up at night that are worth doing. And its 4:30 AM! 

Anyways, I see you’re point. When people are giving to chance to choose, they usually choose wrong. But I wouldn’t be so quick to say we’d all spindle into a grand canyon of ineptitude. If no one is “working” then who would supply us with our phones anyways? The entertainment industry would most likely dwindle because, like we both agreed, it is only able to thrive because we need it to distract us. But if we didn’t need to quench this thirst that was deprived from work and dread, we might go mad. Those friends you spoke with who were bored over spring break probably had copious amounts of entertainment, and it still wasn’t enough anyways. What if having nothing to do, because work and progress were thrown out the window, is enough to force us to be cool. The struggle is what births cool after all. We’d be so bored to death that we’d be forced to improvise. I think the reason people rely on Netflix and iPhones so much is because they don’t know what else to do. Without work they probably wouldn’t be able to have them anyways. People I’ve talked to have no idea what they’d be doing if not what they are now.  You’re right when you say that they want the easiest route, but thats a byproduct of a society obsessed with progress. We need fast food, fast cars, and lame jobs to progress our society. In order for maximum efficiency and growth. The question then becomes, how beneficial is this growth? How far do we want to get? 90% of the worlds waste comes from 10% of the worlds population..or something like that. So how much longer will this last? How much more do we want? What will we tell our great great grandchildren when they’re living in a glass bubble on mars only dreaming of being able to look at a lake…or a tree? Obviously sacrifices need to be made in order for a society to progress, but at the end of the day, whats the point of this progress? How many of us will actually reap its benefits? 10%? 20%? And the ones who do, hate their jobs most of the time anyways. And its all worth it so we can squeeze some art through the cracks and take bike rides when we aren’t busy? What a silly way to live. Our society will eventually collapse if we continue to advance. Progress progress progress. At some point its got to give. The term worker bee was born for a reason. The focus of their existence is to work, work, and more work. They also suffer from colony collapse disorder. Theres no scientific explanation for it, entire bee colonies just vanish into thin air, with no trace of struggle..maybe its because they work too much. Or the collapse of Easter Islands society, progress is great when you’re progressing, but how “sustainable” is it anyways. Theres only so much resource. You seem to suggest that what we are doing now works, does it? Will any form of society actually work? Everyone relies on being told what to do because, like we talked about in class, its hard to think for yourself, its hard to get control over your body/mind, its hard to DO things that you aren’t told to do. Like post to this Tumblr.

Im not sure if people would turn to cool if they no longer had to work or go to college, but most people I ask usually say “I don’t know,” or that they would travel.

Im also not sure that art only existed after humans had civilized and advanced utility. Archeologists have discovered Paleolithic cave art dating 40,000 years back, in Indonesia. It’s pretty amazing too. The time spent looking for your next meal in 10,000 BCE is directly replace with time spent looking for your next pay check, and because of the efficiency we’ve “mastered,” excess has been born. Pablo Picasso was cool, but he was doing the best with what he had. He wasn’t making art to progress society, he was just putting it out there. We are obsessed with extremes, manic or depressed. Wealth or poverty. Cool trys to show us a middle ground, a constant hum rather than shouts and whispers.

You say that “..societal progress is critical not because it helps alleviate human suffering, but because it allows more people to be Cool..” But I disagree. Societal progress doesn’t alleviate any suffering, thats just part of the human condition. To rid ourselves of suffering would be to rid ourselves of our humanity. Which is exactly what we are on track of doing, becoming robots whose only purpose is to progress. On the contrary, In order for our society to advance, AKA produce more shit for the rich to buy, there has to be suffering. Most of these consumer products which blossomed from “societal progression,” have been tainted in blood. The invention of the iPhone has provided millions of sweatshop workers with 40 hour shifts and zero time to be cool..the only progression there is suicide rates. That sounds a lot like slavery, which still exists by the way, in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, the list goes on. As for the starvation, theres plenty of that too. And way more people to endure its wrath, possibly because of societies advancements, what happened to Darwins theory of evolution, survival of the fittest? Are we cheating a bit? Even people who have access to food, still starve themselves. Eating disorders may have even stemmed from technological advancements (social media) too.

You say cool won’t progress society, whys that such a bad thing? It is true that the sophisticated and advanced society that James Dean or The Beatles could enjoy being cool in would seize to exist, but ultimately cool is a battle stance. What if there was no battle? What if we were so cool we didn’t even need I️t. I️ also agree that In order for cool to exist, there needs to be uncool. But does the uncool world depend on the cool one to exist? Its possible that we could become so dictated by success that we become like the worker bees. You could argue both sides. When people don’t have food, they are starving, but when people do have food, they are still starving. Of course cool needs the uncool and there will always be duality, Yin and Yang. There has to be, or else meaningfulness would be lost. If you just love everything and everyone, loves power sort of looses its meaning and just dilutes in its ubiquity. So I️ agree that cool has a relationship with the uncool, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that its intimate. Im not arguing for a utopian society, where we live in tribes and sing kumbuya by the campfire, hunt our own food and refuse to advance. Because that didn’t work either, someone eventually decided to make things easier, and advance. Maybe that was a mistake. It’s worth thinking about, and free too. Im not really sure what im arguing. We can learn from all of these different forms of society. Maybe not eradicating the workforce but promoting genuinely passionate career paths. I’d be lying if a little part of me didn’t scream fuck that, advancement is only creating more suffering to the unlucky ones. As you said, slaves cant be cool. But Slavery exists on both sides of the spectrum. On the far end, we could become so obsessed with advancement that we become slaves of money and material pursuit, and on the other end(living in tribes), slaves of famine and lack of clean water. Maybe theres a healthy middle ground. Perhaps nothing works, not even cool. As we learned in class, cool cracked up in 1968. Revolution swept the streets. Those streets have since been paved, where did the rebellion go? We live in a whole new world now, Lester Young and Andy Warhol didn’t have iPhones or Netflix, and Im sure it would have negatively effected their coolness if they did. But their art wouldn’t have existed if society didn’t advance in the first place, so is there a line? There must be. Any form of suffering, to a certain extent, would allow cool to exist. Its not necessarily the marketplace because that was the bane of cools existence in the first place, I think. You don’t necessarily have to be cool to enjoy the sunset either, so cheering for the hamsters on the wheel to run faster, just so the barrier to cool is a little easier to hop, isn’t the best idea. That perpetuating wheel has A LOT of side effects and cool is just one, if it even exists. I️m not sure it’s enough to outweigh the rest. I think cool should view the culture industry as an enemy, and there will never be a cool that isn’t thrust upon you through hardship, theres no escaping that. Even purchasing your cool requires some suffering, as we can all agree that making money isn’t all that fun. Unless you love what you do. I think the real question we should be asking is, how can we learn from all of this? How should we be?  to be continued in paper 3...

[the-mythical-norm]

*batteries not included

Paying for fun is stupid. But we do it because that’s the bill of goods we’ve been sold by a capitalist society. Everyone thinks “I️ need to have a lot of money or make a lot to do fun things. And I only do a thing most of the time if I’m getting paid” But making all this money is usually not fun. I️t doesn’t cost anything to sing in the rain or dance in the street. Of course a lot of fun things cost money and I️ do recognize it’s nearly impossible to live outside the marketplace. But why only do things that you get paid for? And why be imprisoned by paying for enjoyable things? We should strive to live lives where we mostly do things we aren’t paid for, rather things we love doing. Instead we spend most of it working and then doing stuff on the side that we don’t get paid for. Why do we have to work so much, are all of these things we want to buy really worth it? These bentleys, these hilltop mansions? And how the heck did we accept such a transaction? How did we get so caught up in the material world that we are forced to support it through hard work at whatever cost. I think it’s because of distraction. Our lives are largely filled with studying, test taking, being bored, working and other shit we don’t want to do, so how do we get through it? We need little pressure releases to keep us from killing ourselves. To keep us from questioning if this is all worth it. So they keep us distracted. Ultra, frat parties, video games, weekends. Just when we start to turn our heads and question our standing, ZAP!, Coachella!, oh theres a party this weekend? Ill do some drugs, blow off some steam.. life doesn’t suck that bad.

If we didn’t have these little treats, and we pondered all this work and pointlessness, we could become very dangerous to the marketplace. We might even start a revolution. They know what happened in 1968. They know about the stonewall riots, the black panther party, the civil rights movement, the counter culture, the situationist, et cetera.  

If we were gonna work, they had to make the work place cool too, some businesses will have a bar in the office, or a jungle gym, a nice cafe.. At google, you don’t even have to wear shoes and you can bring your pets, I wanna work there! Why would anyone refuse to spend their 9-5 here, its so comfortable! All of these little bites of coolness, and packaged rebellion, its just enough to keep us going. Keep the hamster in its wheel. The marketplace is genius. They know we don’t want to work, and they know we don’t need all this shit we are saving our money to buy, but they found a way to dismantle the young bombs inside us and we ended up on the hamster wheel anyway. Market researchers came into to our homes and studied us, so they knew exactly what we wanted, and exactly what else we wanted too. We wanted a burger, so of course we want the fries too, and the soda, ketchup, mustard…the products never stop. So we have to work more to afford it, but the work is comfortable enough so that we don’t question it. So if the work is comfortable, the benefits are nice, eventually you’ll get to use your money on the weekends or over the summer, whats the big deal? Why is it so bad to be a sheep?

I would argue its akin to the man who can’t see color. He lives his whole life without color, he doesn’t complain because he has no idea what he’s missing out on. But we can still see the color if we really want to. Jeffrey Kaplan writes about how they’ve devised a formula to keep us wanting in his article, “The Gospel Of Consumption,”

“Business leaders were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a society no longer centered on the production of goods. For them, the new “labor-saving” machinery presented not a vision of liberation but a threat to their position at the center of power. John E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, typified their response when he declared: “I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance. The emphasis should be put on work — more work and better work.” “Nothing,” he claimed, “breeds radicalism more than unhappiness unless it is leisure.” By the late 1920s, America’s business and political elite had found a way to defuse the dual threat of stagnating economic growth and a radicalized working class in what one industrial consultant called “the gospel of consumption” — the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn’t enough. President Herbert Hoover’s 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed in glowing terms the results: “By advertising and other promotional devices . . . a measurable pull on production has been created which releases capital otherwise tied up.” They celebrated the conceptual breakthrough: “Economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied.”

No wonder we want to make so much money, we have too many things we want to buy, and its all part of their plan. The market is even smarter than that. They hijacked cool culture too.

“Nike shoes are sold to the accompaniment of words delivered by William S. Burroughs and songs by The Beatles, Iggy Pop, and Gil Scott Heron ("the revolution will not be televised"); peace symbols decorate a line of cigarettes manufactured by R. J. Reynolds and the walls and windows of Starbucks coffee shops nationwide; the products of Apple, IBM, and Microsoft are touted as devices of liberation; and advertising across the product category sprectrum calls upon consumers to break rules and find themselves.”  -The Conquest of Cool

It doesn’t stop there. Anything new, revolutionary, bold, exciting, cool, everything will be packaged and sold to the masses, by the market. Everything and anything cool you do will be quickly be co-opted and marketed. So then we gotta find something else thats cool, but thats exactly what they want. It’s the perfect equation, we rebel, they sell it, we quit that and find something else, then they just go and sell that too. We’re just rotating the crops. But they got tired of chasing the cool, now they just tell us what to want. Cool still existed and it still rocked. True rebellion existed too, the dadaists, the renaissance, counter culture, LGBT, the beats, the hippies, the black panther party, the list goes on. But it’s sort of diluted, it’s hard to tell if an act is authentic rebellion or just something to sell. I️ know Marcel Duchamp was really rebelling when he submitted his urinal to the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, in 1917, but is Marlon Brando really rebelling? When he struts into town with his formidable stature, and wandering gaze. With his blue jeans and leather jacket, or is I️t just a big commercial for Levi Strauss? Buy this new look if you wanna be cool like Brando. All this rebellion was real, but the market eventually saw this and did something about I️t. They sold our little rebellions to us with Dr Martins, hot topic, urban outfitters, etc. These companies have packaged and sold our oppositional energies. The words rebellion and revolution are so watered down, they were even able to make us feel rebellious by our decision to wear vans instead of converse! They are fueling our rebellions so that we feel satisfied.  So we don’t freakout!

So now they tell us what we want. Oh you need this new iPhone, this outfit, these shoes, blah blah I️t never stops. How many times did Wozniak say that this new iPhone will revolutionize everything. We are literally put on this earth to buy and sell.  

Can we really live authentically? And how can we exist outside the market place? Or at least try? Advertisements for these ivory towers to live in, for these vehicles of mass opulence, for these clothes knitted in gold… its been shoved down our gullet and posted on every wall we pass. In class we talked about how we don’t need all this shit, but they’ve made us want it so bad, that we are basically imprisoned by material. Because we are imprisoned, we must fund our material obsessions, by studying business and accounting, getting internships that put your foot in the door, then a cushy job after college. They’ll tell you, college is for making connections.. you don’t actually learn shit. Nobody uses their major anymore, its just a stamp of approval. I think thats why some people hate college, why doesn’t anyone study art history, or the apartheid in Africa, or the renaissance, music history…why doesn’t anyone want us to know these things? Everyone you meet is just seen as a stepping stone that leads to your palace someday. Oh I gotta be friends with this guy, he can cut me a deal on a nice house later on, and this guy will get me a free car..etc. I got a photographer friend, a banker friend, a chef friend, man I’m set! I mean so many of our relationships are just like empty calories. When you say ‘have a nice day’ as you pass the hostess on the way out of a nice dinner, do you really mean it? Do you want to help her actually have a nice day? Do you care if she does or not? The answer is probably not. But what are we supposed to do just walk out and say no words? I think this is tunnel vision at its finest. We think that this is the only way to live so we do it without question because the unknown is too scary.  So then we do things like joining a fraternity because theres nothing else to do in this town. We don’t want to be lonely. We don’t want to venture into the unknown. Joining a fraternity as an antidote for loneliness is gasoline to put out a fire, man. We study to get degrees that will get us great jobs so we can drive to work faster in our Ferraris, to make more money…just running faster and faster on that hamster wheel. Why are we so obsessed with being successful? That equation is why most people live lives of quite desperation. “Well, theres nothing else to do, theres no other life to live….If I didn’t do this with my life, what else would I do with my time?” So who’s to blame for this plutocracy, this capitalist society? Is it our fault? Is it the markets fault? The market research teams, our parents, society…who’s responsible for this! A world of mooks and midriffs! I don’t know, and at this point I don’t think it matters.

Maybe We Just have to Go. Go outside, go for a walk. Life’s joy doesn’t only come from personal relationships and material posessions, but experiences with nature too. Christopher McCandless knew that when he set out for Alaska.

I️ have found great joy in riding my bike on a breezy day, through the falling leaves that shed from the trees above, or sitting out on a doc at some marina underneath the moonlight, playing my harmonica as the boats sway. Hell, I’ve had times far more mysterious and enjoyable then any trip abroad, just looking at the Lake or the beach for a while. Its true we all need a tonic of wildness, but its closer than you think and a lot cheaper too. These things are basically free, and I️m not getting paid to do them. Granted there was a transaction to get the bike.. but these are ways I️ try existing outside the marketplace. Of course brands like REI, Patagonia, Vissla, etc, they try to sell me things I’ll need when I️m off exploring, and I️ buy them because I️m a hedonist too. I just try my best to only take what ill need. And most the things I do buy, I won’t actually need. I️ met a kid the other day while biking. Brandon Stephan Davis. He stood tall and radiated this strange cloud of wisdom around him. His hair was wild and dreaded, clothes withered and faded. He’s a kid about our age, from the big Apple. Hitchhiked all the way to the 305 with nothing but a backpack, an instrument he invented, and his poetry journal. Thats pretty cool. Brandon did that entire journey with basically no money, and not a lick of REI or Patagonia apparel on him. Man, did he have a lot to say! He wrote poetry in a small journal that he kept in his fanny pack, I had the pleasure of hearing one on black oppression. I️ asked him where he was headed, he pulled out a neatly folded map that looked like it had been around. He pointed to this small river and said, “I️m just gonna sit there and watch the water, then I’ll figure out what next. I️ got no where to be.” I can bet he didn’t have a lot of money, but I’d say he’s one the most successful people I’ve met in a while.

[the-mythical-norm]

Theres a scientific explanation as to why cool loves to be on the move. Surfing, skating, roller skating, driving....

[the-mythical-norm]

The Dude abides.

[the-mythical-norm]

What do you do when you see something cool?

I️ sat on a mountain in Arizona last weekend watching the sunset…all its beauty..mystery...vast cosmos…So I decide to take out my phone and snap a picture, then it made me think. What is better...to let a moment live and die in peace. To let I️t float away and vanish into thin air having only your mind to play I️t back? Or to capture that moment with electricity. You sacrifice that moments spontaneity, but I️t lives on forever. Right before your eyes, I️t can be mixed and mashed into something amazing, maybe something you didn’t even feel in that moment while I️t lived. Is I️t worth I️t? the sun sinks and there’s nothing but your iPhone to light your eyes. If you put I️t down for a second, you can’t see for a moment. Temporarily blind. Maybe that’s what it’s doing. Making us blind. I️t takes up our entire peripheral vision even though it’s just 4 inches wide. Sometimes takes our mind too. But there’s no doubt electricity can be beautiful, so can fire, and wind, and chaos. So is this iPhone a virus that has plagued my moments by urging me to capture them in a prison? Don’t the paint brush and pencil do the same? These are all tools for capturing moments, memories, and thoughts. But there’s something more corrupt about snapchatting every exciting moment of your life as opposed to planning a scene to paint or photograph, in the pursuit to create something beautiful and moving. Maybe it’s not like that. It still can be amazing to look back on them, those stupid snapchats with your friends from years ago. They’re sometimes like old home videos. But I️ must be weary of looking back only to find that the moment was entirely infected with me looking through my phones bionic eyes to catch the shot. 

I️ remember going abroad with my family. During the sunsets we’d walk along the beach, and my parents wanted to takes millions of pictures. And I always thought to myself, all we will remember is taking these photos and not the actual beauty of the moment. But I️ was partially wrong. I️ do remember those times, in small doses taking all these photos can be dissolved in the beauty of the memory. So now here I stand before the demons I️ speak of, with a deep passion for film and photography, the idea of twisting the fabric of nature excites me. I like to show people a new perspective, a new angle. I️ document things I️ like to do, places I go, things that I️ see, things that I️ feel. Mash them together with music and voice. But there are different kinds of this dangerous electricity. And I’ve been infected by both. Snapchat stories, and instagram stories are the worst strand. Anytime something ‘cool’ happens there’s this weird urge inside me that has to capture it and share I️t with others. Like I️ said, there’s two strands of this plague. One that is so ubiquitous and widespread, it’s almost like we can only see through the lens of our iPhone cameras. Life’s most sacred moments are now spoiled with these emotionless robotic eyes. Concerts, sunsets, first kisses, the list goes on. These phones are our new eyes. It’s like they’ve been attached to our faces... then they really did attach them to our faces with Virtual Reality, oh man this is bad. Why live in the real world when everything you want can be virtually created? Life’s better that way, virtual. I️t can be curated, molded, and shined just the way you want, it’s almost a no-brainer. But hang on a sec, isn't this molding, shaping, and shining exactly what us artists do when we edit a photo, or set up lights? Even taking a photo from a specific angle isn't true because that is just one angle and it can look different from many others. I guess we've always had manipulation of the world around us in our blood. By that same token, you can justify plastic surgery, facetune, etc. But I think theres a line to which manipulation must stop. Anyways, my point is that If somebody started wake boarding on Lake Osceola (a site that by my estimation has never been seen), surely we would all whip out our cell phones to snap this exciting moment rather than just watching and admiring that spontaneous act of rebellion.

The second strand is more artistic, and it’s nature I believe was never to ruin a moment. Things like directing film, taking photographs, setting up cameras to capture moments. Some spontaneous and some created. Every trip I’ve been on, I️ have the urge to capture I️t. Mold I️t into something digestible. I do it because it pulls me from within. To show someone a new way, make them feel something I felt, it brings me closer to them. Theres a certain feeling I want to give, its inexplicable, it's one that sends chills up your spine, and when It does thats the moment you’ve made something amazing, something conscious altering. But deep within me lies a question, what would I️t be like to travel and have the most wild and whirling adventure, but never share I️t? Take only what I essentials and rid the need to lug cameras or worry about getting the shot, to only have it inside me and every person I️ pass by is one more person in the world who won’t get the chance to see what I felt. I could try to tell them but It would be like explaining the color blue to a blind man, some experiences are just lost to the explanatory gap, but electricity can make that gap a little bit smaller. Like any form of power, it can be abused.

[the-mythical-norm]

[the-mythical-norm]

Police shot a man 20 times in his own yard, thinking he had a gun. It was an iPhone. 

[the-mythical-norm]

Woody Guthrie with his guitar (1941)

[the-mythical-norm]

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

- Walt Whitman

[the-mythical-norm]

I don't believe the mathmatician...

Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth. I’ve seen that. I’ve lived that. So has Oscar Wilde. Even this tumblr is a mask. We all bleed our hearts out through this feed but when it comes to in-person conversations, the barbaric YAWP fades. It’s mostly reduced to tenuous babble about grades, girls, and what happened Saturday night. I say mostly because I have indeed had many deep, enlightening conversations. Sometimes we like to say we don’t serve that which we don’t believe, and we talk about how awful I️t is to be a sheep in the heard. So we are able to see it from the outside... yet some of us are still living the lie.  An accounting major writes about rebellion and passion..about how life should be filled with the constant struggle to absorb energy, live freely and spontaneously. A kid studying to be a doctor, lawyer, or something like that will make it obvious that it’s not what he truly wants, using the mask. It’s contradicting. But cool says we are supposed to contradict ourselves right?…. maybe trump is secretly a sweetheart (totally kidding) and writes beautiful poems, but then he completely flips that through the presidential mask, because he’s appealing to the masses. This tumblr is a mask. It’s easy to blame everything else if you don’t dig what you do, but I️t gets you no where. The truth is, all that is gold is rusted. It’s our fault if we cannot see the magic in the mundane. Cliché but true. School can be cool. So stop taking classes you think will get you somewhere safe and rich, because they won’t. Take classes you like.. no, take classes you love and don’t even pick a major. Fuck I️t. Don’t even graduate, actually learn what you want, and I️f I️t lines up, sure get a degree. Those are just my thoughts. I wonder If anyone who has taken this course has actually done something, like drop out, or something so radical. I wonder if someone has taken these magnificent ideas, strung them together into something concrete, something strong, and busted through the gates without looking back. Some kids just see this class as eh, an easy A. I just can’t believe that. I’m not trying to offend anyone, I know that I too am a creature that craves more than is healthy. I’m not doing anything right either. As James Baldwin would say, “Artists are here to disturb the peace.”  So I’m just thinkin’ out loud.

It’s contradicting. To leave a secure, lucrative major. Because then the very people I️ just told not to be sheep can then be sheep in efforts to try and find the coolness, the magic in being a mundane sheep. But then again I️ could contradict that contradiction and say that school can be cool if you look hard enough but no matter how hard you try a major will never be cool if its purpose is to make you rich and comfortable, in the absence of passion. So it’s our fault if we can’t see the magic in the mundane, does that mean there is no such thing as mundane? Or maybe it does exist, but only because we manufactured it. I️m pretty sure if I️ forced myself to be a doctor, I’d never find magic, other people might, but not me. So is there a line? A line to where you should leave this job, this school, this town?

Hang on a sec. What is passion?

In its truest form, I think passion is something that pulls you from within. You do it because its energy reels you in with no mercy, a gravitational pull. An unwavering intensity of desire.

I want to understand the inner workings of a mathematicians brain. Why is he passionate about math? I hate math, If I can understand why he loves it, I’ll be able to see another part of the world that I couldn’t see before.

Does he really love it? Or is it just because math is definite, it has answers and can be conquered. It’s comforting to have answers, it makes everything so much easier. We all love answers. Part of me screams out that the mathematician can’t possibly be passionate about math. I know it’s ignorant. But I don’t see how numbers and grids can reach out and pierce the inner core of your soul, where the fiery passion hides. The other part of me knows it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. It’s not that scary to be a mathematician either, or an accountant, or a lawyer. You know the outcome as long as you do your homework. One of the things I’d like to do is make documentary films, but people always ask me. “Aren’t you afraid you won’t make anything good? What’s your fall back?” How come no one ever asks the mathematician that? Because it’s not. It’s a sure shot to safety. Its scary to do something that isn’t concrete. But our society shields us from uncomfortable things. Maybe thats why our passions are so limited. If you help a butterfly out of its cocoon, it will not be strong enough to sustain whats next, it has to struggle and rage to live. Maybe we’ve been coddled too much, so we are afraid to do something bold, and scary.

“Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.” -James Baldwin.

So we are out of tune. Thats why I don’t believe the mathematician. Because maybe…these jobs should not exist. They were symptoms of a disease called greed. We need doctors, lawyers, accountants, mathematicians, etc, because of our greed and desire to evolve and take over the world. There’s so many of us now. I mean, we definitely need doctors, I love doctors. Maybe I’m wrong, I probably am. Ask yourself this, if you grew up in a world with no color, would you be happy with the way the world looks? Of course! You don’t know any better. Thats my point, how can you know what you love if you’ve only seen barely a glimpse of the earth. It’s absurd to know what you want to do this young. It’s absurd to only want to do one thing, to me at least. We are constantly growing, changing our minds, our thoughts, our outfits. We need to go out of our comfort zones, out into the places we are most scared. Thats where we will see more. We just need to get out there, live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[the-mythical-norm]

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me, And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired, And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells, And run my stick along the public railings, And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other people's gardens, And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat, And eat three pounds of sausages at a go, Or only bread and pickle for a week, And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry, And pay our rent and not swear in the street, And set a good example for the children. We will have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practise a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised, When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple! Jenny Joseph

[the-mythical-norm]

Without mirrors and photography, I wouldn't really know what I look like. I guess a calm puddle would give me a clue, but those aren't terribly common in Southern California. For 98% of our species' history, we only had puddles. We also rarely lived past 40. . My friend's uncle once said, in passing, almost to himself: "I wouldn't have any idea how old I was if I didn't own a mirror. I still feel 25. But I'm 55. How I feel, and the eyes I see with, are the same. I quit looking at mirrors last year. They feel less true than how I feel." . I think about that all the time. . But one day, my body will slow down and feel different. . My friend said, 'crazy that Stephen Hawking died. What a legend. Imagine if he hadn't been limited by his disease, all that he could have done.' . I'm not so sure. I wonder if that chair let loose his mind. . I don't mean to romanticize limitations. But, grape vines make sweeter wine when starved and stressed. . I wonder how my thinking, my perspective will change when I’m old and slow. I wonder what I’ll care about. I wonder what I’ll think of ‘Jed in his thirties.’ . See what happens? I start talking about one thing and end up somewhere else. This is the curse of any dinner conversation with me. . I just don't think aging is some obstacle to be overcome. Are we meant to freeze the sun at noon and stop the day? That sounds ridiculous. 

- Jedidiah Jenkins

[the-mythical-norm]

How do you move across the plane of existence? This is how my roommate does it. 

[the-mythical-norm]

Some good qualities to look for in a role model.