The Celebration of Mediocrity

The Youtube comments sections have always been cesspools of human intellect. Recently, I found a video of a young, quite…. homely… girl on Youtube singing covers to songs. To put it kindly, she’s not exactly the most talented singer in the world. In fact, she’s quite bad. If I were to be completely honest, she sucks and its embarrassing to watch her.

Now, I see no reason to put up her video for two reasons. One, I think it would be unquestionably hateful, and two, I’m sure there are so many videos like that on Youtube that you can substitute any one of them in and it would be the same.

If you ignore all of the spam, the majority of the comments sections at the end of the videos are polarized into two camps: The Trolls and the Anti-Trolls. The Trolls ridicule the girl mercilessly, tearing down her looks, her singing, and the general presentation of the video. The Anti-Trolls try to support her, giving empty platitudes like “your video is inspirational” and “keep doing what you’re doing” and “your singing is amazing”.

Personally, I’m not a troll. I hardly ever leave a comment unless there’s something particularly funny or positive about the video. I don’t leave hateful comments unless the video itself is hateful. This time, though, I was growing more and more annoyed with the Anti-Trolls. There’s nothing particularly bad about what they are doing. I think the girl in the video appreciate all the support she can get.

But, there’s just something about this celebration of mediocrity that people seem to cling to that just rings hollow. I hate it when I know that I could’ve done something better and I get congratulated or get sympathy about a half-assed job. When I fumble the ball during football when I could’ve trucked a defender over, when I step out of bounds while making a cut, when I fail to block a pass rusher, when I fail to get past a defender, the last thing I want to hear is that “you did your best”. I don’t care if I did my best, the fact of the matter is that my best wasn’t good enough. I don’t like being patronized. I hate it.

When I see those people type those canned statements to those videos, I think it’s ridiculous. Mediocrity is not something to be celebrated; it is something to be criticized. It is something to be improved upon, not maintained.

Growing Older

I think part of growing older is seeing all the closed doors. As a young kid, I wanted to do be a fight in war, explore space, be a rock star, or dig up dinosaurs in the sand. As I grew older, I realized that war sucks, space is empty, I suck at singing, and digging up dinosaurs doesn’t make that much money.

Growing older isn’t just your body aging and decaying. It’s more about how your focus shifts from dreams of success to visions of failure. Growing older is understanding that failure is more common than success. It’s about losing the wonder of life and explaining away that lose as “seeing the world more realistically”.

Dreams and the dreamers are scorned and ridiculed.

My Objection to Dramatic Irony… and a bit more about teen pregancy

Funny bit of the day:

“I feel like I’ve leveled up in life…”
*perks up* “In sexual ways?”
*resignedly* “Sadly, I’m still at Level 1 in that regard…”

HA! I liked that bit.

Anyway, I read some manga today and for the first time, I realized what I hated most about some manga: Dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when something happens and the audience knows it, but some of the characters don’t. An example of this would be when a modern audience reads “Oedipus Rex”. The modern audience already knows that Oedipus is sleeping with his mom (which, by the way, is incredibly fucked up), so they’re basically just waiting for the “big reveal”. The only problem is… THERE IS NO REVEAL. Dramatic irony kills any sort of surprise because in essence, there is no surprise. Not for the audience/reader, anyway. In “Kimi no Iru Machi”, which is one of the manga series I’m currently reading, you already know that this girl is going to fall for this guy, not because there’s any sort of foreshadowing, but because the perspective suddenly shifts from the male protagonist to one of the other female characters. It’s total crap! And I hate it and wish it would go away…

*I DON’T KNOW IF ANYONE IS READING “SUZUKA” BY SEO KOUJI, BUT IF YOU ARE, THERE ARE SPOILERS*

And a separate note, I very much liked Seo Kouji’s previous work, “Suzuka”. I found the teen pregnancy ending to be much… better than that in Juno. It was… I dunno. Both more happy, and less happy. Because… Akitsuki (the male protagonist) and Asahina (female protagonist) do end up married and they have a happy life with each other, but I feel like they gave up on their own potential for the sake of happiness. For example, they both lost their chances of going to university and neither of them ever pursued sports, even though they were clearly very talented in their respective sports.

I feel like… we give up a part of our happiness in order to attain our full human potential, and by potential I suppose I mean societal recognition. Generally, most people are destined to be… little more than cogs in the wheels of civilization. It’s either that or being a huge fucking wrench in the plans. But sometimes, there are innovators. There are geniuses who revolutionize thinking, like Descartes, Edison, Einstein, Newton, and a bunch of other really smart people. A recent Nobel Prize winner (I forgot his name) for some kind of science (I forgot the field too) said something about having to sacrifice having a family and children for the sake of the Project to benefit mankind. When I talked to my Dad about wanting a head a major research project after college, he objected and said that I wouldn’t have any time for myself.

I suppose, to a certain extent, there’s only so much time we can dedicate. We can choose to dedicate time for work, school, careers, and saving the world or we can choose to dedicate time for family, friends, children, and personal happiness. But, we can’t be in two places at once and as such, we can’t do both things at once. Some could argue that saving the world IS satisfying. I would argue that they’re a lying pile of shit. Saving the world and other such altruism is admirable, but you can’t be a full-time hero and have a good family life. Spider-Man taught me that. So, my question is, if you were given the choice between being a great benefactor to the faceless masses of mankind or leading a very happy, fulfilling life with a loving family, which one would you choose if you had to sacrifice the other?

… I think I’ve kinda strayed away from the original topic at hand… again…

On the Subject of Soulmates

According to Aristophanes, humans were originally creatures with 4 arms, 4 legs, and two heads. They came in 3 varieties: male-female, male-male, and female-female. However, the gods feared their existence, so they split humans in half, condemning them to forever search for their other half.

And so we have our modern notion of “soulmates”. And I guess to a certain extent, this is true. No one’s an island… or rather, no one’s a happy island. As humans, we don’t need other people, but we do want them. I don’t think any is ever truly happy by themselves. Content, maybe. Happy, impossible. Maybe it sounds a bit needy, but I think we’re always looking for attention or approval from other people, craving for some sort of validation for our own actions. It’s not only a simple desire for acceptance, it’s a wish to be understood. A spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a lover will overlook their partner’s short-comings; a soulmates understands why their partners are the way they are.

I think the saddest people are the ones who aren’t understood by those around them. Understanding requires empathy, not just sympathy.

On a separate point, I’m reading “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami. I don’t quite understand everything he’s writing, but I can’t stop reading it, so he’s obviously doing something right.

On the Issue of Affirmative Action

I have a Facebook friend (who I’m not sure I know in real life) who regularly uses his status to inform the world about liberals infringing on his rights as a citizen. Normally, I don’t discuss or care about politics, but when I do, I tend to come down as a liberal, as a socialist, and as a communist. Personally, I believe that brainwash-induced/drug-induced communism and divinely-sanctioned monarchism are the most perfect (not the best, the most perfect) forms of government while a republic, a democracy, and any other form of representative government are the most flawed. Mind you, this we live in a fictional world where people are saints, where non-fattening ice cream grows in trees, where unicorns prance around blithely, and where 20th-Century Fox releases awesome movies like they used to instead of the drivel they’ve been pumping out for the last year and a half. So, in lieu of a such a world, democracy is the best compromise.

Anyway, getting back to my conservative Facebook friend’s status. Tonight, he posted this: “Oregon now requires their athletic directors at public universities to interview 1 minority coach for any open coaching jobs. They should also be required to interview a gay coach, a woman, a person from each race, someone who is mentally handicap[ped], physically disabled, and a cartoon rabbit. If you didn’t catch the sarcasm, you are an idiot. Stop bringing race into it. Credentials and character should be the only factors.”

Here is my rebuttal. Certainly, credentials and character should be the only factors if we lived in a perfect world where race wasn’t an issue. Race is still an issue. In this world, we do not live in a post-racial world. We don’t live in a post-discrimination world. I think that at some point, perhaps when the majority of the human population is no longer a single race but born from parents of mixed races, we will achieve a post-racial world, but not yet.

And in this world of ours, where race is still an issue and still a barrier, minorities ought to be given a chance. What the state of Oregon was saying was, “Don’t ignore these people. At least give them a chance”. They didn’t say, “You have to hire these people”. They said, “Look at these people, and if you think that they have a chance to make it as a good coach, then hire them”. I don’t see what the problem is there.

After scrolling down a bit, I read a comment that says “Reverse-racism is just as a bad as racism”.” No, it’s not. Not really. What does reverse-racism affect? It affects the chance of one person to get a job. Now if that person is you, then yes, I can see why that would be a problem and why you would have cause to be angry. But what does racism affect? Racism affects a whole race of people and makes them think “I can’t do this, this is not within my reach because that’s the way the world works, and it will never change”. Racism drains the hope of an entire people until one person can break through. That is what affirmative action is meant to do.

Now certainly, if those barriers didn’t exist, then affirmative action is needless. But those barriers do exist, in sports, politics, medicine, and in basically all fields. Yes, people should be judged only by the credentials, but that’s not how the world works. That’s not how the world operates. Affirmative action will no longer be an issue when race is no longer an issue.

Art, Beauty, and Fashion

I watched “The Devil Wears Prada” last night. It was sort of funny and the dialogue was snappy, but I felt that the characters were a bit hollow and the plot was too chick-flick-ish. It also wasn’t emotionally arresting. Interestingly enough, I found myself criticizing some random girl’s boots today… *shrugs*

The movie got me thinking about how much influence one person’s opinion has over an entire industry. Miranda (Meryl Streep’s character) is supposedly based off of Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of “Vogue” magazine. 60 Minutes recently did a bit on her, which is how I found out about Anna Wintour and “The Devil Wears Prada”. Apparently, Wintour holds sway over a large swath of the fashion industry and her opinion of someone’s work is enough to catapult a designer to the heights of fame or sink him to the depths of obscurity. I found it strange how one person’s opinion had such influence over things as subjective as good fashion.

That got me thinking about art and beauty. Who determines if art is good or bad? For example, when I see Picasso’s paintings, I personally see no great value in Guernica, and the only reason why I know that the paintings are significant is because of my art teacher in grade school. I’ve listened to Franz Listz’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in E Flat Major” and it doesn’t strike me as being particularly good. I’ve seen “Citizen Kane”, and even though it’s supposed one of the best movie’s in the world, I found it slow and boring. I feel that sometimes a book, piece of art, song, or film would be given a pass that it ordinarily would not have been given if it were not associated with a particular author, artist, musician, or director.

This dichotomy between what the world sees as “good/bad” and what I personally see as “good/bad” makes it difficult to define something as good or bad. I had a bit of row with a friend of mine about what made a film good or great. I basically said that a good film ought to have layers so that re-watching a film makes you think as you uncover another layer that you may not have previously noticed, whereas my friend argued that a good film ought to entertain. Eventually, I came to the conclusion whether or not a film is good depends on the viewer, but the question of whether or not a film is great depends on how much influence it had on cinema and the rest of the industry in general.

I’ve come to the conclusion that any work of art, film, book, etc. should to do one of two things: It should make you think or it should entertain you. Ultimately, a book, a song, or a movie is merely another medium to transmit a certain opinion from one human being to his audience. If that opinion is transmitted successfully, then it should make the audience see the world in a slightly different way, or at least consider that their world is changed somewhat. If it fails to do that, it should elicit some sort of emotional response. For example, I enjoyed “Independence Day”, even though it’s a stupid, stupid movie. I don’t give a damn, it’s Will Smith vs. Aliens. I’m there. I’m eating popcorn and I’m watching that dumb movie.

So… yeah… That’s it. I kinda rambled again.

On the Subject of Love

Today, I found this old (5-years-old… so it’s ancient or something) article about jun-ai (“pure love”) on a Japanese news website. Here’s the link:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20041230ks.html

Anyway, it was talking about how the most popular Asian (Japanese and Koreans) dramas (ドラマ) in recent times (recent for 2004, at least) were about first love between two young high-schoolers, usually at 15, which is incidentally the year that many Japanese teenagers enter high school. This love was characterized as being platonic (meaning NO SEX), painful, and eternal, seeing as how one of the lovers would die at a young age at 17, which is incidentally the year that many Japanese teenagers enter their last of high school (Japanese high school spans 3 years instead of 4… I was really confused the first time too), leaving just enough time during the season for pain and stuffs, which is good for ratings.

Last year in college, I saw the movie adaptation of one of the dramas that the article mentions. Both the drama and the movie were titled “世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ”, or phonetically, “Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai o Sakebu”, or translated “Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World”. For those unfamiliar with the story, it’s sort of like “A Walk to Remember” starring Mandy Moore, except in Japanese and based off of a different book. For those unfamiliar with that story, it’s about a guy and a girl who start off not really liking each, then go to really liking each other, then the girl dies from cancer, then the guy is really tore up about it.

The central theme in these “jun-ai” (“pure love”) stories is that it’s a pure, painful first love (“hatsukoi”) that is never consummated and remains eternal because of the circumstances, not necessarily death. Sometimes, one of the characters has to leave for a period ranging from one year to a decade. During this time, the love remains and the re-emergence of one of the characters reawakens the same feelings. Special importance is placed upon the fact that it’s “hatsukoi” because the Japanese believe that first love is unmarred and untarnished by the experience and knowledge that seasoned daters know. “Hatsukoi” is typified as being more passionate and more beautiful because the lovers don’t know how things can possibly go wrong. And of course in “jun-ai”, they never learn because it ends before it can go wrong.

After reading this and after watching the dramas, I feel a bit sad. Obviously, I’ve never been in any sort of “jun-ai” or “hatsukoi” situation. I wouldn’t really know what I’d do if I was though. I think that if I ever lost any that I was closely romantically linked with, I don’t think I’d be any good in that department. Currently, I don’t love anyone unconditionally, and there’s been only one case when I have, and that turned out kind of disastrously (or rather, it kind of just fell flat). But… I think I’d want something like that. As opposed to other people’s descriptions, the definition of love to me is like “hatsukoi”, a blind, unconditional, unfettered willingness to give one’s self to another person. It doesn’t have to be returned, and it doesn’t have to be mutual, and it might not exactly be healthy. I think if I had that sort of blind, unconditional, mutual love, I think it’d be enough for me. I don’t think I’d want anyone else after that.

The Usefulness of Life

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that life as it currently is, is ultimately worthless. I feel that I’ve come to accept near total nihilism in regard to the concept of life.

By life, I mean the state of consciousness and/or returnable consciousness that human beings are normally in.  For all intents and purposes, let’s call life the state of being able to make (or at least appear to make) decisions. Using this, let’s exclude everything before birth, in comatose state, etc.

I have often said that there is no inherent point or purpose to life, and that to go through life without succumbing to despair requires manufacturing a “point” or a “purpose”. I have accepted the fact that such would be no more than an illusion, a form of entertainment, a self-imposed Matrix. If I were to accept this, then life would be no more than an MMORPG where the purpose or the meaning of success of the game (read: Life) is not dictated by some overlord computer programmers, but rather by the player (read: You). Like all MMORPGs, success is dictated more by personal or societal expressions of what success is. I have come to feel that semantic argument dealing with such abstract concepts as success is more often concerned with which artificial and arbitrary definition is more “right” or “valid” than another definition. In the end, it’s a moot point. It’s like comparing the truthy-ness of two lies. My epistemological take on everything in the universe is that humans seek to create order where there is none. Order cannot be imposed, and any attempt to do so would merely create an illusion. It is not exactly Descartes; it’s more… it almost feels more empty than that. Whereas Descartes at least guaranteed the existence of one’s own mind and consciousness, I reject any attempt to validate or value anything created by such a mind.

But I digress. Slightly.

Blasphemous Philosophicalizingness While Listening to Bubble Gum J-Pop Part 1

I wrote this without my full attention, so it might not make sense. IRRELEVANT.

But anyway. I have, at times, positioned my head in such a position that I guess must have pinched some kind of blood vessel and temporarily cut off some oxygen from my brain (this would explain many things). Anyway, doing this made me a bit dizzy, but I would feel a sort of disconnection with the world. At other times, I’ve also spontaneously felt a disconnection with the world without any discernible reason. I’d suppose the easy way of explaining this would be to see or hear a known language and purposefully attempt to not understand it by merely seeing/hearing it as shapes/sounds. It’s a weird thing. Either way, I think it somehow ties into the next thing.

I think I’m going to take Descartes’ statement, “I think, therefore I am” and mess around with it. Let’s suppose (or rather, let me suppose, because the existence of “you” is a hypothetical in this supposition), that everything is merely a series of sensations plugged into a single, irrefutable consciousness, specifically mine. Because I have a sense of “self” and because I can make independent thoughts and statements, I know that I at least exist. It’s a sense of self-consciousness possessed only by the self. Because this is the only thing that I can irrefutably know, everything else COULD, theoretically, be merely a series of sensation.

Henceforth, the word “Real” (note the capital “R”) will refer to the situation in which I am a consciousness experiencing a world of sensations. This world of sensations would be seen as “real” because it is the only thing that has been perceived or sensed up until the present time (if time is a concept in the Real). Any thoughts and any actions taken in this world of sensations would be my consciousness responding to these sensations, which I suppose would then create more sensations… so I guess the “consciousness” in the Real has some sort of instant reaction mechanism or has created every conceivable event possible.

Then, wouldn’t this conceptualization of the Real also be one of the events, or at least one reactions, that the “consciousness” in the Real has created/reached? Would that also make the cenceptualization of the Real merely a part of the world of sensations? Would that make the Real any less true? Just because we do not know something is true does not make it “not true”/false. Couldn’t this sort of argument then be extended to our perception of the world of sensations? I suppose it could. The world of sensations really could be the “Real” and I could simply be overcomplicating a simple thing.