Empty, Yet Colorful Void

Oh crap. This is not good. I'm already running out of ideas for posts! It's only been like two and a half weeks, and I'm already hitting the infamous writer's block. How can I even hope to succeed in continuing this blog. I was naive to think I could find some philosophical inspiration every day of my life. Nothing interesting happened to me today. I should have looked for inspiration. I should have gone to a reflecting pond, a graveyard, the roof of a building, something! Maybe I have to search for the meaning of life, instead of waiting for it. But how will I know if I've really found it. I may falsely convince myself of finding it, when I really just want to believe I have. Shouldn't true inspiration be natural, anyway? Is it wrong to read into every little tea leaf in our lives? Is it just human nature to believe in a larger significance, or are people truly called by divine forces to be inspired. Is it inappropriate and immature to pose questions on these kinds of blog posts? Probably. But I think if one can find inspiration within a lack of inspiration, anything may be possible.

Notice

Failure is awesome. In 1968, a chemist named Spencer Silver developed one of the most ineffective pressure sensitive adhesives possible. The glue was so terrible that it could not even hold two light objects together for even a short stretch of time. It wasn't until a decade later, when the adhesive was combined with a small piece of paper, that Spencer's product was transformed into what still today remains as one of the most common and almost iconic modern office supplies. Of course, not all failures are like that. But the point is that success is spontaneous and impossible to anticipate. Failure, however, can always be expected. The only way one can respond to it is to embrace it. When I say "embrace it", I mean love the crap out of it. Building a list of personal fails can increase the glow of one's success. It shows that one persevered and continued to try again and again and again and again and again and again and again despite their trials until they finally deserved the sweet victory they received. Everyone's time (success) will eventually come. But the farther you run, the better the ice-cream tastes at the finish line.

Professional-Crastinator

Simplicity is one of the best ways to justify an insufficient quantity.

Empty Soup Cans

I'm always amused by the endings of those romantic movies where the couples get married and the final shot is their car driving off into the sunset. The cliche, itself, has become a cliche. I've often wondered what I would see if the film was stretched just a few minuets longer, revealing what happens to the couple as they drive away. Did no one remember that the sun, though setting, is very bright and often considered a pain to drive straight into? How does the groom see where he's going when he's blinded? Even more unsettling then the previous notion, does the couple actually know where their going? If they're driving into the sun-set, that means they have to be heading west, which, in America at least, is never a good idea. Maybe they just keep going until they run out of gas and walk to the nearest hotel (which can easily be the exposition to a horror film). Regardless of where they're going, I also wonder what the new couple talk about to pass the boring time. It seems like it would be almost awkward:
"So.... I guess we're married now!"
"Yeah.... Cool."
I'm sure the experience is wonderful in reality, but when my day comes, we're playing Eye Spy.

All You Can't Eat

Nothing is more respected then when it is gone. At funerals, people declare positive, complimentary things about the newly deceased. These things would never have been stated during the individual's lifetime. It's only after death, that one's friends show appreciation, long after it's needed. Using this concept, I was able to develop an imaginary restaurant that, if one day were to exist, would no doubt be able to pledge a 100% guarantee that the customer's meal would be the greatest meal he or she'd ever dine. The concept is fairly simple. The restaurant, after a long session of paper-work, would confine the voluntary customer within a very small, silent, and solitary cell. The customer would be given no sustenance for five days, and would be subject to torture each day. At the end of the five days, the customer would be taken to the elegant dinning quarters and receive the largest amount of the highest quality of food. Around three customers could be admitted and served simultaneously each day. Admission would cost around $700 and kitchen staff would only have to fix three large meals a day. There would, of course, be a large number of violations against the law (hence why such a place doesn't exist), but the idea is pretty realistic. We often eat large hamburgers that hold no significance to our lives, but if some had not tasted such a construction of flavor nor had anything fall into their hollow stomachs for a week, that Happy Meal is looked upon, for the first time, with furious lust... For here or to go?

It's a Reasonably Distant Shot

People often take for granted how even the strangest concepts are socially accepted because of their inexplicable popularity. In Vienna, 1927, a confectioner named Eduard Haas III invents a peppermint candy that he distributes in small dispensers that resemble cigarette lighters. In 1955 the US company that gained control of the product, markets the candy to children, and places heads atop of the dispensers to make them more friendly. 11 years later, Joann Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett agree to develop a children's educational television program about several mutant creatures including a large bird and a pessimistic trash dweller living in an urban environment. 17 years later, a Japanese video game designer, named Shigeru Miyamoto, working at a mainstream arcade company in Kyoto, pitches an idea for a new arcade game that follows two Italian-American plumbers who navigate the sewers and kill turtles as they do so. Never ever restrain your imagination. I don't tend to be so straight forward, but this message calls for it. People who come up with the hair-brained schemes are the ones who leave footprints in history. Just like the guy who came up with the expression "hair-brained"... That just doesn't even make any sense.

Lonely Hearts Club Band

A very unique caterpillar with orange coloring and seemingly extraneous antennas was stalking me today. I know it's more practical to assume that I just saw different caterpillars of the same species, but this one was so specific in its detail that it would be less practical to assume this particular physical appearance of a caterpillar was so frequently seen in a single area. I found it interesting how it moved so slowly across the concrete, yet it reached its destination long before I'll ever reach mine. Caterpillars spend all day moving forward while most people run around in circles. In this way,we're more like hamsters in a wheel. I wonder if hamsters believe they're going somewhere when they run inside those contraptions. Do people go anywhere when they run? Most like to believe so. But even I feel the sudden chill that all the days of my life are just extensive repetition. I have no idea where I'm going. And if I knew, I may not want to go there anyways. But a hamster doesn't stop, so nor do I. That caterpillar may one day become a surgeon or a member of the Peace Corps. Maybe we should be inspired by the slow moving creatures to take a step off our treadmills, and walk into the future.

Stuff and Nonsense

I generally try to avoid swearing. I'm not saying I've never used an unpleasant expression in the presence of extreme pressure, nor am I declaring a personal resentment towards people who do swear. But I do make an effort to avoid particular words of the urban language. In addition to the unappreciated connotations that these terms posses, I challenge my creativity to develop my own words to express the intensity of my emotions. This exercise is not only mentally stimulating, but also very entertaining. The list of my own swear verbiage (or swerbiage) has grown impressively lengthy since I began it. Now I don't regard the run-of-the-mill "language" to be offensive as much as I find it dull. The f, s, and b words seem unimpressive compared to my replacements of "fudge-knuckles" "spit dip" and "baaahlck". Regardless of these vocabulary concoctions, cursing itself has been overused so much recently that it has begun to loose its significance, which is to emphasize a statement or convey a strong feeling. If its use continues to be used on such an unnecessary frequent basis, people may grow completely immune to its impact. This isn't necessarily bad if you're in favor of the next generation of swearwords to include "baaahlck".

Float Like a Rock on a River

I really don't mean to be redundant, but this post is about blogging. As of now, I have 20 views (most are my own revisions), no comments, and no followers. The question can not be ignored any longer: why do I continue to post. At least once a week, someone in my life asks me, in regards to a particular action of mine, the simple question: "What's the point." My response has always been something similar to, "Uh...I...guess there isn't one." And it would be true. There would be no conceivable understanding of why I did whatever random thing I did. I would have absolutely nothing to back myself if it weren't for the Buddhist monks. The monks perfected a technique of creating sand art, known as sand mandla, painstakingly tedious yet beautiful in completion. A fully finished piece, which generally takes weeks to build, is amazingly beautiful in every visual sense. But once a piece is finished, the monk will ritualistically destroy his magnificent creation. The Buddhists do this because of their doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life. But the sand art also shows that life is about the living part, not so much about whether people put you on a pedestal after your death. The tedious week-long crafting of this beautiful art form is an experience more then anything else. Things live and die, and that's just nature. So addressing the empty auditorium of my audience, I apologetically confess that this blog is more for the benefit of my own experience then it is for your entertainment.

To Go, Please.

Last summer I worked an internship at a video arts studio, helping edit a short film. It was a lengthy drive down an interstate each day. From one of the exit overpasses, one could see a Waffle House that foreclosed and was replaced with an Istanbul Grille. But to the great benefit of comedy, the new dinner did not replace the Waffle House sign, but instead decided to paint their name over it. This was problematic as the Waffle House sign was, as it notoriously is, divided into 11 squares for each letter of their name (six on the top, with five below it). Obviously, fitting "Istanbul Grille" into the same organization required three pairs of letters to be squashed together into one square. I felt bad for the U and L, having to put up with each other just because of the restaurant's inability to afford a different sign. But the true humor is that if the E was dropped from the end of Grille, at least the bottom would have fit perfectly. But the managers do have some wisdom behind their disoriented sign. The effect of appearing exquisite is priceless. The restaurant may serve awful food, provide a hospitable environment for rodents, use human flesh in their "Doner Kebab", but the E on their sign provides an illusion of esteem that only ignorance could advocate. Yes, I eat at the Istanbul Grille.

I Love You, (Enter Name).

Yesterday I did not post. To be quite simple about my justification, I was distracted. A friend of mine introduced me to a website known as "chatroulette". It's quite plainly a chat-room that connects you to a completely anonymous stranger that also happens to be online when you are. The beauty of the website is that both members are able to switch their chat-partner (with another random person) at any time. I'm not usually interested in these kinds of networking sites, but I was very fascinated with the concept. It was evident from the site's popularity that people enjoy "clicking" through people, like television channels, until they find a group of young females at a sleepover, or perhaps a teenage male exposing his abdomen (whatever floats their boat). Do people have such short attention spans, that relationships will soon be reduced to minutes?  I have enough faith to believe that no matter how many people join the chatroulette, there will still be plenty of fish in the physical sea. I just arrived home from a dinner at Wendy's with a large group of my good friends, and though I am a bit of an isolationist, I'm never happier then when I'm around people. I'm not condoning the website in anyway. The people on the other ends of the chats are real people, and I will probably continue to visit the website because... well, I'm fascinated with people.

Poisson d'Avril

Today the world celebrates a group of people that I most certainly consider myself a member of. We, aware of our ignorance, boastful of our modesty, and understanding of our stupidity, are fools. One rarely hears of a modern Don Quixote nowadays. This is sadly because most of them have mental disabilities, It's tragic what a diagnosis can do to one's credibility. Autistic people may be the most enlightened individuals on the planet, but thanks to human arrogance, we may never know. I've often wanted to take a rubber mallet to the side of a Wal-Mart, not with the intention of inflicting property damage (that would be futile with my lack of strength), but to simply re-call a similar story, about a man and some windmills. The media, assuming they would even care, would probably consider me crazy. There's no logical sense for me to go try to nock down a building with a practically harmless instrument. It's not rational thinking. If this publicity continues, people may start extracting a philosophical significance from the events. A belief is created, molded, and then followed by others. Pretty soon the whole incident is interoperated as a socio-economic statement about corporate corruption or the dark side of capitalism. Who knows? But sometimes the well educated political heads don't make a difference. It is the lone fool that accidentally changes the world.

Keep Out of Reach From Adults

I bought a can of neon-green spray paint from Home Depot today. No, I'm not a graffiti artist, though if you wish to suspect me as the masked avenger of street art, Banksy, I would only be greatly flattered, as I do admire his art. In fact, this was the first time I had ever purchased such an item, yet I was surprised when the lady at the check-out asked for my identification. I did have it, but found myself inquisitive of why it was necessary. She explained that it was because a growing portion of teenagers have been inhaling the chemicals within the can, finding an alternate and legal avenue to intoxication. This does not appeal to me personally, because my dreams are screwed up enough already. But if artificial substances and incense worked for Edgar Alan Poe, I pass no judgement on to people attempting chemically grown artistic inspiration. The employee also told me that they did not check ID for all brands of paint, just the ones that contained the specific chemicals. To me, that system seemed to only inform the customers of which paints were the most "effective". Now, I don't know the common procedure used for extracting and inserting these chemicals out of the can and into one's system, but I imagine it's either messy, or tastes horrible. My advise is to listen to Radiohead, or watch Labyrinth with David Bowie. It's pretty much the same effect.

The Left Stuff

I own a copy of The Prince by Machiavelli. It perfectly reflects everything that contradicts my ideology. Now, I may just be naive, but for some reason I firmly believe that Niccolo wrote the book as a satirical joke about the minds of corrupt, power-hungry, morally compromising monarchists. My theory is he wrote the book, imitating the extreme ideals of totalitarianism, making it humorously drastic and senselessly radical, to the extent that it mocks the ideology... at least I found the book funny. But this is just a theory, and it may very well be wrong. But if it is true, the irony lies in the book's failure, as it inspired monarchists from Henry VIII to Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci. What may have had the intention of being satire, was interpreted literally. A similar situation happened recently when an independent directer named Tommy Wiseau made a film called The Room. To what I understand, he intended for his film to be a serious melo-drama, however, it ended up being widely considered one of the worst movies ever produced. The film became notoriously funny for its terrible acting and writing. Its popularity grew until it soon developed a cult following. Tommy's ego (exceptional to begin with) grew exponentially when he assumed from his fame that he had actually made a good movie. But who's to say he didn't? Can you consider the film a failure despite its undeniable success? Right now a teenage girl is nationally being  labeled as the worst music artist of all time. But her infamous song has over 70 million views on YouTube. Fame is unpredictable. But I guess individuals like Rebecca Black would be less threatening to our society as 15 minute celebrities then they would as totalitarian dictators.

And How!

In almost every commercial of every brand of every product, one generally hears the statement, "We're better then the leading brand!" If this is true on such a frequent basis, has the position of leadership in our world of production become completely insignificant? What good is being a leader, when it only sprouts from a population's conformity that is undeniably destined to be overthrown by the ever-conforming growth of nonconformity. I query if there's actually a big manufacturing conglomerate that's tragically named "The Leading Brand". They get terrible business just because of their unintentional association with being perpetually worse then someone else. How does one keep high morality in a work environment like that. Captain Ahab managed it with a coin. One probably just needs the right incentive. Human nature seems to orbit around that word. An employee of "The Leading Brand" stacks papers his entire life, oblivious that his payment is only the same stack of papers cut into smaller pieces, that he preserves and protects with the belief that they posses value.  He goes home, turns on the TV, only to find people telling him to spend his earnings on their "better" product, so they can do the same thing as him. But no one remembers that it's just the same "leading brand" of paper.

Please, Do Not Feed the Tourists

A door-knob punched me in the gut this morning. I couldn't help but find the typicality of the situation amusing as I fell to the ground in pain. Yet, I was surprised it was a single-door that inflicted my injury, as I was on worse terms with the population of double-doors, and assumed any door related injury would be caused by their kind instead. People don't admit to giving inanimate objects human characteristics, but nearly everyone of modern culture, when finding themselves in an elevator, presses the button of their desired floor in a repetitive manner. This action is, of course, futile, as an elevator is a machine, and is incapable of responding to persistence. But as the ignorant, ever-assumtion-making, conclusion-jumping primates that we are, we imagine that, if we were the elevator, we would commence our liberation as to appease the irritation of our buttons being repeatedly pressed. Did the door-knob have a motive for its violent action? I could have turned and demanded, "What the crap was that for?" I like to assume the best intentions of door-knobs, as I do the same with people. Perhaps it was just a friendly warning. A foreboding signal of a possibly negative fate. Needless to say, as a simple precaution, I took the stairs.

The Last Hours of Spring Break

Let me start by saying that- and this is not to be taken generally, but specifically for the following story -it was all a girl's fault. There is a bean-sized scar on the superior side of my wrist that I received just a few days more then a year ago. Funny how somethings never go away, while the rest of your memory is as solid as vapor. What did I have for dinner last night? It was a skateboarding accident that gave me the scar. I'm not usually found on a longboard, hence the scar, hence why I'm not usually found on a longboard. But I was talked into the fatal adventure, yes, by said 'girl'. The hill was a few paces from her house. I remember yelling the word "bail" before jumping, as if to declare that the actions that were about to follow were completely intentional. My wisdom teeth were removed this week. I woke up from the Anastasia crying. Still can't remember what I was thinking about that had triggered such an emotional reaction. Maybe I don't want to know. Maybe we forget things for our own good. We can subconsciously construct false memory the way we want it. We can probably forget things the same way. Holy crap. Can a person's subconscious be smarter then the person? Can a subconscious control a person despite-......Grilled shrimp shish kabobs.