Chauntecleer of the Pricking Cock

In a move that would seem shocking to many, I have decided that I want to give up television completely. As in FOREVER. The reasons are many, and I do not feel like stating them all at this moment, but I shall list a few:

1.) Time


I read somewhere that the average person (in a developed country with easy access to TV in the household, I should clarify) watches about 4 hours of television every single day. My father sure does! Over the course of an average lifetime, that is around 9 YEARS cumulative time spent lounging in front of a screen. NINE YEARS of essentially staring at a wall with your mind turned off. Think of how those NINE YEARS could be better spent by meeting more people, interacting with nature, reading books, writing books, traveling, relaxing, and just generally experiencing more out of our already short lives.

2.) The Commercial Aspect of Television

Television exists in order to sell us things, be they products or manufactured/intentionally narrow ideas of what the nature of our reality is like. The shows themselves are not the greatest aim of TV networks, but rather the commercials themselves. Networks hope to create popular shows that gain high ratings so they can charge more for the commercial spots. That is how they make their money, of course. Networks do not generally conceive shows to challenge the human mind or to aim for aesthetically high artistic goals. When I go out in the everyday world, I am, unfortunately, unrelentlessly bombarded with advertising, and I hate it. I hate how corporations decide, through advertising, every aspect of how our culture should be from our morals to fashion to even political beliefs. In my philosophy (and I am thinking of spending the time to write just what my philosophy IS, eventually), the house should be a sacred place that is a shield from the outside world. That so much advertising (and thus, a non-stop stream of information that is propagated by the elite decision makers on how we should think and act) permeates the home is appalling to me.

3.) The Idiot Box Drug

It makes people dumb. It really does. I am NOT suggesting that all people who watch TV are stupid, not by any means, but my gripe centers on those so-called average viewers that watch four hours a day. Generally, these people are not too fond of reading, at least in my experience, and their sole source of information is based off of what they glean from TV. If one thinks about it, it is not that possible to learn THAT much from it. Sure, you do have the informational stations such as the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, and those channels certainly are a cut above the average filth on TV, but one will still not learn nearly as much from watching those channels as he or she could learn from actual research. But my gripe does not lay with those channels. My gripe primarily rests with the big networks that provide nothing mentally engaging. In my opinion, all news shows and news channels are trash and it is they that irk me the most in all of televisiondom. There is no real diversity of opinion on the news "debate" shows: television almost always simplifies every argument into a white and black issue when in reality, there are so many sides to many issues that it requires real critical thinking; i.e. independent thought and research, to formulate educated and valid opinions.

Remember how I stated that television is run by elite corporations that have a real interest in how the TV-viewing masses' opinions? Even when we are given "two sides" to an issue (the Democratic and Republican sides here in America), they are still only the "orthodox" views that are allowed by those benefiting from restricting thought. Any real dissent is almost never allowed on the air, and in the few instances that it is, the "talking heads" are quick to denounce those views as belonging to "wackos" and "anti-American traitors."

Furthermore, television is really no different than a drug in that people get addicted to it, and when they go without it, they are unable to function well. As I stated before, my dad is one of those addicted to television; when he is not working, there is NOTHING else that he'd rather do. During a power outage last year, he was robbed of his precious television and the boredom of being without power and thus his TV was unbearable for him. I remember well the agitated and anxious look on his face and his mannerisms such as squirming in his seat and twiddling his thumbs. I observed him, felt a degree of pity for him because he is so dependent on this visual drug, and proceeded to read The Iliad (awesomeness!) by candlelight. There are plenty of things that one can do without power. Who knows, maybe even TALK TO EACH OTHER! HUMAN INTERACTION, OH MY!

I am not exactly well researched on this, and as I am not writing a research paper on this now but rather an essay just for my own personal satisfaction, I am not going to provide sources on this right at this moment (2:20 A.M.), although I likely will at a later date, but I have read several articles that provide evidence that television can alter our brain waves and even induce an hypnotic state. I think that it is a common experience for us to feel as though we "zone out" when we watch TV. I know that I have plenty of times! And I'm sorry for this, but I'm going to mention my parents again for this, because they watch more TV than anybody else I know and they are convenient for me to observe! When they watch TV, they look exactly like zombies. They have a glazed-over, nearly lifeless look in their eyes. Their mouths hang open. If I didn't know better, I would think that they have just received a lobotomy. I look at them and ask myself if I EVER want to find myself in such a state of mental lassitude, and the answer is a resounding NO!

I think that I have read from psychologists (again, I'm not citing exact sources here, but I do need to research this more in depth and collect sources) that the human brain needs constant stimulation. If it does not receive outside stimulation, then it will stimulate itself in the form of thought. But television provides stimulation for the mind that bypasses thought. We see the moving images, and we hear its sounds, and that apparently is enough to stimulate our brain to the exclusion of thinking. We essentially enter a trance-like state when watching TV. But when a person does not watch TV, he or she will find that their mind needs some other source of stimulation, and it is in these moments that such a person would find this needed stimulation through reading books, interacting with other humans or with nature, thinking, or enjoying creative pursuits. Don't those activities sound like more fun than entering into a trance-like zombie state for four hours a night?

In conclusion, television to me represents total MIND CONTROL



Let me state that it is possible to watch TV and have it not control your mind, but the key is to recognize the negative aspects of it and be aware of them while you watch. Also, make sure that any TV-watching is done in moderation. It is no different than alcohol in how it affects the mind. An addicted viewer will certainly develop a dependence upon television much like an alcoholic develops a dependence upon alcohol. I must admit that I have grown up watching TV, loving TV (especially the cartoons of my youth such as DUCKTAILS, NINJA TURTLES, and THE SIMPSONS), and I too used to be a slave to The Box. But I have not watched very much TV at all in the last couple of years, actually, and I feel that I have become much more creative since then. I still have a TV, and sometimes I play the occasional video game on it (I love Zelda games, but really, I CAN do without them in the future), but when I hopefully move out on my own into my own apartment (hopefully later this year), TV will not be making the move with me. Perhaps it is ironic that I am giving up television in this day and age of High-Definition TVs, but I could save those couple of thousand dollars for stuff that I NEED, or maybe even a TRIP! I might write a separate post about this, but I don't really need to spend (waste) ANY money on corporate-created "entertainment" (this includes movies and video games) when I have the uncharted realms of my very own mind that I can explore for FREE!

I will never buy another TV.

Rejoice World, for today is my birthday! However, a very very unusual birthday it is!

You see, July 25th is not the birthday of my physical body. I celebrate that in October.

Rather, it is instead the birthday of my being, my soul: in short, the essence of my mind.

For today I have awoken to my greater purpose, and for the first time in my life, I truly believe that my mind is free to do it. If you believe in yourself, anything is possible. It may be a tired cliché, but I believe it to be true. Without belief in oneself, failure is sure to follow. And while failure is certainly possible even if you believe in yourself, at least you tried your hardest and your heart was in the right place. THAT is living. I want to live my life as I see fit; I want to live to the fullest extent that I can. For when I die, I will not have lived without trying my best to make the most out of it.

Today I have realized that what is true for others is not necessarily true for me and vice versa. It seems obvious, but I did not truly feel it until now. I feel set free by this thought, somehow.

October contains the birth date of my mind, yet July contains the date that I reached a higher level of consciousness (at least when compared to my own internal consciousness, not others'). I think that the mind and the body are two entirely different creatures. The body is mortal and is doomed to fade away. Yet the mind, while certainly not lasting forever in a conscious sense, is immortal in its own way. Through the process of living life and giving back to life in the form of impacting the lives of those around us in a positive manner, we will always be remembered. If I live life the way that I imagine that I can, the presence of my personality and even my very soul will be felt long after I cease to physically exist.

Memory is the essence of being. To be remembered in any fashion is to have lived. To remember those who have come before us keeps them alive.


Happy Birthday Me! My body was created with the sole purpose of housing my mind: my SPIRIT!

This post is actually a comment that I typed on another person's blog (April's, www.krisandapril.us GREAT blog!), but I feel as thought I want to remember it, so I'm posting it here as well. It's in a recent thread about the Israel/Lebenon situation. Here it is:

I must admit that I am not educated very well on this particular issue, but I have been doing some research on the power elite, and honestly, this situation does not surprise me at all. The United States has been at war since 2001, and there is no foreseeable end. This latest conflict between Israel and Lebanon places the U.S. in a difficult position, and due to our alliance with Israel, we will essentially be forced to reinforce them. I do believe that Israel is using the hostage situation as an excuse to attack, once again, in the name of “fighting against terrorism.” I may make some angry when I say this, but it is not possible to “win” a war on “terror.” Terrorism has been around throughout all of human history and utilized as a weapon by just about every civilization on this planet. Terrorism is a philosophy at its core: the philosophy of attacking innocent civilians without warning in order to gain a strategic or idealistic victory for its perpetrators. Terrorism is a method of violence, and not an entity that can be defeated through force.

The problem with the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” is that we really don’t know what they mean in regards to defining people. What is a terrorist? How do we label them? I think who we define as being a terrorist is largely a matter of perception. Sure, people who attack Americans are seen by us as “terrorists,” and rightly so, but couldn’t Americans who kill innocent Iraqi civilians, even if the deaths of civilians was a necessary evil in the execution of a strategic mission, also be defined as “terrorists” when viewed from the Iraqi perspective?

I know that I got a little bit off-topic in my discussion of terrorism, but that thought is important to bring a greater understanding of what is going on in the world. If the war on terror is unwinnable because it is a philosophy carried out by violent people (as unwinnable as, say, a hypothetical war on existentialism, in my mind), then what is this war really about? Why are we constantly told by our leaders that we will defeat terrorism? In our hyperactive media-crazed society, the word “terrorism” is awfully common.

I theorize that the word is being used precisely because it is extremely useful. It’s a word that can be pegged on any convenient enemy, and it’s a word that conjures fear into our collective psyche. The Americans are fighting a war on terrorism, and the Israelis are fighting a war on terrorism. Who do both countries say the terrorists are? Why, THE MUSLIMS of course! While I do not doubt the existence of militant Islamic people who PRACTICE terrorism, the observant eye can detect how our media paints a very general picture of them. Their perspective is rarely, if at all, discussed. And if I may remember correctly, the American media began to paint a fearsome picture of Muslims even BEFORE the September 11th attacks.

Folks, I am well aware that my views will be seen as “unconventional” to most, but the situation is entirely TOO close to George Orwell’s novel 1984 for my liking. In that book, the media (The Party) determines what THE TRUTH is, and Oceania (the representation of a speculative American-English superpower) was always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia and the terrorist agents of one Emmanuelle Goldstein (Osama Bin Laden?!?!). Our war was with Afghanistan at first, and then Iraq, despite how rather obvious it is that our leaders lied to us about their intentions in going there, and now Israel/Lebanon and maybe Iran and North Korea. What’s next? Venezuela? My point is, this war has no predictable end; it will be going on for a LONG TIME, and it is as much an external war against an indefinable enemy as it is an internal war for our very own minds and souls.

Ok, I wrote a post last night about my thoughts on a movie's audience, but when I click "View Blog," I don't see it! I've clicked "publish post" several times, and still no luck. I wrote it hours ago, so why isn't it up? That's the thing I don't like about Blogger...it doesn't seem to work all of the time for me, unlike livejournal. Blogger looks better, but when I think about it, livejournal seems to have more features, and it is more reliable to me.

Am I missing something?

(This is not the Superman post; I still intend to write about that, but I will save it for another time when I'm feeling braver. :P )

I saw Clerks II with a friend last night, and I had a couple of observations to make about both the movie and the audience. Clerks II is a movie by director Kevin Smith, and if you aren't familiar with his movies, he generally makes raunchy films centered in New Jersey that have recurring characters (i.e. Jay and Silent Bob). I saw the original clerks several years ago, and I enjoyed it. It was obviously a low budget film, but that gave it charm, and the characters and situations were original and funny. I wasn't as impressed with the sequel. Maybe it's because Clerks II is treading over the same ground as the first one, and the characters are getting a little stale. I also did not find the cursing and the sex jokes to be as funny. *Sigh* Perhaps I AM getting older.

The audience that I saw the movie with was kind of rough. Maybe the 10:45 showing was a factor? Clerks II uses a lot of profanity and crude sex humor (such as a man having sex with a donkey), and the crowd ate it up. It seemed that every time the word "fuck" was mentioned, the audience laughed uproariously. The audience was generally rowdy throughout the entire movie, and I remember during a dance scene in the movie several guys exclaimed, "Look at that chick's titties bounce!" The guys who were so excited about that seemed to be around my age, and I couldn't help but thinking, "Why is this so exciting to them? They seem the type to have had experience with women, so why do they find this image so exciting?" I'm a male, and I obviously find women attractive, but I don't understand how lots of men openly sexualize women in public. They make it seem as though women are nothing but bodies and that they exist solely to be conquered by men.

When I was in line for the ticket booth before the movie started, a pretty girl was working at it. Right before my turn to order the ticket, she had to turn around to check on something. The guy behind me said, "Hey, at least she gave us that view!" I was fairly disgusted, so I did not respond to him. The guy who made the remark was with several other (male) friends, and I hate to stereotype, but they looked like the frat boy sort. I'm sorry if my generalizing offends anybody, but I am not a fan of fraternities. (Oh yeah, let me pay and get hazed and lose my individuality to make a bunch of "friends" that only care about how much of a dumbass I make of myself when I'm drunk!)

But the moment that struck me as the most interesting happened near the end of the movie. Clerks II is an odd movie in that it is rank with what I would deem to be immature humor, but yet it also has a profoundly human underlying theme that runs on another level from the crude banter that is bandied about the film. If you can look past the geeky references and lowbrow humor that Kevin Smith is so fond of, you will find a story about two best friends, Dante and Randall. Dante is about to marry up into a higher social class position. If married, he would be forced to start a new life in Florida, and get a new job supervising a carwash (a step up from working as a burger flipper). On the surface, the marriage seems the smart choice for him, because he would FINALLY become something more, he thinks. Randall, however, is distraught about this. He normally never shows it, and he hides his emotions under a shield of machoism, but internally, he is torn to pieces about the prospect of losing his best and only real friend.

*SPOILER IF YOU PLAN TO SEE CLERKS II*

Near the end of the movie, Randall, his eyes glistening with tears, confesses to Dante that he's his best friend, and that he loves him....you know, in a non-sexual way, of course.

*END SPOILER*

The audience reacted to that moment with, what else, mocking cynical laughter and choruses of "that's gay!" I thought that it was actually a touching moment in this otherwise scabrous film, and I was dismayed to witness that cynical reaction from nearly everyone in the theater. According to this audience, and, I assume, mainstream society, it is not normal for two male friends to have a close and emotional moment without them being gay. It is not a masculine thing to do, apparently.

Woe are we as a society if real friendship is seen as uncomfortable!

This audience reaction to that moment, in my opinion, only furthers my opinion that mainstream society has been dehumanized. To jeer at a genuine moment of friendship is not to be human.

I know that I have been VERY BAD at updating this blog, but I shall improve! I now have a mission. Over the course of many future posts, I will examine how we as a society have been dehumanized, and how we can work together to reclaim as much of our humanity as we can.

And I promise to catch up a bit on reading others’ blogs. I’m sawwy!

Wow, I have not posted anything here in a FREAKIN' LONG TIME. Sorry 'bout that: I've been battling extreme laziness. For real! But I have a TON to write about, and I promise that I'm going to be updating often from now on. I don't have the time to write at this moment, but tomorrow I'm going to write about SUPERMAN!

And today is the first day of the rest of my life.