Watching High Fidelity (good breaking-the-fourth-wall flick; most are cheezy with extra cheez) reminds me that I always used to have top 5 or top 10 lists, before I discovered mind-maps.  I actually tried looking for a mind-map blog — basically a blog that allowed you to post in mind-map format.  I was sure someone would have already thought of it and made it into a service, just like there are photo-blogs and doodle-blogs.  Apparently nobody has.  This would be something I’d build if I ever develop the skills to.  Anyway lists are cool, lists are awesome.  I should start making lists again.

Groups I Can’t Get Tired Of

Muse

Dandy Warhols

Klaxons

Chemical Brothers

Fleet Foxes

Not to say I won’t ever get tired of them but these groups have been tried against numerous and regular listenings.

The many themes of “Moon”:

1. Solitude – Being anywhere alone for an extended period of time is enough to drive anyone nuts.  Try to have as much of a normal life as you possibly could in your environment.  You’d crave interaction with anything that moved or talked — robots, video images, a replica of yourself.
2. Morality of self – If you ever meet clones of yourself, chances are it’d just be like meeting other people in everyday life.  You may like them, or you may not.  It makes sense that you’d see different traits in clones from different periods of your life.  And after spending time getting to know a clone, you grow close to them and they become a dear friend.  Of course, you’d have no problem with the idea of killing a clone whom you’ve never spent time with.  He is but a “stranger” to you.
3. Big evil corporations – They have money.  They are not ethical.  (Correlation?)  The robot they created is more human(e) than they are.  But at least they try their best to comfort their employees before they get rid of them.  They are also Korean for some reason (Americans would never be this evil) and therefore one of the two execs is Asian.

The many themes of “Fight Club”:

1. Stress + venting – Using odd and usual methods to let out your anger/stress/distress.  Sometimes you need to deceive and take advantage of others to use these methods.  Granted, that’s probably the last thing on your mind when you’re so close to the edge.
2. DID – The extremity of a situation causing one to subconsciously create other identities to deal with it.  This leads to…
3. Idealism of self – Probably everyone has a more ideal version of themselves, someone whom they’d like to be.  The difficulty lies in how to successly morph yourself into this ideal self.  I just realized I’ve mis-used the word idealism and that this should be called ideal self, but then this movie also has everything to do with idealism.  Reality is really all in the mind.  Of the narrator.
4. Idealism
5. Big evil corporations – Oh a recurring theme.  These ones here are slightly less evil, or maybe just as evil, depending on your point of view.  They sell glamorized images and try to tell you the things you should have in order to be somebody, to have the perfect lifestyle.  Succumbing to these subliminal (or in many cases, blatantly obvious) messages is how you start to lose yourself.  Imagine yourself without all of these material possessions and herd-of-sheep lifestyle.  What would you be like?  Are you any different?  Are you less happy?  What would you be doing or where would you go to achieve the same level of happiness?  Maybe having accomplished something or having done something more with your life would fetch you more long-term happiness than buying these new, shiny toys.
6. Individual within a group – It’s easy to lose your individuality when you become part of a group, especially when you start contributing yourself for the benefits of the group and acting on behalf of the group.  Perhaps the individual needs to forfeit his identity, to give himself up for the good of the group.  Maybe there is an inverse relationship between individuality and the concept of group.  Or group mentality, more likely.

Romance is clearly dead within the girls I know.  Being with someone ultimately becomes a means to getting married and having the life that you’re supposed to have, as dictated by something or someone whom everyone thinks is boss.  I’m trapped in a soap opera. Everyone seems to think there is one life to live.  I don’t understand the purpose of doing something simply because it’s something “you have to do”.  That is a direct quote from a girl when I asked why she must be married.  There was a split second where I wondered whether I could still be friends with this girl.  It’s a mean thought.  I periodically become plagued by mean thoughts.   Then I talk myself away from them.  It’s just that I don’t understand anyone with this kind of mentality.  How could the purpose of life be something you’re obligated to do as opposed to something you have a desire to do.  The desire to do something that you feel you’re obligated to do does not count as having a pure desire to do something, by the way.

It’s good to feel pain somtimes.  Physical pain that arises naturally.  Feeling it gives you a sense of being alive, or just a sense of being.  Pain reminds you that you’re human and that you’re existing, as a human, not just as an aimless walking piece of flesh.  You’re an aimless walking piece of flesh in pain and you have the ability to conceive that you’re in pain and is fully aware of its magnitude.  And after the pain subsides you realize your strength in enduring the pain and could relish in the fact that you could likely endure more next time around.  Then you feel proud and satisfied.  Indeed, pain brings about pride and satisfaction.  Now you’re an aimless walking piece of flesh with more self-confidence.

Then there’s emotional pain.  That’s a whole ‘nother level of pain.  That will be another post, someday.

I’ve became a feast for a giant mosquito last night.  She must be undoubtedly very happy.  I, on the other hand, am not.  I have been in agony all day.  I count a total of 11 bites, with 9 being on my right side.  Obviously she did not like to migrate far before taking the next suckle, or perhaps she was getting too bloated to move much.  I don’t even know when the attack happened, in the park or at night while I was sleeping.  I hope it is from the park.  I’m pretty sure it is because I saw a giant bug on me while I was there and I swatted at it a couple times.  It must have been her.  I’m not Obama.  I don’t have the ability to even kill a bug with my bare hand.

We as human beings always involuntarily see patterns in things.  It helps us remember and organize info better.  This happens even more so when all hell is breaking lose and things get chaotic.  All of us crave to be in control to some degree, though of course some more than others.  This makes me wonder whether some people, those who especially like to be in control, tend to see things where they don’t exist.  I don’t mean that they conjure things out of nowhere, but sometimes they detect little ‘anomalies’, make assumptions and blow them out of proportion.  I know people who do that.  I have been doing that a lot too but I try not to propagandize others with my conjectures because I know that I don’t know better.  I think it all has to do with insecurity.  Some of us are in an insecure place and some of us have a fear of being in an insecure place.  And trying to exert control becomes our defense mechanism.  This is all normal, human nature.  Thinking this way will help me get less mad at control freaks.

I still have a thing for movie that tells its story in non-chronological order.  It takes mad skillz to successfully pull it off such that the movie still makes sense and doesn’t confuse people.  21 Grams did it well.  There were lots of cutting in’s and out’s of past and present but it’s not hard to tell which is which.  It happens to work well for this particular movie because the characters go through such drastic changes that even show in their appearances.  But even without the irregular editing the story itself is interesting enough to stand on its own.  Three people who start out as strangers to one another end up playing an important part in one another’s lives so that they are each given the opportunity to be ‘reborn’.  21 grams are taken away from one, but 21 grams are gained in another.  In actuality there may not be anything lost, just like how energy in theory is always only transformed, and never completely gone.

I’m watching a TVB series in which all the characters are either very evil or very righteous.  There is absolutely no one who is both somewhat evil and somewhat righteous at the same time, or evil at times and righteous at other times, or just inherently a little bit evil and mostly righteous (like most people in real life).  Like me.  I am a character who cannot exist in the world of a TVB series.  It’s okay.  Because when I think about it, most people on earth don’t exist in my world either.  See, [seven billion people – the people I know – the people I’ve passed and seen – the people I’ve heard of = the people who do not exist in my world].  The concept of “people who do not exist in my world” exists in my world, but the singletons contained within this set are not known to me and do not individually exist in my world.  Just like how I don’t exist in most people’s worlds.  Like how the left side doesn’t exist in neglect patients’ worlds.  But neglect patients’ brains would re-construct reality to compensate for the lack of left in their worlds.  I don’t think anybody would need to re-construct reality to compensate for the lack of me in their worlds.

I really really like the theme song of this series though.

it was middle of the day / several days past the month of May / when an immense weight began to drag and make its way

it was one that keeps you at bay / that drives you into a tirade / a weight so heavy and unforgiving it makes you afraid

there wasn’t a reason to stay / nothing to do but stow away / away in a corner obscured by black and grey

then there’s no longer anything to say / as all scripts are now frayed / and words of condolence and comfort won’t be made

(a rhyming poem in memory of 4th grade)

Back from a little hiatus in blogging.  It’s good to take little breaks from doing things for long periods of time, just to make sure I don’t fall into routine.  Or that I don’t become addicted to something.  Sometimes it’s to test whether I can break away or to detach myself from something.  Being undetachable is scary; it means you’ve become so dependent on something that you’re practically at the point where you cannot live without it.  When you start thinking about something incessantly it’s probably time to step back and do this little detachability test.  Just to make sure you’re not sinking deeper and deeper into some quickmud you can’t get out of.  Of course this wasn’t the case with blogging.  I was just lazy.