Marching Forward into 2011

Dear all:

The sun of 2010 has already set and disappeared resolutely beyond the horizon, leaving me with what feels like a clean state; this state provides me a canvas on which to draw up plans, however feasible, for the forthcoming twelve months. I, for one, have high hopes for 2011; what those hopes entail and where they will lead me is another matter entirely, but I know for sure, that whether trivial or not, I am going to try and enjoy every last second of my experiences.

This is about as upbeat as I can be really, seizing the opportunities when they arise, and attempting, as pro-actively as possibly, to mould my future into a sculpture of emanating beauty; after all, we only live once, so why not? Of course, in the past year I have not always been so full of optimism; far from it, in fact. There have been some lows that have scraped viciously and without remorse at the depths of my humanity, causing murky thoughts, not to mention actions; however, I have unceremoniously thrown away their toxic influence, and moved on the wiser.

However, that being said, the previous year has had many positive moments, ones to remember. Business has been swift and profitable, albeit at times asphyxiating and all-consuming. Nevertheless, I am very aware that nothing in this life can be achieved without graft, nothing; thus, I have thrown myself head-first into the project and, whether the gods are smiling or not, I’m all in.

Kay and I remain as strong as ever, yet we have had a tumultuous 2010 with her ‘so called’ family. Honestly, and with utmost sincerity, to go into details on this issue at this point would result in an unfettered diatribe of bilious battery acid being spat all over my computer, so, for the sake of midday decency, I will refrain from exposing the finer details. In short, Kay and I are hunky-dory, as always.

Aside form making money and prancing about like a meerkat on methamphetamine 15 hours a day, I have spent the last year reading as widely as the slivers of free time that I have allow me. These novels have provided me with essential vitamins, nourishing my mind and, for the best part, prevented the stresses of daily life erupting in a explosive aneurysm. For this I am indebted to Chekov, Camus, Hemmingway, Russell, Hunter Thompson, and last but not least, Bryan Magee on YouTube, for his succinct dissection of the great thinker of our time (Especially Wittgenstein)

Anyway, on that note, I am off to gorge myself on another chapter of Russell’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’ that was so generously send to me by one of today’s great philanthropists, Mr. Stephen Hanna.

For all of you who I have now been in touch with in some time, please write back and tell me how life is treating you.

To you all, Have a wonderful and successful 2011.

Tunes Currently Spinning Round in My Head

In response to Mr.Ward's blog 'Desert Island Lists' http://serginhowardinho.blogspot.com/2010/08/desert-island-lists.html, I complied this 10 track list of my favourite current tunes.

1. Frank Zappa - Peaches in Regalia
2. The Raincoats - Fairytale in a Supermarket
3. John Cooper Clarke - Beasley Street
4. Husker Du - Something I learned today
5. The Fall - Totally Wired
6. The Future Sound of London - Papa New Guinea
7. The Orb - Blue Room
8. The Mekons - Where were you?
9. My Bloody Valentine - Soon
10. Roy Harper - The Same Old Rock

Mike

The Victorian Surrealism of Jeffrey Micheal Harp

BEINART International Surreal Art Collective

http://beinart.org/artists/jeffrey-michael-harp/gallery/digital/

Moneyless in Moab

Interweaving philosophical conversations with suelo in his cave and treehouse with colorful footage of his daily activities in town and in nature, MONEYLESS IN MOAB offers an intimate look at a person who embodies a radical alternative to our excessively consumeristic american way of life. The film opens our eyes to the fact that it is indeed possible to live happily without money, and to do so with joy, grace, and dignity, even in a world gone mad with attachment. about suelo Daniel Shellabarger (aka suelo) is a student of world religions and anthropology who is unhappy with the worldwide “money religion” and currently lives without the direct use of money. He likes nature, travel, and tequila—when someone else is buying. He is currently hitchhiking and roaming around the pacific northwest, living in the moment and practicing non-attachment. His blog is a good place to read his reflections as he surfs though this universe.

Link

Blog

http://www.everythingahead.com/watch.html

Socially Responsible Films

A Difficult Week

As life continues to meander ever steadily from its source, the undulating landscape causes periodic turbulence, disrupting the steady flow. Unconsciously, one is jolted to a clear, lucid vision of immediate reality. A sandstorm of daily routine sweeps us unknowingly off our feet, blinding us of the immediacy of our existence.

The delightfully pessimistic 19th Century German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhaur succinctly alluded: ‘That which has been no longer is; it as little exists as does that which has never been. But everything that is in the next moment has been. Thus the most insignificant present has over the most insignificant past the advantage of actuality, which means that the former bears to the latter the relation of something to nothing.’

The hullaballoo of everyday life is overpowering on the senses, causing one to fatalistically neglect the present moment. Maintaining awareness of what is, in the face of grippingly powerful illusions of what might be and what has already been, is no mean feat. Plato summed up this notion in five powerfully profound words: ‘Continual becoming and never being.’

Wrestling oneself from this illusory state is a challenge that will last a lifetime. There is no finishing line, only endless laps to be run.

Events of the last week have provided me with a perceptual nudge in the direction of appreciating what is. I was indiscriminately attacked for reasons that will forever remain a mystery. One hears of incidents like this daily, but one remains oblivious to their arsenal of negative energy, until one becomes the victim.

Brutish, dirty, and thuggish episodes imprint themselves on the psyche, and are not easily erased. One must remain strong in the face of crazy thoughts, fighting off the urge to react like a wild animal. One must make a positive from a negative, and not fester in soul destroying hatred and self pity. To achieve this, a painful, yet liberating shift in thinking is required: Is one going to be thrown about violently in stormy sea of emotions, or take charge and say all is quite well? It’s a perceptual flick of a switch that frees one from falling into an abyss of negativity.

One has simply to be happy with what is, as this is all there is. Schopenhaur phrases this concept beautifully once again: ‘In the first place no man is happy but strives his whole life long after supposed happiness and he seldom attains it; as a rule, however, he finally enters harbour shipwrecked and dismasted.’

This week has been physically and mentally an uphill struggle, but an illuminated one all the same. Existentially, a golden egg has fallen from the sky and landed in my lap. For that I am grateful.

Mike

Burma VJ (2009)

Burma VJ (2009)

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard’s Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. Their tactical leader, code-named Joshua, oversees operations from a safe hiding place in Thailand. Via clandestine phone calls, Joshua dispenses his posse of video warriors, who covertly film the abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage across the border into Thailand. Joshua ships the footage to Norway, where it is broadcast back to Burma and the world via satellite. Burma VJ plays like a thriller, all the more scary because it is true.

Torrent (Swedish Subtitles)


English RS Links

http://rapidshare.com/files/351152479/Burma.VJ.2008.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-SUBMERGE.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/351164534/Burma.VJ.2008.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-SUBMERGE.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/351177217/Burma.VJ.2008.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-SUBMERGE.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/351188483/Burma.VJ.2008.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-SUBMERGE.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/351191703/Burma.VJ.2008.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-SUBMERGE.part5.rar

Courtesy of Socially Responsible Films

The Future is the Internet - The Internet is the Future

Picture from: http://www.impactlab.com

In recent days my head has been spinning. The internet is getting to me: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Myspace, Wikipedia, youtube - the list goes on snaking its way ever skyward like some serpentine colossus. Where is this new cyber world located? Its physical tangibility is something that perplexes me. How can we rationalize this global phenomenon, and make sense of this pulsating beast of ever growing complexity, when its whereabouts are beyond the imagination of the majority of its users?

What got me thinking about all this was something that happened during my reading skills lesson this morning. For me this was a first and I am sure it is a sign of things to come.

After pre-teaching a handful of new adjectives and adverbs to two new excellent students, I gave them the opportunity to take down the work from the whiteboard into their notebooks – they declined. Instead a mobile phone appeared and a student began to take pictures of my semi-legible scrawl at the front of the classroom. Intrigued, I probed the eager students further to figure out the point of all this technological posturing. They stated that the pictures would be sent via email to each other, and then copied into their notebooks at home. I don’t know why, but this blew me away. Feeling introspective, I sat looking out at the rapidly rising sun as the mid-morning heat pulled dance moves in continuous waves scorching the leather on my desk.

The internet is a first in our history. It has made the unfathomable, fathomable; the unthinkable, thinkable. In the 1950s science fiction writers had shiny, metallic visions of the future full of flying motor vehicles, robotic servants, and delicious meals in a pill, but not one foresaw the advent of the internet

The late great Aldous Huxley in ‘Brave New World’ and ‘Brave New World Revisted’ demonstrated his belief that technology would eventually lead to our collective enslavement and subsequent downfall as a race. Could Huxley’s stirring of the predictive tea leaves turn out to be correct? Is man destined to over play his hand? What will be remains to be seen, but one thing we know for sure is that things can’t be un-invented.

The internet has the capacity for being the greatest tool for individual freedom the world has ever seen; but, what if it was used to thwart our development, and create something demonstrably awful. Could Huxley’s dystopic vision of technological dictatorship become a reality?

I don’t see the future as a bleak, shapeless and monotonous like Huxley. Expounding views such as these does little for the advancement of human kind, but at the same time it does not negate the possibility. The internet is an amazing resource when used responsibly.

The wealth of information at our fingertips has never been greater. It it an opportunity to grow intellectually, socially and financially heralding in a new age of understanding and coexistence on this planet. Advantageous information is out there and we can all access it and grow together in unison. In these terms the future is filled with wondrous possibility, rather than enslavement.

An eastern scholar once said that enslavement is only in the mind. The actions of my students today started a flow of thoughts running though my head, reverberating like a tuning fork. It took the form of a mantra, one that will have a succinct grounding for generations to come.

The future is the internet; the internet is the future.

Mike