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I don't leave for university until tuesday, so technically no.

So I've had this idea stuck in my brain for some time now and to keep track of it's progression I've been steadily adding to a word document over time with a sentence or two at a time trying to describe it. One of the main references is to this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7KxGDucKNU&feature=youtu.be&t=41s from Possessed. I really can't tell if I have a worthwhile idea or if I should just go back to writing Evangelion fanfiction.

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To survive within globalized capitalism one key strategy is to eliminate one's subjectivity. This is a problem many have had with buddhism in that they interpret and find in the way people practice it a yearning for the erasure of subjectivity. An erasure of the personalness. Becoming nothing and feeling nothing to get through such a cruel way of life.

To move forward then I propose a different interpretation of Zen Buddhism. A interpretation that focuses on the destruction of objectivity.

Our inability to deal with the world as it is leads us in all sorts of crazy directions and delusions. We often helplessly find ourselves outside of our heads trying desperately to look in; as if some deep truth lay hidden within our skulls and that the division meant anything at all. The messege of Zen Buddhism is not that one should burn down this house of the mind instead of looking inside, but that one should get inside so that one can truly look out.

If one looks to the saying of who is wiser than all the prophets and sages, understanding that it is one's self requires a suspension of objectivity.

Or the phrase about hesitation. One hestitates because they are only guessing at what it is that they desire. They do not know what to do. They debate with themselves. To simply be and remove that hesitation one has to remove objectivity. Once on the inside one can easily determine one's desires and act on them without worry because there is no other perspective.

To further illustrate this look to the object subject distinction previously discussed. Objects can only BE as in exist in continuity from the objective position. Subjects exist most in continuity from the subjective position, the one that delineates actions and desires; the one that chooses. Slaves lack a certain subjectivity because of this. They are completely defined by the outside lens rather than the inside lens and due to this they can only be objects. The same thing is talked about in reference to women where it is said men often treat them like pieces of meat. The woman is thus treated only from the objective outside lens and no attention is paid to the inner lens of the woman. Therefore in order to gain full subjectivity one has to get rid of the objective position.

One can also draw the distinction between this and the mere ordering of one's self. What good is it to get rid of other bosses just to boss your self around. This is truly paradigmatic of the outside looking in objective gaze. To truly be a subject rather than an object, even an object of your self, is to be on the inside looking out. This gets rid of all the deliberating and vacillating and allows one to just exist.

Here one can also draw the distinction between awareness and self-consciousness. If I am on the outside of my self, experiencing my self as other then I am only self-conscious. I take the objective lens looking at me like I would someone else. To be aware is to get on the inside and look out. To be aware of the situation that is happening and feel the situation as visceral as it is. Rather than the distance of feeling the objective gaze would have us take we get back into the drivers seat and experience the situation in a way that can really only be described as participatory. This is what it means to live in the present.

Another way to look at this tension is in terms of the spectacle. The objective gaze allows us to look at ourselves like an other examining it 'impartially'. We view ourselves as a spectator moreso than as a participant in our lives. This brings self-consciousness as we become embarrassed and even ashamed. "What will the neighbors think?" We are like if we are looking into a dark abandoned house wondering what is going on inside, never quite knowing. From the objective gaze the self becomes both easier to see in full but also harder to penetrate. We don't really know what we want. They way we figure it out is the same way we go about assessing others. We practice psychology on ourselves to gain some kind of (in)sight into what's going on 'in there'. Really this is all wasted effort. The best way to know what is happening inside that house is to get inside of it. Maybe you can't see the whole picture, but you can see what you need to see.

There are no impersonal whys. Moments simply are. The only whys that are even relevant are the personal subjective whys. The ball falls because I dropped it and because of every event that caused those events. There isnt a higher level. No god's eye why if you will.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim," said the loudspeaker. "Any
questions?"

   Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why
me?"

   "That is a very earthling question to ask, Mr. pilgrim. Why you?
Why us for that matter?  Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have
you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"

   "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a
blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.

   "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this
moment. There is no why."

Another way of thinking of it is to imagine yourself as god. god is completely subjectivised. As humans we think that there is some higher way to view things and certain contingent historical circumstances have led us to usually try and view the world through this higher lens. For god there is no higher lens. He sees the world as it is. His self is not other to himself. That is perhaps what makes him god. He lacks the separation that humans mostly have, he is completely subjectivised not worried about life or death and just being. We have killed god and all other authorities are next. We need to fully subjectivise ourselves. To be. We will be living gods, buddhas, ubermensches.


The being exists through being observed by others. The I exist because I observe my self. It is through this objectivity and this distancing from my self that self-consciousness arises. It is in this way that we become separated from other animals and shirk enlightenment. If I get on the inside and look out that vantage point whereby I see myself vanishes. The I disappears and I return to nothingness. There is no hesitation, no self-consciousness. Only awareness. Action and Desire. This is the state of the animal or the child. Self-Consciousness is dwarfed by awareness. This is the one who can do anything. The one who can do nothing. The ubermensch. The child. The Buddha. The Big Other. I return to nothingness. In the fade to black I become free to travel anywhere and do anything. This is the goal of the revolutionaries. To become the living embodiment of freedom. This is what I crave. Could I aspire to anything greater?

I love timecube. Only dog-brains don't appreciate it.

I was reading the new Animal Man run and it was actually quite good except that his wife is really just the worst. She reminds me of skylar from breaking bad.

It's the only way to save him from the jews and the catholics.

Everyone should just sit in a room eating saltines until they die. It's the only way to make sure they never get hurt. Actually never mind, salt is also harmful. We should just cryogenically freeze the human race until some aliens find us and save us from ourselves with cleansuits and labotomies.

It was actually a suicide bombing wasn't it.

I was feeling depressed and aimless. Then I read this. 5/5 unflushed toilets.

Reminds me of this Zizek quote and a feeling I often have. Have you read "The Revolution of Everyday Life" by Vanaigem ?
He talks in there about the difficulty of raising one's eyes to one's neighbors and engaging them as an equal human being. It has become easy for us to revert to neutral relationships that are ultimately empty and complicit with the very state of affairs that depresses us.

I think it may be prudent to get our selves together first. This seems to require observation of our immediate environment as well as our selves. I'm reading about Rinzai, Zizek, and The Situationists at the moment for this purpose.

After we have gotten ourselves together a satisfactory amount, then we can also start to do things for others that are constructive. Work with Food Not Bombs. Hold a Really Really Free Market. Do what strikes your fancy.
I would still consider myself an anarchist generally in terms of the "never lead, never obey" stuff though the entire realm of interperson organization is something I am still unsure of. But I don't think you need a big thesis statement about getting society to some goal to do some good for people and for yourself.

The police wish they were anarchists. It's their secret desire to destroy the society they have sworn to protect.

Why hire a black actor to do something when you could get a racial monkey wrench like Armisen to do it.

A what, now?

Someone who can passably play anyone of any race. Fred Armisen often does this.

Something else to consider which I think has only been said by one other person in this thread is how activities of this nature, particularly stuff that people like Fred Armisen do, sets up barriers for entry for people of other races who are up and coming. Why hire a black actor to do something when you could get a racial monkey wrench like Armisen to do it. Why hire anyone else of any race when you can get a couple of tan white people to cover all the ethnic bases. I'm not passing a moral judgement here really, but it is perhaps something else to discuss.

I see race. I see weight, I see hair colour, height, clothes, uniform. If I had to describe someone who was black, I'd say he was a black guy. I ain't going to fuck about with african-scotsman or person of colour or whatever euphemistical bullshit I'm supposed to. By the same token I aint going to decide that, just since the dude is chinese or an albino or a midget that he's ... something other than that colour or height.

If Johnny Depp wants to play a native american, hell if anyone wants to. Isn't it being equally fucking racist to tell them they cant, just because they're the wrong race? Yeah, forgive me for not being able to take your hypocritical bullshit even remotely seriously.

Considering the fact that what is probably going to happen is he's going to make it look like native americans are the coolest motherfuckers ever, what's the grave offence exactly?

Certainly that's a point of view I can understand. I wasn't saying it's wrong in itself but that it creeps me out to see it. Maybe I should just suck it up and stop worrying about it because the times they are a changin.

I just think that Tom Cruise playing "The Last Samurai" and Brad Pitt playing Achilles is much of an asshole move.

No, guy, Japanese and Greek heroes did not have American faces, please.

The Last Samurai was more objectionable for its trotting out of the "White Guy saves primitives" storyline which is racist in itself and featured in other things like Avatar.

Why do you say that Zoe Saldana is not black, or imply she isn't?  She looks black, and not just her skin tone. Wikipedia suggests that her dad is Dominican.

This is just something that is bugging me, and nobody has to get hostile with the response, because I am well aware I'm derpy as hell in this subject.

Thought she was spanish. The wiki page says she claims pride in being Latina.