It's All So Rudimentary.

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this post, but I am very happy to announce that I've got a lot of new ideas cooking for this blog, and that if you few readers can continue to bear with me until for another week and a half, I promise it'll be worth your while, and I don't break my promises, Pedobear seal of approval on that negroes.

Just to give you a taste of what's to come, I shall include the usual.

-Music, in more dosages and uploads
-Videos, of more funky arse shiz
-Games and apps which I think are the bread of butter of wasting time.

And a new element which I've gotten good feedback from will be included, also, I will upload some photos for some shameless self promotion, but will hopefully turn into something for you readers to look forward to. Respectively, these two things are respectively:

-Philosophical ideas and debates
-Photography of sorts.

Finally a new element which I want to toy around with will also be implemented into this blog, rather than assesing whether my ideas are valid or stupid via essays, I will blog a self dialogue, or some dialogue with people debating this idea, don't bother asking about this, I can't concoct ideas at random, I'll come to you though.

I shall call it diablogue. 8D.

So godamn, alright let's take a break, where I can show you Ok Go's new video, which is the bomb, courtesy of Ez :).
Check it out.




Two weeks is a long time, and a short time at the same time. It's short enough that I can remember the events if questioned, but long enough so that if I were asked to put it in a creative fashion, I would piss my pants laughing at something in the background, and then proceed to tell the other person to repeat themself. All the same, pictures speak louder than words, and in a few weeks time, I will have some photos of what happened from then till now, I'll let you guys fill in the blanks.

Moving on to the present, I'm sure some of you will have heard news of a more morbid nature, I'm really not the type to express this sort of incident well, so for those interested, (and I mean it, some of you will find this stuff quite daunting, or be quite apathetic towards the matter) you can check out what happened at my good mate Eddy's blog here: http://smokyham.blogspot.com/, who sums everything up pretty well, and has an intense feel of the English language, worth a regular read for sure.

NOTE: If you don't want to hear me talk about myself, skip the next paragraph.

Now for those of who you read it, cool, you'll be informed of it. Like Eddy, I was also in that Biology class, but I didn't have the pleasure of knowing the guy. As one would imagine, I'd have my opinion on the matter, and for those of you know how much of a complete wanker I can be, my opinions are sometimes remarkably awful. But for the briefest of moments, I had my gravest fears. Fear of a divine power, fear of something unable to be comprehended by any mortal man. For the briefest of moments, I feared that he was breathing down on my neck, staring into the depths of my conscience, glaring with a look so icy that my ability to communicate was frozen solid. Looking at me with eyes wider than the horizon, hearing the most silent of my thoughts with such a sensitive decibel receptor. Interfering with my communication, simply telling me to keep my trap shut.
For that brief moment, I feared he who is malevolent, he who is omnipotent, he who is called God.
Might I add that the moment was only brief, and just as I soon came to my senses, he was gone. I had come to my senses, not in discord with the aforementioned, but in accordance, for my own reasons. One of my highest regarded maxims is the idea of free speech, but in cases like these, sometimes there is a price to pay for the free speech. Ironic huh?

Enough about that.

But on a similar topic, some readers of my blog will recall a morbid talk about the Fine Art of Dying posted a while back, and I'm going to post part II of that, from a Nietzschean perspective. ( <3 ). My apologies for an inability to fit it into my own words, but I feel that by putting my twist onto it, I would be tainting what's been already written, so I will retype it out. I do urge you to read it, it is fascinating stuff. It's fine if you don't though, it's up there for me as well.

One type of death Nietzsche's Zarathustra explicitly recommends is "to die in battle and squander a great soul." It is likely that Nietzsche, a well known admirer of the classical world's celebration of strength and struggle, associates this heroic form of death with Ancient Greece and Rome. In addition to dying in battle, Zarathustra celebrates two types of death: i) The so-called voluntary death, and ii) what he terms the consummating death.
Nietzsche's description of 'the voluntary death' is both clear and thoughtful. "I commend to you my sort of death", Zarathustra announces, "voluntary death that comes to me because I wish it. And when shall I wish it? - He who has a goal and an heir wants death at the time most favorable to his goal and his heir. And out of reverence for his goal and his heir he will hang up no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life."
Note that hte matter of timing is central to the type of death recommended in this passage. Nietzsche speaks of wanting death at the time most favorable to one's goal and one's heir. And surely his recommendation to "hang up no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life" speaks to the importance of recognizing when the time to exit the stage of life has come.
The important matter of the timing of one's death also figures prominently in Zarathustra's poetic celebration of hte so called 'consummating death': "I shall show you the consummating death, which shall be a spur and a promise to the living. The man consummating his life dies his death triumphantly, surrounded by men filled with hope and making solemn vows. Thus one should learn to die: and there should be no festivals at which such a dying man does not consecrate the oaths of the living! To die thus is the best death."
One famous death that seems to meet Zarathustra's criteria of both a voluntary and a consummating death, is that of the Greek Philosopher Socrates (470 - 399 BC). Indeed, Zarathustra's vivid description of what such a triumphant death would look like seems to have been written with Socrates in mind.

Socrates' Death.
With respect to the volunatry dimension of Socrates' death, two things immediately come to mind:
1) Socrates' most famous student, Plato tells us in The Apology that during Socrates' legendary trial for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, each side was given the opportunity to propose a punishment to the jury. Socrates' accusers proposed death. Instead of offering a realistic proposal of his own - which may well have been countered by a compromise proposal of exile on the part of the accusers - Socrates dares to suggest that rather than punish him, Athens should reward him with 'free maintenance' for life. Plato tells us that Socrates' next proposal was that of a very small fine.
With all these mockign and audacious proposed counter-penalties, Socrates effectively "put the hemlock to his lips" as I.F. Stone puts it in his book The Trial of Socrates.
2) Plato offers further support for the voluntary character of Socrates' Death in his Crito. There we learn that Atyhens, possibly reconsidering the pending execution of its most famous citizen seems to have left open the possibility of Socrates' escape from jail. Indeed, Plato tells us that the wealthy Crito made arrangements for his friend's escape and exile, bribing guards etc. Crito then pleads with Socrates to flee. Socrates argues that escaping and living in exile would be wrong, despite any shortcomings of his trial, and chooses instead to stay in prison and face execution. Crito's impassioned pleas and arguments are of no use: "Socrates is determined to stay and die."
Socrates' death is many things: unjust; epoch-defining; a turning point in the life of Plato and other young Athenians; and, it seems fair to say, at least partly voluntary.
With respect to the matter of whether Socrates' famous final act can also be said to live up to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra's image of the consummating death, the Socrates portrayed in those dialogues of Plato concerned with his master's final days is certainly a figure seeming to consummate his life's message. Squarely facing death, Socrates' longstanding basic priorities remain fundamentally unchanged:
i) That obedience to truth is paramount.
ii) That doing the right thing is more important than doing the easy or-self interested thing.
iii) That having understood what the right thing to do is, it would be incomprehensible not to do it.
iv) That the soul is the most important part of a man.
v) That the well being of the soul must take priority over that of the body.
vi) That there is reason to believe in the continued existence of the soul and after the death of the body.
Not only does Socrates face his death (in the form of a poison cup) with extraordinary composure and serenity, he takes the time to calm, reassure and instruct the devoted followers with whom he is spending his final hours.
As for hte matter of the timing of Socrates' death: whether his death comes at the precise "time most favorable to his goal and his heir" is debatable. What we can say, however, is that at the time of his death, Socrates' mission had essentially been accomplished, and his guiding principles carefully communicated to his philosophical heirs. So while Socrates is not named in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, his final teachings, demeanor, and famous death-scene embody the triumphant, well-timed and consummating death lauded by Zarathustra.

For those who read that, I give you applause, and my gratitude, if you enjoyed it, please give me feedback, because there will be potentially a final instalment of that article, talking about Jesus's death in relation to the Art of Dying and Nietzsche's death himself.

Now for some awesome drumming themed skillz, I provide two videos, the first thanks to my good friend Petar.



And the second is a video courtesy of Quang, who introduced me to the funniest Asian on the planet. Note: It's godamn sexist, so females, look away if you don't want to be offended, stop looking at my blog and make a sandwich or something, or whatever it is you do in there. [Joking, plzdunbashme].



Now something's been brought up to my attention regarding the youth stabbings and stuff a few posts back.

While stuck at Oakleigh Station due to Metro being cancer and making stuff worse, I nearly had my bag stolen from a drunkard. I will leave it at that, I do admit, I was pretty worried for my wellbeing at that moment, and it really hit me that I would be justified in doing what I could to ensure the best outcome for me, because realistically, when push comes to war, the only person looking out for yourself is you [inspired by the King Huy's blog @ http://smilesfromacrossthestreet.blogspot.com/. There's some real creative and artfully written stuff there, very worth checking out]. And at that moment, I really thought I would've been justified in carrying a bat or a weapon with me to defend myself with, what do you guys think?

I've got a whole lot more ideas to discuss actually, but for now, I think it would be fitting to end it here, I'll leave some stuff for you guys to look at, and listen to.

Something totally out of character: Little Boots, who is hot and makes quality stuff.




And a dope track right here.


FisheyeMe.