subjektive

[subjektive]

Alcohol Addiction Musings

I used to drink a lot.

A lot in both senses. A lot as in, when I did drink I would drink large quantities of alcohol and a lot as in, with a high frequency, like multiple times per week.

As with all addictions you find a way to cope with everyday life through the seesawing haze of inebriation and comedown. Life just carries on. Amazing and important things can and do happen, and you can even be there for them too - in a way - but it’s a struggle. 

When I first started toying with the idea of abstaining from alcohol I said to a friend:

“I heard that some ninjas train with weights on their ankles and wrists for  years, they wear the weights each and everyday and train to the level of someone who doesn’t wear them. Then one day they take them off and they are superhuman, can punch through walls and jump up into trees. Drinking everyday is like wearing weights, it’s harder to live a normal life with all this alcohol weighing me down and although I might not be as high functioning as some, I’ve done alright. I got a first in philosophy, I ran a fucking busy Brighton seafront kitchen, I moved country. Maybe when I stop drinking, I will be able to punch through walls, to jump into trees.”

I feel as though my friend humoured me in this moment, kind of agreeing but not really buying the metaphor. And there is a lot wrong with this metaphor. But when I did start giving up alcohol I did feel superhuman, I could and did (metaphorically) punch through walls and jump into trees. After a couple of weeks of not drinking I became filled with energy and life force, I was much more productive and on it, I would achieve things much more quickly and with much higher quality than when I was drinking. My general self confidence soared back after using alcohol as a social crutch for so long, I realised I didn’t actually need it at all after a month. Even after six months into one particularly long stint of abstinence my perception, my actual sight and hearing was still getting noticeably clearer, my cognition was still getting noticeably smoother and more alert.

Where the ninja metaphor falls short is the long term damage that alcohol does to you. 

First, there is the physical damage, it took - is taking - much longer to get into a fit and healthy state than it would be had I not abused my body with alcohol for so long. That’s kind of a given and it can be overcome with a little effort, it’s something that can be fixed, but it’s not something that a weight free ninja would have to deal with.

Secondly, the damage that not being fully present in your life has on your circumstances. Would I have stayed in shitty job X, Y and Z for so long had I been sober? Probably not. How does that look on your C.V.? Not so good. Who knows how far this kind of subtle decision making, opportunity grasping, fuzzy foresight damage goes? Again, it’s something that can be fixed but it still kinda feels a bit like you are carrying around the weights long after you stop drinking.

Most tragically, the metaphor differs in one very important way. 

A neuroscientist would describe it as brain damage; prolonged hijacking of the hippocampus and dopaminergic system. A behaviourist would describe it as a learned response to particular triggers or stressors. A priest would describe it as damage to the soul. 

But in terms of this metaphor we can describe it as the ninjas having an overwhelming urge to keep putting the weights back on to their ankles and their wrists and live their lives weighed down, not punching through walls or jumping into trees.

I am not sure this bit can be fixed, but it can be coped with. Seesawing between good days and bad days, life just carries on. Amazing and important things can and do happen, and you can really be there for them too ... but it’s a struggle.

[subjektive]

Media Musings I

Back in the day of TV - like real TV with aerials and cathode-ray tubes and black and white static - I noticed something about my viewing habits. I found that I felt more connected to the world, a little safer and more secure, if I was watching BBC1 or one of the original four terrestrial channels than I would be watching anything else.

I still get this sometimes after a heavy session somewhere. If I am feeling distant and lost sometimes I turn to Radio 1 and sit through the mind numbing pop music because it feels a little closer to ‘normal’ consciousness, a little more connected to society, than listening to a CD or something.

I never really knew why I used to find watching dull marathon races on BBC2 during a Sunday morning hangover more comforting than whatever advert infested sitcom they would be playing on Channel 4.

I was so fascinated by Sky when I was younger. It didn’t come to my house until I was in my early teens I think, but before that, it seemed so amazing, all of these hundreds of channels to explore. But when I watched it at friends’ houses it had this distant, alien, lonely feel to it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When I did have it in my own house I watched a lot of Sky but would always feel safest, most in touch with the world and comforted when watching BBC or C4.

I am not a massive sports fan, I never got into football or anything, but I always enjoy watching the World Cup, Wimbledon, any of the major sporting events. I have always been most excited about the Olympics. I never even really knew why, I just liked it, felt comforted and connected by it.

As I got older I figured that rather than something to do with personal taste it had something more to do with mass consciousness. In other words, it’s not so much the content that I was watching but the amount of different people engaging their consciousness with whatever I was watching; the level of mass consciousness. It was this feeling of being tapped into a mass consciousness that comforted me, not the actual pictures and sounds coming out of my television.

There are probably many arguments one could make against this. The scientific worldview would spit in my face for proposing such preposterous nonsense, so it goes. Maybe you could take a social science view and say something along the lines of: you are not actually tapping into mass consciousness but the inferred feelings of inclusivity due to the knowledge that so many people are watching X at the same time as you gives you comfort, which you then misassign to consciousness. I would argue that I habitually define myself as someone who stands apart from ‘society-at-large’ and so feelings of comfort for feeling like a part of it would be negligible. One could argue back that perhaps that is really what I crave despite attempts to claim otherwise. I would then argue that this pseudo-Freudian psycho-babble also lays outside the realm of the scientific world view.

However, fair enough, maybe some of the above arguments ring true. But I feel as though there is something deeper going on here. By definition the scientific method cannot discover, prove or disprove things which are acausal, which do not run in cause-effect patterns. Science can’t even discover, prove or disprove any kind of consciousness, so arguing against tapping into mass consciousness from a scientific perspective is just absurd and out of reach. On the other hand, I can’t be sure that my intuitions are correct, but they make sense to me today.

Back in the day, one could only tap into this kind of large scale mass consciousness at huge gatherings of people. And still today, being a part of a huge crowd is still the most visceral mass consciousness experience, a football stadium or large music festival for example.

Newspapers were probably the first taste of disembodied access to mass consciousness, but this would have been pretty diluted. The advent of radio vastly improved the experiencing of mass consciousness with live disembodied voices being heard by hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously. Television arguably only added another sense-input to this rather than improved upon access, as radio did.

But the internet has transformed things even further. Although the internet defuses mass consciousness considerably - in that there are only a relatively small amount of people reading the same page as you at the same time as you at any given time - the interactive elements give the impression that we are somehow closer to the source. The mass consciousness of the internet feels noisier and more active rather than the passivity of radio or television consciousness. The way things are set up also allow for multiple, discrete and discernible forms of consciousness to bubble up in different areas.

Although my facebook feed looks utterly different to yours, we are both on Facebook. We are not so closely connected in our states of consciousness regarding content, but the meta-state of consciousness that Facebook creates is similar enough to create some kind of deformed form of mass consciousness. Cold, clinical and depressing as Facebook consciousness is, it keeps us coming back. Reddit consciousness, Instagram consciousness, fucking WhatsApp consciousness, whatever place on the internet you hang out has a particular demented bubble of pseudo-mass consciousness associated with it. Although internet mass consciousness appears to be bigger, better and more accessible than ever before it’s also fragmented, agitated, manic, confused and polarised and the more we access it the more of it we take on. Like any consciousness altering activity it should be dosed responsibly.

[subjektive]

Unwatched TV Musings

I don’t watch as much TV as I used to, but it is still something that I am interested in.

We are in the golden age of television but also time has sped up to the point where I can barely fit in an episode a day. I would love to be up to date with all my favourite - and some not so favourite TV - but I just don’t have the time. Probably doesn’t help that I just started my 5th rewatch of The Sopranos. In January I wrote a list of all the TV shows that I was most excited about this year, now it’s nearly halfway through and some of the shows on that list have been and gone and are still unwatched. Some of the ones that were most certainly not on my list are being watched dutifully week by week (I’m looking at you Game of Thrones). Here is the list of my most anticipated TV shows of 2019 that have already been played and I still haven’t watched. Whaddya gonna do?

Broad City. Season 5.

Apart from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, BC is probably my favourite live currently running (well not anymore) live action sitcom. This is more highly anticipated than the next IASIP because the girls skipped 2018 without a season. I still have a couple more episodes to go on this and I’ve enjoyed it so far. It seems like it’s definitely a nice timely end to the show without it dragging out, the girls are growing out of the characters, I’m looking forward to seeing how they are gonna end it.

True Detective. Season 3.

Season 1, everybody agrees, was phenomenal. Season 2 was generally considered a massive failure although I am one of the few people that really liked it. Sure, it wasn't S1 but it was a great mystery with some complex characters and a twisting narrative that was accompanied by another killer soundtrack and dark brooding atmosphere. If Season 2 was released before season 1 it would have been regarded a smash hit. Comparing it to the - perhaps untouchable - first season may not be the best idea. The same goes for season 3. Although from what I have heard it’s faired a little better. Gonna get on this, next rainy day.

American Gods. Season 2.

I loved the book by Neil Gaiman and I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1, it was solid, surreal, funny and gave a nice twist on the book. Season 2 is out and done and I haven’t read anything about it yet. Apparently there were some changes in cast and production team and people were worried about how it will turn out. Guess I’d better see for myself soon.

[subjektive]

Anger Musings

I get angry sometimes.

Yeah yeah, everyone gets angry sometimes. In fact, right now rage seems to be pretty fucking normal if you take in more than a brief glance at the internet. What used to be minor disagreements in opinion or lifestyle are now these huge divides in which people need to vent-rage-argue their way to Righteousness. Hell, I was an early adopter of this and still often get rage triggered by right-wing ideologues.

I meditate, I exercise, I get enough sleep, I don’t really drink or do drugs anymore. I am doing all the things that are supposed to help in reducing anger and stress, but it’s still there bubbling below the surface ready to latch on to whatever takes its fancy.

So I did some research on anger management. I quickly unearthed a lot of modern scientific research that suggests venting is not good for you. Screaming into pillows, punching punch bags etc. Is actually bad for anger management, in just the same way that replying to some asshole on the internet is bad for anger management. Apparently, by venting your anger you are only reinforcing and elongating it. The best way is to calm down, let it dissipate and then think more clearly about the source of your anger.

I wasn’t satisfied with these results, so I looked a little deeper in search of studies. This is when I found the following quote in the abstract of a study on anger management in the workplace.

As expected, we found that daily negative events lowered daily engagement and momentary positive affect for two consecutive days. However, this effect only held on days that people exhibited low sportsmanship. For days that people exhibited high sportsmanship, there were no significant effects.

This hit a nerve. It’s basically saying that when shit happens at work, only people who don’t buy into the ‘team player’ role, stay angry, those who shrug it off and “exhibit sportsmanship” are gonna be less angry.

I read this as a study that ‘proves’ that in our capitalist environment it’s healthier to be happy about our growing exploitation rather than complain about it. It’s healthier to let the camaraderie you have with your peers be used against you as a tool by your wage-masters than it is to recognise it. This is an issue that I have been struggling with recently. It’s a tactic often used in the gastronomy industry. At first, I let The (Conspiracy) Theorist voice in my head take over: The whole fucking field of Psychology is just a racket to to legitimise capitalism and hierarchical exploitation and I just found such a beautiful piece of evidence in this piece of shit study telling me to just put a smile on my face and be more employable in the face of growing exploitative practices in my industry, deal with it, it’s the way the world works and you’ll be much more happy and less angry if you just accept it.

Then, the Check-Your-Bias-Program was activated and it’s soothing neutral voice kicked in: Honestly, it’s probably right. And could even be helpful. The reason you are so angry with wage-slavery is because of you have been reading all of this communist and anarchist literature and have the call for revolution in your heart. You are more and more viewing everyday occurrences, like being exploited by a petite-bourgeoisie capitalist class, as an affront to you personally. This might be true but the lens that you are using for the situation is wrong.

Is this Anti-Capitalist lens making me more angry? Looks like it in this case.

Shouldn’t this lens just be used as a tool to understand the world rather than nurturing a way of thinking that encourages anger and resentment? Sounds about right.

Will switching the lens to a more situation-appropriate one make you any more or less exploited? I guess my exploitation level will remain the same no matter how I look at it.

Am I promoting blind submission to capitalism in this half thought out blog post? I fucking hope not. Am I any less angry for going through this thought process? It seems as though I may just be.

[subjektive]

Game of Thrones S8 Musings

*GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS AHEAD*

I am a fan of Game of Thrones.

I would actually more identify myself as an A Song of Ice and Fire fan as I have read (twice) - and much prefer - the books to the TV show. However, I probably would not have ever read the books had it not been for the TV show, so I must give credit where credit is due.

The first 4 seasons of the show are, in my opinion, top notch television. The last few seasons have been pretty hit and miss. I’d argue mostly miss as far as the writing is concerned but interspersed with some awesome set piece spectacles of television cinematography.

The first four seasons are tightly written with great characterization, trope melting storylines and unforgettable plot twists. Most of these elements were dutifully extracted pretty faithfully from the books. Once the showrunners no longer had the books to lean on so closer, things started to quickly fall apart. Characters became flaccid and their motives confused. Storylines became meandering and arguably pointless. Moments of “shock” were hastily constructed and played out to superficial and shallow affect.

But here we are regardless, at the season finale. I watch it with three conflicting voices in my head. Most prominent of which is the Cynic, although my headspace is also shared by the Snobby Bookreader and the Naive Fan Boy.

The Cynic talks about how poor the writing is, still. The first couple of episodes play out more like a TV Soap Opera than a blockbuster primetime television show. A bunch of cardboard cut-out characters having relationship conversations in close shots at various places in Albert Square Winterfell. Cersei sits basically alone in a tree house studio whilst a group of writers sit around a desk thinking of sick burns she can spew out at the 2 other cast members. Then they list all of the other main characters they can write sick one liners for and lazily list them of. There was no air punching coming from the Cynic when these cheap lines were delivered. Are you guys fucking serious? The first piece of dialogue in S8 was Tyrion saying to Varys, “At least I have balls.”? All the lame things GoT has become in a single line: essentially pointless digressions, gross mischaracterisation, needless oversexualization, one line ‘zingers’ that don’t land, shock for shock sake, and just plain shitty writing.

The Snobby Bookreader hasn’t had that much to say directly during the first couple of episodes of S8, although he whispers things in the Cynic’s ear. Book Dany wouldn’t act like that. Book Arya’s motives are so much more complex. And the like.

The Naive Fan Boy only really started getting excited towards the end of E2 as the battle drew nearer. “I heard that the battle is gonna last like three or four episodes!” he joyfully blurted out. There were also some great air punching and weepy moments that managed to slip past the ever watchful Cynic. Jaime knighting Brienne, oh my god! Thorin had some cracking jokes, Tyrion too. And most of the fireside banter, actually. Sam Tarly, hero among men, having a lads moment with Jon and Edd on the wall (of Winterfell). The slow realisation that despite some pretty weak reasons for everyone ended up there, all of the main characters that are still alive - spare a couple hanging out with Cersei in their windowless studio - are now at Winterfell, and Winter Has Come. All the pieces are in place and the white walkers will be upon them before dawn. The Naive Fan Boy couldn’t help but push past the Cynic and the Snobby Bookreader, tussling them to the floor to stand, looking out over the wall with Tyrion, utterly fist-clenchingly excited about the unfolding of events in the coming episodes.

All aboard the Hype Train!

[subjektive]

Introductory Musings

I’ve decided to start writing publicly again. I’ve been tapping away into the darkness for a while now. Journaling, note taking, ruminating. But it all feels a little unfinished, private, not ready for ‘the public’. So I’ve decided to start writing stuff that could be considered for public consumption. ‘The public’ being the 6 or 7 of you that manage to fight their way through the myriad competing bids for your attention just to find yourselves at my lonely blog composed of half thought-out scribbles.

If you have managed to fight your way here, I thank you for deciding to spend your ever precious attention with me. I welcome thee with open arms and a little overview of what this place may become. Firstly, it won’t ever become much more than a public notepad, or an extended social media status. Although a space in which I am forced to at least think about clarity, structure and readability. It might be a place of interest to anyone who has at least some cursory enthusiasm in the kind of things I like to talk about. In that sense, there won’t be so much of an overriding theme, more a collection of things I am interested in: Music, Consciousness, Philosophy, Psychology, Astrology, Divination, Mythology, Religion, Politics, Culture, Food, Current Affairs, Visual Media, Books, Pointless Abstract Theorising, Campfire Banter, Being Right, Whatever-Takes-My-Fancy. I am interested in conversation. You can hit me up in the comments, through your favourite form of social media or straight up email me either at my regular email address or here subjektive [at] gmx [dot] de

I’m also well aware of all the other things fighting for your attention and so will not try to keep you here long. Each post should be less 1000 words, usually far fewer, so that you can quickly drop in and then get back into the variable reward dopamine rush of your everyday surfing habits.

A lot of what I am interested in and what seems to permeate the foundations of many of my thoughts is the concept of truth. There are numerous ways to approach Truth - with or without a capital T - and at least some of them will be explored throughout this blog series.

This is why I’ve decided to call this public notepad Subjective Musings.

Subjective in that the thoughts and ideas presented here arise from my point of view; the data and stimuli gathered from the various digital and analogue environments that I inhabit have been filtered through my nervous system which is totally unique to me, my nervous system having been moulded by all of the previous data and stimuli it’s encountered since inception, and potentially before that. I have interpreted and then decoded these data and stimuli back through my nervous system in a way in which it is possible to communicate these signals to someone else (in this case you reading this right now). Once I have written these words out and posted them here, my subjectivity ends, but yours begins. You filter the - simplified for communication purposes (and made more complex for fun [and by laziness]) - communication signals that I have laid out and filter them through your totally unique nervous system. You then interpret and decode these signals however you usually interpret and decode such overly verbose and meaningless drivel.

Musings in that I would like to write here a lot and I don’t have a lot of time. I have a day job as well as other demands on my time, facebook doesn’t mindlessly scroll through itself for hours on end. This, mixed with a tendency for pre-publishing perfectionism means that I rarely publish anything. If I offer simple musings rather than perfectly thought-out theses I can publish more regularly. This also offers you - dear reader - the opportunity to tell me how wrong I am, should you be into that kind of thing.

The subtitle “& notes from beyond the veil” I guess might reveal its meaning further as we travel further along our journey. This is related to certain ideas holding truth value beyond the mere distinction between subjective and objective truth. Allow your nervous system to interpret that as it will for now.

I’ll be back with more vague, meandering introductory texts soon.

Stay true.

[subjektive]

South Park S22 Musings

      The latest episode of South Park The Scoots was my favourite of season 22 so far. After experimenting with different structures for the past couple of seasons they seem to have returned to a more classic approach this season; episodic structure with minor bits of weekly continuity that they started playing with 3 seasons ago. It seems as if they are trying to wrap up some storylines, revisiting and giving send offs to old characters, such as Mr. Hanky in The Problem with Poo (a pun on The problem with Apu, the name of a documentary which started all the current outrage over Apu being ditched from the Simpsons and fans who haven’t watched the Simpsons for 15 seasons being upset about it.) This hint of wrapping things up has been - or at least was for the first two episodes - accompanied by, by #cancelsouthpark featuring in the end credits, the third episode had  #cancelthesimpsons and I haven’t seen another one since. The last two episodes have also been my favourite so maybe Matt and Trey are back in the saddle again after a shaky start.

       Last week’s episode Tegridy Farm was a classic Randy episode in which he decides to start a weed farm in Colorado, but something about it felt a little forced, the spectacular action movie ending was funny but didn’t fully hit the mark in my opinion, although the episode as a whole was solid. This week’s episode, aired on Halloween night felt like it almost brought me back to the heady days of Season 5 and 6 when South Park really started coming into its own. This is where the nostalgia I mentioned above really works, when they feel safe to revisit classic South Park and when it works. Halloween, trick or treating, e-scooters, the unlikely camaraderie between Mr. Mackey and Kenny. It gave me a few good laughs but most of all gave me a warm feeling that South Park can still be great and have got many years of classic structures and tropes to fall back on should they need to. Basically just a great little episode which gave me some hope for the future of South Park. How they can still be fucking funny after 22 years seasons is something to behold.