Why Good Is More Popular Than Great

I always wondered why bad music is so successful.  So many people complain about how such repetitive, unoriginal/creative music can get multi-million dollar record labels, and why so many people buy into it.  Especially after listening to CJSW, I learned there are so many beautiful songs our there.  Bands creating lyrics and sounds so full of emotion and ... awesome, and then you turn on a top 40 station and hear crap.  Where is the justice?

This got me thinking.


I really don't want to think that people are stupid.  If I've learned anything, people are stupid until you learn about the pain they've suffered, then the things they do seem like it really was their only option.  Once you do that, and rule out the occasional mistake we all make, there aren't many stupid people left.  Those special leftovers are generally saved for politics *shudders*.

Anyways!  The point is there is a reason and it hit me.  Sometimes we don't need great, we just need good.  Especially in Calgary, you get a lot of people who work too long.  There is lots of money to be made, and oh do they make it, but it leaves everybody pretty tired at the end of the day.  We need that first beer, we need to sit our ass down and just be.  We need that second, no requirements, no responsibility, just a refreshing drink and that good tune in the background.

Enter mediocre music.  Great music doesn't fit here, it carries the responsibility of being understood, being properly appreciated, and great music has to be found.  Right then, at that moment, we'll take just about anything as long as its decent.  North American society seems like it's always so high strung it'll generally take just about anything, all the time.

Everybody loves bad music sometimes.  So maybe next time you hear yourself complaining that people are so stupid for buying such bad music and perpetuating a horrible cycle, remember that sometimes you need that music too.  And if you really feel there should be significant change, stop downloading music and go watch some bands play live.  Regardless, here's a cool TED talk about music too, seems appropriate, plus if I keep adding videos of actually cool shit to my posts then maybe you'll be distracted from the silly points I make!

Dojo Workhorse - Something I wish I could be

"Music was invented to confirm human loneliness" ~ Lawrence Durrell


Amen


SHOT AT THE DARK - Dojo Workhorse from Shot at The Dark on Vimeo.

I've always wondered what the purpose of loneliness was, to push you towards other people?  It's not like its the best motivator in the world.  Maybe it's just a part of love, and who knows what the hell that's supposed to be.

Worth watching

Video for you!



"My name is Verena. I've made a video to the song "Lesley Gore On The T.A.M.I. Show" by the wonderful, one and only CFTPA. The girl in the video is me, by the way :-) Story of my life... Enjoy!"

Good Morning Interwebz! (12:30 is morning to me)

So, I've completely neglected my blog for a couple months, as you do.  But I feel it is not a lost cause, I've just had a hectic life and this didn't seem important enough.

But I have a tasty little video I'm stealing from TED again, because that site is so impressive.  This one is about patternicity, how we see patterns in everything, or sometimes in nothing.  And how this can lead to a powerful genius or insanity.


So think about this, and it'll lead into a later post about why we need struggle.

The First Follower

  One of the most important parts of a community being successful is actually being able to combine it's resources and accomplish a task.  Sometimes the tricky part is picking the right task to use our resources for, and to make these decisions we need leaders.  If you ever sit back and wonder why you voted (or didn't...) for some idiot politician who's sending you and your community to ruin, this is why.  Someone has to be the one who says "This is what we're going to do" for one simple reason, asking everybody for every single decision, it's expensive.

  Now, it doesn't end there, in the video below you can see that the one thing greater than the leader, is the follower, specifically the first.  So next time you see someone do something crazy, see someone do something brave, maybe consider being the most important person in what it is they are doing.  In that you can do something great, you can start a movement.

Beauty out of a thought

Here's to hoping

Community

  Community, it creates a group of people that you no longer see as "everyone else" but as real people, with character, persona's, and their own lives.  It brings us together with a sense of creation, the strength to create amazing things, the motivation to be kind, to treat each other like human beings.  This world view, zeitgeist, that people seem to have is that we are all doomed, "everyone" is stupid, screw-ups are overemphasized and success is passed over with little attention.  Community can help us change this.

  Some point to things like the internet, video games, iPods, computers, etc as anti-social.  I remember being told time and time again, "Get off the computer!  Go outside and play!  You're too anti-social."  Negative stereotypes placed on these by our parents.  Yet look at what created the biggest movements on the internet:

  Facebook, myspace, blogs, twitter, these are all part of a social network created over the internet, one that can demolish geographical boundaries.  People can be brought together from Canada, Germany, Afrika, India, Chile, France, Mexico, Australia, Russia, China, etc.  These things create a community that is in some ways tighter than ever, yet in others lacking.  It's change, a new way that people function.  Older generations often fight change, claiming it's dangers and weaknesses.  But they do not see its strength and the ones who are not ready for it will be left out of it.

  Google, yahoo, youtube, these things are all about sharing information and have become phenomenon.  These things are all about information and sharing that, from the academic, the insane, the funny, ideas, locations, pure information for everyone.  

  The upside of these from a textbook, from a phone book, from a novel, is that no one trusts the internet.  You never see something on the internet and think, oh that MUST be true.  How often did you read something in your school textbook and think, "Wow, no way that's true" and then taken the time to actually check?  In that textbook you might check a handful of times it's accuracy.  No internet page do you take at face value, everything is criticized, judged.  This transparency is something our generation craves, our parents and grandparents built these systems that control our lives and we rarely see their working parts.  Our tool, the internet, is entirely see through, and is incredibly difficult to limit.

  So then, what can you build with the internet?  What can we do with this community, what can we create?  I want to be a part of something amazing something that is show stopping, something awesome in every sense of the word.  There are a lot of people in our generation who have been labeled as lazy, as ungrateful. People glued to Halo, sucked into Call of Duty, creeping Myspace, blogging endlessly, inseparable from forums, people who live online, separated from reality.  We are growing into adults that need to support ourselves, fight for a hurting planet, create change to confront the problems we face and we have incredible tools to do it with.


  What can you change?


  I thought this was a cool way some people are

Peanut Butter and Jam

  The ratio of delicious over time is incredibly high when it comes to PB & J, and I'm going to attempt to do the same.

Book I'm currently reading:
The Atheist's Guide to Christmas
   Richard Dawkin's story is hilarious!

Best graph ever:
http://www.xkcd.com/715/

Something I need to learn, soon:
http://www.tested.com/news/using-symlinks-in-windows-for-fun-and-profit/39/

Sandwich related:
http://www.cheeseandburger.com/

Stay tasty!

The Future of Atheism

  I want to talk about something important.  It seems these days that atheism is growing in strength and is not the taboo it was 50 years ago.  I've begun to wonder why this has happened and whether or not it's an advancement or a hindrance.  It seems a good place to start is how someone becomes atheist.


  Typically you do not wake up and decide you are a brand new atheist, it is a gradual process.  But you don't actively pursue it, usually one day it smacks you in the face in some idle conversation.  Someone will innocently ask if you were religious, or suggest that you should pray for someone or something, then BAM!  You don't know what to say or do, you're experiencing doubt.  I've found that the majority of people do not make it past this point, these are agnostics.


  Now there is a powerful justification to this line of thought.  It's ridiculous to claim that you DO know.  There are those who claim miracles, or voices that are heavenly in nature, or demonic, thus concluding they KNOW, without a doubt.  There are many long winded arguments on the proof of god, which I don't feel is necessary to get into, but I've never been given evidence that I felt was infallible, or even credible.  Regardless, agnosticism is a pretty perch where one can comfortably sit and not have to think further, but it seems to elude the question rather than answer it.


  Then there are those who continue to keep asking questions, seeing why they have this doubt.  It usually extends from a negative experience which leaves a once religious person feeling abandoned, asking questions like how could a god do something like this?  Others, from heavy science backgrounds, do not see the necessity of a god, or a good explanation of how one exists.  With powerful ideas like the big bang and evolution, god-like intervention is becoming an explanation that is less and less necessary.


   So then, I have doubt, but how does this grow into assurance that god DOES NOT exist?  This is where it gets really tricky and it becomes less clear on whether or not claiming atheism is good idea.  Usually this is a very personal decision based on some form of instinct.  As it's been clarified that it's not an option to prove or disprove god.  So then what instincts cause you to choose one or the other and how do those effect society?


  Many have the belief that religious belief is part of a moral center, though it seems with recent world events this has been utterly disproved.  Religion today is being used as a front, as a moral standing to create trust that can be abused.  While it is likely that to every 100 strongly religious people, there is 1 person abusing it, it does not change the fact that this 1 person may be a person in high standing.  When these people are given power and self-governance because of their "religion" it can cause big problems.  So one advantage of atheism is that it claims no moral superiority.


  What atheism, at least stereotypically, does claim is superiority of its logic.  Many atheists seem to think that with the use of the scientific method and logical reasoning, nothing is beyond them.  That there is a utopia in that of science and reason, because how can you be wrong if you use those?  This, in turn, is the greatest weakness of atheism.  This utopian outlook creates a segregation where the atheist looks down upon other religious forms, seeing them as just being spoon fed their beliefs without ever questioning what they are told.  While it seems true that many people do not question enough of what they are told, this superiority complex only creates a rift between people.  One of the things atheism is really meant to avoid is the radical thinking that causes religious fundamentalists to take violent action against those it disagrees with.


  Which is the next point, atheism cannot bicker over truth.  When it comes to strong science, there is only ever one answer, and which one is true can be proven with other science, that is the beauty of logic.  Religious truth lacks the purity of scientific truth as it is often based off of circumstantial evidence, like one persons word against another or the attempt to derive truth from ancient texts, old tombs, etc.  Atheist does not claim to know anything it cannot prove.


  It is ironic how I just wrote that last sentenced, then immediately realized how wrong I am.  Atheism CLAIMS that god does not exist, while I have claimed to be both atheist and that god CANNOT be proven to exist or not.  Which brings back the ideal that the difference between theism and atheism is usually a choice, not a proof.  A belief.  So this last point, about never claiming to know anything you can't prove, is not a trait of atheism or theism, but alone a trait of agnosticism.


  So it would seem agnosticism is the better route.  In terms of society it is convoluted and unlikely to find a consistency between the morality of those who are or are not religious.  The vast difference in what is morally right and wrong, and the inconsistency of people following even their own morals, it is unlikely to directly relate to atheism or theism.  In terms of ways of thinking, the use of science and reason and this new age of everything needing to be proved, has some obvious benefits, but is obviously not a trait of religious thought.