[A-Com./Manifestations: 1.05]
26/05/2023
Overture
There comes a time in every man’s life when they are invited to reflect upon themselves, and their life choices – a time when we are invited to reassess whatever we’re doing, what we hold valuable, and where we want to go from this point forward. In accordance to literary theory we can see such breaks from normalcy in light of a certain narrative structures. The one I have in mind in particular is called the ‘Call to Adventure’ stage within the Hero’s Journey scheme archetypical to almost every plot structure in existence – that is why it is also occasionally called “the monomyth”. Journeys, voyages, and adventures are opportunities to rip ourselves out of your monotonous life.
But because this is real life, the decision of casting or “framing” any event in accordance to these structures is often times very much an arbitrary one (for example, a story or an event in a story ending in tragedy can also be the beginning of another comedy). Nevertheless, my conviction is that – seeing as real life can be viewed as a sort of “interactive fictitious drama storyline” – we can always ground our narrative phases or stages with appropriate use of reason, and we can always – by the sheer power of our conscious willing – affect how that story turns out in the end.
“Is this the person who I want to be or become?”, “Is this the direction I want to continue on, or am I treading on the wrong path that is not my own?”, “Is this what I want to do or bring into the world in this life?”, and “Is this thing so important that I want to make it my life’s calling?” Questions such as these interrogate us on our justifications, our reasons for why one thing is thus, or has turned out thus and not otherwise. They are the one affordable verbal vehicle at our disposal by which to ground ourselves, our stories, and move ourselves and our understandings forward in this world.
Coming Forward
This website was created 3 years and 4 months ago. At the time of creating it I had grand plans and high hopes for it, but during all this time I have not attained any – not a single one – of them. That is why I think it is high time for me to be crystal clear for once of the purpose of this little website project of mine, and what it was supposed to be. I will drop all the jargon and set all the “bullshit gravitas” aside just this once as I carry out this task of mission-clarification, and permit myself a touch of “personal involvedness” in the manner I explain myself here.
First of all, I have always hated the idea of “blogposting”, and as I’ve been working on this website for the past 3 years or so, I have actively avoided this personal blogposting or “diary-entrying” which Neocities is mostly currently being plagued by in the trappings of “website development”. Internet is a public, shared space, and no amount of nostalgia-tripping in search of a long lost aesthetic or Anarcho-Libertarian wet dreams will make it otherwise. For this reason, and like how when we are normally within a public space, we should aspire to conduct ourselves in a manner which coheres with the whole, and is to the benefit of the whole.
In my view, what people seek by engaging in blogposting is an audience to which to present themselves for the sole reason of rendering themselves visible to themselves, when the rest of the world isn’t interested enough to pay any attention to them. And what such people typically have to present on their “blogs” is something banal, uninteresting, and trivial. The very intention behind this kind of presentation comes down to selfish egotism and navel-gazing that just adds to the noise of the already noise-filled Internet: I’m an [x,y,z thing-y], look at me, me, me! Little thought is given to the audience witnessing this travesty unfolding in all its abominable glory, to his or her needs, benefit or well-being, to artistic or intellectual merit, to noble aspirations or great ideas.
To Be Continued...
[A-Com./Manifestations: 1.04]
Kevin Gary: "a bored mind is primed to get distracted from distraction by distraction. It is looking to be distracted." Modern life is a sophisticated boredom-avoidance scheme (Walker Peirce) Guy Debord stated that "Boredom is counterrevolutionary." This can be understood in two ways: 1) if you aren't doing your job out of a genuine passion, you hold no true conviction, and thus you can't be truly a revolutionary, and 2) boredom leads you to distractions.
[A-Com./Manifestations: 1.03]
The Five Tests
by Mike Hockney
Are you about to make a big decision? How do you know it'Fs the right one? Here are the five tests:
1. The Eternal Recurrence Test - this thing you are about to do: if you had to watch yourself performing this action an infinite number of times, would you still go ahead? If so, do it. If not, don't.
2. The Movie of Your Life Test - this thing you are about to do: would you want it to be in the movie of your life, the screens that show you at your very best? If so, do it. If not, don't.
3. The Gravestone Test - this thing you are about to do: would you want it recorded on your gravestone after your death? If so, do it. If not, don't.
4. The Mirror Test - this thing you are about to do: will you be able to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards and feel proud of what you have done? If so, do it. If not, don't.
5. The Others Test - this thing you are about to do: will you be happy for others to know all about it? If so, do it. If not, don't.
If you obey these five tests, you will never perform any acts of which you are ashamed. You will never lie and cheat, you will never be a slave to others and you will never do anything unworthy. You will take pride in everything you do. You will be happy for others to know about your life. Your life will be the best it can be. It will be your personal masterpiece, sculpted by you to perfection.
In fact, there is really only omne test: Eternal Recurrence. Are you proud enough of the thing you are about to do to wish it to be repeated endlessly? If so, you will be delighted for it to be in the movie of your life, you will be proud to have it recorded on your gravestone, you will be thrilled to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards, and you will be eager for the whole world to know what you have done. You will have complete self-respect and you will command the respect of everyone who knows you. You will be a person who has lived life absolutely on your own terms.
Other tests - those of religion, the laws of your society, the expectations of family and friends - are irrelevant. The Last Judgement is not when God pronounces his sentence on you, it's when, at the last moment of your life, you pronounce judgement on yourself.
[A-Com./Manifestations: 1.02]
'Tis the season, and the time to get /comfy/, but not *too* comfy, because not everyone on Neocities are here to get comfy - some are here to fill a void, to try to alleviate a craving through consumption. Let us hold a moment of agonoize to address these creatures...
Escaping mundanity, is it? Coping with boredom, are we? You made a web page, but don't have any idea what you're going to do with it? Have you asked yourself "what should I write about?" or "what do I want to do with my site?" recently?
If so, then you are going about this the wrong way; Instead of making the point an excuse in order to have something to say, you ought to treat expression as an excuse for you having a point. Unless you don't have a point, what good can come out of anything that you're doing if the only justification you can think of is "well, I did it because I could do it"? You get a fuck and dump culture, empty signs, and virtual trash - trash so worthless that it amounts to less than anything you could find from your local flaming dumpster.
The point of the point is the point.
So, get to the point!
The Wired is a collection of worlds within a world - a massive accumulation of world-screens open to anyone willing to connect. By no more than three clicks you could momentarily enter another person's world, get to see what they get to see, experience, think and do. But how many of us can say that they do so while making the most of it? How much of it all is worth seeing, experiencing and thinking about?
Most of us, we, the hollow ones, consume things that are presented to us in third person, while doing so ourselves from the third person: it is not an "I" who goes through the thoughts, feelings, experiences and activities put on display, but an outsourced subject who does the thinking, feeling, experiencing and acting for us, which we then internalize and mistake to be our thoughts, feelings and experiences, like a phantom leech extracting the essence from the real in order to keep itself barely in existence.
This doesn't merely concern the receiving part of you who "does" the consuming. It can hardly be called an "I" who does the choosing and clicking either, for the process itself is nothing more than a combination of factors consisting, firstly, of our ANS's intentionality displacing effect as a response to a pre-conditioned, outwards-projected expectation of a dopamine surge according to a specific, constantly re-rehearsed, and looping schema, secondly, of our consciousness' complicity in this relinquishment, in its want to rid itself off of responsibility and, hence, of control, and to shift its role from driver to the role of passenger in his own vehicle, and thirdly, of the algorithm's inanimate, inflexible, and comprehension lacking makeup, that is based on a caricatural model of man and her apparent weaknesses, that resulted in the most efficient squandering and diminishing of her precious vitae.
Neocities ought to be more than this; a place of self-direction where you can open up yourself, dissect yourself, learn, grow and discover yourself either by taking yourself as your own subject of study or by being reflected through others back to you - a place where people don't have to know your name, sex, age, your occupation or what kind of fish you ate yesterday in order to get to know you, because nobody really cares. So, in this hallowed time all I ask of you is...
Less slacking and more slashing!
[A-Com./Manifestations: 1.01]
Hollow, Aimless, Inactive, Stricken, Tacky, Apathetic, Wilted, Isolated, Tedious, Trivial, Unsatisfied.
Too fucked up to even care anymore...
Cut the bullshit! Stop spreading the fault! And while you're at it, cut your umbilical cord, you don't have a need for it anymore.
In this regression you have to try to cut your break. Latch onto anything you can find.
When you've consumed enough clutter, you'll have to start slashing and cutting away the excessives. Open up everything you've gathered. Dissect and vivisect all you can get your hands on. Re-evaluate EVERYTHING!
"The fuck am I supposed to do?"
Do something, anything to get off your ass, for fuck's sake!
If you think that you've wasted your life up until this point, then observe what's left of you now. "This is me and this is the situation I am in right now", should be your mantra.
Let the sheer horror of passing time petrify you without distractions. No comfort. No caressing. No easy-going. No sympathetic ears.
Only horror.
