What's cooler than being cool? Ice Cold !

I kinda think I don't fit in, but I thnk it's more that I wished I didn't fit in at all. I don't like the trends, I don't like what's popular. I think nerds are the new or rather real cool. The people who everyone labels as weird or strange cause they're diferent. These are the popel with genuine passion, the ones who are actually unique. You have to build an identity for yourself by what drives you, inspires you and makes you passionate. You can't buy an identity, even if it seems that way. You can't just mix and match all the peices from different stores and craft your own identity. You can create the shell, the outward appearance of the identity you want to project but that's all it is. I can dress like a punk rocker but that won't make me one...it might fool you at first glance into labelling me as one but that's only because you assumed and I played along. What we consume and how is our little way of projecting our beliefs to the outside world. We are conditioned to make snap judgements, we assume a great deal about our lives. You can look through someones closet and at their books and cds and then make all the decisions you want about what kind of person they are. It's too bad you'll probobly end up being wrong.

I hate cool, as a word as a concept, as anything. Did you know that there are actual "coolhunters" people hired by the big brands to find and identify trend setters then use their new knowledge of cool to improve the brands selling power. Isn't cool supposed to be individual and unique? How is it cool to wear what everyone else is wearing, how is it cooler to have one logo over another?

Stop trying to be cool, cause trying automatically makes you un-cool.

I don't care for this careful behaviour

I feel numb. I feel detached.

What do you do when your caught in a middle...If you feel like a poser in a counterculture but feel alienated and left out in popular cuture? Which is better, to feel like a fraud or to feel left out. outside I'm adrift, ligering on the fringe; more of an observer than a participant. Sometimes, I walk around crowded places and watch. I put on my headphones and drift out looking at those around me trying to decipher what's going on. Everything is not as obvious as it appears to be. I let my mind wander and I argue with myself, I talk and think and ponder and wonder. I notice that people miss out on things around them. Wonderful, fantastic things. we keep our heads down and rush on through our own shit...appointments, deadlines, papers, jobs we never stop. Meals to go and cereal in bar form so you can cut down those precious few minutes in the morning betweeen rolling out of bed and making it ontime.

We take the same route to work and eat at the same restaurant. We buy the same stuff and fall into routines. I have a love hate relationship with my habbits. I am organized and centered with them but also become dependant on them. Things need to be in order, designed and appropriatley fitted into our lives. We can define ourselves by how and what we consume; that way we don't need to take the time to get to know each other. We meet and associate based on superficial things. We get to know "types" of people and choose which "types" we best match with. Then it's a simple matter of relating to one another through the things we like, not, what we ARE like. Sometimes it seems like the superficial stuff really does matter.

It doesn't. Or atleast it shouldn't.

Sometimes this keeps me up at night

Have you ever wondered about the downside to computers? Now I must first quickly say that I am aware of the fact that I am going to be expressing anti-computer sentiments while using a computer to publish them but please hear me out. Does anyone think it's a scary thought that maybe, just maybe we are on the verge of eliminating paper and ultimatly printed media? How common does it seem that most people read more off a computer screen than from an actual printed source on any given day. There won't be manuscripts of great books anymore cause most authors will, or posibly already do, type everything on a computer. There's no texture on a computer, no feel, no tangible qualities. The image is projected on the screen and the content is reduced to 1's and 0's. It doesn't have the charm of pen on paper, the clickity clackaty of the keyboard is no match for the rythmic scracth of the pen on paper. Let's not be so quick to switch our lives over to digital, let's enjoy some of the old fashioned ways to do things. There's a charm to a handwritten journal that the blog just doesn't offer. There's a unique apeal to a pile of paper notes over a computer file.

A little bit of house cleaning

Hello out there!

Now that I have a vague handle on this whole blogging process updates should come atleast semi-often (hopefully once a week, maybe even more often) as long as I have something worth bloggin about. Also please check out the sidebar if you are looking for interesting books or some good tunes to listen to. I will be periodically updating my picks of books and music and may even post a little info about everything that makes it into the sidebar. Please send me comments and feedback, if for no other reason to let me know that someone is actually reading this. If you don't want to post a comment on the blog or would rather reach me personally send any and all emails to attackrhinos@gmail.com I promise this blog has nowhere to go but up.

I think therefore I am, but I blog therefore I am digital

What follows within are nothing more than the passing thoughts of a rather intriguing student in a confusing time of self-doubt. Feel free to disregard any, or all, of the thoughts, musings and general wonderment but at least take the time to finish; if there is a single thing I wish I, and maybe you too, did more often was finish what we start. With that in mind I plan to finish at least this one thing.
I am trapped. Not by any physical force, nor any devised means. I have locked myself into an endless cycle of doubt and questioning. I have decided that to be authentic, to be original, creative, influential, and thoughtful and most importantly have meaning is something I may never achieve no matter how highly I value it. I am trapped in a crippling time of un-originality; an age where our lives are so drenched with media saturation and cross marketing that we have come to fear new and original ideas. How many of the last ten movies you saw in theatres were remakes, sequels, or prequels? When was the last time you listened to a band with a truly unique sound? When did you last see a creative NEW television show? Have you ever thought about why syndicated re-runs of TV shows play so well? We have become a society that fears anything new. This mind atrophy is killing me; we are living in an amazing time of technological advance, and social awareness and free flow of new ideas. The problem is that new ideas are scary; they might fail, they might offend people or (god forbid) they might change us for the better. So what de we do? We dull down our senses and our awareness, we look for the familiar and we don’t ask too many questions for fear of rocking the boat. Are we running out of ideas? I certainly hope not, because if we have exhausted all of the collective creativity of society and everything from here on out is going to be a repeat or a borrowed idea things are going to get VERY dull.
Please start to think critically about everything you see, hear and read. If you are unsatisfied with what you see around you voice your opinion. If you don’t know how, I suggest a blog, the Internet is the great leveler of publication; anyone with a phone line, modem and an email address can get a blog and a venue for their free expression of ideas. Who knows maybe we’ll come up with some original ideas, maybe we’ll fall into a cycle of imitation but at least we’re not just passive observers anymore. Use your voice, cause a commotion, you might even change minds or at the very least encourage some critical thought.