The Illusion of Originality

If you had asked me about this subject 5 years ago, I honestly would've believed that it would have become a non-subject by now. The fact that the present cultural zeitgeist and behaviors of my peers continue to perpetuate this silliness compels me to comment.

I'm sure that, at least by now, most people have met a pitchforker. The people who pride themselves on listening to unsigned bands, reading Pitchfork ("Indie" music mag), who pride themselves on knowing the band "before they were famous". These are the people who brag about their music collection either due to eclecticness or vastness. A behavior of which I am guilty, admittedly not out of a desire to brag, but rather, out of awe of my own compulsiveness in collecting music.

The problem is that people value what is rare, unknown, or seemingly original. The problem is that all of these are void issues. If something is unknown, it's probably for want of a combination of quality and promotion. I will admit that some quality bands can be fairly unknown, but I wouldn't say that that's the case when you isolate it down to the people who actually care about the band's genre of music. Example being that, if you start a truly excellent melodic death metal band, regardless of whether or not you are "famous", anyone who cares about the genre *will* find out about you one way or another.

As for what's rare, that's just economics and human nature. The desire to grasp for what one doesn't have just because one doesn't have it is something I don't particularly identify with and frankly it makes us little better than field mice.

Originality is one of the more interesting components of these behaviors. The problem is that originality doesn't really matter. Sometimes all the world really wants is a better mousetrap. Even if it doesn't, nothing is truly original under the sun. Everything is made up of the constituent parts of what came before. This applies to everything from technological innovation to musical genre busting. Even the most eclectic bands adhere to a particular aesthetic which could, at best, be described as a fusion of two or three genres/older bands.

Listening to a band no one you know has ever heard of doesn't make you special. If you're lucky, it means you spend a little too much time hunting for music. Like me. At worst, it makes you an arrogant poser who keeps spouting off about your stupid fucking music collection when in fact no one really cares and is tired of hearing it.

Shroud

My vision was alternating between pure darkness and brief glimpses through my slitted eyelids of the lights outside. The constant bumps and vibration only served to make my continuing consciousness a sure thing. My right leg was vibrating with an intense numbness that traveled through my leg and bled coldly into my lower thigh. I calmed my mind and focused on the numbness. It had to be from pinching some kind of nerve.

I knew that taking the bus on this trip wasn't going to be a luxury experience, but the little surprises were only bothering me because I couldn't seem to get any sleep.

I had a man sitting next to me who looked and smelled like bathing was something he regarded as something to be avoided at all costs. The lack of hygiene was compounded by his none too inconsiderable girth. There were two seats astride, I'd paid for one, and was getting and 1/3 of a seat for myself.

As we approached the layover stop, the bus driver made a note over the PA to leave something on your seat so that you may save your spot. I made certain not to leave a trace behind.

Despite it being 0128 on a Monday/Tuesday, the hustle and bustle in the Pittsburgh Greyhound station was more than I expected. I knew that it was a decent sized city, but I was still surprised at not only the quantity of people but also the din of activity. After spending an hour people-watching in the bus station, I reboarded the bus for Philadelphia. This time, I made a point of getting a window seat.

After the continual interruptions in my sisyphean attempts at sleep, I was starting to feel a bit unsettled and feral. Whereas on the bus I was feeling weary and vaguely homesick for a family that wasn't there, a city that I didn't have, and a home that didn't exist, arriving at the bus stop I was prepared to run screaming for the hills from all civilization just so that I could get some fucking sleep.

Shortly after I settled into a seat that didn't appear to be the one the man-oxen was aiming for, I had a new bus compatriot. This time, it was a grad student from Taiwan. His accent wasn't as bad as it could've been, but the noise of traveling in a large combustion powered vehicle down the highway made it an effort for me to listen to him. After exchanging some cultural commentary, I laid my head against the window and tried to go back to sleep.

Every time the bus jostled me while my head was rested against the window, it traveled like a wave from my feet to my head. I managed to use my hand as a shock absorber against the blessedly cold surface of the window. My eyes were finally staying shut of their own accord, rather than as an act of will on my part. The alternating lights and darkness of the highway were dancing across my eyelids like a dream machine. The experience itself was like being in major vein travelling somewhere important and each light flash was like an exiting capillary.

I dreamt then, dreamt of everything. My thoughts were half my intention, half where my mind wandered. I continued to be vaguely aware of the world around me, mostly through the light-dark-light-dark of the lit interstate I was on. My thoughts went to the color purple, they went to Sartre, they went to wherever they wanted. Eventually all I could think about was happiness and why I didn't have it.

Up to that point, my mind had been fairly quiet about the whole ordeal I was in. The living out of the car and being homeless, then losing the car, and now travelling to Philadelphia in the hopes of working out a new life. Now I was consumed with it. The grief of being stripped of what little I had in my life. The anger at the nepotism behind the false meritocracy of society. All of it made me angry now.

I closed my eyes tighter, took in a deep breath, and cleared my mind. Every time the light passed from my vision and faded into darkness, I held my breath and tried to freeze the moment in time. I was young, but that didn't mean that I had to be angry. I was homeless, but that didn't mean I had to be bitter. I merely had to discipline myself. After allowing several breaths in and about, I readjusted my satchel that was at my feet, propped my feet back up, and tried to go back to sleep.

I fell asleep with an empty and calm mind.

Explaining Myself

I've done a lot that could make people mistake me for some kind of western Buddhist. I let go of my possessions and attachments (what little there was of each to begin with), and hit the road to take time for myself. I even had someone suggest that I be a Buddhist monk the other day.

This is inaccurate, however, to characterize my actions as aligning me with a Buddhist outlook. I didn't reject possessions in their entirety, I appreciate the utility of a good tool, but rather I rejected the burden that meaningless possessions represented for me. I wanted to leave and everything I owned was holding me back. I did after all keep my laptop.

Rather than aligning myself with Buddhism at large, I see myself as being more epicurean than anything, although it might be said that I like finer foods than the actual Epicurus of Hellenic history. I like to live simply, but enjoy the things I do treasure. Good company, music, food, family these are all things I adore.

Buddhism rejects all attachments out-of-hand without really analyzing the risk/reward ratio involved in each. To my mind, the risk of the pain of having my laptop stolen is far outweighed by the utility it represents modulus efforts I take on my part to prevent theft. Buddhism rejects all pleasure and passion, where I embrace it tempered by a rational sense of proportion.

Passion is more or less the driving force in my life, whatever the objective may be. Without which, I would certainly not be the same person. Were it not for the desire to achieve nirvana, there would be little difference between the silence of death and the din of life in a perfectly buddhist life. I choose rather to embrace the outgrowth, noise, passion, and messiness of life wholeheartedly.

Rather than attempt to glide through life unscathed by the pains caused by attachments, passion, and simply caring, I want to be able to see scars. I want to be able to point to stories and see the storm and stress I endured. I want to be able to regale friends of old victories and funny anecdotes. I want to share my life with another person.

I just want to do it without being burdened like an ox with possessions for now.

I would make for a terrible buddhist.

Full Disclosure

I'm at, *checks wallet* $28 and change. I like to fly fast and low apparently.

Have some money rolling in from Ohio but not for a couple days. Taking it easy and probably getting some work done for the next couple days.

The humidity and heat here is distinctly unpleasant, practically puts you into a stupor the moment you have any beer. Nothing I'm not used to thanks to Ohio.

I've been listening to a lot of Autumn's Grey Solace lately. If you're in the mood for something pretty and chill, with tinges of the Cocteau twins, it's not a bad way to go. I find the music helps with writing as well as relaxes me.

Entertaining a lot of ideas lately with respect to work, not really all that certain how soon I want to be prepared to accept non-programming work.

I really dislike hot weather. Can't wait for it to start cooling down so that I can start thinking coherently again.

A post with a semblance of content to come when I'm in air conditioning.

First Arrival

Made it into Philadelphia at 8:41 am yesterday, pretty much hit the ground running as soon as Kacey picked me up in Chinatown. After dropping my stuff off at Kacey's apartment, we went out and I spent most of the day with either Kacey or Alex. Main priorities for today are to get some writing done and applying for work in the area.

I've been a bit distracted today so far but I hope to get some things done.

I have arrived in philly.

Principled Nihilism

A commonly parroted notion is that nihilists are by nature some kind of licentious monster or serial killer. Of course, I intend to contend with that assertion. While some people I've met over the years have at least had the sense to not outright accuse nihilists as collectively being evil or morally aimless, but they still were distinctly unsettled. Unsettled in such a manner that I couldn't help but feel like they had these visions of Dante-esque orgies (or worse) in their mind's eye whenever they dwelled on the nihilist-in-question's beliefs.

Nietzsche is sometimes mistaken for a nihilist, but his general thoughts concerning nihilism is that it was the next stage for human development yet something to work past. What Nietzsche really wanted was a completely post-human/ubermensch redux of philosophy that would somehow be pure/true due to its separation from human concerns / history / culture / beliefs / morals / ethics. While I don't share his infatuation with a "post-human philosophy", he was very good at slicing and dicing. Nietzsche's deconstructive/analytical abilities are frequently hailed as being some of the best in human history, and yet, the majority of intellectuals, philosophers, and auto-didacts don't seem to apply the tools and knowledge that he offered.

One thing in particular that I refuse to do is to separate my humanity from my philosophy. That's not to say that sentimentality will supersede rationality or truth, but rather that I recognize being human as a fact of my existence and that any philosophical/moral truth which ignores this fact is more or less irrelevant.

The looks I get from people who've known or spoken with me for some time, when I tell them I'm a nihilist are usually more surprised than from those who are perfect strangers. There's a very real cause and effect going on here. The people who've had the opportunity to interact with me assume for various reasons that I've got a very strong sense of value. This isn't necessarily a mistake, there are many things I hold dear.

What it is that makes me a nihilist, what distinguishes me from the average person, is that I separate absolute universal value from my personal valuations. Some would call that subjectivism as *opposed* to nihilism, but this is incorrect. I assert, as all nihilists do, that nothing *actually* has value.

That doesn't change the fact that I'm a human living a human life in a human society and that I intend to make the very best of it. To my mind, getting people to understand and respect nihilism as a legitimate moral/ethical outlook is every bit as an issue for me as it is to get the general public to respect atheism as a legitimate viewpoint.

Where Nietzche ties into this, is in how I texture and describe how I handle the cognitive dissonance of valuing things that I know to have no value. The best and most universal analogy that I can muster is also the simplest. Everyone (anecdotally speaking) has had some kind of stuffed animal/thing that they clung to as an infant. In my case, it was Snuggles the bear (yes, the fabric softener).

To most people, in particular people not of my generation, Snuggles the Bear holds no meaning nor value for them. Just a corporate mascot. For myself and anyone else who had a parallel experience in their childhood, Snuggles is a source of a nostalgic smile and a reminder of a distant childhood.

The difference, is aesthetic. Value is aesthetic. Fashion is about what we value in adornments and clothing, which is aesthetic. Music is about what we aesthetically value in the chords and notes of musical compilations. Aesthetic is value, value is aesthetic. The human experience forms the basis of our aesthetic which forms the basis of what we value.

Contrary to what some say, this doesn't diminish values or morals at all. Quite the opposite. Instead of values and morals being some universal absolute carved-in-stone rules with no relevance to the present human experience, you develop an outlook on life that draws from and feeds into your memories, happy, sad, fearful, and angry alike.

Instead of the path we take in life being based on abstractions from on high with no concern for human worries, human passion or desire, or human circumstances, what we value can be based on matters of personal taste and integrity. For me, being a nihilist is about being human and embracing being human. It's about embracing the life that has formed my mind thus far.