30.08.10
Posted in
General
| 11:55
It really astounds me that in situations most dire, there are still
those who seek to suck up every jucy detail as if the world would not go
on without their involvment and knowledge thereof. These drama hungry
leeches feed upon the suffering of people that, any day of the
week/month/year/decade, would tell others they were friends. Yet it all
comes down to the basic conidition of humanity. We are social animals,
yes. But, more so, we are animals that define ourselves against others.
The more we know of others the more we can construct ourselves in a way
that benefits ourselves only. We are selfish creatures bent on a
hedonistic telos- however derived.
Some of these
derivations are sick and twisted. One only has to cast thoughts to
various fetishes people may hold- as seen on T.V.- yet the most
disgusting and twisted of all is the fetish held in nigh unaminity by
the bulk of the human race and is therefore disregarded as anything but a fetish due to
goodness as dictated by democracy. You know what I talk of, you all do-
try not to deny it in any shape of form for you will only make liars of
yourselves. You feed, you leech, you seek cathartic release from the
emitted emotions of others. Of the circumstances that you would never
place yourself in yet very well may be in. Unbeknowst to you all, there
are greater powers at work. Powers that would have you hanging by your
laurels for all to see. Yet you won't be alone in your suffering, many
thousands, millions, billions will hang besides you regretting the day
they relished the very suffering they now endure.
All this is mediated and screened and you consume it as it dished up for you and presented nicely on a platter. A mixed platter of sufferings, each morsel delicious and delictable. Yet you are not only consumers but servers. You relay and serve suffering for others to feed on in a most disgusting manner. Gorging themselves on the very essence of humanity and what is it to be humane and devilish at the same time. People, you people, all people are canibals in this manner. Devouring one another only to be devoured when your time comes. And your time will come, oh yes it will. You will be devoured and processed and then left in a heap of stinking excrement. But you will heal and grow and become tall again and ready for the next season's harvest and cycle of dionysian hedonism.
"No!"
You cry, "We don't do that, we don't intend that! We only seek knowledge
to better tread the unknown future!" Fools and begotten rats. You fool
yourselfs amongst the great construct of human life, believing that you
are only doing what is right. What is right? What is good? Only what the
masses think. And what are a few individuals to a mass of millions? The
masses decide its right- democractic good indeed. The masses decide
that the few must suffer even more to feed the millions. Is this right?
Is this utilitarianism at work? Is this the telos of humanity? A murky
sense of a self-serving greater good?
Where does that
leave you? Not alone. Oh no, never alone. You are not alone. You are one
of many. A cog in the great construct of the human condition. A
condition most vile and evil indeed. You have no minds, you have no
thoughts. You simply process input/output as a hedonism generating
machine. Hedonism derived however.
But what is the point
of this? Is there a point? No, there is no point, this is merely
venting. Smoke being blown at a mechanical machine. Nothing will deter
you from your work. Not even this.
Permalink
13.07.10
Posted in
General
| 01:20
It has come to my attention that the UCT blogosphere is rather dull. Is it due to a lack of sQ? Vicki? Or the mere fact that student blogs and staff blogs are segregated to their own corners of the known world. Coupled with the fact that uct students just dont care about blogs while the staff is bored enough to care. They are far too busy busying themselves to open up a blog and read. Do they even know the blog site exists?
Nay, it may even extend beyond this reasonable explanation. A quick google search on the word "blog" reveals not invididual blogs but commercial sites that host blogs and even pay bloggers if they become popular enough. As far as I'm concerned, I have little motivation to write without people to provoke. I yearn for the good ol' days of flame wars and stupid first years to poke.
Perhaps some change is required. Perhaps a friendly message to our friendly neighbhorhood blog overseer.
Permalink
15.06.10
Posted in
General
| 02:52
It's 2:54 AM and i'm bored. What better motivation is there to dust off a blog that has been inactive for over 2 years? What ever shall be my revival blog post that no-one will read in the middle of winter vac and, more distractingly, the world cup. It does not matter that no-one will read it. Perhaps my reason for posting again is a different answer to a question I asked myself 2 years ago. Simply the question was: Do I really want to invest myself in a blog where I care what people think about me?
The answer back then was no. For I did care what people thought of me. Very much so. To the point that I got fustrated that my blog posts that I put some thought into were being passed over in a tidal wave of spam, and so I lashed out and caused a commotion in the blogosphere of UCT. However, now, the answer is different for I don't particulary care about what people think about me. It's been a gradual change over the last 2 or 3 years, fermenting into who I am today. I find myself a quitely confident person who has affirmed a more certain sense of self.
I have grown enough to look back on past blog posts and think myself an ignorant fool for making radical claims and commenting on things I don't know nearly enough about. So here I am, making blog posts that are no longer born from a desire to be recognised nor from a need to be heard. Simply I post to get thoughts out of my head and formulated into something intelligible. I started writing this very peice with a vague feeling I wanted to express, a feeling of restlessness; Of wanting to do something tangible and not simply entertain myself in my head.
Now here I sit, typing, 2 years older. I'm smarter now, i'm more mature and i've experienced things that have taught me difficult lessons. The lesson i'm learning now is that not caring isn't all it's cracked up to be.
- Consider it
Permalink
18.03.09
Posted in
General
| 01:46
There was no need to wake me up random Jock in the street, I saw it hours ago. You only noticed now?
Permalink
02.03.09
Posted in
General
| 21:54
*Hi, how are you?
^I'm good thanks and yourself?
* I'm fine, how are things goin?
^ Oh you know, as usual, not much going on. Things for you ok?
and so it goes on.
Small
talk, possibly the most boring activity on earth, yet millions partake
in it everyday beyond reason. Sure it's handy for the first 5 seconds
of a conversation, but after that I don't give a damn about how your
day was or how your lectures are doing. Talk to me about something
interesting.
More than once I've found myself cornered by your
average person who seems to delight in how you mothers brothers second
aunt is doing at activity X, Y or Z. More than once I've found myself
forcing my way out of small talk by bringing something else up that is
far more interesting. As so:
*Hi, how you doing?
^ I'm good and you?
* I'm doing great, so hows-
^ Hey! I have this theory about X, Y and Z, lets talk about it.
Often
a person will deflect the topic with a shrug or seem to have no opinion
at all and try to get back to the small talk. Failing that they will
have a sudden need to go to the bathroom and you never see them again
for the duration of the day.
So this got me thinking, why do
people refuse to have interesting conversations, why do they insist on
sustaining small talk and gossip for hours on end. I suppose the real
question is: Why do people refuse to think?
It has been suggested
that thinking is hard and so people don't want to partake in it. That's
a depressing notion. Thinking isn't hard, having opinion isn't hard.
But then I suppose that having your own opinion is very hard. How many
people express their opinions they believe to be their own and suddenly
you find the same opinion written down in a text book somewhere. As
Edison puts it "Our greatest need is to teach people how to think -- not what, but HOW."
Now
i'm in danger of being hypocritical here, saying what my opinion is on
this matter while quoting Edison to 'support' my opinion. But that's
the fine line we tread while thinking about things. How are we to
determine what our actual opinion is and what we think our opinion is?
Many people fall in line with societal values by falling into this trap
of thinking you actually have an opinion. How many first year students
hang out at Tin Roof because it's what they think they want, as opposed
to what they actually want. I doubt that many do actually like Tin
Roof, however their peers tell them its great and so they make it great
within their own minds, and so repeats the endless destructive cycle.
When
I was first year I had a lot of time on my hands, I ended up going to
other peoples lectures just for fun. Let me tell you this, a humanities
student pretending to be a commerce student is far too easy. So there I
was, attending a buiness law lecture, I turn to the girl on my right
and say to her "Hey! How you finding the course so far?" She replies,
"Oh it's fine, the maths is a bit too easy though." I reply, "Oh
really? That's strange, I actually found it to be a little difficult."
(Here's the important part, changes pace completely) "Oh thank
goodness! Someone else who actually admits the maths is hard too, ja It
it hard too." That is truly fascinating, a girl who insisted the maths
was easy and would swear that to all her friends and peers, but as soon
as someone came along claiming the maths to be hard she decides she can
roll with that. Why? Societal pressures, she wants to fit in with
others, fit in with everyone even if it means adopting the other
persons point of view for the sake of getting along. It's stupid.
It might amuse you to finish the story, my friend who was seated to my
left took that oportune moment to lean over and say to the girl "He's a
Humanities student." The girl blushed and was embarassed that she had
been tricked into saying that she found the maths hard.
Oh all
the societal trauma she could of avoided if she had simply had a
thought of her own instead of spouting out the general trend like an
archaic kettle on the boil.
So whats the moral of the story kids?
Think
your own thoughts, stick to your own opinions. Don't adopt anothers
persons line of thought just because more people will like you for it.
P.S. Enough of the small talk, engage people with more
stimulating topics of conversation than what you did over the summer
break.
P.P.S Someone proof-read this for me, I'm tired.
Permalink
09.09.08
Posted in
General
| 11:24
A little treat to those behind the violent video game studies.
I am a Gamer. I enjoy playing computer/xbox/wii, w/e console or platform that atrracts my interests. I play all sorts of games, MMORPG's, FPS, RTS, Action RPG and even Guitar hero. Personally I find the premise 'violent video games makes you angry/angsty/aggresive' to be ridiculous, people are angry/angsty/agrressive before they start playing games. This premise is almost as ridiculous as blaming Slipknot for a kid dressing up as a ninja and killing other kids.
I can say this with a greater sense of authority than that of any accomplished pyschologists for the simple reason that I interact in this gaming world in much greater detail than any pyschologist ever will (or that i've ever herd of). Although I am very outspoken on blogs and through writing, when it comes to interacting socially with people i'm generally very laid back and passive, aggression isn't part of my nature at all yet I am a prime example of a gamer, and trust me - i play alot of violent games without any negative effects on my personality.
Indeed many games encourage the player to think outside the box; to try find ways past obstacles and often one has to devise strategies to defeat certain in game boss-characters and such. There have been studies into gaming and its effect on ones IQ, the verdict being that gaming may well increase a persons IQ.
There's also a whole social world to discover, especialy in MMO's (Massive Multiplayer Online games). People interact with eachother and become friends while playing the game together and if geography allows, they often meet eachother outside of the game face to face to hang out and do other stuff aside from gaming. Gaming is a very strong force in the world, its growing and it is a positive force at that.
But to address the apparent corrolations between aggressive behaviour and gaming, its true that some gamers subscribe to this attitude and various personality disorders but I strongly doubt gaming is the source of it. True it may make the problem worse, however gaming can be seen as an escape. When people are angsty and pissed off with the world they look for escapes, be it drugs, smoking, alcohol, poetry, gaming etc etc. Gaming is just one of those modes of escape. Basically people are screwed up to begin with for whatever reason, broken homes, chilhood trauma etc etc, they existed before gaming came along.
As Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor said in response to the blame for the ninja kid killings "At
the end of the day, there are always going to be mental disorders and
people who cause violence for no other reason than the fact that
they're fucked up and lost."
Don't blame us, blame yourselves.
Permalink
15.08.08
Posted in
General
| 12:51
How shocking and disturbing do we really find pain and suffering? Not our own but that of others. Are we empathetic towards their pain? Do we feel sickened/nauseated when we see their pain?
To an increasingly disturbing extent... we don't.
The first war to be televised was the vietnam war. Ever since, large scale massacres and bloody battles have been filmed as they happened (as opposed to only seeing the aftermath which was much the case pre-vietnam), and these accounts of war have been introduced to our never ending stream of etertainment fed to us through a television screan.
Back in the 'old days' news analysts used the 'breakfast test' to deem a topic newsworthy or not. If you were too shocked/sickened after reading the headlines to eat your breakfast then the headline was newsworthy. That test is no longer applicable. As a society we have become far too disentisised, taking in the news of the bloated bodies of the tsunami victims and the storyline of saw 4 in the same stride. Following the war in Iraq while watching soldiers getting their limbs blown off in The thin red line (which was a boring movie btw, as far as war movies go).
Hollywood blockbusters, in fact, have steam rolled our sense of empathy when dealing with the pain of others. It has even altered our way of thinking about events. 9/11 survivors described their experience in the buring towers as 'unreal', 'surreal' and, most disturbingly, 'like a movie' (and then the movie World Trade Center was made). How much have the lines between reality and fiction been blurred as the result of movies and the news media? Too much.
Having this knowledge might lead one to think that they are not sucseptable to being disentisised - alas, we are all victims. Going through some media readings that were written a good few years ago, I read about two photos that existed that are supposedly disturbing as they capture the moment of death or killing blow of a person in various wars. I went and found these pictures and too my utter shock and horror, I did not find them shocking or horrible. Here we have spanish civil war soldier who was just shot and is in the process of collapsing to the ground, dead.
Do you find it particulary shocking as opposed to what we see on the news today and in movies? After staring at for a few minutes and came up with the absurd idea that he could be doing a funny dance.
And here we have Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong suspect in a street in Saigon.
The trigger has been pulled, the bullet has just entered the mans head. What do we see? The impassive face of the Brigadier General, a South Vietmanese soldier on the left with a funny smile and the victim making a ridiculous face - one would imagine your inevitable death face to be slighty more dignified. This is how disentisised we have become as a society.
The pain and suffering of others is merely a living room past time.
Permalink
11.08.08
Posted in
General
| 14:41
Militate - to greatly influence or affect.
Who really uses such a word? Aside from a bored blogger.
Some people have undying aspirations to militate the world; to change the world. Others just want to get by unscathed. Some want to start wars, others want to live in relative peace.
But people who just want peace seem to be very bored with life, or are very simple people with few needs. But then you get people who strive for peace, working against the supposed evil in the world to create peace. Even if such a dream is achieved and world peace is realized. What then? What if, in addition to peace, we lived in a perfect little world. What would our terrorists/freedom fighters/peace keepers do then? Nay, I say unto thee - the freedom fighters may win only to become the new terrorists. Trading one evil master for another - so to speak.
This is how the world is. There is no distinctive good and evil - only different sides, and the one who dominates the hegemonic view will rule the world for the time being. One only wonders how long it will take for the world view to change to something that we consider, today, as evil. Or indeed something we consider as good or socially acceptable may change to evil.
My bet is on 21/12/12.
Permalink
11.08.08
Posted in
General
| 11:21
This won't matter for most of you, but to some it is relevant and it may become relevant to more.
It seems that some people have found time to eavesdrop on my coversations; to spy on me in the computer room as I write a post or respond to a comment. After revealing my identy to a mutual friend I was informed that some people had been fairly aware about it. But yes - to say it with my own words - I am Varsity Kid.
Yet I find it odd that said people did not treat Varsity Kid as Greg, if they did in fact know, and I find it odd that my identity was not revealed. Maybe someone saw what happened to said mutual friend in the past and decided not to reveal my identity, or maybe someone was persuaded not to. Or maybe someone was enjoying knowing who I was when I thought they did not.
It matters not.
What does matter is why I created Varsity Kid. In order to tell that story I have to dig up the past. So only some of you will know or care.
Varsity Kid is the persona I want to blog as (writing style not name) and the persona I was blogging as pre-spam saga. I wrote a post complaining about the first years with new blogs spamming example posts and how to get to google. This sparked a flame war of sorts on the blogserver and my persona was forever viewed as this vindictive person who cannot possibly be constructive and so my blog posts turned into a constant defense against angry bloggers. I no longer had time to post what I wanted to talk about without the flame war being reignited.
So Varsity Kid was created at the begining of the new term so I could get back to what I wanted to blog about without a flame being ignited so that I could actually get an intelligable debate out of people.
That is why Varsity Kid was created, not to try and decieve people but to get some kind of interesting/constructive debate generated on the blog servers by my own hand.
But now I see no reason to remain as varsity kid as the people who know are the only people who needed to be decieved in order for the war to remain in the past.
In other news: welcome to the new bloggers from 1012S - your example posts are extremely annoying and I hope you all grow out of it soon.
- Varsity Greg
Permalink
05.08.08
Posted in
General
| 21:11
"No one undestands" Said the Emo Kid
"What a Freak" Said the Jock
"What a waste" said the Hippy
"What a poser" said the Rocker
"What a druggy" said the Indie Kid
"What arrogance" said the acadmic.
"What a no-lifer" said the Emo kid.
We live in Boxes. But the boxes arn't as small as or as exclusive as we percieve them to be.
"No one understands" said the Emo Kid
"I want to understand" said the Indie Kid
"I could try" said the Hippy
"Maybe I could" said the Rocker
"If I could be like that" said the Academic
"I want to be like that" said the Jock.
"I wish I was like that" said the Emo Kid.
"We can all be that" said the Varsity Kid
Permalink
01.08.08
Posted in
General
| 21:33
*Disclaimer*
Varsity Kid in no way condones hate against religious persons nor does he look down about those with faith. On the contrary- he salutes those brave enough to follow an invisible path, but also points out it can be potentially dangerous if nto thought about carefully.
Well, I got started thinking about religion.
The Church (amongst other religious entities) has a very important role in todays society. It provides hope to the hopeless, light to the blind and morals for the simpletons. This is The Churches function. But, this being a chronicle blog, i'll tell things as they are in the order they should go in (IMO).
Birth
If you are lucky, you are born into religion. If you aren't, its not so bad - you're born into a religious society. You eventually get baptised, you go to sunday school and the like- learning basic morals, you're parents tell you about jesus and god and all is right in your world.
Teens
You test the limits of your basic morals, waiting for the almighty to smite you. You drink some alcohol, you might take a drug or two, or three, or 10. You hit 16... You wonder if there really is a God and question the teachings of the church. You don't know whether you should believe or not incase there really is a hell to burn in. You wonder if God will punish you for being inquistive- the way he created you. Your world is shaken.
18
You drink legally, you might drive. You have more responsibilities in the world. You probably engage in pre-marital sex. You go to university. You learn a lot. You're logical thought process expands. You look to the sky and you ask in your mind the single most important question in your life...
"Can you believe in God but not in the church?"
Yes, you can.
The Church taught you well. Ultimately you still believe in God, Alah, or whatever you might call him. But when your learned mind conflicts with the teachings of the church... you have to choose between the church and your mind to settle the conflict.
I chose my mind.
Permalink
31.07.08
Posted in
General
| 10:03
During a frightfully uneventful 9 am lecture I found ample time to actually read The Varsity. After reading the important articles (Diablo 3, Xbox 360 and Mozilla Firefox), I found myself with 20 more minutes of lecture time to waste - so I read the opinion section.
Never in my lecture time did I think I would stumble across a childish squabble in the form of UCT political 'leaders' Tende "Cheap Skate" Makofune and Chris "Bishops Boy" Ryall. I doubt any of you have read the two articles I refer to, so I have conveniently summarised both.
SASCO Article:
"Vote for us and we will get you cheaper text books, maybe. Btw - DASO likes to give us da Bee Jayz"
DASO Article:
"Vote for us 'coz we aren't SASCO, maybe. Btw - SASCO enjoys Bee Jayz from the same gender."
Now I'm not a politically inclined kind of person, but after reading this BS (not-surprisingly found in The Varsity) I felt so inclined to talk about it. After a few discussions with people in the 5 or so minutes it took to leave the overcrowded lecture venue about what is happening between SASCO and DASO I came to this conclusion.
SASCO and DASO are twin brothers with multi-racial parents. However they aren't identical twins, DASO is coloured chinese white and SASCO is black. Obviously this caused trauma for the multi-racial family during the rule of the school yard bully "Apartheid". So know there is a giant schism between the two as the cunning school yard bully effectively pitted them against each other and even after the school yard bully's downfall they are still at each others throats.
But after school ended nothing good was install for the two brothers. Nay, Instead of going to world class universities to learn how to make the future a brighter place - they formed street gangs. SASCO recruiting from wealthy-enough black families, promising the blood of non-SASCO persons and cheaper books for the universities they don't attend.
DASO, on the other hand, recruiting from excessively wealthy coloured chinese white families promising to not-be like his brother SASCO and to deliver a non-racial base for the university they don't attend.
But in the end, all that is achieved is meaningless street fights between the two where nothing really happens. There is no bright future for the two brothers. One will eventually kill the other and become the new school yard bully.
How terribly ashamed their multi-racial parents must be.
Permalink
29.07.08
Posted in
General
| 15:09
Gay Parades.
W T F.
You get gays and then you get gays. The former being the kind that wouldn't attend a gay parade. Yet you see these gay parades on the TV or hear about them or watch Borat. There you witness the latter...
Gay Parade attendees seem to me like nothing more than people with unhealthy sex addictions - so much so that they would happily parade around naked or semi naked or even engage in sexual relations with the same gender without any inclination towards the same sex, the only true motivator being the satisfy their sexual desire.
I may very well be wrong and I invite gay persons to show me the error of my ways to put my mind at ease, but all you hear through various sources about homosexual life is half-naked parades and strange and often disturbing fetishes (a hamster is a living creature too, it has no place in your anus!)
I'm not saying strange fetishes don't exist in hetreosexual sex (and I condem some of those fetishes too) but homosexual fetishes seem to be more extravagant, greater in number and akin to sadist pleasure - I mean come on! A hamster!?
*Varsity Kid is no way homophobic nor does he condone hate against homosexuals, only that he questions some of the practices of homosexuals - in fact to use the old alibi, he even has homosexual and bisexual friends*
*Warning: Interesting Gay Fun Pleasurable Disturbing Picture Below*
Permalink
28.07.08
Posted in
General
| 11:44
I liked it.
I especially liked Heath Ledgers preformance considering that he is dead.
./discuss
Permalink
23.07.08
Posted in
General
| 08:42
Pain is quite a humbling thing really.
Not the pain you feel when someone hits you on the shoulder, nor the pain when you trip and fall.
no no, I'm talking about pain when you break a bone that becomes exposed, crack a knee-cap, suffer a deep wound.
Pain that encompasses your mind and soul - the only thing that keeps you sane between adrenalin and morphine is will power. The longer you last - the stronger you are. It is therefore my honest opinion that ambulances are not life saving devices in the mother city. No, they are tests of will power. Quite recently a student suffered an injury a kin to the pain described above. Some people rushed to his aid, CPS was on their way with their world class level 3 first aid training.
I later herd that the ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive at UCT to assist the student and who knows how much longer it took them to get to the hospital and administer the pain killers.
Aside from the point that UCT should probably have an ambulance on campus, pain is the subject matter here.
Although my worst injury is a broken toe (not that painful), I have seen others injuries, I have seen the most arrogant of people who have suffered pain and come out of it for the best (personality wise). I suppose it makes sense though - said arrogant person breaks a bone, experiences real pain, realizes that their are more painful things in the world than having to admit that they're wrong.
So the cure to arrogance? Pain. But... I suppose if the person is arrogant enough the pain will feed their arrogance "I know what real pain is!" I can see arrogance saying.
Well, depends on the person.
Permalink
