Continuing on from the Horizon doc I should say, and I think it is one of the most important points from that unusual episode, is that you shouldn’t just believe what you read on the internet. I like to think I am unbiased and can see both points of view, but I am recovering from mental health issues, that said being crazy does not make me stupid. People need to see more unbiased information and they don’t get it that often, taking that Horizon episode further, it was on an hour, 45 minutes of that hour was spent talking about climate science, the main cause for sceptical concern in the UK. The last 15 minutes discussed scepticism regarding AIDS and whether we should use genetically modified food. Well what was this trying to say, that they are the same, or is it trying to get the majority of the public to shy away from being sceptical, by showing plausible scepticism with something that isn’t as plausible. They used to put climate sceptics with the evolution deniers and moon landing deniers, but that just doesn’t cut it anymore because they are not the same at all.
It is something to think about when weighing up the arguments for and against, something like the legitimacy of information you receive via documentaries. Things that spring to mind are the fact it is the coldest summer on record in Australia, a country according to the climate models that should be getting far warmer, it is the coldest winter on record in Europe; this was not part of the climate models that caused so much exaggeration in the early 00’s. Snow was meant to be a thing of the past here in Britain, based on the efforts of our friends at the CRU, and glaciers were meant to disappear in the Himalayas, all prophesised by extremely expensive climate models. These sorts of things are not mentioned in the Horizon doc, all it really wanted to say is, are you a little naive like the guy who believes AIDS does not come from contracting the virus HIV.
The world, our wonderful Planet Earth is a special place, and I don’t want to see it polluted and destroyed by humans. I want to see the end of the need for fossil fuels, and the eventual introduction of free, reusable, none polluting, energy sources. But to get to that point, we have to progress forward in finding better solutions, and we need to realise that it is the extreme desire for profit and greed, which I have mentioned millions of times before, which is the major cause of the strife of this planet.
So they can produce all the documentaries they want showing their unwavering bias towards one thing or the other, but when you get down to brass tacks, people really don’t want to hear it. They just want a better life, a better existence, they want to be happy and fulfilled, they want to enjoy the short time they have alive on this world. Is that too much to ask for, yet a few people who enjoy this more than everyone else; they don’t want this, they want you to be miserable, unhappy, full of debt, and under their total control. Until this attitude changes, we will continue arguing the toss about one thing or the other for all eternity.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
The Oscars are like watching an each-way bet on a long shot
I have just read an interesting article about Oscar nominations and whether the best picture actually wins. Well as we all know this does not happen very often and it got me thinking why do I like to watch the Oscars? I think it is because to me it’s like betting each-way on an outside horse, you know your horse probably will not win, but you get the thrill of watching anyway. That is how I feel about the Oscars, I never watch them live, I record it and watch the next day then I can fast forward past all the mushy crap and get to the bits I want to see.
Back to the Oscars and this year’s nominations, the article I was reading was saying how often does the best film win, and they used something called Metacritic to analyse all reviews on the internet, to gain an aggregate score. I’ve added the link to it below.
http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/988675/The-Oscars---do-the-best-pictures-win.html
In summary though, basically it says that it does not happen very often; only 6 times in the last 18 years, has the best film (or best aggregate score) won, which is not very good. Then I thought some more, because if you look at the films nominated this year, as seen below, the highest is The Social Network and the lowest is Inception, which to me shows a lack of faith in the audience. In fact of all the films on the list, the ones I regard as the best, only Toy Story 3 scores highly (which shows how little I know), the others Inception was bottom, Black Swan and True Grit did not do much better.
I think the biggest thing it shows, is the diversity in people’s appreciation of films and how different they are, and also the massive gap between what a film critic thinks, and what the audience (the films are basically supposed to attract) thinks.
Finally in one of the comments someone added this link below it is an excellent article about why Oscars don’t necessarily award the best actors, actresses, or films.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18460_5-reasons-oscars-matter-even-less-than-you-thought.html
Back to the Oscars and this year’s nominations, the article I was reading was saying how often does the best film win, and they used something called Metacritic to analyse all reviews on the internet, to gain an aggregate score. I’ve added the link to it below.
http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/988675/The-Oscars---do-the-best-pictures-win.html
In summary though, basically it says that it does not happen very often; only 6 times in the last 18 years, has the best film (or best aggregate score) won, which is not very good. Then I thought some more, because if you look at the films nominated this year, as seen below, the highest is The Social Network and the lowest is Inception, which to me shows a lack of faith in the audience. In fact of all the films on the list, the ones I regard as the best, only Toy Story 3 scores highly (which shows how little I know), the others Inception was bottom, Black Swan and True Grit did not do much better.
I think the biggest thing it shows, is the diversity in people’s appreciation of films and how different they are, and also the massive gap between what a film critic thinks, and what the audience (the films are basically supposed to attract) thinks.
Finally in one of the comments someone added this link below it is an excellent article about why Oscars don’t necessarily award the best actors, actresses, or films.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18460_5-reasons-oscars-matter-even-less-than-you-thought.html
Making good decisions, is incredibly hard
I think I need to be a bit more proactive with my life; I seem to let it pass me by without trying as hard as I should. At least I feel that way; do I try hard enough, can I try harder? I suppose you can always try harder, but what I feel I need to do better, is trying harder at the right parts of my life. It is no use trying harder at something that has little to no benefit to my life. I know what I need to try harder at, and that is making better decisions, as I feel I make some bad ones at times; I say things I don’t really mean and I never understand why I do this. I convince myself afterwards I am in some way either testing myself or the person I am saying it to. As if to see how loyal a friend are you? Or do I really want to be doing this? Or is this really the right path to take? Why should that be necessary?
I make irrational choices, lots of them and I have made them all my life. It’s as if I know the right decision to make is A, but since it is so obvious, I will not make that choice; I will make choice Z instead. This leads to confusion, as eventually there comes a time when you need to know with certainty that picking choice A is the right decision and since I have made so many false choices through sheer bloody mindedness, I allow myself to become less certain and more confused. I then find myself in a position of disadvantage, the laws of averages have been reduced and are now not in my favour to make the right decision, and because of this I tend to make the wrong one, more often than not. Stupid really, isn’t it?
So how to change it, well this has to be the hardest thing about my mental illness to change, because I am at a stage in my life where bad decisions will have far greater damage to my life, far more than when I was younger. When you are young you can shrug off any obstacle, and carry on regardless, it becomes more difficult to do this when you enter the terrible forties.
Can I change it? I don’t know, I hope I can, I feel I am starting to make better decisions, though I am still making the wrong ones. Maybe I need to not punish myself so much for making them. Luckily for me, I have an unusual optimistic streak that runs through me and has run through me all my life, it has caused issues most of my life, since I can be too optimistic at times. It is different to being positive or negative, as that is a more of a short term perspective to me; optimism is a long term view point. Looking at my life as a whole and saying I will succeed, I will get out of this mess and find the peace and happiness, the freedom and level of success I feel I can achieve. I have this inner belief I will do it, and this keeps me alive, I know deep down that I am starting to make more good decisions, and less bad ones, which I will take as a positive.
So to sum it all up, I love writing my blog, because it is helping me to rationalise my situation better, it is hopefully improving my writing skills in many facets of writing. It must be quite weird for anyone who reads it to see, I post about tennis, then cricket, then films, then my mental health, then a blast about society or politics and then of course my philosophical views on the Universe; haha what a strange weirdo, but so, that is me, oh and I cannot believe I forgot this, my fictional writing.
I make irrational choices, lots of them and I have made them all my life. It’s as if I know the right decision to make is A, but since it is so obvious, I will not make that choice; I will make choice Z instead. This leads to confusion, as eventually there comes a time when you need to know with certainty that picking choice A is the right decision and since I have made so many false choices through sheer bloody mindedness, I allow myself to become less certain and more confused. I then find myself in a position of disadvantage, the laws of averages have been reduced and are now not in my favour to make the right decision, and because of this I tend to make the wrong one, more often than not. Stupid really, isn’t it?
So how to change it, well this has to be the hardest thing about my mental illness to change, because I am at a stage in my life where bad decisions will have far greater damage to my life, far more than when I was younger. When you are young you can shrug off any obstacle, and carry on regardless, it becomes more difficult to do this when you enter the terrible forties.
Can I change it? I don’t know, I hope I can, I feel I am starting to make better decisions, though I am still making the wrong ones. Maybe I need to not punish myself so much for making them. Luckily for me, I have an unusual optimistic streak that runs through me and has run through me all my life, it has caused issues most of my life, since I can be too optimistic at times. It is different to being positive or negative, as that is a more of a short term perspective to me; optimism is a long term view point. Looking at my life as a whole and saying I will succeed, I will get out of this mess and find the peace and happiness, the freedom and level of success I feel I can achieve. I have this inner belief I will do it, and this keeps me alive, I know deep down that I am starting to make more good decisions, and less bad ones, which I will take as a positive.
So to sum it all up, I love writing my blog, because it is helping me to rationalise my situation better, it is hopefully improving my writing skills in many facets of writing. It must be quite weird for anyone who reads it to see, I post about tennis, then cricket, then films, then my mental health, then a blast about society or politics and then of course my philosophical views on the Universe; haha what a strange weirdo, but so, that is me, oh and I cannot believe I forgot this, my fictional writing.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Alive and Free
Wow we are nearly into February of another year; I notice I have not written much about ‘My Universe’ recently. I am not sure why, not sure what changed in me to stop, I feel more relaxed at the moment. Then again as long as work don’t contact me, my stress levels stay down, they have a strange affect on me now I think about it. A friend of mind asked if I would speak to another friend who is connected with my old work, I became very flustered and anxious, I told him I could not speak to that person, because of their association with my old hell hole. He was surprised but he doesn’t understand, they basically abandoned me, left me for dead so to speak. It is a bit like that bit in ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’, when Blonde leaves Tuco in the desert to die, without any remorse I was forgotten about, after so many years service. So you could say I despise my old work place, I hate everything associated with it, and I will never be well until I am free of that company. This causes me a massive problem, because I cannot be rid of them whilst I am ill, so I am stuck in a Catch 22 situation. And I have to deal with that, it crosses my mind sometimes, but I am like a snake, I can easily shed my skin and replace it with a new one. It does not bother me as much as it did, as I realise people have lives to lead and they are very busy and who wants to take the time to deal with a mentally ill person who is causing distress, as well as being a pain in the arse. No one actually does, well that is not quite true, there are some people who have been brilliant, they have been patient with me and not told me to get lost. Many times they could have, I have let many people down over the last 12 months, yet those last twelve months seem like a blur to me. It is as if I have watched it happen from a massive cinema screen, watching a character that I knew was me, yet not me at the same time. One hellish biopic of my pitiful life, played out like a scary movie, it does not seem real, it is terrifying to me personally.
This saved me, this blog saved me from total despair, it has brought me into a saner situation, I feel safer, yet still incredibly emotional, I still do stupid things and I still feel like crap. I felt dreadful Sunday until Wednesday of this week, but I was able to cope with it better, I was able to assess the damage it was causing and rationalise it, and hopefully learn from it. I still feel trapped, I still feel I want to leave here and go somewhere else, anywhere else, a place where no one knows me, and I can be a new person, like a butterfly changes from a caterpillar.
I am sick of winter, and want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face once more; I want to see the greenest trees and the flowers in bloom. I want to feel alive, and free, let’s hope this year I will feel both many times.
This saved me, this blog saved me from total despair, it has brought me into a saner situation, I feel safer, yet still incredibly emotional, I still do stupid things and I still feel like crap. I felt dreadful Sunday until Wednesday of this week, but I was able to cope with it better, I was able to assess the damage it was causing and rationalise it, and hopefully learn from it. I still feel trapped, I still feel I want to leave here and go somewhere else, anywhere else, a place where no one knows me, and I can be a new person, like a butterfly changes from a caterpillar.
I am sick of winter, and want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face once more; I want to see the greenest trees and the flowers in bloom. I want to feel alive, and free, let’s hope this year I will feel both many times.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
The Pool of Deepest Blue
High upon the precipice do I stand in awe, the glory of the world before me, its grace and beauty, its violent anger, its raging torment of expression and feeling. Slowly I kneel down, and close my eyes, and breathe in the freshest air of existence, long and deep, revitalising my heart and soul. I smile a content meditation, thoughts so peaceful envelope me, what do I do next? I force my left hand into the dirt below my knees, and rise slowly, taking into account the incredible height around me. I wipe the beads of sweat from my brow, and turn away from the majesty of the view.
Now in front of my eyes, a deep blue, nearly black, it is a pool of emptiness and longing, it draws me closer, ever closer to its soothing liquid. As if in a trance, I move slowly forward, tiny step by tiny step, will I be saved before I reach the pool of deepest blue. Will someone come along and pull me back and revitalise my life once more. I hope I will be saved; I pray to the inner god, that I will be pulled back before it is too late. I see my reflection in the pool, it is distorted, it is a cruel manifestation of what I feel I am. It is a devilish pose, it forces me to close my eyes, I do not like its masquerade, I do not like the way it makes me feel. I want to turn around, I want to turn back towards the light, please bring me back to the light. Do not let me fall into the pool of deepest blue, for once I am smothered in the deep blue liquid, once it has my whole, I will be doomed.
Now in front of my eyes, a deep blue, nearly black, it is a pool of emptiness and longing, it draws me closer, ever closer to its soothing liquid. As if in a trance, I move slowly forward, tiny step by tiny step, will I be saved before I reach the pool of deepest blue. Will someone come along and pull me back and revitalise my life once more. I hope I will be saved; I pray to the inner god, that I will be pulled back before it is too late. I see my reflection in the pool, it is distorted, it is a cruel manifestation of what I feel I am. It is a devilish pose, it forces me to close my eyes, I do not like its masquerade, I do not like the way it makes me feel. I want to turn around, I want to turn back towards the light, please bring me back to the light. Do not let me fall into the pool of deepest blue, for once I am smothered in the deep blue liquid, once it has my whole, I will be doomed.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Ummm a worrying trend
Is it good, that as I progress in my writing prowess; that I notice all the stupid grammatical errors, the poor use of punctuation, the lack of sentence awareness. And the general poor level of my writing skills (that was deliberate I hope). Is it good that I notice this now, whereas in the past, I was unable to comprehend such details? I would hope it is, the worrying part is, that even though I am starting to see my poor use of English, I don’t seem to be improving. Or am I improving, and like when you suddenly start to realise you are fat, and need to lose weight; will it suddenly dawn on me. I don’t know to be honest, but hey at least I notice bad writing now, so I must be learning something.
Note***
I should read my own work back, more thoroughly than I do, Christ it is really bad, too many mistakes.
Note***
I should read my own work back, more thoroughly than I do, Christ it is really bad, too many mistakes.
Take life less seriously in future
You know your life is at the arse end of the barrel, when you are quite content to sit in the house by yourself, watching the British Comedy Awards. Oh well you gotta laugh, and take the piss out of yourself once in a while. It’s got me thinking though as I watched, that I don’t really watch that much comedy, because I didn’t know many of the shows they were awarding. Yet I used to love the good old British Comedy, maybe it shows I am more mature now, and nearing my middle age, halfway through my midlife crisis and taking life a bit too seriously. Or more likely, I’ve turned into a boring bastard.
Yet as I say this, and knowing what I have written in this blog over the past five months, I think, is that long. I feel I have a good sense of humour, and enjoy a good laugh, but I don’t seem to do it much these days; what a boring bastard I have become. Looking back at what I have written makes me think what a pretentious t*at (not sure why on my blog I added the * instead of a w) I’ve turned into, or maybe I have always been like that and just never realised it.
So in future I will endeavour, though likely to fail, in taking life a little less seriously, and try to enjoy it more. A bit like I used to, when I was younger and less cynical, and before shitness of life engrained its terrible brown stain on me.
Life's a bitch and then you die, so why not laugh whilst you stuck in the middle of it. Thank humans for comedy, for without it everyone would be boring, self righteous bastards, like me haha.
Yet as I say this, and knowing what I have written in this blog over the past five months, I think, is that long. I feel I have a good sense of humour, and enjoy a good laugh, but I don’t seem to do it much these days; what a boring bastard I have become. Looking back at what I have written makes me think what a pretentious t*at (not sure why on my blog I added the * instead of a w) I’ve turned into, or maybe I have always been like that and just never realised it.
So in future I will endeavour, though likely to fail, in taking life a little less seriously, and try to enjoy it more. A bit like I used to, when I was younger and less cynical, and before shitness of life engrained its terrible brown stain on me.
Life's a bitch and then you die, so why not laugh whilst you stuck in the middle of it. Thank humans for comedy, for without it everyone would be boring, self righteous bastards, like me haha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)