Crisis of Culture

During the Prague Writer's Festival 2009 the poet Adonis spoke of a crisis of culture. He mentioned the fact that people were defined by the cultures and yet they had no appreciation of it. To illustrate his point he asked the following question: 'If Beethoven and Michael Jackson were having a party at the same time, who's party do you think most people would attend?'

Although I cannot disagree with him that there is a certain under-appreciation of culture, I think it weak to hide behind this statement. He makes it too easy for the artist to give up, to find refuge in the fact that culture is under appreciated. Rather than this, the artist needs to engage the public, tear their gaze away from mindless entertainment and make them want to listen to his message, whatever medium it may take.

A crisis of culture is not to blame on the general public, but on the artists in the millions for not being able to engage their audience.

procrastination

in a fit of particularly intense procrastination, i thought i had found a way out of the vicious cycle of irrelevant google searches. inspired, i typed in 'how to stop procrastinating'.

it brought me to a website that made me examine the underlying reasons for procrastinating, fear, anxiety, being overwhelmed, and such psychological insights. i had never examined it in such depth. what i thought was simply: 'i don't feel like doing it' was in fact due to underlying fears and anxieties. it was a revelation.

at the bottom of the page the website asked for a donation if the information was helpful. helpful? it was my new bible! the donation? i'll do it later.

Blogging Dangerously by a Published Author

the frustrated writer types words into a field, then hits 'publish'.

instantly he is gratified. now i am a published author, he thinks. a dream accomplished in mere minutes.

'the daily outsource' floats through his dreams. a forum where he gets to be witty and cynical about outsourcing. how could people resist it allure? oh how they would flock to his little corner of the internets. and he would rival those cute cats with their abhorrent grammarz.

waking up particularly proud of himself. he looked down at the world from his bed. then he got up which made looking down at the rest of the unpublished world even easier.

he briefly worried. his site would be overcrowded. the internet would have broken under the massive strain of people trying to read his witty repartees on an obscure (though very relevant in today's economy) process: outsourcing.

page views: 2

his and his mom's.

whatever. van gogh never sold a painting.

but at least he had paint to eat. the writer starves, because he is too good to turn his back on his trade. he has too much to tell the world about outsourcing. but there is no paint to eat. he must make to with licking motherboards. BZZZZAP!

good thing he is consistent. and at least he's a published author.

there are so many amateurs out there.

Wanted: God

It is God's will they say.

God's will we die. God's will we are murdered. God's will cities are destroyed. Eventually, he intends to kill us all.

Thank God the FBI is finally taking action.

nomadic wisdom

i was talking with a girl in a bar and she said something that stuck to me.

"wisdom lies in traveling," or something along those lines. it was one of those mundane conversations where all of a sudden there is an epiphany staring you in the face. and it never leaves you alone again.

and i take her words to heart. not that i believe every wandering nomadic hobo has lessons to impart. but you should at least try to listen to the hobo, he may tell you something very important, like to watch out for that truck.

[insert poetic reference to rebirth]

[insert obvious philosophical statement]

and so the time has come for me to part

[inset cliche about taking the path less traveled by]

the contractions of destiny have begun to push me out of the [czech] womb that has been my [safe] haven

[insert referral to lessons learned]

no longer will a graciously take what is forced into me through my umbilical chord

[insert assertion of freedom]

life is too long to remain in the womb and the amniotic fluid begins to stagnate.

rot sets in.

and like a recently expelled fetus

i will cry my lungs raw.

[insert new job]

and my soul will be silenced once more.

Death Outsourced II