je regrette part deux

turn off the lights, sit in the corner next to the curtain. pray that time stops. maybe if it stops, everything will stop too. dont want for things to happen. dont want for things not to happen. dont want to make decisions. dont want to regret.

cant stop time. things will happen. things will not happen. decisions meaningless. regret inevitable.

ps 12 mar if anyone can stop time, let him teach me so i can stop mine.

the wonderful wizard of oz

this post would be too long if i provided a summary of the story, so ill just get on with the symbolisms and start talking about:

initiation
the cyclone which uproots dorothy and her house into the fantastical land of oz. its easily noted that this is essentially a dreamlike world which defies almost all the rules that applied to the real world of kansas, but therefore also gives the actress seemingly impossible potential. what is real? that which we are familiar with? i quickly draw the connection between the cyclone and morpheus' red pill, albeit that morpheus and his outstretched hands implied the possibility of choice, the cyclone is otherwise environmental and thus oftentimes unavoidable. it picks us up and throws us down into realms of unfamiliarity, leaving us lost to find our way back; for this philosophical interpretation of Oz, this unfamiliar place is our psyche...and the story, our struggle with self-discovery.

encountering the shadows
deep inside our personal world lie the shadows of our conscious selves, and as jung would note, the shadows adopt mirror opposite traits of the qualities we are comfortable associating our outside selves with. dorothy encounteres three archetypes of her shadow: the tin woodman, the cowardly lion and the scarecrow. they embody, respectively, her lack of knowledge, courage and heart. these three characters, of their own accord, wish to become complete; this would represent the force of the repressed unconscious. i could even surmise that the collective will of these three was the reason for the spontaneous creation of the cyclone in the first place. if jung were alive he would warn you never to underestimate the power of the unconscious, especially your own.

trials and tribulations
dorothy and her shadows met numerous obstacles along her metaphorical path to individuation--the yellow brick road. the wicked witch sends wolves, crows, bees to slow dorothy down and possibly encourage retreat. a religious view would portray satan and his demons as the witch and her chicaneries. in a secular image however, these hurdles would similarly be personal battles with the social systems of the world encompassing morality and ethical values.

i note that dorothy manages to overcome these predicaments with the help of her shadows, even though they are incomplete. this strengthens my suspicion that completion of the psyche is after all and end goal; these small hurdles thrown at us in the beginning are only the minor quests that we struggle to overcome and become reminded that we are not invulnerable and are always in need of assistance. the witch's plans are foiled, but she still manages to capture dorothy and her entourage with the use of more powerful proverbial snares: in this case, the winged monkeys.

power of the persona
dorothy witnesses the true usefulness of each shadow's qualities, as the tin woodman is revered as king among the winkies, the cowardly lion, ruler of the forest, etc...in life we cannot deny the fact that in different situations we become different people, or as jung would use the term, persona, latin for 'mask'. while this might seem to be specious misrepresentation, i see the discovery of one's strengths as paramount to the discovery of one's weaknesses. after all, it is not confidence and wit which befall us--it is overconfidence in our ability; not knowing one's limits. to be safe, dorothy must be able to wield her shadows to her advantage without becoming lost behind them--in essence, the shadows must be servile to their master dorothy who casts them and in no hurry shall one shadow need be more powerful than the rest.

intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
when the three shadows are finally provided by the wizard of oz with what they wanted the most, they are all contented to receive what only you the wise reader would note to be placebos: bran and needles for brains, sawdust for a heart, and a suspicious potion for courage. i note that dorothy's 'wizard' was after all, just an encourager in spirit; that though his help could not be weighed in reality, they had positive effects for dorothy and her party. some of us create our own wizards to support us, and though they might just be figments of our imaginations, they work for us, and as jung would say "what is real? anything that works, is real."

for the rest of us, we might respond better to extrinsic motivation, much akin to jung's philemon, his spirit guide which appeared to him though was not created by his unconscious. dorothy's guru was glinda, the good witch of the south who also repeatedly provided dorothy's party with assistance...

revelation
and the climactic truth that the tin woodman had all along been the most tender and loving, that the cowardly lion had all along been the bravest, that the scarecrow had all along been the wisest, and most shockingly that dorothy had all along possessed the power of the silver slippers to go anywhere she wanted, unimpeded. on first thought i was unimpressed that this implied the notion that the journey of oz was after all this, a moot struggle. then i realised that though the truth is that all of us contain the potential to succeed immeasurably, it is only the those of us to whom this truth is revealed that allow us to tap this potential.

it is not enough to know that you have the ability to succeed. you must believe it so. but believing is infinitely more difficult an act than saying the words "i believe." it must be proven to you before you can unleash it, as we are all skeptics by nature. and i bet glinda would agree when i say that the power lies about your own two feet. the person whose duty it is to prove to you your complete ability, is yourself.

je regrette

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."

-Omar Khayyam

meaning of life part quatre

9 pm dinner is bruschetta. tomato, toast, salt, parsely, evoo, raw garlic. oohhhhh...

feminism

i hate sexist jokes for two reasons. firstly, i hate pigs. secondly, they generate shame for the rest of the men out there who arent pigs. cant really avoid the latter. people are stupid and will automatically derive judging thoughts from worse observations.

i went to a ceremony of marriage vow renewals a couple months ago and was terrorised not by blatant asshatery but by the ignorant and worse kind. from a church leader: 

"A woman marries a man expecting him to change, but he doesnt. A man marries a woman expecting her never to change, but she does."

word to the wise, you idiots: if you dont have a vagina dont be fucking telling this joke in front of people who do. to top it off, some vows included phrases where the "wife" was to submit to her "husband". ok so even the bible wont support gender equality. but seriously, how many wives out there actually do that? and no, doing so simply to pacify your unreasonable man doesnt count as submission. that counts as being smart. and you cant really expect people to think youre smart if youre submitting all the time, especially when you dont have to.

see thats the problem with rules. i fucking hate rules. they are shit on a plate. they dont fix things. theyre just good at tying you up so that you dont mess up the status quo. and guess who set the status quo? yes the people with penises. and the problem with dickheads is that their brains failed to develop due to diverted blood flow from cranium to pubis.

sometimes its just better to have a woman in charge. if barack wasnt black i would have rooted for hillary. there are countless psychological barriers preventing women, afros, gays, etc from reaching positions of influence. now, consider the fact that if one of them can rise to such a position of their own accord, how great does it speak of their competence and ability to achieve the same level of success despite the shakier start and experience with higher hurdles? how great is the height of their future knowing the superiority of their ability thus far in time?

yet i am not a blind feminist. if i find any woman abusing the movement i will undo her just as easily:

there are few things that makes me more furious than discovering a bully. its when i discover a victim who sits on their ass and cries foul. fuck you. get up and walk, stupid worm. why dont you prove them wrong instead of right? then im furious when i discover a victim who claims he is better than a bully simply by standing up to him. well, fuck you too. you havent proven shit. go match a bully's ability and then claim glory.

and the following would apply to all people in positions of minority in any aspect: if you were born with weights around your ankles you do not go around making excuses for being slower than the rest. you do not go around telling the rest you would have won them had you not have been born that way. you do not go around telling the rest you are better than them simply because you have to run harder. you havent proven squat.

but if you do beat them, boy, do you deserve to shit on their faces.

back to women. do not tell me what a woman is or what a woman could be. i know full well that i know nothing about them so let no fucking man lecture me on this topic. and dont even start with gender roles because i already know all of it to be pure and utter bullshit.

ps.
let my anger with all of mankind be clearly expressed, for i will be just as angry tomorrow and also five years from now when i read this again and yet again and realise nothing in this world has changed.