The greatest machine of them all

Winter break is a time for rest. A time for relaxation, for fun, and to forget about all the stress and problems slapped in our faces by school. Well, until it's time to come back that is. January 5th, we all need to get our timecards handed back to us and punch in once more, facing the grueling grind until finals and then onwards. While a break might seem like a good thing at first, it does have the unfortunate effect of sorting our time into neat little boxes. Always obsessed with order, our society's gotta have carefully set times that it's okay to relax in. These are the hours you work, and these are the hours you play. After all, this is the only way to keep the cogs in the machine turning regularly.
Though this rigid structure might be helpful for keeping society at its maximum efficiency, there's still plenty of room to resent it. Namely on the grounds that efficiency isn't all that good. Stating that in today's world is seen as basically treason. The economic system is built on growth, and the only way to keep that growth at acceptably cancerous levels is by squeezing every drop of work out of our fingertips. Efficiency is the altar our society worships at, always with money on our minds. Well, what if we just all, y'know, chilled for a moment? Maybe even more than moment. Take a step back and re-evaluate our priorities. Why are we working this hard? Is it even for a cause we believe in, or is it for a nebulous promise of future enjoyment? A re-evaluation of the fundamentals of our system is long overdue, and asking these questions is the first step to that.

He sees you when you're sleeping...and all the time

Lets talk about the elf on the shelf. It's a fun concept at first, a children's book that also comes with an  fun doll to play hide and seek with, Christmas themed to boot. Looking closer at it, it suddenly becomes a lot less friendly. The elf on the shelf's book details how he reports back to Santa every night on the behavior of the children. Furthermore, if the children touch the elf, the magic is destroyed and they get no presents from Santa. This essentially puts the children in a microcosm of a fascist surveillance state.  With every move observed by the elf and punishment threatened at misbehavior, it conditions the children to follow authority merely due to being watched. The kids have never actually had Santa never visit them due to the elf reporting bad behavior, but the threat is enough. The spectre of no-Santa is enough to keep them obedient under constant surveillance, which the elf does through magic. Any attempt to resist the state...sorry, elf, by touching him results in the magic being destroyed and no presents given. Quite the interesting moral we're teaching these children at such a young age, that the tool of surveillance is so powerful that merely interfering with it delivers punishment.

Ah, winter...I think?

Well, it's December now. Quite a raging snowstorm out there, right? Wait a second, that's not snow...That's not snow at all! It's mild outside, and I barely need a coat to walk to school everyday. What gives, old man winter?

This wacky weather is most likely the doing of some weird temperature factors, probably wind fronts and the like. However, it's a very good starting point for a discussion about climate change. Environmental concerns are oftentimes shoved to the side in favor of the next humanitarian crisis, with much more emphasis being placed upon the poor, crying faces of people by the media instead of the dangerous effects we're already beginning to see due to our irresponsible treatment of Earth as a species. Unfortunately, the planet doesn't have a face. It can't easily tug at our heartstrings, biologically programmed to care for those that look like us. To many, it's just the ground beneath our feet. But in actuality, it's far more than that. It's all of our homes, our mother, and our only provider. If we destroy it, we'll essentially be setting fire to the building we're standing right in the middle of.

While the warm weather might be nice now, it won't be nice all the time. Acknowledging our irresponsible behavior is the first step in solving it, and today's a good a day as any.

Thanks to those forgotten

The time of year is rolling back around when we're supposed to give thanks. Well, at least in the United States of America. That's the only place that matters though, right?

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot to be thankful for. Like the fact that I'm a cisgendered, straight, white, wealthy, male human. I have to deal with very little structural oppressions in my day-to-day life, and pretty much the only box on the privilege test I don't tick off is faith. And despite the comfy seat my birth and biological makeup gives me, I think that a time of thanks is also a time to acknowledge the reason I have the things I do. Which is considerably less peachy than stuffed turkey and cranberry sauce. America, believe it or not, wasn't always home to Uncle Sam. Indians, as we still like to call them (Despite the fact that we knew they weren't from India about 5 minutes after good ol' Columbus hit the shoreline) were here first.

Native Americans, being the original people here, were a bit of an issue for the colonizing dreams of the European sailors. So, they scummed it out. Intentionally or not, they distributed blankets and other such goods carrying deadly diseases and germs to the Native American populace. It's estimated that about 90% of the total population was killed by infection (Cook, Noble David Born to Die, p. 13) , which left a skeletal force to resist the European invasion when it came full-force. 10% of a people isn't enough to even come close to winning a war against battle-ready Europeans armed to the teeth, leading to the birth of the US of A.

Now, some might say that "Hey, well look at all of the cool new things Europeans brought the Native Americans", such as new technology, advanced metalworking, and medicine. This, however, is greatly overshadowed by the genocidal effect of their arrival. Who cares about how much medicine is given AFTER 90% of the population is dead? That's essentially chopping a mans arm off and slapping a sesame street band-aid on the stump with a pat and a smile.

So, in this time of thanks, I'd like to give thanks not just to the people who are directly present in my life (My friends, family, and kickass teachers), but also those who aren't noticed everyday merely on the account of them being dead. I choose to look down at the ziggurat of Native American corpses our nation is built upon and acknowledge their plight and the atrocities committed against them as the cornerstone of the USA.

These souls are 2 dark: part 2

(In order to get a better foundation for this post, please read last weeks) 

Constant death wears on you, after a while. Many a time, the game has caused me to toss my controller down and take a break from it out of frustration. This, in a dark fashion, mirrors life.  We stumble through life, sometimes even striking gold (Or in Dark souls II's case, a large soul), but without concrete knowledge that that really IS success. Why do we continue our journeys when we know the end is only, and always going to be our own death, usually to great anger on our parts? Though this point of view might appear to be vehemently nihilistic, there's actually a kernel of hope buried in there. The message that I read from the seemingly endless black pit is one of self-determination. Not in the sense of an iron will, but like a compass. There may be no objective reason we keep on throwing ourselves down the path, but we still do it. This is due to our own drive for it, something that we've fashioned for ourselves. There really doesn't need to be a "truth" in order to justify continuing soldiering on, all we need is a declaration from ourselves that "this is what I'm going to do". Regardless of reason (or lack there-of) we can do things. We have the agency to do this. Despite knowing that death is the only thing that welcomes us with open arms at the end of it all, we can create our own meaning for it. It's not all just a black screen with a morbid declaration upon it. Fearing death must mean there's a reason for us to be alive, even if that reason is entirely self-conjured.

These souls are 2 dark: Part 1

Dark souls II is a great game. It came out in March of this year and brought a lot to the table, with it being a shoe-in for at least a nomination for GOTY (Game of the Year) of 2014. It was a direct sequel to the critically acclaimed Dark Souls, which won the GOTY back in 2011, carrying that legacy and weight from the day it was announced. The game doesn't disappoint, continuing the series famed difficulty and challenge. I'm a huge fan of the series, so I highly anticipated it (and may have missed a day of school when it came out), so I was ecstatic when I heard new downloadable content might be being released for it. Which, of course, led to me playing through the game again. During my newest playthrough, I thought about the storyline and setting a lot more than I had previously, and I realized something:Your character has no concrete motives for struggling through the mess they're put in. They're cursed with a seemingly incurable affliction, which turns them undead. Unlike common zombie stereotypes, your character is very much in control and present when undead. It just makes them unable to die for good. Your character, though never voicing their own opinion, can be vaguely assumed to want to break free from this curse and attain a final rest. Only a few guiding forces are present in the game, and all of them echo the same thing as the others: Seek souls.  No reason is given for this order, just a few chuckles from the old crones in the beginning and a promise from the emerald herald that I'll find what I want if I get the souls. In accordance with the game's difficulty, you die. A lot. Every time you die, the game restarts you at the latest bonfire you'd visited. No breaks, just instant reincarnation with your healthbar slightly smaller each time. The only inevitability I know booting it up is that I'm going to see the famed "You died" screen.

Fascism and Freedom

There are two extremes: Laissez faire and absolute fascism. Middle ground between these is where many people reside, however most can be boiled down to favoring one or the other. People can support having some aspects fasciszing and others be more siding towards freedom. Everything affects everyone- In some minute way or another, all actions have a connection with all other actions. Now, Fascism doesn’t work unless it’s absolute fascism- The fascism of the Leviathan. The Leviathan’s control dictates everything as according to one ruler, which has nothing to do with the freedom of others. However, with absolute freedom, one being’s freedom is curtailed and infringed upon by another’s freedom. For example, if I had the freedom to cage a man, my action would take the freedom of that man away. All actions, in some form or another, require some investment of a force or tangible object, and either this investment or the results of the action itself have echoing repercussions upon all other actions. The concept of true freedom is impossible unless there is a single being in a vacuum, and even then the limitations of said vacuum would prevent absolute freedom. If true freedom is an impossibility, then we must look at absolute fascism. Absolute fascism is just as much of a fantasy as absolute freedom is- by the definitions of fascism you must have the Leviathan to control others- And then the Leviathan isn’t affected by fasciszing, and instead has absolute freedom. It’s the paradoxical relationship between freedom and fascism that makes the plurality so intriguing. You can’t have either in absolutes, and each only holds meaning when compared to the other.