rarelyunusual

Steve Jobs

Liza — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:22:55 +0000

An inspirational speech given by Steve Jobs not long before his death.

depression is better than birth control

Liza — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:51:44 +0000

Patience? I don’t know her though we may have been acquainted once or twice in a past I’m positive belongs to someone else.

Humor? In my funny bone of course. Hope? Hope is a hop with an irrelevant E on the end for the purpose of confusion. Cynical? Not at all. Being a miserable realist, I can see the worst in everything if given half a chance which is roughly one quarter more than I typically need.

Contrary to what some think it’s not all a walk in the park. Seeing the rotten side of things is work. Especially today with all the happy go lucky — positive optimists determined to point out just how marvelous everything is or will be. Don’t be misled by the belief that it’s easy to stay sullen.

Think about it. Do people send ‘stay sick’ cards or wish you a terrible day? They ought to. They can’t for one moment assume your day will be good when they sputter a ‘Good morning’. Do freinds send cards that say “Lucky you! I deliberately forgot your birthday!” or congratulate you for an epic fail? Life would be so much more real if they did but as you might expect most would rather avoid or assume your frame of mind.

Being depressive in a world where every Tom Dick and Harry ( yest it’s cliché ) expects you to toss a smile across the sidewalk because it’s proper and they have issues with their mood is taxing. As taxing as knowing you’re surrounded by insensitive, non-thinking people who always know everything which indirectly means you don’t. Favorable if it induces a more stable ill-temper but essentially useless most of the time. Happy people are like little “low uppers” — take a few and you get hives — take a lot and you land in the state of screw you.

So why bother staying dejected if it’s so difficult? That’s the easy part. Defective people are more intriguing. Why look as dull as the rest of the people on this planet tend to be. The ones that don’t live in Hollywood, haven’t made their first million, and the rest of the general population that won’t go down in history for anything more than stupidity.

Despondency is also a practical beast. It has no time for emotions that might conflict or complicate its perspective and therefore erases them. Never is the pointlessness of aspiring toward goals that are surely going to fail any clearer. With all the clutter gone there’s ample time for the really important stuff — self loathing, bitterness, dissatisfaction, diffidence and so on. Even that stalwart love can’t withstand the pressure though it may persist as an attraction to anything disheartening.

Commitments become secondary considerations remembered only when they don’t interfere with active wallowing. Wanton sexual activity is out of the question as well because depression is a natural form of birth control. Not only can the libido not get up — it can’t act either. Imagine a world free of temptation and the diseases that might result from it.

Unlike synthetic forms of birth control, given adequate time depression will reduce world population, presuming war, famine or severe disasters don’t first. No? You disagree? Try getting excited when all of your available energy is spent perfecting the art of inertia. Attempting anything more vigorous could well be life threatening.

Next time you’re concerned about your lack of motivation or find yourself worrying over your contributions to life – find some solace in that you still can.

Serious despair doesn’t fret over such trivial things. See what I mean? Existing in the dark takes work. Little things that ruin a perfectly good miserable mess are always creeping in. Of course, we weren’t talking about that were we?

— Wouter Stokkel

Liza — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:52:04 +0000

It’s art if it can’t be explained.
It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation.
It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.
— Wouter Stokkel

Smashing WordPress

Liza — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:58:41 +0000

A great magazine just got infinitely better. With a section dedicated entirely to WordPress it’s now easier than ever to find excellent, helpful content.

Input Here

Liza — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:46:28 +0000

What’s an opinion.

o·pin·ion n. personal view: the view somebody takes about an issue, especially when it is based solely on personal judgment.

A distinctly individual entity — a country, a codec, a group, unit, cell, person — that gathers information from its surroundings, processes it and eventually coughs up some output.

We all have one, valuable or otherwise. Anywhere you look you can see thousands of them jostling against each other. What opinion worth its salt doesn’t want to make it to the top of the idea chain. Of course that’s the trouble with opinions. It can be a vicious world out there for one that’s unpopular or unfounded.

Never is this more obvious than in a group of otherwise well meaning people. In a matter of moments seemingly benign beings can turn into a dangerous mottle of hackles and teeth. All for the glory of holding that one viable concept or idea that catches the attention of the system that matters.

Imagine if computers worked that way.

There’s something valuable to be said about balance and place when it comes to anything functioning as a whole.

Offer me a well oiled database or a social think tank and I’ll take the database any day. Generally they don’t bite ( at least not as hard ), play juvenile games, pick favorites or feel the need to remind you over and over that the last great plan you had was more fiasco than victory.

The problem with “group think” is that it too easily dissolves into “group mind” and all too often those who don’t fit into either category are ignored or overlooked, but that’s another conversation.

I’ve often wondered who came up with the think tank and if they were wearing armor when they did.