No Epiphany

A thought on that levi's jeans comercial "go forth".

We are probably all at this point at the concensis that it is compleatly amazing, but we can't really think of it that way. Mostly its because its an add, its selling something to us, but really up front that was ok with me. Ryan McGinley made it and I saw it as just, well, he found a way to have someone paying him to make his art. And to get mass exposure, so that was cool. On top of that levi's is a company I like. I've worn levi's jeans all my life, my favorite pair currently is a dark blue of theirs. I also associate them with a jew in the san francisco gold rush, as bay area as sour doe bread. They were the less facion centric more roughing it jeans. I also have some respect for good comercials, thinking that our world is filled with adds, they pay for free tv and cheeper subway trips and all sorts of other things, and so if they have to be there anyway they might as well be beautiful

Parker didn't like the add because he now associated levis with hipsters, as they tend to co-opt anything that was at one time working class. He saw the add as a hipster add, and its quoting from walt witman only made it worse.

But really the only one that got to me was Jackie. She said don't you understand this is marketed twards us. To US. We didn't think we were a demographic at all, we tried to exist outsie the whole corprate add audience, as independants who buy things because they are good, not cause of marketing, who cannot be targeted. And we were targeted. This is an add that apeals destinctly to us and just us. And that is truly chilling. scary really. I don't know what to think of it. I'm going to keep buying levis (well, if I can ever aford them) but it is unsettling, they have the key, they found a hole in our armor that we didn't want to be there.

And as much as I try to be understanding and openminded and inclusive I cannot deny advertisments are evil. They are manipulative lying things that make you believe you have to buy certain products to have a certain identity. Axe deoterant is a fine example, it smells good. it smells pretty great if used in moderation, girls like how it smells. Except only fratty type guys use it because its marketed to them. If your a guy with a suit or someone who likes to concider youself evolved or sensitive you wont use axe. Because you don't want to appear fratty. Thats maketing getting to you. This is true of everyting

the body spins but i stay the same

Angel Echoes

There was a post I did last febuary durig a bad time in my life called hours where I talked about a mid-twentys panhandeler who set up near me street preforming and saped all my buisness and was generaly a creep but a harmless one though at one point he told a passing girl "smile, you're beautiful" and instead of scoffing or whatever as was expected she did infact smile and I thought damn and thought a lot about beauty after that.

For my NYU transfer app I have to write a story of something that happened to me and how it changed my life. Last year I wrote a long winded just generaly horrible essay on my first day in new york. this year I was thinking of writing about that pan handeler. I talked to my mom about it and she thought that was wrong. "I can't think of any moment that effected me really, not anything to tell a story about." she said what about 9/11. I said what do you mean? 9/11 didn't effect me, it never really did. it was just something else that happened in the news to me when I was in fifth grade. Besides I knew more people were killed by lightning and all that. Mom said, no I mean, when I think of you I think of when we were in temple soon after and we all said the morners kadish for all the people who died i the towers and planes and I looked over at you and said, at least now we can feel the world is morning with us, we are not alone (dad having died three months previous) and you said 'why would that make me feel better?' you said 'everyone being sad just means more people sad, that makes me feel worce' you said 'i think I would rather be sad alone if it meant everyone else was happy' and thats was a major moment for you in my mind, for an eleven year old to say something like that.

I said, you have to understand, that was a non issue for me, thats how I felt. Its just how I felt, there was no relivation. I formed that idea a few years before, if you want to pinpoint the moment of transformation. we were getting in the car after going grocery shoping or somthing, I couldn't have been older than nine, probably younger. dad and joy not there because whatever, I got in the front seat, tova made a fuss. she was good at making fusses when she was younger. she said its unfair, she wanted to sit in the front. she couldn't, she had to be six or younger so she was too small. so the fuss went on until I had to sit in the back along with her. And i thought, she should have let me sit in the front, because then there would be more happyness. I'm all for fairness but not if you have to pull someone down. fairness is fine if there is, say, two chocolates and instead of one person having both they split it up, each having one. same about of happyness, split up. fairness is not alright if instead of one person having two, both people decide to have non. that ends with two less happyness. I thought of this sitting in the back of the car on the ride home wile hating my sister. by the time 9/11 came around it was a obvious de-facto beliefe for me, i didn't really think about it.

all the truning points in my life as far as how I view the world are mondain and introspective and thats fine but I have nothing to write the essay about. This is how I work I guess and I don't know.

there is love in you

4

Its been a long time since I thought about philosophy. I've defined myself as a Nihilist for about a year and a half now, or something like that, and that was good enough for me. I could believe in nothing, breathe easy, be free. But Adrians been bringing it up again and been getting on my case for being a solid Nihilist, it isn't what I think it is he said, that I am infact an absurdest. So I finally did some research and, of Wikipeadia, found this chart:

(Simplified) Relationship between existentialism, absurdism and nihilism

	Atheistic existentialism	Theistic existentialism	Absurdism	Nihilism
1. There is such a thing as meaning or value	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2. There is inherent meaning in the universe (either intrinsic or from God)	No	Maybe, but humans must have faith to believe there is	Maybe, but humans can never know it	No
3. Individuals can create meaning in life themselves	Yes, it is essential that they do	Yes, but that meaning must incorporate God	Yes, but it is not essential	No, because there is no such meaning to create
4. The pursuit of intrinsic or extrinsic meaning in the universe is possible	No, and the pursuit itself is meaningless	Yes, and the pursuit itself may have meaning	No, but the pursuit itself may have meaning	No, and the pursuit itself is meaningless
5. The pursuit of constructed meaning is possible	Yes, thus the goal of existentialism	Yes, thus the goal of existentialism	Maybe	No
6. There is a solution to the individual's desire to seek meaning	Yes, the creation of one's own meaning	Yes, the creation of one's own meaning before God	Yes, the acknowledgement and embracing of absurdity	No

If anything, I probably fall closest to Atheistic Existentialism here but there should be a fifth row called "Stuarts current thoughts". 1. would be left blank, 2. No, 3. left blank, 4. No, 5. left blank, 6. No.

In recap, I have no idea if meaning exists. I'm not even sure what "meaning" means anymore. My persuit of anger and passion and truth, does that constitute as a "meaning of life" for me? What about other cases? is an asshole who decides his goal in life is to fuck as many girls as possible creating his own meaning? I'm convinced there is no intrinsic absolute purpos to exsistance, and thats all I know. And really, I do want to go around to everybody talking about signs and portents or patterns and religion and astrology and yell at them "IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL" and I want to go around to girls and people I hate or want to forget and shout "YOU DON'T MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL"

And also when it comes down to it I don't believe in anything. I don't believe in anything. and I don't believe it matters that much.

there is love in you

Daylight

There is certainly a differance between imeediate emotion and state of mind. imediate emotion is what you are feeling right now. How are you? I am generaly content. almost always content infact unless i am in class or trying to fall asleep almost always content. neither happy nor angery nor depressed i don't really have an emotion at all. I just go. and thats alright. when I am with friends it tends to be scewed a bit towards happy. state of mind is different. its the less imediate emotion the over tones of the chords of your life. for as long as i can remember it was generaly depressed. I was a depressed kid. that defined me. in summer a lot my state of mind was happy though so theres that it wasn't I think until the end of my junior year that the needle started swinging like it does. I am no longer a depressed kid. except sometimes. I am happy a lot but it goes back and forth wildly sometimes going each way and back within a week.

that wasn't the point

the point I was trying to make is when i was depressed I thought well i'd give so much in order to be happy. I would compromise. and when I started to be happy I thought well this is great far be it from me to complain but depression is better its truer I think better thoughts when depressed I'm humbler and smarter and more artistic an more honest. And now I'm seeing so many depressed people who just wallow in themselves and think oh i am a victum oh why is life like this oh everything is falling apart. And today i think I was probably like that when depressed. not honest not humble not smart not true. And today i thought i am not happy certainly. But I am so far from depressed, depressed is at the moment descusting to me. And today i thought well what am i cause i am not emotionless, i am not content there has to be something an i realized my state of mind is angry. I AM ANGRY. and I think maybe I was wrong all along maybe angry is the way to be.

because angry lets me say stand up fuck you you are to blame for your depression you are not living before you die and it lets me say THANK GOD that everything is falling apart because I want to build it again and much better then you did and THANK GOD that i don't believe in forever because forever is boring as fuck and i don't want to die because forever is death, its giving up,its seeking confort instead of the best you do need to destroy what you have in order to create and thank god that i am angry an thank your god that i just don't care.

I love the falling apart. I love this transitory. I love the beauty in the breakdown. I love this anger.

anywhere feels like home

I Luv the Valley, OH!

I'm. gonna try. to nullify my life. A lyric from the song 'Heroin' by the velvet underground. Heroin is still one of my favorite songs. it still has untold impact on me. and it falls into a weird catagory of art or a weird emotion along with fight club and hemmingway and trainspotting and noise music and a few others is about the curious humman need to feel emotions more. when we are up we want to be walking on sunbeams and when we are down we want to be so down. we want to hit rock bottom and keep on going and never come up for air. we want to choke ourselves and bash our heads through walls and make other people hate us and make us hate ourselves and be cacofony and destruction for ever and ever amen. we want to nullify our lives. and I used to think, idont know, i used tothink there was something to this. taht this was pure and passionate and I still think thats true but not with the same certainty as before

i encountered a strange case. through using tumblr i found, actualy a wile before i got my own blog, a girl probably four or five years older than me maybe more and when i first found her site there were mostly posts about sonic youth and sort of depressed wanderinglost short writings about her life and some fightclub-nihilism stile other images and posts. but mostly posts about sonic youth. and so whatever i got to school and didn't have a computer and fell out and all then in october i got an acount and started folowing her and in the last month there was a shift. I don't know her so i don't know what happoned to her or if the sonic youth think was just a momentary fasination or anything at all but she delved down into superficiality. manny formsprings were posted calling her hot and she posted more and more, questions were posted and she responded in the crassest manner, as a result the questions got more and more crass. someone asked what her favorite style of porn was and she said interratial gangbang, someone asked where they could find that and i forget if she posted a link or told them just to surch the internet its not to hard. more pictures of herself and storys about cocaine and talk of boyfriend and miniscule instances in her day to day

and i realized she is trying to nullify her life. but in the oppisite way as i would imagine and it was disgusting to me. so i don't know anymore. perhaps people were right and guitar smashing waists a guitar and destroying youself is just a pointless waist of yourself but I don't know. in a way i don't like that view because it is like growing old. i am to young to grow old and i really really truly hope i die first. I don't want to lose this. this passion. i want to be crazy forever I WANT to be crazy forever but i fear i may just be crazy

all of my thoughts have been in girls for the past week and a bit mainly because seeing diana was probably or maybe not stupid of me and threw me into depression and this summer we used to argue about the difference between the sexes and i was on the position that we are alike and what people see as differences were exagerated and used as excusses and she said no we are so far apart we will never understand each other and though i still think i understand girls mostly - see where their motives are, empathise easily, dont think they're quite so crazy as other guys do - i am starting to think we are very differant. girls really do hate guys, mostly for absolutely fucked up stupid reasons, and i resent being hated. it feels like adults hate the young - how girls hate boys.

and i don't like that opinion either, i liked the summer one better. and really i just like who i was this summer and i feel all the ways i've grown away from that have been negitive though perhaps pulling me closer to the truth i don't know.

i am also just lonely. really lonely and really needing some girl to try to love for a bit. i haven't felt this way really at least not like this for a long time. maybe since the eighth grade. i keep finding new things to miss and want, new little things that drive me crazy about them. putting your arm around a girl when you sit on couches. her breath on you when you hug. her laugh with eating ice cream. how she pauses to take her glasses off when you start kissing. how its just whatever when you do something crazy and spontainious with a friend but its so easy and so amazing to do anything spontainious when your with a girl you like. these little things are going to drive me insain. i am lonely but i hate girls.

i won't rest until i break it

Crazy

There is a common movie plot formula (expecialy childrens movies) that consists of the main character hating they're own life and whishing for a different one, but when they receive the life they want they soon discover that its not what they thought it would be, and that the main characters origonal life was better. Theres another term I herd I forget where that 'if everyone put they're problems on the table and saw everone else's, we'd all take our own back' and its trying to tell us to be happy with what we have. be content. And I always thought fuck thats not what it means. It means we would all rather be comfortable that we would all much rather have what is familiar to us then what is better that no one wants to take risks because we all are sure our luck is bad and that is the only lesson I learnt.

probably

If I Had A Heart

right now

i am tired of passionate angry angst depression though i will get back to it. remmeber that calm depression? or maybe it isn't even depression and just 'feeling sad' the shins depression the young marble giants depression the quiet loanly hot chocolate and a movie and lying down and dying and all the cheesy lines that somehow don't sound cheesy right then depression. the never self indulgent depression. does no one have this anymore?

this will never end