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neocatharsis · 4 years ago

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NCT’s Mark Lee on Dreams, Instagram Poetry, and Growing Up

Mark has a lot going on — but he’s making time for poetry, introspection, and, of course, the members of NCT Dream. - Vivien Wu

“I’ve been thinking about dreams a lot these days!” Mark Lee exclaims over Zoom from SM Entertainment’s Seoul headquarters.

The 21-year-old leader of NCT Dream is enthusiastic as he mulls over the meaning of dreams, his back against a wall of pink and yellow flowers assembled by his fellow NCT members. He’s wearing a simple, white tee, and when he gestures with his hands, you can catch glimpses of the friendship ring that all seven members of NCT Dream wear as a symbol of their bond.

“I actually feel like dreams hold a large portion of a life, and I’m not just talking about the subconscious dreams that we all have when we sleep,” he continues. “If you put it in a way where dreams are actually things that motivate us, and the drive that keeps us going, especially as a strongly driven person myself, I feel like… a guy with no dreams is like…” He looks up, thinking. “…A car with no engine. So, I think it’s as important as yourself. That’s how deep I go with dreams.”

His interest in dreams is fitting, considering that they are also the central, underlying concept to the lore behind NCT Dream’s parent group, NCT. They connect their three subunits, NCT 127, NCT Dream, and WayV, in a complex, Inception-inspired fictional universe where dreams are the only way they can find each other, and where upon uniting they can mix to form new subunits collectively referred to as NCT U. In practical terms, this has resulted in a 23-member mega-group that is multifaceted in every way — from their musical styles and visual aesthetics to their cultural backgrounds and spoken languages.

NCT Dream’s original teenage concept meant that members were supposed to “graduate” when they came of age, and as the oldest, Mark was the first to leave the group at the end of 2018. Having grown attached, however, fans were devastated at his departure; after a year of separation, SM announced that the graduation system would be scrapped and that he would rejoin the group. Their new album, Hot Sauce, is the first with Mark in over two years. As fellow member Haechan declared in an interview with Teen Vogue earlier this week, “Mark [is] very special. NCT Dream means Mark.”

But before the rapper led NCT Dream, and before he joined NCT U and NCT 127 and SuperM — the man is in high demand — Mark’s childhood dream was writing. He grew up in Toronto, and through doing school projects and essays quickly discovered that he had a natural way with words. Inspired by Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan, Harry Potter, and James Patterson, Mark dreamt of becoming an author, long before he was recruited by SM at a global audition in Canada in 2012. “When I was in school, I was always the kind of guy who would write more than expected, and that became a thing that clicked for me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Maybe it’s something that I naturally do?’ But then that kind of turned into rap writing too, so I guess they kind of clicked together.” It explains his prolific career as a lyricist; since debuting, he’s amassed over 30 songwriting credits across his various groups, contributing to songs as iconic as NCT U’s “Boss,” NCT 127’s “Cherry Bomb,” and NCT Dream’s “Chewing Gum.”

Even with such an extensive body of work, however, penning lyrics hasn’t satiated his appetite for literary expression. In an interview with Japanese magazine Men’s Non-No, he revealed that he still hopes one day to write a book, whether that be a novel, autobiography, or something more philosophical.

In the meantime, he’s taken to writing what are basically short poems on his Instagram, which he created just a few months ago. He’s gathered over 4.5 million followers since then, but having such a large audience hasn’t deterred him from being endearingly vulnerable with the way he writes. When I refer to them as poems, he laughs and looks embarrassed, but when I ask him to tell me the stories behind them, he’s enthusiastic again. They’re short, but offer brief glimpses into Mark the writer — sharp, inquisitive, and thoughtful. As pieces of literature, they’re a little rough around the edges, but the sincerity he’s known for shines through, illuminating the introspective, philosophical side that may not be so obvious in person.

His first poem, loosely titled “Late Night Scribbling,” put into words his musings about sleep, thoughts, feelings, and writing. It meanders from topic to topic, hovering between feelings of hope and hopelessness, before ending with a comically awkward “haha.”

“I actually wrote that by imagining how I wanted to organize my Instagram page,” he explains. “I was thinking of creating an Instagram, then I realized that, well, I’m not really a picture kind of guy, I’m not really a travelling kind of guy… I kind of studied who I am first, and I [asked myself], ‘What’s something that I can really portray in an intimate way?’ and it turned out to be writing.”

“I started to brainstorm what kind of topics I could write about, and then from there on, I started to write a little each and every night, and that turned into Late Night Scribbling,” he continues. “That kind of gave me courage to start Instagram in the first place, that piece of writing.”

Two weeks later, he followed it up with “Black Socks,” a whimsical ode to, well, black socks — complete with accompanying photos of him wearing said socks. Immediately, it feels more confident and cohesive than its predecessor. Using the neat and tidy look of black socks as a metaphor, he describes his own mindset for living life: “Pleasure from perfect alignment; That also goes for my ability to be parallel with my thoughts and actions; I try to live out what’s in my mind, and keep it consistent even when forgotten like a working habit.”

Comments on the posts praise his writing and encourage him to continue sharing these small pieces of himself. On the stage, Mark takes on a confident, larger-than-life persona, while in vlogs and spoken interviews, he’s a bubbly character full of laughter and boyish charm. What the poems show is that, beneath these outer appearances, there’s another layer of complexity that is yet to be fully explored, and it’s not surprising that fans want to know more.

His day job as a K-pop idol doesn’t allow a lot of time for hobbies, though, and he confesses to not having written much lately. Despite that, he’s determined to stay in the industry for as long as possible. “Longevity is something that I’ve always been aiming for,” he says. “I’m willing to do this for a long time, and that requires a lot of work. I’m willing to take that as a challenge and I’m trying to stay as long as I can, but with quality.”

That focus on quality informs his preparations for the upcoming promotions with NCT Dream. In both their fictional world and ours, NCT Dream are a central component of NCT by virtue of their unique focus on growth — the seven members were aged between 14 and 17 when the group first debuted in 2016. Fast-forward five years, and the members are now 19 to 21, having reached a milestone in January when the youngest, Jisung, finally became a legal adult in Korea. When asked if he feels like an adult yet, though, Mark gives an extremely relatable answer with zero hesitation.

“I still feel like I’m in middle school, I’m gonna be totally honest. I swear to God, I feel like I’m… All right, I’ll put it up — I feel like I’m in high school!” He laughs. “I even had this talk with Jisung, ‘cos he’s the latest that turned into an adult. He said that he still feels like he’s a student, he doesn’t feel like he’s 20 [19 in international age] right now.”

It’s been a long time since all seven Dream members — Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung — have released an album together, and as the first full-length album since their debut, the fan anticipation is palpably intense. Mark himself has mentioned in various vlogs how important he believes this comeback to be, and that conviction becomes obvious whenever he talks about it.

“We had a talk all together, the seven of us, without any cameras or anything. I brought all the guys together and we talked before the whole momentum started, and I said that I’m willing to put my everything on this one. Like, I always had, but I feel like… the whole universe, or like— ” He pauses, trying to figure out how to articulate himself, and his next line is the most emphatic of our whole conversation. “There are things that are out of our control, but we can see and feel when the pieces match together sometimes, and I feel like this specific moment, this particular album, kind of had those essential parts.”

He’s thinking about all of the context surrounding this comeback: the group’s coming of age, the reunion of all seven members, the scale of the album, the fact that Jisung has only just recovered from a leg injury that meant he couldn’t dance for months — even the fact that 2020 was, against all odds, the best year yet for NCT, with release after release bringing them unprecedented success and momentum.

“I felt that coming and I explained all of that [to the group],” he continues. “This whole period of time has a lot of meaning to it, and we’re not taking that for granted, we’re working hard.” With everything that’s happened, Hot Sauce is a historic moment for NCT Dream, and that’s been reflected in their numbers — the album clocked over 1.7 million pre-orders, obliterating their previous record of 500,000 for last year’s EP, Reload.

Their familial bond and the success that has come with it is the culmination of years spent living, working, and growing up together. The members have collectively missed out on key experiences that most teenagers might take for granted, distanced as they are from normal life, and the group also benefits from an unusually loose adherence to traditional Korean age hierarchy. The result is a brotherhood that goes beyond just being colleagues. “What we have is pretty intimate, and it’s also genuine,” Mark says.

About his role, he is matter of fact. “I’m by far the most easily approachable punching bag for the team. I am not… complaining…” He laughs. “But all jokes aside, I feel like my role for this team… Yes, I am the oldest and I am the leader but I’m also… In Korea, in the culture, age is very important, but we’ve come so far that all those borders kind of just vanished and we’re all pretty much friends, and I guess I’m just a friend of theirs too.”

It’s true that, despite being the leader, his friendly personality and endearingly awkward mannerisms mean that he commands about as much authority as a small puppy. Instead, much like a puppy, he is showered with love and affection (fellow member Chenle refers to Mark as his son and his actual puppy Daegal as Mark’s little sister), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a dependable leader figure. The opposite is true — in Renjun’s words, Mark’s presence unites the group in a way that makes him irreplaceable.

And while this may be the fifth year since their debut, in the grand scheme of things, the members of NCT Dream are still very, very young — by most standards, they would still be considered to have their entire careers ahead of them. Growth has brought them here, but where does Mark think it will take them in the future?

“Growing just never stops for us, I can see us growing continuously, endlessly,” he replies. “What the future holds is something that we will never know, but we always do try to prepare during the present, and so with whatever time we have currently and with whatever album, or whatever stage, or whatever piece of music it may be, we’re willing to make sure that we have the next one coming too.”

A final thought. “I’m glad that we’re striving for that, ‘cos we started off as…” Mark shakes his head, “…as babies.”

#nct #nct dream #Mark #nct 127

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hellomynameisbisexual · 4 years ago

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“Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream; you’d be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.” This endearing analogy, uttered by equally endearing Icelandic icon Björk, stresses her steadfast opinion that “everyone is bisexual”. But even if bisexuality doesn’t describe everyone, it makes up the largest proportion of all people non-compliant to the adjective ‘straight’. Simply put, bisexuality is a term to describe individuals who feel romantically and/or sexually attracted to both sexes, meaning their preference is neither exclusive to men nor women.

But despite its sizeable demographic, and the numerous studies which conclude pure hetero- or homosexuality to be a myth, bisexuals often fall victim to social ostracism. Too gay for straights, too straight for gays, bisexuals are too frequently labelled as frauds or experimentalists, incapable of committing to one sole party. And as society’s understanding of sex and gender progresses, leaving little room for binaries, ‘bi’sexuality becomes increasingly complex.

Bisexuality Pride LGBTQ David Bowie Lady Gaga Freddie Mercury Music Pop Culture Pride 2019 Pansexual Queer Think Piece

A constant and bothersome companion to bisexuality is its apparent ambiguity—society’s inability to grasp the potential for erotic or amorous interaction with not just one of the two sexes has wrongfully made bisexuality a matter of superstition. A recent study found that bisexuals, of all sexual minorities, are the most likely to suffer from mental illness along the lines of anxiety and depression, stemming from both internalised and externally inflicted biphobia on account of stigmatisation and discrimination induced not only by straight people, but by members of their own community as well. The most prevalent vehicle for intolerance of bisexuals is (surprise, surprise) the narrow-minded idea of there only being two sides to pick from, leading to nonsense-assessments à la “bi people are repressing something”, “bi people are on the verge”. Moreover, male-identifying bisexuals are regularly pigeonholed as gay men who want to feel more “normal” every now and then by strutting alongside a woman, whereas many bisexual women endure belittlement, their experiences reduced to mere trial and error phases of rebellious college years.

But what does being bi even really mean in an age when dating apps such as Tinder offer more than 20 options to describe one’s own identity? How timely is the concept of bisexuality when we’re on the cusp of throwing out expired definitions meant to mathematise human sexuality and identity politics? Connecting the dots—ranging from those force-feeding frequently surreal interpretations of bisexuality to the rusty roles and rules of gender coinciding herewith—brings along another, very new problem for and with the titular term. Bisexuality is rooted in duality—its name is predicated on the ‘fact’ that there are two genders: male and female. Present day’s discourse, however, has done its best at dismantling said duality, pushing the notion of gender as a social construct. What makes bisexuality a problem for mainstream culture to comprehend is the underlying, subtle reality that it ultimately caters to everyone but the straight cis-man—unfathomable for a mindset cemented in patriarchal convictions. It, with other things, then leads to a phenomenon called bi-erasure, and furthermore to bigotry at its broadest, sourced from wide-spread disregard for sexual fluidity and refusal of the concept that one doesn’t feel exclusively drawn to one thing in favour of the other.

It’s this exact type of treatment that exhibits the general populace’s insufficient degree of sensibility in dealing with matters “out of the ordinary” and why, despite it’s historic prolificacy (ancient Greek, Japanese and Roman depictions of bisexual relationships were fairly common), sexual fluidity didn’t gain mainstream momentum until the 70s, when Freddie Mercury and David Bowie emerged as two high profile beacons of the cause. Where previously bisexuality had been the product of retrospective speculation—Hollywood figures such as James Dean, Marlon Brando and Greta Garbo were ‘outed’ after their careers ended—pop music popularised bisexuality in the present—and for an audience beyond the queer underground.

That’s not to say Bowie’s take on bisexuality exactly exuded ‘Pride’—in fact, the artist explained more than once that officially coming out did him more harm than good. Still an undeniable legend in- and outside of the LGBTQ+ cosmos, Bowie—just as other people in his shoes—had difficulties with the term in question, revoking or minimising claims again and again—to the point that, to this day, biographers, fans and exes alike remain unsure wether or not he felt honestly attracted to women and men, or was merely intrigued by bisexuality on a shock value- or curiosity-level. It resembles the kind of borderline sensationalism that brought forth Madonna and Britney’s VMA kiss, vague-at-best comments by celebs in interviews and other question-worthy instances of how bisexuality has been brushed up against, but rarely embraced on a genuine level by people of public interest.

It all charts back to what is referred to as the male gaze—the filter through which we’ve been taught to consume our environment, particularly by way of media. Even the little bits and pieces one does see tapping into alternatives to classic hetero monogamy are mostly blemished by negative stereotyping and bizarrely hypersexualised scenes fresh out of frat-bro wet-dreams. Going against this grain is Desiree Akhavan’s series “The Bisexual”, in which the 35-year old actress, director and HBO’s “Girls”-alumna has managed to entertainingly and thoughtfully depict what might be be one of the first examples of how to pop culturally handle the often conflicting topic of being bisexual with care.

Aforementioned proceedings considered, execution and a heightened awareness for cause-and-effects are why a new generation of vocal youth has, across all platforms, boosted a conversation to crack open the boxes we are either placed in, or choose to place ourselves in for fear of bad resonance. More modern, more inclusive designs like pansexual—the tendency to sexually or romantically like someone in spite of biologically- or self-ascribed traits of gender or sex—are on a rise. To many, ‘queer’ is the least restrictive of all labels, indicative of liberation from the binary. In this instance, it seems as though bisexuality in its traditional sense no longer remains the most politically correct of all notions.

But that being said, we mustn’t forget: labels can do harm, but they also set free. The ability to engage in conversations like these is a privilege we’ve been afforded in the West—a privilege that’s important to remember at the time when our part of the globe celebrates Pride, while others in the LGBTQ+ community elsewhere are being imprisoned or even killed for their sexual identities. Bisexuality, and everything that has branched from it to articulate sexual fluidity, needs to be taken seriously within our own, local spaces—just as serious as every other letter in the line-up that constitutes the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Resisting to defy suppressions of any kind—even if you’re not personally vulnerable to their consequences—results in nothing. It’s only through efforts to increase visibility inside our already comparatively progressive realms that we can transport Pride’s cause to places still at unease with non-heteronormativity, and actually feel proud.

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divineknowing2021 · 3 years ago

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viewing guide

At its core, divine knowing is an exhibition about knowledge, power, and agency. It’s become a more common understanding that governments, institutions, and algorithms will manipulate the public with what information they frame as fact, fiction, or worthy of attention. Though I am early in researching this topic, I've only come across a minimal amount of mainstream discourse on how the initial threat limiting our scope of knowledge is a refusal to listen to ourselves.

In a world faced with so many threats - humans being violent toward each other, toward animals, toward the earth - it can be a bit unsettling to release the reins and allow ourselves to bear witness for a moment, as we slowly develop a deeper awareness of surrounding phenomena and happenings.

divine knowing includes works by formally trained and self-taught artists. A majority of the artists are bisexual, non-binary, or transgender. Regardless of degree-status, gender, or sexuality, these artists have tapped into the autonomous well of self-knowing. Their artworks speak to tactics for opening up to a more perceptive mode of being. They unravel dependencies on external sources for knowledge and what we might recognize, connect with, or achieve once we do.

The installation Femme Digitale by Sierra Bagish originates from a series she began in 2017 by converting photographs of women that were taken and distributed online without the subject’s consent into paintings. Her practice at the time was concerned with female abjection. Sourcing images found via simple keywords and phrases (e.g., passed out, passed out drunk) she swathes a mass-circulated canon of internet detritus that articulates and produces aggression towards women. With her paintings, she circumvents the images’ original framing mechanisms and subverts these proliferated images through a sincere and personal lens.

These paintings divulge the blurred space between idolatry and denigration these online photos occupy, asking whose desires these images fulfill and what their propagation reveals about the culture producing them. While Bagish's work contends with political motivations, she also remains keenly observant of form and the varying utilities of different media.

“I use the expressive potential of paint as a vehicle to intervene and challenge ideas about photography as a harbinger of the real and everyday.”

Chariot Birthday Wish is an artist and angel living in Brooklyn. They have seen The Matrix 28 times in 2 years and love horses. The tarot series included in divine knowing is their most intuitive project, something they revisit when unsure of what to work on next. The Major Arcana are composed of digital collages made from sourced images, the Minor Arcana are represented by short, poetic, interpretative texts about the cards. The series is played on shuffle, creating a unique reading for each viewer. This is a work in progress that will eventually finalize as a completed deck of digital collages available for purchase.

Chariot's work emerges from a constant consideration of apocalypse and connection. They reference technology in tandem with nature and a desire for unity. Underneath their work's surface conversation on beauty, care, and relationship exists an agenda to subtly evoke a conspiratorial anti-state mindset. Through a collective imagining of how good things could be and how good we want them to be, we might be able to reckon with how bad things are in contrast.

“I think about texting my friends from the middle of the woods...

Humans are a part of nature and we created these things. There's this Bjork quote where she says that "You can use pro tools and still be pagan." I'm really into the idea of using technology as a tool for divination and holy connection with nature. I imagine a scene; being in moss, it's absolute bliss, and then the connection of texting, sharing an image of moss with a friend, sharing that moment through cellular towers.”

The album "adding up" by thanks for coming is composed of songs Rachel Brown wrote during what they believe to be the most challenging year of their life. Rachel now looks back on this time in appreciation, recognizing they grew in ways they had never imagined. The entire year, they were committed to following their feelings to wherever it may lead.

“If I hadn't been open to following the almost indiscernible signs I was being sent, then I would have missed out on some of the most important moments in my life.”

Kimberly Consroe holds a Masters in Anthropology along with degrees in Archaeology, Literature, and History. She is currently a Research Analyst at the US Department of Commerce. Her artwork is a passionate escape from a hectic professional life and touches on themes of feminism and nature.

Her works begin as general ideas; their narrative complexity growing with the amount of time she invests in making each one. Her decoupage process starts with cutting hundreds, if not thousands, pieces of paper. The accumulation of clippings sourced from vintage and current-day magazines overlap to tell a story. In Domestication, Kimberly borrows submissive female figures from found images of Ryan Mcguinness's work and places them in a position of power.

“I believe intuition is associated with emotion and experience. It is wisdom and fear, empathy and outrage, distrust and familiarity. It is what we know before we know it. This relates to my artwork in that, from beginning to end, there is never one complete idea concerning the outcome: it is a personal journey. It emerges from an ephemeral narrative that coalesces into a definitive story.”

Anabelle DeClement is a photographer who primarily works with film and is interested in relationships as they exist within a frame. She is drawn to the mystery of the mundane. Intuition exists in her practice as a feeling of urgency and the decision to act on it --- a drive often used to describe street photography where the camera catches unexpected moments in an urban environment. Anabelle tends to photograph individuals with whom she has established personal relationships in a slow domestic setting. Her sense of urgency lies in capturing moments of peak intimacy, preserving a memory's informal beauty that otherwise may have been forgotten or overlooked.

Gla5 is a visual artist, poet, bookmaker, production designer, and educator. Play is at the center of their practice. Their process is an experimental one embracing impulse and adventure. Their compositions are informed by relationships among bodies of varying shapes, materials, and densities. Interests that come up in their work include a discernment between symbols and non-symbols, dream states, the portrayal of energy in action, and a fixation on forms such as cups, tables, and spoons.

“I generally think of my work as depicting a layer of life that exists underneath what we see in our everyday lives.”

Gladys Harlow is a sound-based performance artist, comedian, and activist who experiments with found objects, contact mics, textures, range, analog formats, present moments, and emotions. Through raw, avant-garbage performance art, they aim to breakdown societal barriers, abolish oppressive systems, and empower communities. Gladys was born in Queens, NY, raised in Miami, FL and has deep roots in Venezuela. Currently haunting in Philadelphia, PA, Gladys is a founding member of Sound Museum Collective. SMC holds space for reconstructing our relationships to sounds by creating a platform for women, nonbinary, and trans sound artists and engineers.

Street Rat is a visceral exploration of the mysteries of life. Attempting to bring heavy concepts to your reality, it is the eye on the ground that sees and translates all intersecting issues as they merge, explode, dissolve, and implode. Street Rat is Gladys Harlow's way of comprehending, coping, feeling, taking action, disrupting the status quo, and rebuilding our path.

All Power To The People originated as a recorded performance intended to demystify sound by revealing the tools, wires, and movements used to create it. All Power To The People evolved into an installation conceived specifically for this exhibition. The installation includes a theremin and oscillator built by Gladys, a tarot deck they made by hand, and books from the artist's personal collection, amongst other elements. Gladys has created a structure of comfort and exploration. They welcome all visitors of divine knowing to play with the instrument, flip freely through the books, and pull a tarot card to take home.

Phoebe Hart is an experimental animator and filmmaker. A majority of her work is centered around mental illness and the line between dreams and reality. Merry Go Round is a sculptural zoetrope that changes in shape and color as it spins. Its form is inspired by nature and its color by the circus. The video’s sound was produced by Hayden Waggener. It consists of reverbing chimes which are in rhythm with the stop animation’s movement; both oscillate seamlessly between serene and anxious states.

“I often don't plan the sculptures or objects I am fabricating, there is a vague image in my mind, and my hands take care of the rest. I find that sometimes overthinking is what can get me and other artists stuck. If I just abandon my judgments and ego, I can really let go and create work that feels like it came inherently from me.”

Powerviolets is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Violet Hetson who is currently based in New York. After experiencing several false starts while bouncing coast to coast, recording and performing with several lineups, Hetson has finally released her debut album. ~No Boys~ namesake is a sarcastic sign she hung on her suburban CT teenage bedroom door. Violet Hetson grew up primarily listening to punk and hardcore. She parses elements of these genres with influences from bands such as X and Suburban Lawns. ~No Boys~ takes a softer, melodic approach to Hetson's punk roots. Powerviolets' music is linear, unconventional, dark, and airy with a sense of humor.

Mary Hunt is a fiber artist specializing in chain stitch embroidery. This traditional form of embroidery uses vintage machinery and thick thread to create fibrous art and embellishments. They use an approach called "thread painting," which requires each stitch to be hand guided by the turn of a knob underneath the table while the speed of movement is controlled by a foot pedal. Chainstitch works can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 200 hours, encouraging a slow and thoughtful process. Mary uses a Cornely A machine, made in Paris more than 100 years ago.

“I think we are sent messages and guidance constantly. Our intuition is simply our ability to clear the path for those messages. The largest obstacles on my artistic path are usually self-imposed negative thoughts. I simply do things to take care of my spiritual well-being, first and foremost, and the rest follows. If I can trust the universe, trust the process, then I am much more likely to listen to the messages sent my way.”

Jes the Jem is a multi-media artist working with acrylic, watercolor, mold clay, and whatever else she can get her hands on. She uses vivid color to bring joy into the lives of those who view her art. Jes the Jem has experienced a great deal of pain in her life. Through that unique displeasure, she has been gifted a nuanced perspective. She aims to energize the present while paying homage to the past events that shape us. In her art, her life, and her interpersonal relationships, Jes the Jem appreciates the gift of all of life's experiences.

“The pursuit of happiness and understanding is instinct.”

Pamela Kivi pieces together visual scraps she has saved over the years, choosing to fuse them at whatever present moment she sees fit. Her work reflects on creative mania, fleeting emotions, and memories. Pamela's collages are a compilation of unexpected elements that include: old notebooks, cut-outs, text messages or Facebook message conversations, nostalgic cellphone photos, and visual materials she has chosen to hold onto. She prints out, cuts up, scans, edits, repeats. Pamela's artistic practice is deeply personal. It is a submittal to the process of dusting things off until a reflection can be seen, all enacted without an attachment to the end result.

“I rely on intuition and whatever state of mind I am in to whisk me away. In life, I often confuse intuition with anxiety- when it comes to creative work, I can decipher the two.”

Through sobriety, Kendall Kolenik's focus has shifted toward self-discovery and shedding old adaptive patterns, a process that led her to a passion for helping others heal themselves too. In autumn, she will begin her Masters in Social Work at Columbia University.

“I love how when I'm painting my self-doubt becomes so apparent. Painting shows me exactly where my doubt lies, which guides me towards overriding it. When I paint something and lean into doubt, I don't like what comes out. When I take note of the resistance and go with my gut more freely, I love it. This reminds me of my yoga practice. What you practice on the mat is a metaphor for how you show up in life. By breathing through the uncomfortable poses on the mat, you learn to breathe through challenging life moments.

I think we all grow up learning to numb and edit ourselves. We are taught not to trust our feelings; we are told to look outside ourselves for answers when we already have a perfectly good compass within. Painting is an archway back to that for me - rediscovering self-reliance and faith in my first instinct. When I'm creating these rainbow squares, sometimes I move so fast it's like something else is carrying me. I sort of leave myself and enter a trance. Like how you don't have to tell the heart to beat or the lungs to breathe - thinking goes away and I can get so close to my knowing that I become it. I love how art allows me to access my love for ambiguity, interpretation, and an interpretation that feels closer to Truth. I find no greater purpose than guiding people back to safety and reconnecting them with themselves. The most important thing to ever happen in my life was when I stopped trying to deny my reality - listening to your intuition can be like a freefall - no one but you can ever know or tell you - it is a deep trust without any outside proof.”

Lucille Loffredo is a music school dropout, Jewish trans lesbian, and veterinary assistant doing her best to make sure each day is better than the last. Lucille tries to find the music rather than make it. She lets it tell her what it wants to do and what it wants to be. The Wandering EP was in part written as a way to come out to herself. She asks all listeners to please be gentle.

“Change will come, and it will be good. You are who you think you are, no matter how far it seems.”

Whitney Lorenze generally works without reference, making thick, graphic pictures with precise forms conceived almost entirely from her imagination. Images like a slowly rolling car crackling out of a driveway, afternoon sun rays shining through a cloud of humidity, or headlights throwing a lined shadow across a black bedroom inspire her.

“As it concerns my own practice and the creation of artworks generally, I would define intuition as the ability to succumb to some primal creative impulse. Of course, this implies also the ability to resist the temptations of producing a calculated or contrived output.”

Ellie Mesa began teaching herself to paint at the age of 15, exploring landscapes and portraiture. Her work has evolved into a style of painting influenced by surrealism where teddy bears will morph into demons and vice versa. Her work speaks to cuteness, the grotesque, and mystical beings. The painting "Kali" is an homage to the Hindu goddess of creation, destruction, life and death. This was Ellie's first painting after becoming sober and is an expression of the aforementioned forces in her own life. Through meditations on Kali, Elli has been able to find beauty in the cycle of love and loss.

“To me, intuition means doing the thing that feels right whether or not it's what you want it to be. When I'm painting or making a sculpture, I give myself the freedom to follow what feels right, even if that means starting over or changing it completely. I allow the piece to present itself to me instead of forcing something that doesn't want to be.”

Mari Ogihara is a sculptor exploring duality, resilience, beauty, and serenity as experienced through the female gaze. Her work is informed by the duality of womanhood and the contradictions of femininity. In particular, the multitude of roles we inhabit as friend, lover, sister, and mother and their complex associations to the feminine perspective.

“Intuition is an innate, immediate reaction to an experience. While making art, I try to balance intuition, logic, and craftsmanship.”

All Of Me Is War by Ames Valaitis addresses the subconscious rifts society initiates between women, estranging them from each other and themselves.

“It is an unspoken, quick, and quiet battle within me as the feeling of intuition purely, and when I am making a drawing. I am immediately drawn to poses and subject matter that reflect the emotion inside myself, whether it is loud or under the surface. If a line or figure doesn't move me, after working on it for a few minutes, I get rid of it. If something looks right to me immediately, I keep it; nurture it. I try to let go of my vision, let my instinct take hold. I mirror this in my life as I get older, choosing who and what to put my energy into. The feeling is rarely wrong; I'd say we all know inherently when it is time to continue or tap out.”

Chardel Williams is a self-taught artist currently living in Bridgeport. Her biggest inspiration is her birthplace of Jamaica. Chardel views painting as a method for blocking out chaos. Her attraction to the medium springs from its coalescence of freedom, meditative qualities, and the connection it engenders. rears.

“Intuition for me is going where my art flows. I implement it in my practice by simply creating space and time to listen. There are times when what I'm painting is done in everyone else's eyes, but I just keep picking at it. Sometimes I would stop painting a piece and go months without touching it. Then, out of nowhere, be obsessed with finishing. I used to get frustrated with that process, but now I go with it. I stopped calling it a block and just flow with it. I listen because my work talks.”

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bloojayoolie · 6 years ago

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Bad, Future, and I Bet: The five stages of red-pill 1. Generic conservative: The generic conservative realizes something about society doesn't quite sit right with him, there is a "gut feeling" that "something is wrong" with the way people conduct themselves in terms of behavioral norms, moral standards and so on. However, he is unable to articulate his opposition to liberalism outside of a liberal context and accepts liberal principles such as a belief in the moral goodness of equality as taken for granted, so liberals generally run rings around him Typical argument: "First gay marriage, what next? Pedos marrying kids? Bestiality?" Typical liberal response: "Slippery slope fallacy much? They said the same thing about black people being allowed to vote 2. Libertarian: The libertarian takes his opposition to liberalism and tries to establish a philosophical foundation for most "generic conservatives" do not merely voice their opposition to the perceived speaking, the libertarian takes this sm impracticality of liberal plans, economic tep further and l framework of one based around economic freedom t degree, he is capable of attacking the current system effectively, but utterly ineffective in challenging it morally or ethically since libertarianism tends to adopt a non-interference attitude to ethics and Typical argument: "You do not right have to right to appropriate other people's wealth. Taxation is theft. Typical liberal response: "Tell that to the Scandinavian states that achieve so much with high tax rates. I bet you believe in creationism too." 3. The radical right Most people on the right stop at stage 2 of the red pill process, those who dig deeper go further however start to realize that something isn't quite right about libertarianism's general refusal (outside of people like Hoppe) to take a moral stand against degeneracy. This leads them to unorthodox political philosophies that stand well beyond the pale of acceptability, such as fascism. For the first time in their lives, they start to articulate moral and ethical opposition to liberal principles rather tha pical argument: "if you import third world people, you import third world problems. We need to act for our people and our Nation, not for Jews, Blacks or Hispanics res 4. Traditionalism: efourthstage is traditionalism. The red-pilled individ soteric (by present day ra ards ua erarc rea entire trajectory for the past two centuries s Revolt of 1789 has been disastrous. Typically the traditionalist will identify with traditional modes of European government IC ical arqument: simply point out the error of principle that has provided the foundation of this constitution and that has led the French astray since the first moment of their revolution. ons like its predecessors, has been drawn up for Man. Now, there is no such thing in the world as Man. In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc. I am even aware, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be a Persian. But, as for Man, I declare that I have never met him in my life. If he exists, I certainly have no This constitution is capable of being applied to all human communities from China to Geneva. But a constitution which is made for all nations is made for none: it is a pure abstraction, a school exercise whose purpose is to exercise the mind in accordance with a hypothetical ideal, and which ought to be addressed to Man, in the imaginary places which he inhabits.. What is a constitution? Is it not the solution to the following problem: to find the laws that are fitting for a particular nation given its population, its customs, its religion, its geographical situation, its political relations, its wealth, and its good and bad Now, this problem is not addressed at all by the Constitution of 1795, which is concerned only with Man. Typical liberal response: Imao so u think women shouldn't vote 'n shiet? Get with the times grandpa xD It's 2016, not 1816 5. Hoppean Libertarianism The fifth and final stage of the red pill is Hoppe libertarianism. Realizing the traditionalist morals of old would not be sufficient to guide a modern society, not to mention its penchant for coercion, the red-pilled individual will seek guidance in the works of Austrian economist Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Alas, Dr Hoppe's works on why monarchy is better suited to protect individual rights than democracy will certainly capture the attention of the now-traditionalist 4th-stage-pilled individual. Even more, Dr. Hoppe's conclusions that there can be no tolerance towards democrats, socialists, communists or any other collectivist mindset in the free society will seduce the red-pilled individual into realizing a world composed of thousands of different privately-owned microstates would usher in a prosperous and glorious age Typical argument: "Predictably, under democratic conditions the tendency of every monopoly to increase prices and decrease quality - will be only more pronounced. Instead of a prince who regards the s private property, a temporary caretaker is put in charge of the country. He does not own the country, but as long as he is in office he is permitted to use it to his and his proteges' advantage. He owns its current use usufruct but not its capital stock. This will not eliminate exploitation. To the contrary, it will make exploitation less calculating and carried out with little or no regard to the capital stock, i short-sighted. Moreover, the perversion of justice will proceed even faster now. Instead of protecting pre-existing private property rights, democratic government becomes a machine for the redistribution of xisting property rights in the name of illusory social security A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person but falls instead into the same moral category a domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a "free good") or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but...who knowingly act wrongly... [Blesides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished... to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future imal of either the harmless sort (to be Private property capitalism and egalitarian multiculturalism are a cultural conservatism. And in trying to combine what cannot be combined, much of the modern libertarian movement actually contributed to the further erosion of private property rights (just as much of contemporary conservatism contributed to the erosion of families and traditional morals). What the countercultural libertari that the restoration of private property rights and laissez-faire economics implies a sharp and drastic increase in social "discrimination" and will swiftly eliminate most if not all of the multicultural-egalitarian life style experiments so close to the heart of left libertarians. In other words, libertarians must be radical and uncompromising conservatives ely a combination as socialism and iled to recognize, and what true libertarians cannot emphasize enough, is ilies, authority, communities, and social ranks are the empirical-sociological concretization of the abstract philosophical-praxeological categories and concepts of property, production, exchange, and contract. Property and property relations do not e apart from families and kinship relations." Egalitarianism, in every form and shape, is incompatible with the idea of private property. Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference. And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental-indeed foundationalfact of families and intergenerational kinship relations inship relations imply cultural absolutism. Typical liberal response: None. This degenerate would've already been employed as a consumer good or been physically removed from society

#funny #lol #humor #memes #meme #memehumor #dank memes #funny pics #rolf #lmao #Bad #Future #and I Be

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bestbooksintheworld-blog · 6 years ago

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This blog contains affiliate links, meaning, if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar has a beautiful remark on motivation. When the reporter asked him what he thinks about motivation, he responded – “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”In this age of constant distraction, it’s hard to feel motivated to do the work you are put on earth to do. But there are both good news and bad news.

Good news, first!

You can feel motivated by tweaking your mind in alignment with something positive.

Bad news!

Not everyone would do it.

In this article, we will provide you with top motivational books that can revolutionize your life. You can read, learn, apply and teach the material in these books to anybody who needs help. But if you feel demotivated or depressed in life, you should start with yourself.

So, let’s have a look at top 10 best motivational books of all time.

1. Think and Grow Rich

Most people think that this is a book on making money. But if you give it a read, you will know how important it is to read the book. This book has changed millions of life all around the world. It’s time that you grab the book and make your life count.

Book Review:

“Think and Grow Rich” is not a motivational book that can be taken lightly. If you take all the principles to heart, it’s guaranteed that you will have an amazing life. Many people, who have become rich by transforming their life of misery, give credit to this book. And the word “rich” doesn’t only connote “money”; rather it’s much more than “money”. It’s abundance that you can achieve by applying the 13 lessons laid out in this book.

Get the Book

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

It talks about seven specific habits that can transform the paradigm of an average individual and can make his life count. Have a look at the review and best takeaways.

Book Review:

This is the best motivational book of Dr. Covey ever. Most of all other motivational books that Dr. Covey has written are based on the principles etched out here. In this book, you will learn to shift your paradigm from being a victim to being a victor. You will learn to change your habits. You will begin to start any project with the end in life. And most of all, you will find out the purpose of your life.

Get the Book

3. Men's Search For Meaning

It is so powerful and relevant, that you will feel goose bumps after reading it through.

Book Review

Imagine that you have been imprisoned for a very long time. The guards have taken away everything – foods, clothing, friends, family and a life worth living. During that moment, what could you possibly think? Can you think of possibility? Viktor Frankl did. He thought to himself – What if they take away everything and still can’t get to the deeper part of me where I am my own! And he did. He came out alive of that Nazi camp and wrote this best motivational book. If you are prone to despair, this is must read book for you.

Get the Book

4. The Alchemist

The author has started to receive his enormous fan following after writing this book. This is a novel which revolves around a boy and his dream.

Book Review:

If you have a dream, you can’t skip this book. This top motivational book will show you how to dream, how to listen to your intuition, how to take decisive action in uncertain times, how to choose between most important tasks and important tasks, and how to follow your heart. This book is a fascinating read and read by all celebrities, movie stars, business men and women all over the world. If you have not read this yet, it’s time to pick it up.

Get the Book

5. Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, And Life’s Greatest Lesson

rather it has talked about something radical – how to die well. The philosophy of this book revolves around this snippet of wisdom – “if you can learn how to die well, you will know how to live well.”

Book Review:

This motivational book is written with extraordinary candour and stunning narrative. The whole book is full of dialogues with the author’s dying professor from whom the author learned the magic of life. If you want to have an amazing experience of living with an old man, and want to soak in his wisdom, love, compassion and honesty, this book is for you.

Get the Book

6. You can Heal Your Life

This is a ground-breaking motivalational book of mother of personal development, Louise Hay. She has shared the exact strategies and affirmations she used to reach an incredible level of wealth, cured cancer and get rid of the guilt and shame of childhood abuse.

Book Review

If you think affirmation doesn’t work, you seriously need to read this book. The author says people who think affirmation doesn’t work are negating the positive effect of affirmation by saying so. This book has been sold millions of copies and many, many men and women have reported the stories of incredible transformation in their lives by applying the principle. So grab this book and apply the insights, ideas, affirmations and meditations given in this book.

Get the Book

7. How To Win Friends And Influence People

Talk about classic on man management and here’s what you get. This top motivational book has changed an entire generation of people and taught them the secrets to win friends and create influence.

Book Review

There are typical things you can do to make an instant connection with them. You may call them old school, but you know that they work once you start doing them. For example – when you meet anyone, get genuinely interested in them (don’t tell them what you need), remember their names if you have met them before, smile and so on and so forth. This best motivational book is still very relevant and can do wonders for people who have difficult time making friends and influencing people.

Get the Book

8. The Compound Effect – Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success

If you are in despair and can see no possibility of making your life count, this motivational book will aid you. This is a modern success manual written in a step by step manner. Follow this book and success would be yours.

Book Review

The author has himself used all of the principles articulated here. When he wrote this book, he was the editor of most esteemed magazine of the world “Success Magazine”. Using the same principles, he became a millionaire at the age of 24 and then began his journey of teaching and leading. This book is based on the principle of momentum. If you start a tiny habit, it may not give you instant benefit right away. But give it enough time and you will see that it will transform your life.

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9. The One Thing – The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

If you want to specialize in a business or skill or subject, this is the book you should pick up. In this age of generalist culture, it’s a big relief to know that you can do ONE thing amazingly well, if you choose to

Book Review

This best motivational book shouldn’t be read without having a pad and pen handy. There is so much to learn in this book, that you may need to re-read multiple times to get the hang of it. If you feel, you are too overwhelmed with what you need to do, pick this book up and you will learn how to set your priorities and how to get extra-ordinary results doing the same.

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10. Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success

This book will shift the way you think and by using this new mind-set, you will be unstoppable.

Book Review

This motivational book is a comparative research on two mind-sets – fixed mind-set and growth mind-set. People who have fixed mind-set believe that their talent and abilities are in-born and they can’t do anything to change it. People who have growth mind-set believe that they can grow their talent and abilities by learning and training their mind. You will know why it is important to have a growth mind-set and how you can shift your mind from being fixed to being open and ready.

Get the Book

The books are motivate you read the books and implement your life the books concept

#motivation books

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onestowatch · 6 years ago

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sobhhï Discusses Branding, Moods, Inclusion, & New Single “facts up / الحين” [Q&A]

“I'm just trying to knock out all these handshakes and you know, trying to be more social this year,” says Sobhhï in between a laugh as he walked the streets of New York with me on the other end of the phone. Miscommunication for our chat didn’t alter his demeanor, but in fact broke the ice, calling it a “lucky coincidence” on my timing before he continued his travels to Dubai.

The alternative R&B artist simply known as sobhhï has purposely stepped out of the limelight during the duration of his career and embraced a shadowed persona. The pressure to disclose his identity to a constant growing fan base became more apparent with his musical success. “Like my youngest followers are the ones that are most curious, so definitely I do feel that pressure. But I always get reconfirmation too that making the focus not so about me has helped make it more about the music so, I'm pretty happy with the fact,” explained sobhhï.

On his latest single, “facts up / الحين,” taken off his forthcoming EP, BLACK I, set to release on Feb. 19, sobhhï brings a multitude of intangible moods on a sultry production. Once again blending trapsoul with R&B, the track is an appetizing fill for colder nights. “facts up” maintains a sensual bedroom soul soundscape which softens a tinge of erotica from sobhhï’s dreamy vocals. His articulation from sensuality of lust towards a mental aspect intertwines with Arabic, English, and the undertone of distance.

In the same vein, sobhhï’s attention to detail on his continued color-palette themed EPs stretches beyond his music, but towards his draped branding. Recently teaming up with like-minded individuals, sobhhï’s latest endeavor, NUIT SANS FIN (night without end), acts as a record label, luxury fashion, and design house focusing on a nightlife style. Heavily influenced from Marty Neumeier’s “The Brand Gap” and “Zag,” sobhhï’s marketing mindset is prevalent on NSF. In order to stray away from the “standard cookie cutter” presentation among a saturation of similar artists, sobhhï states that when people zigs, he zags.

The conversation naturally leads from the ideals of NSF, moods, and the real reason why he spoke Arabic on “facts up.” A lighter side of sobhhï is shown throughout our conversation, always stemming from inclusion, offering a better insight of sobhhï’s thought process. What follows is a condensed version of our conversation.

OTW: Your brand is polished and it kind of goes into something that I noticed that you recently did in NY, it's NSF — which celebrates, if I may quote a "nocturnal lifestyle" — so I wanted more information on that and how that meshes with your overall brand and music.

Sobhhï: I took a look at my catalogue, and I realized there was a little bit of lack of cohesion of what kind of message I’m sending, and I looked around [to] more successful artists. And to me, the music industry’s success is more really about money; it’s about do you have a hit single that's gonna recoup that cost of your advance and all the monthly costs, but for me the success criteria is if fans or people who are listening feel like they're apart of something that's just not music that they hit play, but kind of a world they live in. So, I look at things like you know Drake's OVO and [The] Weeknd's XO, Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang, and A$AP Rocky’s A$AP brand, and I realized those brands are much bigger than the music. They allow people to feel more included. They allow people to change their social media handle to feel like they're part of a family. It's gonna be a design house at the end of the day, which means that it can range from anything from photography to architecture, but the point is it’s a project that allows me to make the feeling that people get from my music to go beyond just the music itself and make it more inclusive. And since then there's been people changing their handles on social media, feeling they’re more included in this family, and I hope I can make it bigger than me. And then one day when I'm not here anymore, it will still be here. And again, NSF means endless night, or night without end, and it kinda describes my music and my whole circle's sort of mindset or lifestyle. It also describes a lot of the millennial culture. You know, binging on Netflix [laughs], sleeping till noon.

OTW: So, are you of the millennial culture?

Sobhhï: That's a good question. [laughs] I would say— are you saying by age or by mentality?

OTW: Either or — it's subjective.

Sobhhï: Okay, I'll say mentality wise. You know like I said, everyone zigs or zags, so if I ever feel like there is a culture of some kind I try not to be so, included. I try to find a way to like stand out a little bit.

OTW: On Essentials, there's a couple tracks that I've noticed that are probably going to be on your upcoming BLACK I EP, right?

Sobhhï: Yes.

OTW: Did you kind of see this as testing the waters in a sense to what would stick, before you would put out, or I guess, polish the EP?

Sobhhï: Um, no. The Essentials are actually the curation of the very best songs from all of the EPs, so you can think of it starting with the concept of colors. I name my EPs after colors because I feel like there's many shades of R&B and hip-hop now, it's not just one sound. So, instead of having an album that sort of has these waves and people take the songs they like out of it, I decided it would be better to just package things in small, very, very, concentrated pieces of bodies of work that have a theme. And I also noticed there's a shift in the music industry, it seems to be diverging, and we're getting really, really, long albums now for people who are shamefully trying to jack up their stream numbers, and we're also getting a movement towards just singles from more independent artists because people don't have the patience to listen to full projects. So, I thought like 3-4 song EPs would be the perfect size that would allow me to go deeper into a topic or a mood, than just one song, and allow me to experiment with transitions, but not long enough to be considered having a dropout rate by the time you're done.

OTW: What I want to touch on is your immersion of Arabic. Even certain references in titles, whether it be a capital and the actual language as well; I think that's very beautiful. What was the idea to immerse Arabic because you really don't hear that a lot. I love Arabic indie rock but I don't hear it in R&B. [laughs]

Sobhhï: Yeah, thank you for appreciating that. I know some people don't. For me, the main motive for that is hip-hop started as a story about being African-American in America and certain forms of oppression that those people faced, and then it's something that grew and was kind of an empowering sound and empowering genre. And as the world became more like immigrant population, hip-hop has kinda gone to the world stage from where it started. And now, it's just... I look around, and I see there's a lot of representation of hip-hop in certain places and then there's certain places where there's people who really like hip-hop but it's not represented for them there. So, the whole point for Arabic for me is I just want more people to feel included in the movement. I look at a lot of my fans. I have a lot of Turkish fans, I have a lot of Arabic fans, I have a lot of fans from France for example, and it's like hopefully one by one I can find ways to represent my supporters in my music over time. And Arabic was just the first thing I did because I happen to speak it [laughs] but you know, that's kinda the concept with it. I want people to listen to it and be like, “Oh wow this isn't just something like happening thousands of miles away that I can't be apart of anymore,” it's like world culture. It's world pop culture.

OTW: You mention a lot about inclusion, whether it be the side project of the record label, as well as immersing cultures and languages together — is that just an overall theme that’s intentional?

Sobhhï: Yeah, I mean it's not like I have an overt agenda. Just like the way I grew up, my parents were both immigrants and they came here to get educated. My dad came for an accounting PhD and then he stayed, and then my mom came for an MBA, and they didn't really like each other very much. You know when your parents don't like each other, it's hard to have family friends; it's hard to even keep good ties with your family. I would say my younger brother and I grew up very lonely and on holidays and special occasions there really wasn't anyone around. And we also moved around a lot too, so these things culminated I guess. For me it's like family, like building a family, is a very important thing. And the same way I'm against racism, and against sexism, and every kinda -ism, I'm also against the concept that family has to be people you're related to because that's just a game of chance, like who you end up being related to doesn't necessarily mean they're good people.

OTW: Let's talk about your single “facts up”— what was the little push behind it? Because that one sounds like something I would ask a distant relationship, like, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Sobhhï: Yeah, so it's hard for me tangibly describe these things because you know, my process is very [laughs] loose. I kind of just step into a studio and these things just come out of my head and then you know I go back and edit them on paper, and then it's done. So, it's hard for me to walk through a very perfect story for you about “there's a girl” [laughs], but there's definitely a distance component to this. I'm hopping between all these cities and it's hard, for my friends and people I always care about, [who] aren't always in the same place. Also, originally I wasn't planning on speaking Arabic in this song, but there was this... I was talking to this girl and she said, “I want to hear you speak in Arabic.” [laughs]

OTW: [laughs]

Sobhhï: So I was like… Okay [laughs].

OTW: Was it that easy?

Sobhhï: Yeah. I didn't think it would turn out that good. [laughs] I mean, I happen to be in the studio at the time and you know nivo, who is my close collaborator, he just finished a session and we were going to get food and usually right before we leave to do something there's like a period of 20 minutes where like he's checking his phone or we're packing stuff up, so I took that 20 minutes to be like, "Okay let me get this out the way" [laughs]...so this is one of the songs where I let nivo hear it in the car and he's like, “Yo, dude you gotta get on this vibe” and I was like, “Really?”

OTW: That's hilarious. Love how things fall into place. Did you ever get to show that girl?

Sobhhï: Yeah, she knows about it [laughs].

OTW: Is there anything else you want to add, talk about?

Sobhhi: I will say BLACK I is just the first project and color dropping this year, there will also be Red III, Purple I, White I, and White II, if I have the stamina and the luck so look out for that, and they will all explore different moods and different feelings and different themes.

#sobhhï #facts up #alternative #R&B #interview

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xavierxvh2 · 5 years ago

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*April 25 Tumblr 3*

This Female Wrestler is Redefining Strong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_3ktOmMgfs

In this entry I will examine critical questions using an artifact of a counterpublic. These questions are why or how is it counterpublic? What is its rhetorical message? And how is it empowering and/or limiting? To investigate these questions, I examined the interview of top female wrestler Adeline Gray as my rhetorical artifact. The interview shares uplifting messages of women empowerment, hard work, and risk taking, which is ultimately empowering with very few limiting characteristics.

Adeline Gray is a top female wrestler not only on a national scale but on a global scale as well. She is not new to success having been wrestling successfully since she was six years old. Adeline approaches the sport differently than most people in her situation and she believes that is what sets her apart from others. She grew up wrestling top competition and gives that competition credit for making her into the champion wrestler she is today.

Squires (2001) explains that counter publics are a public formed by a group of marginalized people with the goal of taking on particular genres of discourse or action. The type of discourse they involve themselves in depends on culture, relations with the dominant public sphere and the state, and socioeconomic forces (Squires 2001). Felski (1989) also explains that counterpublics seek to define themselves against the universal logic and ideals of global mega culture of modern mass communication. The goal of counter-publics is to voice needs and articulate the oppositional values which the popular culture fails to address (Felski 1989).

The group that Adeline represents is described as a counter public because universally, rough sports are seen as being made for men and men only. Women who participate in these sports are seen as non feminine because of this stereotype. Adeline Gray seeks to define herself and others against this universal logic that rough and physical sports are designed for men and should only be partaken in by them. Also, women are still marginalized in the world of sports even though the world is making headway in respecting these professional women in their crafts. They are seen as inferior because many sports rely on physical ability and men are naturally more gifted in that department. Their skill and technique is very often overlooked for this reason, leading to their competitions being less anticipated than their male counterparts.

Adeline Gray aimed to uplift and empower women in this interview and she made multiple points that helped her to do so. One message she had was that there is not one particular image or definition for the word strong. Adeline states, “I want to redefine feminine to some extent, and to have people challenge the way they look at the word strong and not see a boy that pops into your head.” The word strong is often synonymous with masculine characteristics but she aimed to say that anyone can be strong, including women. She also had that message that in order to be great, risks must be taken and one must be willing to do things that others are not willing to do. She says, “I got to train with the best guys in the world and they made me tougher. They made me work for every single point I had to wrestle with and they made it so that I can be a champion on the women’s level now.” Adeline did not become great by training at a mediocre pace but instead she pushed herself and her body to its limits. The risks that she took in her training are what allowed her to improve to such a high level and compete with the best and be the best.

The artifact is seen mostly as empowering because it gives young girls a great person to model themselves after. Her lessons go further than wrestling, they are lessons that can be taken on in any aspect of life. Young women also see that her roadmap and mindset has led to success for herself. Seeing success in the process is more of a reason to trust it and see where it can be taken. This interview also shows women that regardless of how great she is, she is still human and is similar to them in many ways. Gray says, “I’m still struggling with that concept that I’m worried about not being perfect when I step on the mat.” Many people think they are alone in their suffering and that success will lift them out of it. Adeline shows that no matter how successful one becomes, our natural reaction is to always be critical of ourselves. This shows that no amount of work should ever be satisfactory and that people should always strive to be better regardless of how great they are.

With all of this being said, the interview can still be seen as limiting because of how far Adeline has taken her career. Adeline was a 3x world champion, ranked #1 in the world in her weight class, and had been undefeated for over two years. There can only be one person at a time that is as great as her, there cannot be two people ranked #1. This fact may be discouraging to some people because they don’t have the confidence it takes to make it to that level. The amount of work it takes to be the best is rejected by many because it requires sacrifices that not everyone is willing to take.

In summary, Adeline Gray succeeded in her endeavor to empower and uplift young women so that they know they can accomplish their goals as well. Through representing the counter public of marginalized women in sports, she in turn hopes to affect the future generation of female athletes.

Felski, Rita. “Feminist Literature and Social Change.” Beyond Feminist Aestethics, 1989, pp. 164-172.

Great Big Story. “This Female Wrestler is Redefining Strong.” Youtube, Aug. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_3ktOmMgfs

Squires, Catherine. “The Black Press and the State.” Counterpublics and the State, 2001, pp. 111-113.

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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The alt-right manifesto that has Trumpworld talking

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The alt-right manifesto that has Trumpworld talking

An alt-right supporter marches in Portland, Oregon. | Karen Ducey/Getty Images

politics

An anonymous book author has lit the online right on fire — including some in the president’s orbit.

The most important political book of the past year just might be a grammatically challenged manifesto in favor of nude sunbathing written under the pen name Bronze Age Pervert.

Where Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” inspired generations of libertarians to enter politics, and Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” did the same for idealistic liberals, a cohort of young, right-wing men are today gravitating toward “Bronze Age Mindset.” The self-published book urges them to join the armed forces in preparation for the onset of military rule.

Story Continued Below

Since its publication in June 2018, the book has gained a following online, and its author, known to his fans as BAP for short, has come to the attention of notable figures on the Trumpist right. Earlier this month, the book was the subject of a 5,000-word review by Michael Anton, a conservative intellectual who served as a spokesman for Donald Trump’s National Security Council. Anton concludes by warning, “In the spiritual war for the hearts and minds of the disaffected youth on the right, conservatism is losing. BAP-ism is winning.”

Anton is just one of the Trump world figures who has taken notice. “It’s still a cult book,” said another former Trump White House official. “If you’re a young person, intelligent, adjacent in some way to the right, it’s very likely you would have heard of it.”

Right-wing agitator Mike Cernovich said he knows of young staffers in the White House who are fans of Bronze Age Pervert’s Twitter account — where the author posts photos of buff, shirtless men and promotes far-right positions on the culture war — though he does not know if they have read the book.

The 200-page book mixes Nietzschean philosophy with critiques of contemporary Western society, denigrating homosexuality, Judiasm, Islam, feminism and much else along the way. “Inside every noble Greek was an unquenchable lust for power,” is one fairly typical statement. “Modern world not bad just because modern,” is another, displaying the author’s habit of lapsing into broken English by dropping articles. The book claims that the leaders of the European Union have “tiny moleman eyes.” Many of its passages are profane and unprintable.

The book’s ascendance in online, far-right circles is indicative of the latest phase of the culture war that has fueled Trump’s presidency.

Most of the well-known figures associated with the alt-right or “alt-lite” — Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer — have been successfully demoralized, deplatformed or otherwise banished from the public square. But this has not eliminated the underlying source of their relevance: disaffected young men, mostly white, with internet access.

In large part, what’s left in the online spaces they inhabit are pseudonymous figures like Bronze Age Pervert, whose output tends to be more intellectualized, even esoteric.

While the loose alt-right network that became infamous in 2016 was filled with attention-seeking provocateurs who cheered on Trump’s rise, the new voices in this space are alienated and ambivalent about Trump. And far from being inspired by his signature call to “Make America Great Again,” their view of contemporary American society is decidedly dystopian.

Bronze Age Pervert is active on Twitter in a network of similar, pseudonymous accounts with names like Just Loki and 17thCenturyShytePost that revel in mythic, aristocratic pasts while trafficking in racism and anti-Semitism.

The memes — catchy ideas and images that are widely shared online — produced in such far-right internet circles, such as Pepe the Frog, regularly intrude on mainstream political discourse, sometimes even getting adopted by Trump himself. And the current fixations of these figures offer a glimpse of the concepts gaining traction there.

Figures in this space frequently refer to their belief that elite media is preparing Americans for a future in which their quality of life is greatly diminished and they are reduced to eating insects for protein.

“What is up with all these ‘we need to learn to eat cockroaches and maybe each other haha’ articles,” tweeted Just Loki on Wednesday, linking to a Newsweek article referencing cannibalism. “Perfect beer food—wash down your meal worms with a nice IPA!” tweeted 17thCenturyShytePost sarcastically in response to another article about eating insects earlier this month.

And because this corner of the internet fixates on population genetics and has a high affinity for Slavic and northern European cultures, there is a fascination with the Udmurt people, a small ethnic group that lives mostly in Russia, and the fact that a high proportion of its members have red hair.

The accounts also oppose mass migration, echoing the themes of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory invoked by the gunman who perpetrated the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre, and apparently again by the El Paso shooter. The idea, articulated in a 2011 book by the French writer Renaud Camus, claims that European elites are secretly conspiring to replace their countries’ white majorities with immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

In his book, Bronze Age Pervert describes Western societies as ruled by “bug men” and “lords of lies,” urging readers to pursue a life of “sun and steel” — that is, tanning and weightlifting.

Across 77 chapters of cryptic musing, the book describes social justice as “disgusting parasitism,” opines that women who succeed in traditionally male domains are “spiritual lesbians,” and complains that the U.S. intelligence services employ too many Mormons.

Anton, in his review, earnestly reckons with the book’s critique of Charles Darwin and notes that at one point it cracked the top 150 bestsellers on Amazon. Anton writes that the book was given to him by Curtis Yarvin, an internet philosopher who writes under the name Mencius Moldbug, favors a return to monarchy and reportedly communicated with Steve Bannon through an intermediary while Bannon was in the White House.

After encountering the book’s intentional spelling and grammar mistakes, Anton gave up on it until former White House speechwriter Darren Beattie urged him to read it in its entirety. Beattie was fired from Trump’s White House last year after it was revealed he spoke at a 2016 conference attended by Peter Brimelow, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a white nationalist. Beattie, who denounced the firing as guilt-by-association, now works as a speechwriter for Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a close ally of Trump’s in the House.

Much like the Trump phenomenon itself, it can be difficult to tell where to place “Bronze Age Mindset” along the spectrum between elaborate joke and deadly serious. Reached via direct message on Twitter, Bronze Age Pervert, declined to discuss his real-world identity. In a rambling note, said he was influenced by a book about homosexuality in the Nazi army and claimed, “I’m largely responsible for the Trump administration’s push for universal worldwide sodomy promotion,” an apparent reference to the administration’s campaign to abolish laws that criminalize homosexuality. (This appears to be a joke. A source close to the White House who is familiar with the initiative scoffed at the claim.)

Satirical nonsense aside, events such as recent mass shootings inspired by far right ideas, as well as acts of violence by believers in the fantastical QAnon conspiracy theory, underscore the gravity of this corner of internet culture.

“There’s a whole generation of younger guys who are reading this and buying into this, but there aren’t a lot of paths to channel that constructively,” said one organizer on the Trumpist right, who declined to be named in an article that contained the term “alt-right.”

“Insofar as people are worried about radicalization on the right towards violence, one of the things I worry about is this generation of younger guys are going to conclude there’s no space for them or their voice in the political process, and the only way they can express themselves is in these ugly, corrosive ways,” the organizer said. “In my opinion, the way to help these people is not to turn them 180 degrees, but to turn them 15 degrees.”

#Foreign #Politics #talking #Trumpworld

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truthandlove · 6 years ago

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WINNING THROUGH GRATITUDE

This is a mashup of a book I read along with some of the sage advice gleaned from corporate leaders, internet leaders and fitness coaches - all leaders who succeeded through understanding human nature. I hope it serves you today.

INGREDIENT ONE: hatred is wasted energy

A friend of mine from years back would always be so chipper, letting the ups and downs of business roll off his back and it seemed he was always increasing his business, while having this crazy abundance of time to spend with his family. As he was a small business owner / entrepreneur - and one with 4 preschool kids no less, this ability was unheard of to me. So much so, that I couldn't help but be intrigued but it and had to ask him about it and he said, "I learned years back that hatred is wasted energy. While my competitors are in fear-consciousness, imagining scenarios that invite them into envy, I'm too busy enjoying what I do. I pity them if they have time to compare themselves back and forth, wasting precious energy on judging. I just focus on thrilling my customers, putting any stress on God's shoulders, and loving everyone I encounter."

He did not just say it, I saw him living it. I can attest that the result was a freedom and ease to his business. He worked in a focused way and had time for the truly important. Although in his late 20's this one principle had given him wisdom and a level of peace beyond his years.

INGREDIENT TWO: enlightenment

Fast forward to the book "Winning through Enlightenment" which expanded my perspective on things. It taught me the real meaning of integrity, of responsibility and accountability. And in contrast how twisted most everyone's sense of these concepts is today, de-evolving them into blame games, into us versus them tribal consciousness. The book called all that unenlightened and showed how it is self-sabotaging, but realizing the true advantage integrity, responsibility and accountability gives you, winning becomes easy, and nearly inevitable.

It also taught me some about love. How coming from any kind of context of neediness undermines love as need is counter to love, because love is all about giving. So any time I come to a relationship (close relationships, relationships with strangers, etc.) NEEDING that other person to respond in any given way eclipses your ability to freely give and receive love. If you're not consciously choosing from a union of heart and mind; you're probably just reacting.

INGREDIENT THREE: actively applying your stores of energy

Years later, I was flown to LA to shoot a large, multi-day wedding there – the first of many weddings on the West coast. I was trying LA's rail system and exploring where it let to. I was 20 lbs overweight at the time and encountered this radiant man, so it sparked a conversation with that stranger. Turns out, although he looked fairly "corporate" in dress and manner, he was a full-time personal trainer. He said "you've got an abundance of stored energy there (referring to my own bodyfat). Ever thought of putting all that energy to better use?"

And he said a few other things, but this is what stuck with me - a transformed way to look at fat, not as "bad" in our culture, but as what it actually was: stored ENERGY. And the realization I could choose to apply that energy, my own energy as a storehouse of vitality (as opposed to non-vitality like how were taught to believe it to be these day) to apply to purposeful goals.

Just as my body was trying to store up energy on my behalf, so I would have it for key periods in the future where I might need it, so to all that I used to think was "negative" was actually there to serve me, meaning to be USEFUL to me as a resource to forward my goals. My body is not my enemy and fat is not my enemy - when I let it be what it was trying to be all along, something intended to serve my life. Today, I extrapolate that to many circumstances in life that could potentially threaten me or burden me, are really there to forward success in the largest sense.

INGREDIENT FOUR: the trap of comparison

Now, let's expand that with a teaching I heard by Tony Evans. He's not unique to communicate this, but that happened to be where I first heard it explicitly pinpointed this way. And the teaching is this: the comparison game is a game you can only lose. Remember that War Games movie? And the lesson of the movie was the only way to win the game was not to play? Like that. To enter into comparison can only have 1 of 2 bad outcomes:

1. you feel better than the person to which you compare yourself - leading to the pitfall of false pride.

2. you feel worse/below than the person/thing to which you compare yourself - leading to the pitfall of false shame.

He's right. Both feeling BETTER or feeling WORSE than something outside you is completely dis-empowering. Instead be imitators of God. And what did God do? Instead of using our every failure to judge and condemn us, he initiated Grace. His proactive love chose to GIVE. It gave us an opportunity to reconnect to Him as the foundation of our life - after all talk about a fountainhead of life-energy! God himself does not sit around looking for opportunities to blame and condemn when we don't meet His standards. Instead he looks for opportunities to BLESS.

Every command from God is reflective of the gracious heart of God and intended to bless US. Now religious people in their own unenlightened, wounded conditions can all have their own issues giving and receiving - aka participating in -- the very grace of God and may have terribly misrepresented the actual heart of God. But don't get tripped up by another imperfect or distorted reflection of God; instead go straight to the source of the Person of God. If you're on track; you will find the reality is a throne of terrifying power and amazing grace. Terrifying to those who are so arrogant as to be judgmental towards other humans, and amazing grace to those who know they need help and are willing to receive it.

So we find that comparison is also wasted energy. Your ACTUAL competition is only yourself. Those who fight to beat out others live miserable, whiny and bitter. They have to as they set their lives up IN REACTION to so many things outside their control. Those who live to outperform yesterday's level of living, enjoy the success and blessing that comes from humble, God-appreciating and self-growth approach to each day.

INGREDIENT FIVE: the trap of offense

Both my training in existentialism and the book "The Bait of Satan" by John Bevere opened my eyes to how any kind of offended state totally shuts us down. We can no longer hear the other person. We can no longer be proactive. We are a mindless, survival reaction of self-protection. And self protection is great! But getting STUCK in a self-protective mode when it does not serve us, is not just infantile, it is a doorway to lots of evil. You see, the moment anyone goes into an offended state, not only does their internal world go into spasm mode, like a torn muscle clamping down and just trying to hold onto anything for dear life, but we justify meanness, hatred, bigotry, and all kinds of attacks on the "threat" we imagine is "offending us."

Both sets of training pointed to consciously realizing when we're in the grip of offense and consciously relinquishing it. Through finding greater strength through transparency, through vulnerability, through humility - the very thing an offended person is incapable of doing. Offendedness strangles your ability to enjoy love:

Offended mode:

• hurt and reacting to perceived wounds

• focused on self-protection

• threatened

• lash out

• feel victimized

• strong need to change someone else

• feeling oh so serious and right about my position on things

Loving mode:

• focused on making a positive difference, regardless if feeling joyful or hurt in the moment

• opportunity seeking

• secure and giving-oriented

• look for ways to enlighten others

• look for ways to serve, to give

• secure that you are taken care of by a God who is so much bigger than any threat and whose powerful love intends only good for your life as only a secure person (trusting in receiving) can AFFORD to give out to others

To let anyone, a person, a word, an event trigger offense in you is to clap down and put the brakes on your own life. It is an evil trap. John articulates how the devil engineers things to trip us up into offended mindsets so that we go into hate/attack mode instead of loving/giving mode. Thus making the exact wrong thing to do appear like the right thing to do in that deceived state. For you who wish to avail yourself of more understanding of this process, there's a video covering some of it:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+bevere+bait+of+satan

THE MASHUP:

So it comes back to this: Hatred is wasted energy. Offense is wasted energy. Comparison is wasted energy. Resentment is wasted energy. Trying to judge/punish/condemn another human for their "wrongness" is wasted energy. Living in self-righteous indignation is wasted energy. Domination and control strategies resist love and are wasted energy. Do you want to live entrapped or enlivened?

Today, I can choose: to live small in us-vs-them mode, to live in a giving mode, a sharing everything good I come across mode. And this context of choosing to give I've found to be the supremely powerful one.

If you're at all intrigued by that "supremely powerful" statement, there's a whole book by Leanne Payne that unpacks it called 'Real Presence', where her way of speaking about this dynamic kind of life is "the realized and integrated personality." One she describes as free from what others think of me, free from fears, free from old meanings connected to notions of failure and so forth. It's an in-depth analysis -- which is so refreshing in our hasty and superficial times, but one you may find to be freeing and revitalizing :-)

I am a storehouse of energy: biochemical energy, emotional energy, mental energy and spiritual energy. How will I use it today? Not knowing how many "today's" I have left, I choose to use it by living joyfully on purpose. So I appropriate the lessons of "winning through enlightenment" in winning through GRATITUDE. Gratitude freely receives and freely gives. Only gratitude is truly ALIVE.

What do you call anything, a biological cell for example, that is not properly giving or receiving? You call it either nearly dead or you pronounce it dead. It is not interacting with its surroundings, its life, in a healthy way. At the interpersonal level (and I believe the quality of our interpersonal relationships has a lot to do with the practical quality of our lives), if you are not giving and receiving contribution, you're hardly living.

But how can any one "really" do that? To be so darn "grateful" all the time, when it seems so easy and weirdly attractive to be merely grumpy or reactive? Why have a grateful attitude when you can simply go with the flow to be easily-offended in a hyper politically correct heard? Part of the answer is in realizing that everything that comes my way only serves me. I don't want you to think life is about "me." I don't mean to promote any more narcissism as we're already experiencing an abundance of that in today's culture.

But "serving me" I mean that life can be thought of as a feedback loop - some call it karma or other terms whereby both people and circumstances are there to teach me lessons - call me out where I'm off. So, by saying everything is there to "serve me", I mean to take everything as an opportunity - to change, to learn, to grow, to recommit if that's needed, etc. In this way instead of things THREATENING you, they SERVE you. They are transformed from dangerous into triggers for more gratitude. I'm no longer this wound twitching around in spasm reactions to anything that remotely resembles things I've learned to be afraid of; I'm a secure, spiritually grounded conscious identity looking for opportunity, looking to use things to my advantage because I know my advantage is full of contributing to others at every level. I'm building an eternal legacy after all :-)

Here, compliments and criticisms alike have zero affect on my identity, self-esteem as they are merely the noise going on inside other people's minds, with their tangled psychology and codependent consciousness. Their confined boxes called "needing to be right", "self-righteous judgment", "competition consciousness", "doing things in order to" mess and all the rest based in scarcity, based in offense, based in woundedness consciousness -- based in not basking in abundance.

Try it, it is a freeing, beautiful way to live. Live it and people will actually think you're being arrogant when you're not at all. You just have supreme confidence because you're not working IN ORDER TO WIN, but FROM a victory already won. That changes everything.

No, it does not magically change your outer circumstances. No, it is not a magic wand to change other people to suit your whims. Rather it changes you and the resources from which you draw to use every circumstance as a platform from which to give. And specifically in terms of photographic work, it's given me more photography to do that I could ever even get to! Allowing me to cherry pick only the jobs that I feel are from God and re-direct the rest to others as a blessing to them. Everything in my life really IS an opportunity, to be grateful for everything, use it responsibly, and GIVE away the rest in the field of abundance as a pure gift. Really everything is a gift. We can't cling to anything. We can only give it away in the end. So in light of this truth, shouldn't every moment be about giving? About loving?

Do I always "fully", "perfectly" live every moment from the truths below? Of course not, silly. I still have room to improve consistency. But for any reader to even have that mental thought, looking to dismiss someone if you suppose they have a whiff of imperfection, is the very losing, non-grateful trap that just missed the whole point - of this contribution and really of you very own life. Don't miss the point, friends.

When you get right down to it; what is that about? Its about justifying staying untransformed. You might "succeed" at resisting a threatening truth that would disrupt your previous identity or level of conscious. But that is the very definition of losing as life.

I realize why you do it. You're afraid. It is threatening to your current identity to admit you're little more than a pathetic, knee-jerk fear reaction is a thousand different variations of fear, woundedness and faking it. Nothing pisses people off like a truth, you know. You cover that shame/fear with a compensation of superiority. While that is designed as a proactive ego armor to help you feel better in the moment, you just put yourself into the comparison trap of dualistic superiority/inferiority leading to a scheming, survivalistic punishment/reward mindset - exactly how serpents and demons think.

You live tossed around by me-vs-them thoughts or "what will others think", like a bad surfer pummeled by waves - waves you think are larger than yourself, instead of me-AND-them perspective. I've lived there too. It just not a fun or vibrant place to live, in my opinion. Let truth have its disruptive effect and change you for the better.

Friends, our resources are unlimited, but our energy is limited. How you use every energy today is literally choosing your destiny. I can't tell you that I'm a good example to follow; only that I am enlightened - meaning consciously choosing instead of reacting or being triggered. I can't change how I've misused my own energy in the past - getting triggered and hooked by my own past fears - but I can benefit myself and everyone I encounter by not wasting energy and by always re-directing back to my larger purpose. That freedom and vitality is fully available to everyone - everyone who chooses to live proactively in the fullest sense of the word.

My today and my tomorrow is a grateful one as I've already won and have nothing to prove to anyone. My life is a multidimensional one, and I'm already living from my grateful today and my glorious tomorrow. Just remember, without giving, you're not really loving and that is a sad, unnecessary way to experience this precious, amazing life. To choose is a blessing. Choose. I wish you all the happiness I possess and more!

6/01/2014 by Marcus Kaiser

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recentanimenews · 6 years ago

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Macross and Escaflowne Creator Shares the Secrets of his Genre-Defining Creativity

Shoji Kawamori may be the most famous name in mecha, having invented one of the most famous franchises of the genre in Macross, as well as one of the rare western mecha hits in Escaflowne, and designing mecha for everything from Eureka Seven to Patlabor to Outlaw Star to the Armored Core franchise. Approaching the 40th anniversary of his anime debut, and with another original anime in Juushinki Pandora soon to premiere, Kawamori visited Otakon 2018 as a guest.

The ever-industrious creator used the opportunity to deliver two panels, the first was a fascinating look into his creative process, inspirations, and creative philosophy based on the concept of transformative ideas titled “Originality & Mecha Design” and the second a comprehensive “History of Macross.” I also had the pleasure of interviewing Kawamori. By the end of the weekend I had over four hours of recorded audio of Kawamori providing an autobiography of his creative life. I’ve gathered notable points from all three events into a rough chronology including the highlights!

Kawamori began both panels by touching on his early life,born in the rural Ecchu Gokayama in Toyama Prefecture where he lived until he was three. He experienced a shock when his family moved to the city of Yokohama and he first saw a train, which he credits as the moment he became interested in machines. The story bore a strikingly similar to an aside from one of Kowamori’s anime Earth Maiden Arjuna, in which the chief of a nuclear power plant claimed witnessing a train as the moment he developed a passion for science that lead him to become a nuclear technician.

You may be familiar with a certain film inspired by Thunderbirds' style

When it comes to his fascination with mecha, Kawamori’s recounted watching Thunderbirds as a child. He jokingly claimed his preference for transforming mecha may have come out of necessity. His father bought him Fischertechnik blocks which, while more versatile than many of it competitors in the toy industry, were prohibitively expensive. Left with a limited amount of materials that provided many points of articulation eventually resulted in him building designs that had multiple variations to maximize their use.

Kawamori’s inspirations were diverse and unexpected, often credited both aesthetically and holistically contributing toward some aspect of his eventually design philosophy. Kawamori was impressed with the Isuzu 117 Coupe, designed by a legend of the automotive industry, Giorgetto Giugiaro, and credits that specific model with his realization that a designer can have influence over the final product. Another personal inspiration was the ambition of the Apollo project, which he watched on TV in the 3rd grade.

He was very open about his desire for originality and revealed an intensely competitive mindset, not only with other creators, but also himself. Too proud to build the pre-designed model kits of his peers, he learned to make his own out of paper. Kawamori recounted that he and Kazutaka Miyatake were locked in competition for over a year that ultimately lead to the design of Macross’ unique GERWALK. Kawamori also shared how near Macross had come to ending in 1987.

Having made a TV series, movie, and OVA, Kawamori felt he’d touched on each possibility for the franchise and didn’t want to cover old ground. With the encouragement of a friend and several years worth of pleading by Studio Nue to continue the franchise, Kawamori decided he’d give himself a week to either completely revolutionize the series or let it die if he was unable to come up with any ideas.

Describing the outcome in almost apologetic terms, Kawamori admitted he came up with not one, but two ideas. In his last effort to avoid returning to Macross, he demanded Nue allow him to make both or threatened he would make neither. To his surprise, they enthusiastically agreed, leading to Macross 7 and Macross Plus as two completely new takes on the core concept. Kawamori mentioned that, at the time, his peers joked about the idea of a virtual idol becoming popular, to which he believes hisstory has shown that they "vastly underestimated the power of otaku."

Despite working creatively on everything from settings to narratives to the literal nuts and bolts of their robots across mediums including anime, video games, and toys, Kawamori has managed to find enough time to ponder the nature of creativity itself. He described what he believes are the two types of originality, which he referred to as “Inspirational Originality” essentially a foundationally transformative idea that inspires others and “Unique Personality” which involves putting a personalized take on an existing idea.

Perspective was one of his described necessities for design, with him going so far as to stand up on his chair as an allegory to how climbing in a tree as a child provided him with a unique viewpoint, something is entourage seemet do disapprove of. He claimed his new position allowed him to look at the same things in a different way, adding that the inherent risk of falling tends to drive the brain into a mode of dynamic thought.

Practically, he used the example of his original design for the GERWALK. Again using a physical example, he ran to either side of the stage to display what had inspired the design, getting into his bent-leg skiing stance, he said that he realized mechs have only been given straight leg designs up until that point and he eventually settled upon a digitigrade “reverse-knee” model to give them a unique silhouette.

In a more general sense, Kawamori has taken steps to develop his unique viewpoint. He spoke of many trips he has taken to the different corners of rural Asia. Originally meant as an escape from the overwhelming amount of media he was assaulted with during his time in America, he found many of his perspectives about the world challenged during his original visit. During a power outage in a village, he noticed the children seemed happier playing on their own than they had looked watching television, causing him to wonder if the introduction of modern amenities was truly improving quality of life as we believed.

He also described something of a spiritual awakening over the years, witnessing individuals who seemed to have perceptions that couldn’t quite be explained by modern science: sherpas that could spot the expression on a mans face when they were little more than a speck in the distance, or martial artists who seemed to be able to read things about other people through sight alone.

Kawamori spoke of the role he believed the subconscious plays in creation, believing that the iconic design for the TIE fighters of Star Wars must have grown out the mind from the constant view of the similarly-shaped rear axle of semi-trucks on American highways. Later, he discussed the concept of synchronicity, again in reference to Star Wars, as the reverse-legged AT-STs were being developed around the same time he was originally creating the GERWALK, leaving an open question to the audience. How could two people, separated by thousands of miles, be inspired to create the same design at nearly the same time?

For all of his higher concepts about the origins of creativity within the human mind, Kawamori has developed a remarkably practical framework for his approach to design work. He pulled up several slides (regrettably photography was prohibited) on considerations regarding the purpose, setting, and medium of the work he will be designing for, listing off concepts like location, culture, physical laws, level of technology, story themes, and the purpose of individual mechs when ideating their designs. Focusing on these differences lead to the more realistically aerodynamic Valkyries of Macross vs the excess of the magically powered Vector Machines in Aquarion.

Taking it a step further, he also spoke of the medium that his design work would be in. For toys the transformations would need to be realistic and simple enough to easily performed by anyone. Designs for anime required as few lines a possible to make drawing thousands of cels a simpler process whereas manga had fewer limitations. With video games, he spoke of his work with Armored Core, where he paid special attention to the array of boosters on the back of each mech since that’s the part the player would be staring at for the majority of gameplay. Every project has unique opportunities and limitations.

Along with his panels came a demonstration of the transformation from one of his designs in Juushinki Pandora from motorcycle to mech without compromising the cockpit. He held up a model he’d made out of legos and other materials which served as his prototype. In our interview, Kawamori he admitted he’s a rarity among mech designer making 3D models, mentioning Gundam’s Ogawara as the only other creator he knew of to use this method.

Kawamori’s panels were enlightening, their structure and his articulate thoughts regarding the nature of creativity showing an individual of exceptional mental meticulousness. When presented with a task, he’d break down every aspect, consideration, and approach, to determine the best course toward a solution, even stepping back from this mental feat to asses his own thought processes and similarly deconstruct them in his relentless pursuit of optimization.

Matching his intelligence is a relentless work ethic that has evolved into a massive ouvre over the course of his nearly 40 years in the industry. If you’re a fon of anime, it’s nearly impossible not to have been exposed directly to his work. He touched almost all the greatest hits of the Suncoast-era ‘90s anime boom, including Outlaw Star, Ghost in the Shell, and Cowboy bebop. Into the 2000s Kawamori's work continued to appear in high profile anime such as RahXephon, Eureka Seven, and even his own Escaflowne. Kawamori’s original work Macross could be described as just the sort of transformative originality he discussed in his presentation, becoming one of the most recognizable franchises in anime. If you’re planning on playing Devil May Cry 5 next year, he designed the V's robotic arms, the "Devil Breakers."

It was a rare treat to see Kawamori stateside and he truly went above and beyond in putting together his own panels for the trip, seeming to enjoy the opportunity to discuss his past and his process. Despite his nearly four decades of work, he still moved around the stage with an excess of enthusiasm and energy. Just watching him for five minutes, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be stopping any time soon.

---

Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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wombwindow · 7 years ago

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The Other Side

To know a subject well one must look at the core positions, the evidence, the tangents, what has come before, what is happening now, what will most likely come, and the important arguments brought to bear on the subject in question. Do we know the pro-life position? Can we articulate our view beyond: “Life is sacred or It’s a baby!” With so many lives at risk, if we haven’t taken the time to become informed, why haven’t we—why haven’t we sought out how to articulate our convictions? Have we truly equipped ourselves with the information necessary to engage those in our culture who hold the pro-choice/pro-abortion view? How will we help others understand and accept the truth of the pro-life position if we don’t have a firm grasp ourselves?

Education is imperative. A strong foundation is vital if one is going to build something that lasts. Knowledge and understanding are powerful tools, but only if they are taken out of the toolbox. Before one can meaningfully engage others, one must first engage themselves. Before the body of Christ can lead, it must be lead. It is for this very purpose that Anna’s Choice exists. Our books and resources will help anyone embrace the pro-life worldview and develop, what I like to call, the life paradigm.

Fellow Christian, fellow concerned citizen, please utilize Anna’s Choice. Our website (www.annaschoice.org) is a gateway to resources, equipping, and connectivity. Explore the books, movies, quotes, and links provided to gain a firm foundation in the pro-life view, a holistic view of the dignity of human life. Read a book or two from our recommended list each year, follow our blog, or spend time searching the linked websites, discovering their many powerful contributions to the life movement. Watch the movies, use the quotes for encouragement, inspiration, and conversation starters, or pick up a copy of Who Am I and start studying the biblical revelation of life. Think about joining us as a Bible study partner or pray partner. Get informed and get involved. Know the truth and set others free!

The best way to identify what is false is by knowing what is true. To that end, let me suggest a few key resources that will assist us in discovering and articulating the truth. First, my devotional book, Love is for Eternity, will help anyone understand the biblical revelation of the dignity and value of life from conception forward. Knowing God’s revelation of life is paramount to the believer and useful to anyone wanting to understand the role faith plays in the pro-life movement. Second, read In The Womb by Peter Tallack. Understanding human development in the womb is essential to grasping the scientific, medical, and observable reality of human life during pregnancy and the humanity of the preborn child. Third, get acquainted with the history of the movement and the core arguments for protecting human life. Read any of the books by Francis Schaeffer, Dr. John Willke, Harold O.J. Brown, George Grant, and Randy Alcorn, but especially, Grant’s Third Time Around and Alcorn’s Why Pro-life. Fourth, become familiar with the damage abortion does to women, men, and extended family members long after the procedure is completed. Books like A Solitary Sorrow by Teri Reisser, Fatherhood Aborted by Guy Condon and David Hazard, Lime 5 by Mark Crutcher, Subverted by Sue Ellen Browder, and Changed by Michaelene Fredenburg will all challenge the lie that abortion is good for women, men, and society. Fifth, get a copy of the newly released Abortion Worldwide Report: 1 Century, 100 Nations, 1 Billion Abortions edited by Thomas W. Jacobson and Wm. Robert Johnston (www.globallifecampaign.com.) This conservative, well-researched accounting of the global abortion tragedy will break our hearts and motivate us to action. Lastly, if books are not your thing, please engage in the documentaries, movies, YouTube clips, and links provided at www.annaschoice.org. This will facilitate another strong foundation of knowledge and opportunity. Take the time to become informed because lives all around us hang in the balance.

But what about the other side? I want to encourage you to read and study their perspective as well. Knowing the mind of those who oppose us can prove invaluable. It can yield insight, strategy, wisdom, and empathy. It can help us discover how the pro-choice/pro-abortion side uses language, sees the world, and processes their beliefs and ideas. And, most of all, it will sharpen our understanding of the truth. TRUTH—one of the indispensable supports of understanding and overcoming. But if we are to truly triumph over abortion, we will need to love like our Savior. We will need that other indispensable support of understanding and overcoming—GRACE. For it was Jesus Christ who came in grace and truth (John 1:17)! And it is the combination of grace and truth that will topple abortion in America and the world. Grace for those who’ve fallen victim to the choice for abortion and the rhetoric thereof. Grace for those who’ve performed abortions. Grace for those who’ve championed abortion. And grace for all of us who’ve live in a world that condones, encourages, and finances abortion. Grace alone, however, without truth, will not be sufficient either. Both grace and truth are necessary—vital—and will be needed to carry the day.

As the pro-choice/pro-abortion view is the prevalent view in the media, academia, and governments, it will not be hard to find. Life News, a link under the resources tab at Anna’s Choice, often does a fine job of juxtaposing these competing worldviews, but any Google search for pro-choice, abortion, or Planned Parenthood will give one plenty of opportunity to sample the other side. I only ask that while we’re looking at the other side, we also season that time with the Bible and the pro-life position. Below are a few interesting books I’ve read from the pro-choice/pro-abortion view:

Abortion Practice by Warren M. Hern – published in 1984 and then again in 1990 this groundbreaking book on abortion practice by M.D. Warren Hern will inform anyone about the procedure of abortion from an abortionist who practices in the field. Hern’s dedication is telling: “This book is dedicated to the memory of all women who have died from abortions in the hope that their sacrifices will not have been in vain or be repeated.”

This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund – An abortionist tells her story of personal abortion, becoming a traveling abortion practitioner, and the harassment she suffered while providing abortions. A case study in deception and the manipulative use of language. On page 158, Wicklund writes, “Much of the debate is couched in misleading and untrue statements. Embryonic tissue is referred to as an ‘unborn child.’”

Beyond Choice by Alexander Sanger – The grandson of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, tries to forge a moral argument for abortion yielding tragic and sometimes comic results. Like all foundations built on sand, Sanger’s argument doesn’t stand. Making a point about the Constitution and the Bible, Sanger says, “Ironically, the opponents of a right to privacy, who argue that it is nowhere written in the Constitution, argue that, even though abortion is not mentioned in the text of the Bible, that opposition to abortion should be one of the most important tenants of the Christian faith.” Sanger asserts the common but erroneous notion that because the word abortion is not written in the Bible it has nothing to say about the subject.

Dispatches from the Abortion Wars by Carole Joffe – Joffe’s book is full of hysteria, half-truths, lies, and preposterous conclusions. At one point the author insinuates that a man who beat his girlfriend with a bat, at her permission, to cause a miscarriage was driven to his action by pro-life activism and abstinence education. Joffe’s book is one of the scarier looks into the pro-abortion mindset.

How The Pro-Choice Movement Saved America by Cristina Page – The irony of Page’s title in light of the now 60 million aborted baby girls and boys tells you all you need to know about her book. The work is a classic war on sex stereotyping pitting the prudish, backward, repressed lifer against the liberated sex for pleasure crowd. Page even espouses that the pro-choice movement has saved more lives than a movement that actually works in-behalf of human life to preserve and save it. Her findings are based in assumptions about birth control and are incredibly dishonest when one accepts the truth that the abortion industry daily kills children by the thousands in America.

Humanitarians, Christians, people of good will, we need to equip ourselves with the truth about life and human worth so we can stand up against the greatest evil of our time with grace. Use Anna’s Choice and the many other life affirming resources within to grow in truth and grace. Discover life, faith, and the fullness of human dignity with us. May the truth set us free. And may abortion become illegal and unthinkable in America once again!

God bless, Joel Patchen

www.annaschoice.org

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bloojayoolie · 6 years ago

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