Being Pretentious

I am who I am and the ideals that i believe in are upheld with great persistence for who I am are defined by these ideals which I truly believe and uphold. Everything else is mere bullshit. -APS

A conversation of ideals and perspectives lead to an interesting conclusion: we are narrow-minded jackasses that refuse to debate the very core of our idealisms. Faith is somewhat a dangerous noun/adjective at a certain level, for when we hold on to an ideology based on faith alone, we become distant from logic. We would not try to understand opposing arguments and quickly dismiss them as threats. To think of it; it’s humorous how majorities are always threatened by minorities. As a majority (a Javanese Muslim) that spends a lot of time with minorities (Chinese and/or Non-Muslims) there does seems to be an idea that minorities have an apt in being more superior.

I realized that some majority groups see minorities as a threat when I attended a pesantren kilat when I was in High School, an ustad (well i assume he was an ustad since i was half asleep (the khotbah (sermon) was at night) and he was sporting a long beard) explicitly said that “we should not support people like Rexy Mainaki (a non-muslim Indonesian badminton player)” and would be better off supporting malaysian players who are muslim. I was 16 at the time and attended catholic school for 9 years, a racist comment like that blew my mind.

A catholic PPKn teacher in my Junor High once said that “we should respect the adzan (muslim call to prayers), because it actually can remind us of the path of christ’s sacrifice” he then explained something about the chronological order of which christ was crucified but I can’t recall the details since I didn’t actually care. Maybe it is because there is a certain fear distilled in minorities which moulds them into peace loving people, because religion wise right wing christians in America are the proprietors of the hate-filled Klu Klux Klan and Irish catholics did promote violence against anglican christian minorities back in the day. So it always boils down to majorities seeing minorities as a threat, not the religion itself.

That aside, what i was trying to point out, is the fact that when we start to fully believe in something fanatically we tend to dismiss logic and start being idiots, trying to attack whatever different prespective than our own, we become pretentious, trying to force everything into a more acceptable point of view (acceptable by ourselves that is) eventhough it sometimes doesn’t and definitely will not fit. I ranted so much that I actually wanted to use my pretentiousness in free culture as an example, but i guess the above points would do nicely.

…

What the heck, I’ll just tell the free culture thing too.

So my own example would be my interest in free culture, I believe in this ideology so much i refuse to give in to some (in my logic) illogical formats in technology. Let’s call this piece of proprietary technology “BlackB” or “BB” (obvious no?) for short. Since my last cellphone failed, i acquired a used BB smartphone which belonged to my dad, this BB thing has a service which allowed BB holders to communicate with each other with ease. This method to me is a very closed and intrusive system, which is why i refuse to use the service. My belief in openness which is the basic assumption of free culture has made me so narrow minded that I would not even considering in using that option and hence removing my chance to wider communcation possibilities. What was based on the upholding of ideals become purely silly. This device has a potential to simplify communication, why should I refuse to accepting that? In the end I am another narrow-minded jackass that refuses to be fucked out of my ideals.

No, I haven’t activated the service and probably never will, I am just that pig headed.

Next To Nothing…

The phrase above does not describe an ordinal position, which commonly refers to: “the best”. No, the phrase above describes more of a value, as in: “in very close proximity to nothingness”.

Definitions explained. Perfect. So, the argument here is how sometimes there is this feeling of being meaningless, a feeling that if untreated undergoes metamorphosis and becomes a condition. What emerges from pessimistic thoughts recreates a fork in reality, one towards “toughen up” and the other being “little pussy”…. The outcome depends solely on the option you choose. This next to nothing syndrome usually displays high levels of anxiety and self-loathing, this is normal, do not be alarmed. What we must do is isolate the source of the “next to nothing” syndrome, the trigger, for this trigger is the cause and the cure, alpha and omega. To activate the curative properties of this trigger we must first confront it, relieving ourselves from all egotistical urges to act high and mighty; to humble for awhile and lay down arms. We are all but meaningless, for meaning may easily be constructed either internally or externally;  revaluing the material, sacred and profane. There is no “one”, it is merely what we limit ourselves to.

This makes no sense.