I thought by now I’d be on some sort of a role. I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I thought that, but I’m sort of disappointed in myself. All this time has passed and what do I have to show for it? Nothing, really.
What exactly am I talking about? I don’t know. I’m just trying to convey that vague sense of loss when you realize a lot of time has passed and you really haven’t accomplished anything. Not that I set goals in the first place.
But I admire people who do set goals and get things done. It is for those reasons that I admire RJD2 - that and he makes wax cry and needles shudder like the god of vinyl he is.
After the release of the critically acclaimed Since We Last Spoke, RJD2 did the tour thing and then faded back into the hip hop/electronic landscape - like a frog into a pond. But RJD2 was never content to sit on his lily pad. He’s been busy contributing to the soundtracks for two video games, NBA 2K6 and Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure as well as dropping a couple beats last fall for Cage’s Hell’s Winter.
And soon RJD2 will re-emerge as the maestro behind Aceyalone’s Magnificent City. RJD2 had previously contributed a couple tracks to Acey’s last effort, Love and Hate, but now it’s all D2 all the time and Acey is much better off for it. After the album drops on February 7, the duo will hit road for a couple shows. For my Chicago peeps, D2 and Acey will role through the Second City on February 24. Don’t let me down.
Pre Order: Here
Stuff to Sample: Aceyalone with RJD2 from Magnificent City “Fire†and Cage with RJD2 from Hell’s Winter “Shoot Frankâ€
Yeah...way to bring yourself out of the seasonal funk! Go make a snow angel with yellow hair, and tell me that doesn't make you smile.
I kind of understand about this whole 30ish age life "accomplishment" reflection...but really, what does the average schmo do in their life that's considered so great, anyways: donate to some food drive at christmas, hold a self-important job shuffling papers around a desk and answering emails, fall in love, and ultimately procreate? Like that's helping make the world a better place?
So maybe the problem is that we're not satisfied with average schmo status, is that it?
RJD2 is yet another example of a successful Ohioan who gives the Buckeye dreamers some hope, thus joining the ranks of Thomas Edison, McGyver and Katie Holmes Cruise.
Is Richard Dean Anderson really from Ohio, or did he just attend OU? Also, you forgot Toledo's own Jamie Farr. Not many of us are MASH fans, though. The Wright Brothers were born in the Dayton Area. John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth.
Ohio also can lays claim to four presidents. And, a crap-load of professional sports players.
The world is our's for the taking.
[1] I wasn't really talking about material accomplishments but more along the lines of the metaphysical. Achieving enlightment or something profound like that but it seems that my self-important job and my love of not trying to better myself has kept me from it.
[2] Richard Dean Anderson, or Dicky DA as I like to call him, is from Minnesota but did come to the great state of Ohio to get his learn on.
Devo are from Dayton, as is Kim Deal of Pixies and Breeders fame.
John Glenn is from Wapakoneta. There's a nice little museum there dedicated to him.
Charlie Frye (Cleveland Browns QB) is from Willard, Ohio.
[3] From what I understand, young grasshoppa, you need to awaken to the realization of true reality to be liberated (nirvana); you must train the mind and act according to the laws of karma, of cause and effect: perform positive actions, and positive results will follow. Then of course the conditioned realm of karma needs to be transcended altogether to reach Nirvana.
Oh, but you’re an atheist, right? nevermind.
Funfact:
Christianity: 2.1 billion; Islam: 1.3 billion; Secular/Irreligious/Agnostic/Atheis:t 1.1 billion; Hinduism: 900 million; Chinese traditional religion 394 million; Buddhism: 376 million; Primal indigenous: 300 million
On the Ohio tip…oops, so I was wrong about McGyver, but let’s not forget some more of those who once called Ohio home: Drew Carey, Halle Berry, Terri Garr, Marilyn Manson, eight presidents and astronauts, Clark Gable, Arsenio Hall, Bob Hope, Chrissy Hynde [Pretenders], Trent Reznor (Land of the Cleves), and Akron’s pride, Jeffry Dommer.
[5] I wouldn't go so far as to say atheist. But I am a firm believer that, as Marx would say, religion is the opiate of the masses.
I think spirituality is important, especially to keep us connected to the world around us, and I admire Buddihism for guiding people along these lines but the tendency for most religions, or those leading in the name of religion, to direct and not teach is a waste of the time we have been alotted.
For the record, I don't want to misrepresent...I'm not Buddhist, but I'm interested in anthropology and especially studying different religions (esp. Christianity). I agree that life is short, and there is something awesome to be gained from spirituality.
It's true...people use their religion in different ways. I'm sure se all know people who are part of a sect that believe they must reach out and save others, or their own eternal salvation is at stake. These preachy people can be hard to take...it can result in a turn-off to all religion, and it's straight up offensive to some. I try not to judge people for their religious beliefs, but it does become a grey area when somone else's beliefs are affecting "innocent" lives...especially when people are killing others in the name of their religion (not a new phenomenon).
More Marx: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions".
This is a really weird set of comments - one half about famous Ohioans and the other about religion. Very strange.
I hear ya, Jules. I too enjoy studying religion, but more from the sociological stand point (esp. Christianity and it's extremes) and I like the philisophical leanings of the Far East. If you get a chance, check out Alan Watt's "The Book".
Thanks for the Marx quote, it seems he was a bit of a flip flopper.
Spiritual is such a cop-out word. I don't like the idea that religion is bad but spirituality is good. To me, saying that you are spiritual but not religious is saying that you want to be religious but don't want to invest the time and faith into learning a specific religion. Most people who read the Bible or the Koran or any other teaching don't read because they want definitive answers, but rather because they want guidance. They want to strengthen their faith. They want to develop a set of morals based on a specific belief. If a person has absolutely no faith in any of these teachings, then that person, in effect, denies that there is such a thing as a spirit. So what would make that person spiritual? I am struggling with many questions myself. I have not yet decided what I believe. I do know, however, that once I decide, I will either be firm in my conviction that there is a god and that I am going to heaven, or I will be firm in my stance that religion is a waste of my time. If I choose the latter, I can promise that I will in no way be spiritual. If I choose the former, I will most decidedly be religious. I really see no middle ground.
[10] Hmmm. I think I might not have been stating my position clearly. Maybe "spiritual" is the wrong word due to it's religious conotations. I am simply speaking of my struggle between veiwing myself as a completely subjective, separate entity in this cold, bleak world as opposed to a connected, objective "piece of the puzzle," if you will. I want nothing to do with religion but seek only my position in, on or around this world. My use of the word spiritual was an attempt to convey a vague sense or feeling of being connected to the world and myself as both a separate or connected being, not to a religion or a higher power.
After re-reading my previous posts, I can see how they might ellict your response. I should have been a bit more concise. Sometimes I can get a bit muddled.
I understand your position and I am in no way trying to be nit-picky. I think that, fundamentally we are both struggling with the same questions but just using different verbage to convey our thoughts. I don't want to be presumptuous, so I will only speak definitively for myself; but I think that what we are both questioning is mortality. When we die, is that the end, or does our spirit or our energy or whatever you might call it go on to function on another level? My point earlier is that if you believe the latter, then I can guarantee that there is a religion out there that caters to your thougths. I think that disregarding that religion because it is organized, and as such dogmatic, is selling it short. Perhaps I'm becoming jaded as I age, but I think that anything that has been organized long enough will become corrupt; but even if that is a given, it doesn't mean that its core beliefs and principals are any less profound. I have no agenda with any specific religion and am not trying to push you in any direction. I am only saying that if you are tackling the same questions that I am, I think that you are doing yourself a disservice by not keeping all doors open.
[12] Ok, let's drop the pretext. I struggle with the issue of my mortality, I won't lie about that. I prefer to look at my situation through a mix of existentialist/buddhist ideals. One day I'm here, the next I'm not. The light is on, then it is off, there is no in between. Denying our mortality is silly, as William Shatner reminds us, "Live life, like your gonna die, because you're gonna." If I'm wrong and there is a heaven or whatever, then that's cool, I'm all about 72 virgins. But, I think that the idea of "heaven" is a construction the human mind uses as a defense mechanism against the inevitable. We're human, no one wants to die and the majority of us would like to believe that while we shed our earthly bodies, our spirit will live on. I'm not going to get into the dogma surrounding all of the different ideas, the double standards, the contradictions of heaven (and let's not forget reincarnation) - nothing against religion, but it seems to me that heaven is just that carrot on the end of a string used to keep all of the rabbits going the same direction, doing the "right" or "moral" or "just" things. In some ways the idea of heaven is nothing more then a way to keep people in line, to ensure we all follow society's set of values and there by giving those in charge a reason/ability to punish those who do not conform, be it here and now or in the afterlife.
Most respectable religions are not based on or around the idea of heaven, but rather a core set of values and philosophical ideas to explain the world and help us cope with the pain of living. I'm not discounting the core values of any world religion, I've done my research and at the simplest levels I've found that most of the major religions are pretty much the same. If everyone practiced what they preached, we'd all live happily ever after. But that's not in our nature. At the same time, I think it is wrong for us to deny Nature and our root baseness as animals. Do good dogs go to heaven? Do bad ones go to hell? What is the difference there except the way that neurons fire in our respective grey matter - giving us the ability to come up with stuff like religion while dogs really enjoy licking their own crotch. (That's not the best example, I know).
Nature is the only other provable force out side of ourselves. An uncaring, undiscriminating complex entity capable of both creation and destruction, the cause of so much happiness and so much despair. Humans want something above Nature, something that cares . . . something like us able to step in, if need be. Again, another defense mechanism against the inevitable. Instead of simply dealing with Nature, humanity personified it, looked above it for something else. I'm not saying that was wrong or even stupid but simply unavoidable. Humans didn't/couldn't have the ability in our formative years to believe that Nature was the end all and be all and, unfortunately, still can't to this day. That is the seed of religion and why I'm fairly sure that when my time comes and the lights go off, that will be the end. In the absence of light, there is no light. I think religion does play an important part within this frame work, as stated above, to keep us all going in the "right" direction as well as calming force in an uncertain world. And while I am scared, I would prefer not to shield my eyes but embrace my nature and what it means to be human.
In the end, TP, you are right. We both seem to be struggling with the same issues and we will probably continue to struggle with it. I hope, however, that through our discourse we may be able to come to a greater understanding (or misunderstanding) of ourselves and the world around us. Because if we do, we can start our own religion - call the House of Fresh and Thunder - and make a whole lot of money that we won't be able to take with us when we go.
You said a mouthful brother. Count me in on the House of Fresh and Thunder. But why can't it be called The House of Thunder and Fresh. Damnit, corruption already,and we haven't even established our core beliefs yet.
[14] Ok, I'll compromise on thise one. The House of Thunder and Fresh it is. Just sounds more elegant and menacing.