Don't Think Again

So YouTube has come a long way since its birth. it was yet another startup Sillicon Valley company, that eventually grew enough to deserve a lot of attention. It was then purchased by Google Inc. for a bazillion dollars and struggled for years to finally break even not long ago. So I was revisiting some of my favorite videos, and found the classic Chad Vader saga. It is an emblematic saga because even the creator of Darth Vader says he like the thing. The idea doesn't sound remarkable at first, but the success it got speaks for itself. This is also  a weird concept that became an astounding success: Ask a Ninja. This is one of my favorite episodes, because it speaks of Net Neutrality. Those videos of cats and people doing stupid things on camera were the beginning of YouTube and Internet video. This material is different, because it feeds on both the deliberate production (low-budget as it may be) and the randomness and absolute nonsense of the Internet.

So you might accuse me of reading way too much self-help books, and I'll just say: guilt as charged. See, this isn't a new habit, but I've pushed it up a notch, that's for sure. Today I woke up convinced that whatever is happening in one's life is pretty much self-created. I think I just made that up. Anyways, this self-help concept is close to Schopenhauer's responsability. Understanding the multitude of forces acting upon yourself and assuming the victim role is the general reaction. I don't like bundling together with the general reaction, and I've found the most awesome people I've ever met fall in the category of not being general. And there are two ideas that just blew my mind again and again: "you're pure consciouness" and "you're continuously creating your own life". On my daily life I get caught up in my mind all the time. But then any little thing shakes me off-balance and reminds me I'm the one consciousness...

So I watch Entourage, which is one of those cool-ish TV series by HBO. Reminds me of a movie called Be Cool , which is cool because there are so many celebrities parading on the screen. (disclaimer: I love Aerosmith from the 90s and shit, but I do find the whole thing irresistibly cheesy) In the latest episodes, my favorite make believe celebrity has started bedding and hanging out with Ms. Sasha Grey. She was introduced in the show as: "Hey, check it out. Vince's talking to that porn star Sasha Grey". And then the entourage proceeded to elaborate on whether he realized who he was talking to. Pretty cool schtuff. Many other celebrities had shown up as themselves in Entourage, so I googled Sasha and thought it'd be interesting watching Girlfriend Experience . At this point I didn't even know if this was a porn movie or what. The movie let me puzzled, so I wanted to read more about it and stumbled upon this interview where he elaborates on the movie and o...

Being a dictator must be tough on a guy's mind. Just like it is good to be the king, so it is good to be th e dictator. Both the king and the dictator have few things to desire and many things to fear. Being on the top of the world implies that any change is a loss. Fidel posted on his blog about the latest report on education in America. His tone is that of a prophet trying to warn the world of an impending disaster. Unfortunately, there's no news there: e everybody knows just how bad education and nuclear war are. Everybody knows a war with Iran isn't conducive to health and well-being. Education is tougher to discuss, because the sple alternative is to shout loudly about how awesome education was three generations ago. Well, it wasn't. Going back in time won't solve anything, and neither will calling today's youth stupid. The world population is stupid, or rather stupidified by the pop culture it desires. A report on education performs an operation of cutting...

This happened once or twice, soon after I got in a serious relationship with my first girlfriend. I don't talk or think about it that much, but my recent reading of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth has brought this memory to mind, so I want to make it count. This strange paragraph of my life happened as I was driving my new girlfriend home from a night out with our clique of friends. Yes, I had alcohol that night and understand it's wrong. I had had some drinks, but she had only drank a little bit, because she was underage. I'm not sure if there was a trigger, and if there was it was not obvious at all. As I stopped in front of her house, we sat for a bit inside the car and I started crying uncontrollably. I remember everything about that moment very clearly: the way I snugged myself in her embrace, the very intense sad feeling that suddenly came over me, my utter lack of words to explain what was happening and my girlfriend's understanding. I cried for half an hour ...

I've recently adhered to charity: water 's campaign and donated my birthday . This includes talking about it on YouTube here and there and talking about it to close friends and family. One the one hand, it is awesome and I'm sure that just by letting people know they can do this I am raising awareness of what can be done through this great charity. On the other hand, there is no easy way to get people to give money, not to mention that people who are not used to giving will not give anyway. september campaign preview from charity: water on Vimeo . Check out the web page, watch the video and let me know what you think. I feel uncomfortable trying to get people to do stuff. Somehow it is just not in my nature. In this case, I don't care, because I know that this is the right thing to do. I don't think charity will solve all of the world's problems, but it does play a part in it. There are several amazing organizations out there, such as the Acumen Fund ...

No action is more important than one's state of being . That said, whatever gets done matters only to the extent that it influences the doer and everyone else. The world will just keep flowing back and forth and eventually turn everything upside down again. The problem is there is a gap between human thought, the contemporary world and people. Human thought was educated into living each moment yearning for some possible future, fearing possible outcomes and - generally - just doing anything but facing what can be done now from what is available. The contemporary (human) world is, in turn, invested in feeding those thought patterns: if you get this car, and these pants, and that cologne... maybe you'll be cool. People get thrown around and literally don't know where to go. I don't know where to go. Then what takes place at first is nothing more than a change in focus. Paying attention to this instead of that. Instead of paying attention to all the noise outside, s...

One of the things that really used to annoy me about hip hop and rap is that the lyrics seemed to be about showing how "I" am so good and what that same "I" does is always so great and pimp. I couldn't relate. Thus, that part of the US culture was, as far as I was concerned, not worthy of attention except for the occasional trip to a club, because at those places I'll listen and dance to whatever is playing. Fun is there to be had, so who cares? In 2002 a movie called 8 mile , that had a track called Loose Yourself by a white rapper called Eminem whom I had only previously seen on MTV dressed as Robin, on some weird video. I got around to watching the movie, but only after reading several harsh critics on the web. My mind was blown away, because it was just so visceral and touching. That I can relate to. Of course, the artist is always doing the same thing over and over again. Just like any painter: the same painting over and over again. Refin...