Death sport (or: Me and my OED)

Mean tounge insinuated earlier that the angelically fancy words I use in your treatises do not reside inside my head, but rather on the pages of a dictionary.

In this post I will first make a statement about that accusation and then present my views on the nature of language and its relation to other aspects of living, and then a couple of words on foreign language learning.

The fact that one uses a dictionary to corroborate one's intuitive sense of words and language in the composing of a text doesn't necessarily mean that the chunk of text isn't one's own. Or does it? After all, you don't blame a surgeon for using highly sophisticated surgical tools in order to save lives, do you?

The craft of compassion and tender care necessary for these treatises to be handed down to you by the ancients is similar to that of a surgeon's scalpel. What we do here is by no means different from what takes place on an operating table:
The devotion, minute preparation, highly dextrous execution, an untainted harmony between thought and action. All is present.
So if any readers are lost on the operation blog that was however regrettable – still inevitable. Consider this a complete rebuttal.

What's so damn interesting about language then? Has it some intrinsic value to me? I think that viewing language as an end in itself is a mistake. To continually widen your lingual horizons is about a joy of discovery and association rather than that of verbal masturbation and domination.
This is not only about mere vocabulary. All the same from time to time we come to realise that, even though it wasn't our intention, we've been fucking ourselves. This treatise's "Gentlemen's agreement" is one example of using verbality as a battering ram and a tool of domination.

Language has power. Truth however, must not be subordinated language. It is the application of language to get closer to the truth that I praise, not the mistaken notion of using aforementioned to argue for the relativity of truth.
Having that said, I will no longer try to wage war on straw men. Just for clarity's sake.

A childish fascination for the many aspects of language has made me appreciate the way in which it so closely ties in with concepts, differences in, and changes of, culture and personal identity.
One of the inescapable beauties of communcation is the restraining and inhibiting factors that the very core of language establishes, and won't relinquish the speaker. What I cannot put into words, I cannot understand for myself nor make others understand. That is a perfect segway into the next topic.

Foreign languages can be utterly interesting if one invests time and effort into them. I say invest because there's a huge payoff. The only risk involved is that if given that no application is found, it will fade, and so will your interest in maintaining it.

The chin mustn't be tucked in. A peculiarity about language learning is that to improve, one must continually make mistakes, a lot of them. A peculiarity about humans is that we dislike making mistakes and to appear foolish and ignorant in the eyes of others. As I have shown, these do not fit very well together.

The process of learning a new language demands distance and fearlessness on the learner's behalf and patience and tolerance on the reservoir's. Trying to match this can be extremely difficult, but should, according to me, always be the goal when building up a solid foundation for learning a foreign language.

Revised for clarity on May 26th 2006

Wizard's First Rule

The only thing that’s more annoying than stupid people are morons who whine about their stupidity without wanting to improve their situation. They have embraced stupidity to the point where it has become the norm and for them there is no hope.
The others, well, they search for all sorts of weird stuff they’re too clueless to comprehend. The extreme ones lean toward alien abduction, cults, hypno-therapeutic regressions to earlier lives and other similar enterprises. Apparently there’s happiness to be found in knowing what happened in a previous, exciting existence. The keyword is exciting, as I’m quite sure you’ll never find anyone who seriously claims to have experienced such a thing to have been an ordinary person. No, no, they were some appendage to a peripheral character in pivotal historical events. Never Napoleon himself, though. Even stupid people have a sense for what’s outrageous and don’t want to experience public humiliation. Professional psychiatric care is reserved for the nutcases. Everyone knows that.
But if your life’s so dull you find far past events to be more important that the present you should change it, not indulge yourself in a self-imposed neurosis. It’s sad to see people resort to such cheap tricks just to get a kick out of life.

The common man, however, watches TV. I’m rather amused over the breakthrough of shows like Dr. Phil and Dr. Pat Allen. Hell, I’m amused that people need to watch TV to watch people, but that’s just me. As with fanaticism it’s something I’m forced to accept - empirical evidence points toward its existence - but can never quite understand.
People who watch these kinds of masturbation productions because they think they’ll experience something valuable are badly mistaken. They drool mindlessly and get spoon fed platitudes. It’s nothing but common sense presented on a fancy stage by a quack who needs a hobby. Or a life. The underlying message is always: “Get a grip! Get a fucking grip!”
I find repetition tiresome and stay clear of it as much as possible, but these dolts can't seem to get enough.

It’s the part about the money that pisses me off. The fact that people are willingly offering to pay for it more than the actual charging itself, really. If someone dangles The Truth^© in front of your eyes and says it’s yours if you but pay a “neglectable sum” the only acceptable reaction is to laugh in their face. If anyone says it’s easy or simple to solve your problems they’re lying. If it really was that simple, how come everyone’s not already doing it and has happily been doing so for the last few decades?
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ve stumbled onto something entirely new and unheard-of. Philosophy has been around for quite some time, you know. And if there’s no effort from your part involved, then how can there be a valid result? Nothing is free (free as in free beer, that is).

I will now quote someone:

I have seen angels
They were sleeping in gutters
They were standing in bank lines
They were jumping from towers
They were calling like seagulls
But nobody heard
Such a beautiful message
From such a common bird

This is the part of the text where I should continue saying something from a humanitarian perspective. Something with a solid foundation of love, respect and understanding. Something cute. Fortunately I won’t fall into such obvious traps. I will only say one thing: If you need a wise man to look up to, look no further! If you don’t think that you, yourself, are good enough, you have my permission to idolize me. At least I don’t charge you for it… yet.

By the way, I’m looking for voluntaries for a small project of mine. If you disagree with everything above you’re perfect for the spot! (Both you and I know that that was only a ruse; a necessary evil to lead the rational people away from suspicion. It’s just us special people, like you and me my friend, who are ready to receive the real truth.)
I’m working on a compilation of my personal thoughts and what I need is the time and money to finish it. Surely you can see that it is for a good cause that will benefit mankind as a whole. Once everyone follow my new, revolutionary, simple, scientifically approved and patented 12-step program there will be no more wars, no more poverty and no more France! It will also make you famous, rich and attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex, depending on your preference).
To accomplish this I need someone to take over my day job so that I can focus wholeheartedly on writing and administrating the movement. I also need assistants that aren’t afraid to do what’s necessary when the revolution comes.
Don’t let the French take you!


Monetary contributions are also welcome.

Oh, and I don’t really hate France. I just sort of not like it that much, out of prejudice.

On bosom

When forced to pick a favourite part of the female anatomy one is often awestruck by the great variety of choices.

For religious people this ought to be the best argument for the design by a superior hand of God over the slow and 'meaningless' evolution of species. Working from the title of this post one finds nothing short of an example of pure and simple perfection.
When dealing with this subject it is hard not to become a believer.

Nevertheless, for the rest of this post I will assume that this fascination is a product of evolution.
I will also try to do a sort of layman's whodunnit of the development of this impairment in higher primates, such as humans.

Most of us know that when presented with a clear view of cleavage, one ends up handing over the conscious control of the eyes' motor functions to something deeply hidden within the cerebellum.
Paralysis is effect. This incapacitating reaction is extremely hard to fend off and often requires a degree of self-control unknown to most males.

Looking to back in the day and beyond when we were all fighting this epic battle against the sabre-tooth tigers -- can it possibly explain why this has become the Holy Grail of half of civilisation?
Surely one must take into consideration the facts about labour and the subsequent raising of offspring, but is that really everything there is to it?
I say leisure. Without aggravating our female readers I state that after extended periods of fighting tigers the urge of leisure becomes pressing.
With the regenerative and rejuvenating qualities that these magic objects possess, those drawn towards these obviously survived and flourished. Q.E.D and end of developmental and evolutionary psychological mumbo jumbo.

[Sarcasm begin] (I told you that I would tell you when I use this lowly form of communication, didn't I?)
(The proverbial) God bless our Western civilisation and its supposedly underlying power and gender structures!
[Sarcasm end]

As a wiser man once said: "giev, plx".

Outrageous

I have no time to spare on words for mortals.

Later the time will come to grab opportunity by the throat and choke that S.O.B. 'til something inspirational arrives at my desk.

'Tis true, 'tis true. Now - sleep, my wingless friends.

Endnote: Do people really read the legal notice on the right side? Realise the meaning of "(may be) [...] required to [...] comment [...]" or await litigation. Outrageous IDD.

What I have always known...

Finally! This is the kind of acknowledgement I've been looking for.