“Just you and me now kid,” he grumbled as the door slammed shut.
“I can hardly see how you can possibly claim that there is any distinction between the ‘you’ and the me’.”
He knew where this was going, but still: “What do you mean by that?” Incredulous now, easily agitated after all, but subdued enough to ask.
“I mean; there is no legitimate framework of knowledge that would provide for any idea of separate consciousness, let alone identity, and making a statement like that is redundant.”
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Fiction, Philosophy.
I think there is wonderful logic in the existentialist ethic with regards to meaning: it’s not that ‘everything is meaningless’, but, more encouragingly, that nothing possesses an innate meaning within itself. You can come to understand this fact through the deconstruction of spiritual beliefs, the demystification of what is believed to be ‘common sense’ knowledge, and grasping the fragile nature of language and communication. It is at this point you can begin to see the absence of ‘true’ meaning in the world. Perhaps the most challenging thing about trying to create meaning with an existentialist ethic is the overarching awareness of meaning as a construct; meaning is not unchanging and it is not ‘natural’.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Philosophy, Social Science, Uncategorized.
After a nauseating boat ride to the other side of the town and entering the big corporate bookstore, I quickly checked where the cameras are located in the floor and scoured through the bookstore’s now second floor. Already knowing the possible locations at the shelves, I reached out to the books’ glossy covers and lifted them into my messenger bag gently while staying out of the camera’s view.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Uncategorized.
What is the meaning of this? Start with Chapter One.
For the first time, I find myself questioning whether I can actually stand to live here. Liveability had a very literal meaning in the Area of Operations.
Any place that had a fifty one percent chance of not immediately liquifying or incinerating you was, by definition, a region of high livability.
After my platoon was slaughtered and I insinuated myself into civilian society the level of livability shot up to dizzying heights, but as I grew more and more accustomed to idea of not facing death on a daily basis, I became increasingly aware that livability wasn’t commensurate with tolerability.
War may be nasty, brutish, and short, but the cloying, moronic longevity of civilization is not, by any standard, an alternative.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Fiction, Long Form.
Habits make for specialists. Imagine you wanted to improve your reading skills. If, in an attempt to do so, you would make a habit of reading for an hour everyday starting at 3 pm, would you improve your reading skills or just your reading at 3 pm for an hour skills?
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest.
Breaking news, lads and lasses: our world is flawed. That’s right. You heard it here first.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Long Form.
One argument against the up-vote / down-vote system is that promotes groupthink, but I argue that a bigger issue is the constant promotion and strive towards positive reinforcement.
Consider four of the major social network systems.
-Facebook: The “Like” system
-Reddit: Karma and points
-Youtube: Top comments, thumbs up
-Twitter: Retweets, favorites
This is not a crusade against memes or beloved pictures of cats in zany situations.
I argue it’s fundamentally affecting the way we communicate and act.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Uncategorized.
Just tuning in? Start with Chapter One.
The Scarebuddhist takes me to to the popular new club called The Camp. She arrives at my door in authentic refugee garb she tells me she bought for tens of thousands off eBay, narrowly outbidding BJprincess69. Her ensemble consists of a T-shirt with tears, bloodstains and powder burns almost obscuring the faded purple letters I HATE BARNEY, worn over the shredded remnants of a niqab.
She frowns at my attire.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Fiction, Long Form.
The most troublesome question asked is “what is the meaning of life?” A great deal of people spend their life searching for meaning, attempting to discern what meaning is, and many feel distress over the search for that meaning, and become lost. The true question should be; “where is meaning found and how does one apply that meaning?” The pure meaning of life is to create meaning for yourself, through morals and individual happiness. A person must use critical, conscious thinking to determine what is best for himself, and then in turn by creating the best self, allowing that self to help and enhance the lives of others. This philosophical attitude is called existentialism.
Categories: 2013 Winter Writing Contest, Philosophy.
On the face of it, Dredd is a derivative cop movie. Hard as nails cop gets assigned a rookie, they get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, have a run in with a gang, and it ‘gets personal’. Almost the entire movie happens inside a high-rise building. So it’s kind of like The Rookie meets Die Hard.
But if you’re ready to interpret, to watch creatively, it’s weirdly deep. Let’s go.
How do you tell when a Freudian slip is based on a homophone?
Categories: Literary Criticism, Long Form, Movie Reviews, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Psychoanalysis.
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