Music Review

About four years ago, I wandered into Reckless Records and, in an exploring mood, decided to buy an album by an artist I have never heard of. My hands landed on an album called "Dealing the Death Card" by a band called Zombie Ghost Train. It cost about three bucks. I came home and, not expecting much, listened to the album; and as I expected, it didn't make much of an impression on me. But I was in 8th grade; my music education had only really began about a year before and I didn't know much about music, having a completely undeveloped taste.
Three years later I was listening to my iPod on shuffle and a song that I seemingly never heard before came on. It was a kind of gloomy rock song, with an overwhelmingly talented vocalist singing something about death and a girl and taking her down "To The River". A wonderful rediscovery, I quickly went through all the other songs and decided that I loved them. I won't go much into the lyrics of any of the songs because they're all about monsters or death or girls. Some songs are in blues style, some have a jazzy feel, some are just rock, but they all have this Halloween-y feel to them that makes me smile and want to dance with Frankenstein in a cobweb-filled mansion. Apparently the genre is called "psychobilly" or "gothabilly" or something.
I don't know.
Maybe it's the zombie makeup.
Maybe it's my love for bass voices and huge vocal ranges.
But this was one of the more interesting musical discoveries I have ever made.

Below are links to some of the songs where the lead singer displays his deeper vocal ranges, and overall just good songs.
"To The River": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRF4VNQzqg
"Trouble": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvP4g0B6NWk
"Gone": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDobjRHA2kk

Enjoy.

Alone

Like all things in life, loneliness should have a balance. And, also like for all other things in life, different people have a different balance. Meaning, some people may need a lot of solitude and little interaction, whereas for others it may be the opposite. However, unfortunately, most people do not know that balance and convince themselves they need more of one or the other. For example, I myself know that spending 48 hours in the presence of other people may not be very healthy for me, but oftentimes I convince myself that I am feeling lonely because my ego is asking for attention. 

I guess one of my main goals is to be able to find joy in solitude. It's all good and well to be in the company of friends, but what about those life situations where you have no choice but to be alone? Instead of making those moments into an unproductive self-pity, there is a way to turn them into productive self-realization. The absence of noise and distractions allows for the free flow of thought, reflection on whatever the mind decides to go through. Because what is the point of interactions if there is no time to reflect on them? How will anyone be able to connect to and learn about themselves if they are constantly focused on others? I believe that although we are social creatures, we are thrown into the busy social life prematurely, not having had enough time to study ourselves and know ourselves. Our self is the only person who we will never have solitude from, so might as well get to know them.

I Know This Means Something...

But does it really? Maybe, through looking for a meaning, we are losing the real and true meaning of whatever anything is? Whenever we "know" something, we make it into a form. Something that only exists in our minds, because we made it that way. We gave it a meaning, instead of just accepting it as it was. At least, that's my current state of mind. I don't want to look for meaning in anything, because now, deep inside, I'll always doubt it because I know it's not real, just something I made up. But what's stopping me from accepting whatever I made up to be what's really real?
And that's where this infinite loop of beliefs and implications and doubt comes in. I think it's because I'm thinking too hard about it, or even thinking about it at all. Therefore, I'm not sure I really even want to know anything. I don't want it to mean anything. I want it to just be as it is.

Life Is Beautiful?

The lasting impression I got from this movie was of Guido's death. The way it was carried out did not give him an emotional death scene, it didn't elongate it or attach any particular meaning to it, like deaths of heroes usually are. Guido was killed off in a couple of seconds, just like any other Jew who died there. The only thing he cared about upon dying was that his son was safe and that his innocence was preserved. "That was the sacrifice my father made for me." And I believe that this death was carried out in such a non-heroic way because Guido wasn't supposed to be a hero, not to anyone except for his son. And to his son, only posthumously.

As for the connection to Man's Search For Meaning, I find much in some aspects, but almost none in others. There was very little emphasis on suffering, and the three stages that Frankl describes are not seen at all. However, Frankl does say that everyone put in a concentration camp has a choice. They can either retreat into themselves, or they can be selfless, retain their morals and reach spiritual heights. On top of that. people do not lose the desire to keep living if they have someone to live for. Guido obviously had a very good reason; his only goal, the only thing he cared about was his son.

Who Would Voltaire and Camus Vote For?

I have no interest in politics. None at all. Honestly, I don't really even know what separates republicans from democrats other than one is liberal and one is conservative. However, in the case of Voltaire and Camus, they probably would do the same as me and not vote at all.

Why? Because they don't care. The characters in Candide go through all these adventures and exposure to different types of philosophies and worlds, but in the end, they never stick to one particular one. They would draw their own conclusions based on all their experiences put together, and as they had experienced pretty much everything a person can in a lifetime, those conclusions tended to be pretty vague. Voltaire made fun of pretty much every one distinct philosophy that a character came across, which to me is a sign that he most likely would not care who the candidate was, because in the end, what does it matter? Life is what you make of it.

In the case of Camus though, the choice is much more obvious. His philosophy IS that life has a purpose. In The Stranger, Meursault stays away from choices and just goes with the flow. Even when his mother dies, which is usually a very hard ttime in someone's life, he even says that nothing has changed. So why would voting for a presidential candidate change anything? There is no meaning to it, and so it is better to stay away from making that choice.

What Gives Life Meaning? aka The Wrong Question

I repeat, exactly as it is written on the title. If you have even read the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (WARNING: SPOILER) you will know that the answer to life is 42. However, because that answer makes no sense, they bring up this dandy idea: "But what is the question?" And that is exactly the point I am trying to prove. Anyone who asks this question is WRONG. It is just like any word we have ever learned to associate an object with. A little while after we are born, we learn to speak, and identify objects. Meaning, equate them with someone that supposedly allows us to understand them. But does it really? No, words are merely something we use to cover up the mystery of things that we don't actually understand.

But back to the "meaning of life". My refusal to answer this question is not a denial of a meaning, nor an acceptance of one. I am saying that thinking of life as something that has a meaning, something you can equate with a word, is just not the right way to do it. Life is not a thing. It is not terminal, and death does not end it, it is not a means to an end, as most people prefer to look at it. It is a journey, albeit not eternal (in this current consciousness), yet still eternal, because everyone is one and all. Every person is one piece of the whole, the universe, the big picture. And while we search for a meaning, a purpose, while we think and equate our "self" with our thinking mind, essentially with our ego, we will be unawakened, unable to see the big picture of it all. The true self is not the one who is thinking, but the one who is observing the thinking mind. He is the truly awakened one. Until we are awakened, we will be unable to proceed on this journey to enlightenment, and our "reincarnation", if you must, will only gain the karma of our past life, giving us yet another chance to advance towards enlightenment.

So what is the meaning, you ask? Some say to be able to deal, some say to be happy, but I say that once you are enlightened, you will no longer need a meaning at all. Therefore I reject this silliness on the terms of my current attempt to work towards enlightenment, and become awakened, unattached to the material, and ultimately unidentified with the ego that is keeping me here.

Does Candide's Punishment Fit the Crime?

The obvious, humane, moral and current answer should be short and simple: no. Of course not. Candide did not know better. He was completely innocent, sheltered, knew nothing of the world or its doings. His very first punishment, getting kicked out of the castle, definitely doesn't fit his crime. He didn't know what he was doing. All the unlucky things that happened to him, including getting drafted into an army, having his tutor killed, Cunegonde taken away multiple times, and safety and riches snatched when they were right at his fingertips, were not something that he deserved for the measly innocent "crime" he committed at the beginning of the book. Arguably, that really is the only crime he committed, and his later crimes, including killing three people, all happened only because of the very first one. They could even be seen AS punishment coming from his first crime.
But back to perspective. The punishments are all seen as fair by those who give them. They are decided depending on the beliefs and cultures of the people who punish Candide, and while the reader (and Candide) can only see them as cruel, the punishers see them as just.