The End of The Innoncence

There's a quote from Winston Churchill that roughly paraphrased goes something as follows "If a young man is not a liberal then he has no heart; if an old man is not conservative then he has no brain". This touches on the rather idealistic stance of those who lack in pragmatic evidence to the contrary. One can look at almost anything in life and see that if all things were optimal they would be different; in effect life's not always fair.

Being able to deal with the inequalities of life is something that comes with time. Instead of whining about the various problems of the world it's far more effective to find the most optimal way of dealing with sub-optimal situations. At times life serves you a shit sandwich and the best way to deal is to eat.

In the aftermath of any unfortunate circumstance there are exactly two ways of dealing with it (a) as best as possible (b) anything else. Getting down, being depressed, turning to drugs, drinking obscene amounts of alcohol, doing nothing, and slowly self imploding are all examples of option b. There comes a time where you simply can stop feeling sorry for yourself and deal.

The best analogy I have for it is a prize fighter. Regardless of how many times you get hit, how fast the punches come you keep moving. You dance around it, you stay on your feet, you do not let the final blow come down. You tire it out slowly, methodically, you literally bend life until it's worn thin and gives in. And then you knock it out.

It's a violent comparison, but life does not occur without action. I could be drinking my ass off and not really running or being otherwise destructive. I could give up. I could say woe is me and blame everything else for my failure to succeed. Extraordinary people are measured not in how they perform when things are optimal, but how they fare when the chips are down. As hard as life may be at times one can simply never, ever give in. This seems to work quite well with the concept of the marathon due to the hardship one must suffer for an extended period of time before relief; delayed gratification has a way of building character in Americas I-Want-It-And-I-Want-It-Now mess of a society. Quitters never win.

All of this brow beating is hardly a diatribe of how I've excelled and risen above and all that. It's more just a lifelong progression of climbing the mountain that was destined for me to climb; the maturation process and aging and growing up and all that crap that we hate but need. One things for sure, I'm not bowing out now or throwing in the towel. I intend to make some good come from this all.

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Did 3 * 2 miles in the park this morning with 2 miles of jogging in between. 11:03, 10:46, 10:34. Went well, felt good.

yes

http://pitchfork.com/news/35687-video-clipse-featuring-kanye-west-kinda-like-a-big-deal/

Marvin Gaye

Whats Going On is one of my all-time favorite albums. Even before I knew the back story, I was blown away by the composition and production. But to gain even more respect, one must know the situation the album was born out of. This was a time when albums were created to soothe, not arouse. Songs had to be created for easy accessibility and widespread radio acceptance. Whats Going On was created to make people think and question things, not necessarily radio friendly ideas. To understand the significance a little better, try and imagine if Beyonce after 8 successful albums, decided to put out an album exploring the consequences of Iraq/Afghanistan, the economy, and the environment. Picture her trying to convince the exec's at Sony to release this album and picture her trying convince them to let her have complete control of production. Now picture the ablum being released and being a commercial success. That in a nutshell is what happend with Marvin Gaye Whats Going On? And that is why it stands out to me as one of the best albums of all time.

Chill Hip Hop

Mix


Hopefully more to follow. 25 minutes and the last two songs mixed in sprang up organically.

Bored 324

The world is an interesting place at the moment. Actually the world is always a fascinating place, but it is currently in a very precarious state. Any country that has the ability to "stimulate demand" is stimulating, and every other country is approaching whichever group or country with the cash with hat in hand. The last year has rocketed past, and left quite a bit of carnage in its wake. It doesnt seem that long ago when Bear Stearns disappeared and we still had giant investment banks. I bet you completely forgot about the $600/1200 checks from last spring. As I type this, I am listening to music through $100 Grado Labs headphones from my check!
Furthermore, America's typical enemies are in various states of peak belliegerence; partially because of the Bush Doctrine. Fortunately, a number of these enemies are just feeling the effects of plunging oil prices and are now being forced to put forth weaker attempts to harrass western nations. Think about when the last time you heard anything about Vladimir Putin, outside of his lambasting of Michael Dell at the Davos Confrence. I think the next couple of years will be interesting for Obama. No way in hell will he hit his projected budget deficit, but I think he is in a good position to usher in a new era of global cooperation thanks in part due to the recession. Iran is going be contained by the unexpected of triumvirate of the U.S., China, and Russia; that is of course if the administration can give into the other two just enough to encourage cooperation. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is continuing to be a quagmire. It took time for a solution to quell the violence in Iraq, and utimately one will come in Afghanistan, but it doesnt look like it is around the corner. More troubling, is the safe haven of Pakistan. Its extremely difficult to deal with the Taliban without ground troops. Especially if they are surrounded by civilians. Airstrikes tend to take out civilians at a higher rate than ground attacks, and as a result, it will be difficult to root out the Taliban with the locals becoming disilluioned with the NATO effort.
The next few years will be interesting to say the least. Its possible we could see a major war in the middle east. Africa will unfortunately take a step back, Russia will be a mystery, and China will roar.

Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

Just got the album this song is from. If you like this song, I recommend that you get Chunk of Change. It has this weird cross genre vibe, but not in the sense of really mixing two genres. I would consider this a slower dance album with sub genre undertones that create a nice a background harmony. I think the most notable sub genre is hip-hop. Better yet, 80s might be an unoriginal thing to recreate, but hidden in the margins it adds a wonderful touch.
Another thing that stands out, is the dynamic nature of the record. I have nothing against an album that flows smoothly from start to finish (explosions in the sky is one of my favorite bands), but those that experiment with more volatility and manage to connect the songs together tend to stand out from the pack.

Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

Thanks NPR all songs considered for turning me onto this song