What is the point of writing music? I ask myself this lately but when I first began I never did. In fact, there was no actual point. Maybe in some far fetched way I wanted fame, fortune, sex, and power. Maybe I wanted millions of dollars and fans, and respect from world leaders to bring about world peace. Perhaps I wanted to do illegal things that only those in the power circles can truly get away with - such as cops whom aren't even celebrities but still have similar deniability. When it really came down to it, I was just another sad loser, disabled since birth, with no friends, whom simply desired something to do with the same sixteen hours of awake hours that the rest of the cool world had. As Schwarzenneger said, and so do many, we all have the same 24 hours, don't we?
So how come some are ruining the Earth, some are pornographers, some are world leaders, and others complain how they have three jobs and are obese due to the successes and failures of others and never their own? We all have the same non-existent resource, time, and none of us grasp how to manage it. There are gallons of liquid poured into our cups, it's overflowing and the oceans are blue from all the wasted efforts of geniuses thrown about the vast landscape of man's past, and yet none of us in this modern world, despite all of our tech, progress, and science, and religion, not one of us knows what to do with ourselves? Perhaps this is why I wrote music - it is the least harmful activity I could have ever thought of. It's just noise, or ordered noise, and with a pair of headphones, nobody has to even hear any of it. In fact, I could write a song, and delete it, the same way my dad may have played guitar by a tree on some beach without anyone the wiser. My father, Dubravko, could have sang the best lyrics, better than Leonard Cohen, and not even I would have known. He could have even resisted today's generations urge to impress a woman with that skill and still managed to give birth to me through my mother's womb. Or maybe he was not musically inclined and I wrote music because I was born with low vision. Who knows. But today's kids all think that a set of turntables and microphones, or a DAW, means they must release every bit of effort, no matter how mediocre, into the world. They must market it, they must sell it, they must push it. Are the days when we could just play a flute for fun gone? Can't I write a killer track, better than Skrillex, and not make millions, and still live as a little guy? Must I be famous to win your friendship? Must I be cool like you? Is this what Crystal Method's Trip Like I Do is all about? Can't you all just enjoy life and not want to be famous? Because let me tell you, even if I could remove my disability's burdens I would not. I don't mind having been born nearly blind. I honestly do not. Most people, Americans are notorious for this, demand a car for their sixteenth birthday and go into fits of anxiety and panic if they can not go to the shopping mall. By my fortieth birthday this past July, I have never even driven a car once, nor have I ever stepped foot into the ocean and yet I lived downtown Toronto, but I have written songs in every imaginable genre, good ones, too. In fact, sometimes I score movies while sitting all alone in my apartment for fun and then do nothing with those soundtracks. It's just fun! The way someone might draw not out of boredom, but out of celebration of life, of freedom, of who they are and who the people around themselves are. You know, learning to breakdance. Does it really mean if I never spin on my head, that those who do in public squares for money are so special? What if I can spin on one finger like a Shaolin Kung Fu master who does finger push ups but I choose not to show it? The modern North American culture says "If you are so cool, prove it" and those who can not are laughed at. But this is perhaps the greatest mental illness afflicting our entire world. This push to be cool, to be worshipped, and far too many are stuck in that realm, that deep chasm of darkness. Oh look, she sings like Adele, let's try to cash in on it by paying for singing classes. Gregorian monks did not sing to win trophies, nor to speak to God, they did not sing out of respect for their power figures, nor did they sing because they needed money. I do not actually know why they sang, but I know why I sing. Because I have a voice and it is fun. I write music for the same reason as a teenager. And if I release any songs it will be because I am poor and can not afford food, so technically they will all have been tortured out of me. Because what I truly wished was to live in a world void of violence, void of hatred, void of voices that tell us all what to do and how to be. But you all wanted a different world. The rest of you wanted not to dance on street corners but only in dark clubs. I wanted a world where anyone can put headphones on and dance in a public park. And for a full year now in Toronto I danced even while walking along Yonge Street - but the authorities here think that is a mental illness. So clearly your peer pressure society is structured a bit different than the normal world I represent with my voice. Nobody ever dances in Toronto's parks, and that is a statistic of twenty six years of life here in Canada. So far I am the only person who danced near the flashing lights of police vehicles that stopped to investigate pretending it was a mobile outdoor dance club. The world I wanted to build is not the world this bullying society, even Canadians' one, has so far achieved even within the 200 or so nations represented in the City of Toronto. And I believe it to be some kind of illness many are suffering from that exists within the social fabric you all are passing and emanating towards each other. It consists of gossip, lies, discrimination, judgment, and what this entire blog post is all about - fame. For example, even now writing this blog post a small part of me is hoping the article will become a world famous and noteable entry in the future's history of what helped to shape world peace and bring about human transformation from a simple pathetic little prehistoric culture that simply caters to the whims of the entertainable consumers into perhaps a realm of creative, free spirited, fun people. Maybe most think that this is what we are - but judging by Toronto's unfilled potholes, we are so far from normal that not even bathrooms in tea houses are respectable and yet Canada keeps advertising to the world that it is the best according to the United Nations. The best? I am a nearly blind man and my bathroom is cleaner than the ones in Tim Horton's. Most of the citizens, I presume have clean bathrooms and you all vacuum your floors, but in the restaurants of Toronto you all accept even graffiti as normal? I do not get it - is it because it is different so you feel excitement and fun? Why not make your own family bathrooms this way if that is the case, eh? Suddenly it doesn't feel so comfy does it? But when you write your books, music, or film your YouTubes and do your homework, you want to write properly, underline the Ts and cross out the bad edits, somehow graffiti does not belong in your creations does it? That perfectly made lyric and rhyme, you do not want to let me add random letters to of my choosing, do you Mr. Snoop Doggy Dogg eh? That wonderful Banksy artwork? He doesn't want me adding my randomness of missing bricks and white paint that makes me feel like a rebellious youth, eh Banksy cake? And those wearing ripped jeans, such power figures in fashion right? How about you rebel from all of your peer group and go to a big store and afford a $4,500 business suit made out of the finest threads hand sewn by those with thousands of years of thread and needle expertise? That's a bit more work than ripping or tearing jeans, right? Somehow it seems rebelling is easier doesn't it? Just like telling an artist such as myself that my music stinks. Somehow pirating music and stating you have a right to be entertained the way Ceaser made you all believe means the musicians can die of starvation the way Gladiators were expendable. You have a right to a diamond ring, they have a right to oil, we all have whatever we want - it's just that it has to come from somebody else's world, doesn't it? And what rights does a rock or a river have and who will defend them? What rights does our Mother Earth have? None. And when it dies, and we all die with it, neither will we. So similarly, I have no rights to any money from my music creations. I have no rights from my book writing. Because for me that is not work, for me that is filling the time while I am lonely and bored. To me writing music is what I have always done because it is fun, and never because it was a job. Work is what improves life, what provides fun to others. But those who are bathing in fun and never contribute and like locusts take take take, those are addicts. Those are not normal men and women. They are a disease, and that is what in the Matrix the agent was referring to. Humans are a disease on this planet, and he was right. We are a disease when we behave in this manner. And if we can not cure our own minds of this illness, then we as a species are the disease violating all that has no rights. If we take advantage of those weaker than ourselves, such as rocks and rivers, then those things will eventually perish. And if we are addicts, what perishes will not concern us, for we will live and thrive in a fantasy, from which we can never wake from, and that is why it is an illness. And that is why those like that are a scourge. Cancer ravages any body it goes through. It is life, but sick life. A cancer cell is not much different from any other. With one except I think - it eats energy, and divides and then it eats and eats until the host it is within dies. Then the cancer dies as well. When the last bit of ocean life is gone, and the last musician's work is pirated, and the last man goes hungry, diamond rings won't stop glittering. But the human race will. Bling bling is great, but you know, so is a tree. And I haven't seen any youth rebelling yet by hugging trees, but I have seen aplenty showing how cool they are by laughing at words just like the ones that I am writing in this blog post. And the sad part of that is, it's how it's been for thousands of years it seems. Laughing at good natured people is easy. Spray canning a wall is easy. Tearing others' work is even easier. My little sister can kick my Lego house in under a second into pieces - but I have to spend hours rebuilding it and rebuilding it and rebuilding it. This is why it is a sickness. This is why violence and terrorism happens. This is why gender-warfare and discrimination happens. We all want to be the King and the Queen and none of us want to be the blacksmith working for next to nothing. And neither does the blacksmith. In fact, the blacksmith would want nothing more than to never see his swords used at all. But those with this illness, they keep attacking the kingdom. They want more more more. And they do not know how to create more. The taggers in Toronto do not know how to paint a wall clean. The kids with ripped jeans do not know how to afford a $5K suit. The police do not know how to not abuse their power. And those who are lazy do not know how to get a six pack. It's easy to label ones lack of knowledge as a result of oppression. It's easy to say you are too busy to work out. And it's even easier to make up a lie and say "I spilled my coffee on purpose to look cool" as opposed to admit I was flailing my arms out of control just now. My coffee spilled all over my MacBook sleeve and could have ruined it. I could post a photo of it on Twitter and tell all my friends how I 'm rich and wanted to make a cool shot and nobody would ever know. This is how most people with this illness would behave. They would use artistry and humour to cover their incompetence. The fact is, I placed a coffee cup on the edge of a table, and the sleeve was underneath and so were books and they all could have been damaged. I can say a magical force saved it, I could talk about God, I could say amazing subconscious stuff about placement of stuff. Or, I could accept that I am imperfect, error-prone, and that possibly a coffee cup near books is not wise, and that even at the age of forty I made a foolish mistake. The other side of the table, on the floor has neither a sleeve for a laptop nor any books. My table has been like this for months. How come I made this mistake? Why was I was dumb? But accepting would imply accepting that I was not thinking. Just like accepting that all the graffiti is not style. And all the torn clothing is a sign of a mental problem and so forth. Accepting lack of pothole repairs is a societal sign of a greater issue and so forth. But we can not think this way, because then as a society we are locusts. We are a problem. We are sick. And nobody wants to say a simple thing to themselves such as "I am so stupid I do not know how to not spill coffee on an expensive Macintosh while dirt poor". A coffee cup is pennies, a Macintosh is thousands of dollars. The other side of the table is empty. Nothing bad would have happened if it spilled there. Just like we could have had a different Toronto if a lot of us made very different decisions. But there was nobody in my apartment looking out for the placement of that coffee cup. And there is nobody in life to tell us how to govern ourselves in any society nor in any city. All we do is loose, flexible, and fuzzy. We resist stating this is bad and this is good - and yet my coffee cup was wrongly placed. Now someone might say, look what a great article I wrote based on this mistake. But that is the disease speaking. No, I would have written even a better article if I never put the books in that spot, if I had a MacBook in that sleeve, and if I didn't spill that coffee. I would have been with my MacBook in Aruba on a beach and Toronto would have been governed by people making better decisions and choices that none of us can contemplate. But instead, most would choose to see good in bad, instead of the better above the rest. Fact of the matter is, I could have drank my coffee with friends and then sat to work, instead of trying to multitask. Is that not a simple solution? Far easier than stating a great article was made. This is why I am not certain anymore why I write music. It achieves nothing. Except making me feel better. Is music composing my tobacco? You know? Something to eat away time until I die of old age because I can not solve the problems all around me? People work for hours and hours and years and years and something as simple as Toronto's pot holes are just as ugly as thirty years ago when I first went downtown. In fact, I would wager that Toronto's streets are uglier than when I first immigrated. And as a kid, I did not ever even keep a glass of water near any computer, ever. I did not even eat chips at my table. And I definitely did not write music and wonder why I wrote music. In fact, my composing was unencumbered and there was zero knowledge about world events, terrorism, nor did CP24 exist to tell me about Jane and Finch. And from others I hear it's a corner that was always in the news, forever, and always. Can't I start a line of clothing and call it "Jane And Finch"? Silly, and perhaps a rip off a certain other brand, eh? But at the end of the day, we must all work to not listen to what I think. Or you all think. But to realize what makes sense. Except there is a catch - an illness or an addiction prevents this. And so if one is rebelling by destroying, or rebelling by ordering around, or rebelling by wielding power, or rebelling by protecting, then we are not living together even if it is Canada, are we? So now I write music because I am suffering. Now I write music because I can't solve any real problems. Now I write music because I am happy and don't know how else to express that joy. Now I write music because my best friend can no longer play ball with me. Now I write music because my dad is absent. Now I write music because of superstitious reasons. Now I no longer write music just to play with sounds like a kid. Now I write music because I am looking for my dog. Now I write music because I am a forty year old whom never once had a single romantic date. Now I write music because I am nearly blind. Now I have a million reasons I never had as a kid and yet all those reasons are not the reason. Simply put, why did my dad play guitar? Did he need a million reasons? Was it a different reason every day? Was it the hatred of women who only adored intelligent and unique men that forced him to find a niche to attract a women with? Was he a slave and thus had to appease the needs of others? Did he play guitar to deal with issues? Or does it quite simply not matter and it was simply fun. Do we have potholes because it is fun for a car to bounce around? Do we have graffiti because you all have good eyes, unlike me, so it's boring to look at clean facades all painted one colour? Do we have stickers all over Toronto because graffiti became boring? Do cops abuse people because we are Gods and respect is a bore? Do we wear ripped jeans because thousands of dollars for a fancy suit makes no sense in a world where millions die of starvation? Do we explain all these things to ourselves because we simply do not want to grasp that the effort needed to clean a façade, fix pot holes, and earn that suit, is the same effort required to build the skillset required to end poverty all over the world and we'd rather live in a fantasy where that skillset created the problem and our rebelling is the solution? Star Wars has rebels and they are the good guys, right? Underdog must be victorious? The minorities are oppressed and so are the women and children! My bedroom doesn't have stickers all over the walls, and there are no holes in my hardwood floors - a reference to graffiti and pot holes. My doors are not crooked like in Beetlejuice, are yours? My bookshelves are not full of water. Why don't we rebel and pour water on our favourite books? Or tear pages and make collages? Go on, buy a $100 book and tear the pages and see if you can earn the same book again. But we like to tell ourselves it is okay to pirate, and it is okay to graffiti and it is okay to tear down the work of others. Yet we never purposely spill a fifty cent instant coffee cup on our brand new MacBooks. Some rebels you all are, eh? It seems you are all nothing more than criminals. Hackers think they are cool by defacing websites even of the CIA. When was the last time anonymous got together with rebellious supermodels and helped elderly people build a retirement home? See my point yet, bosses of cool? When was the last time police force seized grow ups and then joined forces with the criminal gangs and all were reformed by your oh-so-powerful psychotherapy and social workers and together built a soccer field in Toronto? Never? Okay. When was the last time all of your psychiatry and professorships built cheap housing that the poor did not hate? Or how about, all of you NASA engineers and CompSci experts, when was the last time you gave those in wheelchairs wheels that did not make noise a kilometer away and could be used in winter to buy groceries? There are simple examples of the illness even the good people of Canada suffer from. Preaching how we are high and mighty and hiding behind "cool" is easy. Bruce Lee is famous for this notorious line of faulty logic. My cup is not half empty he would say. It is half full, right Bruce Lee? Guess what the cup actually is? It's far from a dehydrated man in the desert. The cup is filled with the wrong liquid. In other words, there is no cup where it was needed because those with it were philosophising if it was half full or half empty. That is June Dum Do martial art. You are all debating the wrong issues while the entire human race is vanishing. Sun Tzu warned you all in The Art of War: "destroy the enemy from within". In other words, let's use freedom of speech, and democracy, and make people debate things they believe are solving problems but are not accomplishing a single thing. Here have a blogging platform and write for hours and the world will listen. Nay. Go into a forest and scream loudly - that's Twitter, Facebook and Blogs. It's not a megaphone, it's not a solution. So I write this blog the same way now that I write music. I am just smoking my life away. One verbal puff at a time. One sonic note at a time. Because I can not solve your problems. I can not give any of you a way of life. I am not here for you. Let's not do this. These are simple statements, but those ill can not comprehend them. People think multi-tasking is the way of the future. The more you can do, the more you can study, more more more. I even suffer from it. Look at this blog. If I write just another few more words, maybe then all of thi
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