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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
"Take up Your Cross" | November 22, 2024 ▼ I'm not sure that I see the concepts of contentment and "always trying to get more" as mutually exclusive. Contentment, to me, is about being in a state of happiness and satisfaction, while the desire to always have more can be either positive or negative depending on how much of a premium you place on it. For example, if ambition turns into greed or envy, and it's constantly convincing you that you don't have enough, or that you're not happy with what you have, that's definitely a problem and it jeopardizes contentment. If you spend all your time jealous about the fact that your friends and neighbors have better jobs, nicer cars, more attractive significant others, bigger houses, etc., then that's a deeply unsatisfying and disappointing life that you're going to live. But that doesn't mean that ambition has to become those things. Ambition on its own isn't a negative; it can be what inspires us to achieve more for the Kingdom, or to grow personally in any number of ways. If your ambition leads you to greater success in business and that connects you with more people you never would have met otherwise, is that discontentment? If you aspire to have more money so that you can buy a bigger house, but your intention is to use that house to welcome in people who are in need of a stable home, is that problematic? I think the real question is whether you can be both content and ambitious at the same time. Can you have larger aspirations or goals while at the same time being okay if you don't get those things? To me, that's the ideal place to find yourself; where your ambition spurs you to greater things, but you're secure enough to be content with what you have even if those ambitions don't ultimately come to pass. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  The Garfield Movie Get Out Happy Death Day MaXXXine Pearl Us We Summon the Darkness What We Do In The Shadows XSince last month was Spooky Season, I decided to watch a lot of horror movies in October (plus The Garfield Movie, with my kids). Jordan Peele's first two movies (Get Out and Us) were solid; I can definitely see why people liked them. I don't think either one is perfect by any means, but I enjoyed both for different reasons and respect the fact that he has a different perspective and point of view in his filmmaking. I also had fun watching Happy Death Day which is basically what happens when you take the premise of Groundhog Day and apply it to a horror movie, where a character wakes up at the beginning of the same day, over and over again, always ending in them getting murdered by a serial killer. There's a sequel called Happy Death Day 2 U which I'll definitely be watching soon. We Summon the Darkness was a completely forgettable 2019 horror movie about a religious cult which goes undercover at heavy metal concerts to murder other concertgoers in order to increase "Satanic panic" and drive more people to religion. And Ti West's Maxine trilogy was just okay. X was a decent first horror movie in the series where aspiring filmmakers rent a room from a remote Texas farm to shoot a porn film and end up getting killed off one by one. Pearl was the sequel (and actually a prequel showing how the killer became a killer) and easily the worst of the three, and MaXXXine is the third and latest installment which was pretty fun, if for no other reason that it embraced a real eighties slasher vibe. The best movie I saw by far this month, though, was What We Do In The Shadows, a mockumentary by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement about a group of vampires who share a flat in New Zealand, and it's honestly one of the funniest horror comedies I've seen in a long time. There were so many great jokes and moments that made this an instant classic for me; definitely something I'm going to add to my annual October movie rotation. Television Emily in Paris (Season 4 High Potential (Season 1) The Irrational (Season 1) - DNF The Lincoln Lawyer (Season 2) So Help Me Todd (Season 1) - DNF Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1)Getting the bad ones out of the way first, The Irrational (Jesse L. Martin plays a psychologist who helps the FBI solve crimes) and So Help Me Todd (Skylar Astin plays a private investigator who goes to work for his mom's law firm), both of which came highly recommended from different sources of both of which I watched about a half-dozen episodes of, and then didn't continue with because they weren't all that engaging. The fourth season of Emily in Paris was something I did happen to watch all of, and I kind of wished I hadn't because it's just gotten really tedious and boring. On the plus side, the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer was pretty good (we watched it in preparation for the new season that's coming out), and High Potential is a good procedural that has an excellent cast. The best thing I watched in television all month was the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, which just finished it's five-season run and was the first show in Alex Kurtzman's and Bryan Fuller's reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Honestly, it was really great. The first episode is pretty wild, and the rest of the season builds off of it as a narrative foundation, which is really different for a Star Trek show (which usually relies on an independent, episodic format). I decided to start watching Star Trek and figured jumping into the "reboot" of the franchise was the place to start... and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I can't wait for the second season, and the other shows beyond that. TOP PICK: What We Do In The Shadows and Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1) (TIE) |
I think "triple your success by doubling your investment in personal development" is exactly the kind of thing a self-help motivational speaker and author would make up, because it's a general truism with complete nonsense masquerading as practical advice layered on top of it. The underlying point is well taken... that if you invest in your own personal development, it's one of the best things that you can do to contribute to your success. But "personal development" can mean a variety of different things, many of which have no objective means of measurement. Same with "tripling your success." And I feel like that's kind of the point with stuff like this. Because the self-help industry (especially in the area of business development) absolutely thrives on the idea that greater success (usually financial) is just around the corner as soon as you figure out the one quick tip, life hack, pro tip, etc. that the person selling you something has to offer. Is this quote saying that if you take one of the author's seminars or pick up one of his books, that your salary will triple? Or that if you go back to school you'll suddenly have the skills needed to be your own boss? Or that your investment portfolio will triple in value if you take a few online courses in leadership development? That's kind of the point of quotes like this... it allows you to fill in the blanks. It encourages you to imagine what your "success tripling" looks like for you, as long as you double your investment in personal development (which is what the author is, conveniently, selling). Don't get me wrong; I'm someone who thinks there is value in some self-help stuff, and who genuinely believes in the power of personal development, self-actualization, and all that good stuff. But, at its core, what do I think this quote means? I think it means that a self-help guy is trying to sell you more of his products by encouraging you to imagine how much more successful you'll be if you buy just one more of his books, or attend one more of his seminars, or pay for one more personal coaching session... or whatever it is he's offering. It's a catchy quote, with the barest hints of truth to it... but that's been layered over by cheap salesmanship and impossible-to-prove assertions. |
In a world where we could freely contact the deceased as easily as making a phone call, I wonder if death would still have the same significance. For a lot of us, I suspect a big part of it is the fact that we can no longer speak with the people we care about or used to communicate with. I know that, after almost four years, the times that I still miss my mom the most are on my commutes home from work when I would often call her to catch up and just pass the time while I'm sitting in traffic. If I could still communicate with her in the afterlife the same way that I just dialed up her number when she was alive, I wonder how much of the significance of her death and absence from my life would still remain? I would, unquestionably, use this ability to contact friends and family who had passed. I have zero interest in reaching out to famous persons or historical figures, except maybe as the occasional novelty, or if I were able to use it to get a very specific question answered. I don't see myself calling up an actor or a musician that I love who died, because my connection was to their work (which still exists) rather than themselves as a person. I'm not sure what I'd gain by contacting Stan Lee, or Leslie Nielsen, or Anthony Bourdain and trying to have a conversation with them. Unless it was to very specifically get an answer to a burning question. Think of all the college students that would call up William Shakespeare or Robert Frost to ask them what they really meant by a particular passage of their work. Or all the phone calls Jesus of Nazareth would get with people wrestlings over a piece of scripture or one of his teachings! Or the number of times Napoleon, or Alexander the Great, or Aristotle, or Sun Tzu would be consulted for their thoughts on a present-day geopolitical issue. Would this usher in an entirely new industry of personal assistants and answering services for incredibly popular historical figures? Would there be gatekeepers and "we don't accept unsolicited requests from the land of the living" auto-replies to filter out the thousands, or even millions of requests certain dead people would get? Part of me wonders if having an ability to contact the dead like this would be a wonderful gift. To be able to talk to my mom again, to let her know what's going on in my life and with her grandkids, and ask her advice when I'm struggling with something would be an incredible gift. On the other hand, another part of me wonders if having that kind of access to people who have died would do real damage to the sanctity of life, and the significance that death plays in the world. It's an interesting question for sure, but if given the opportunity to do it, I'd one hundred percent take the chance and worry about the philosophical effects later. In the meantime, I'd just enjoy talking to my mom, my grandparents, etc. again. |
"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late" from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is often cited when people are looking for quotes about punctuality. And, depending on the context, it definitely makes sense. You wouldn't want to be a minute too late to board an international flight, or defuse a bomb. Although I suspect that it probably would't be as big a deal for something like showing up to an event you really don't want to attend. For situations that don't involve anything critical, I actually think most people would prefer to be a minute late rather than being three hours early. I am not most people. I hate being late. It drives me crazy when I'm late to something, even if it's a casual get-together or something where punctuality isn't expected. If I say I'm going to be somewhere at 6:00 p.m., I do not want to get there at 6:01 p.m. or 6:02 p.m. When it is for something important, I will 100% inconvenience myself by arriving way early and hanging around rather than taking the chance of arriving late. For example, I live in the Greater Los Angeles area, where traffic is always unpredictable. The only predictable thing about it, in fact, is that it's almost always bad. And when I have something like a job interview, even though it would be perfectly acceptable to walk into the room a single minute late, I would rather drive there hours early, and take the chance of arriving hours early and killing time waiting in my car or hanging out at a local coffeeshop just down the street than chance that I'll be stuck in traffic. So, yes, I deeply identify with Shakespeare's "better three hours too soon than a minute too late" line from his play. It's pretty much how I've dealt with punctuality my entire life, even for occasions where I think other people would be more inclined to be a minute late. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies The Beekeeper Damsel Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate The Union The Wild RobotTelevision Nobody Wants This The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Selling Sunset (Season 8)I watched quite a few movies this month that I thought were okay but not great. The Beekeeper was an okay Jason Statham action movie. The Union was an okay Mark Wahlberg action comedy. Damsel was a pretty good Millie Bobby Brown action fantasy movie. Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate was a not-very-good direct-to-streaming sequel to a so-so animated movie that's almost fifteen years old. The Wild Robot was a pretty touching animated movie about parenting. The television content was okay. The latest season of Selling Sunset was fine... more of the same... and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was interesting but a little less of an expose on women in Mormon culture and more about a group of women fixating on their experience as social media influencers, which is not a topic that I find particularly interesting. Nobody Wants This, on the other hand, was delightful. Despite the terribly generic name that doesn't do it any favors, it's a really charming romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell as a non-religious sex/relationships podcaster who falls for a rabbi who's religious tradition and the expectations of his family and friends of course requires him to be with someone of the Jewish faith. It was genuinely smart, funny, and charming romantic comedy. I really hope they greenlight a second season soon. TOP PICK: Nobody Wants This |
"Barrel of Monkeys" Day 10 "Bulletproof" by Nate Smith feat. Avril Lavigne from California Gold (unreleased) For my last "Barrel of Monkeys" entry this month, I'm actually choosing a song that features Avril Lavigne, rather than a song from one of her albums. Nate Smith is a country artist I just discovered this year when his song "World of Fire" popped up in my Spotify recommendations playlist. That song was the second single off his self-titled debut album and his first with a major label. This song is the first single off his forthcoming second studio album, California Gold (release date TBD) and I included it because I was blown away with how well Avril Lavigne's voice seems to fit with this style of country song.After two decades of listening to her power ballads and pop-punk-rock anthems, I'm convinced that we need a country album from Avril Lavigne. This collaboration with Nate Smith is great, and I think it would be a fun side project for her to tackle that would surprise people. This is definitely one of my favorite country music discoveries this year (along with Nate Smith in general). This has been a really fun blogging challenge this year, and it's gotten me excited about "The Soundtrackers Group" Fall/Winter setlist with "Resurrection Jukebox" coming up in October and "12 Days of "Christmas"" following not far behind once December rolls around. See you all then!(220 words) |
This is probably my favorite song off Avril's Love Sux album. It's not the one I've listened to the most at this point, but it's the one that most consistently puts a smile on my face and that I think is a perfect mix that captures her evolution as an artist. It's upbeat, a little punk rock, and has that positive message that I've mentioned in a few other posts that I think is missing from a lot of songs in this genre. It's a hopeful and energetic song that is oddly romantic given that it's a pop-punk anthem. I'm seriously considering writing a short story inspired by this song (or maybe I'll attempt yet another ill-fated "Musicology Anthology" entry based on this album next year; it's a challenge that I always start with the best intentions and rarely seem to ever get started on in earnest. But it's not since "Damage" (the song I wrote inspired by The Band CAMINO's song of the same name) that I've had such a fully-formed vision of what kind of a story a song can tell based on my interpretation of the lyrics.After having spent the ten days of this challenge revisiting Avril Lavigne's entire catalogue, I'm super-bummed that I've missed a couple opportunities to see her in concert. I wasn't even aware of this album around the time she was doing the Love Sux Tour, and I can't say I would have gone even if I had because the closest venues to me were Las Vegas (and Winchester, NV) in September and October 2022 when there were still COVID concerns at big public events (like concerts!), and I literally just missed her Greatest Hits Tour earlier this year by a couple of months. She was in Los Angeles (and Las Vegas, again) in May and June, and the tour literally had its last stop less than two weeks ago.  I would have loved to have gone to a show on the Greatest Hits Tour since she played so many songs from so many different eras. Hopefully she'll have a new album and a new tour soon. Based on her album releases to-date, I wouldn't be surprised if she dropped a new album sometime in 2025. Her average (mean) time between albums is roughly three years, and if Love Sux released in February 2022, it's probably a good bet that she's finishing up whatever she's currently working on and angling for a release sometime soon, now that her Greatest Hits album and the accompanying tour has wrapped up. Whatever she does next, I'm definitely here for it! BTW, if this entry sounds a little like a wrap-up of a ten day event on Day 9... it kind of is. That's because my pick for Day 10 is something a bit different and isn't necessarily an "Avril Lavigne song" per se.  I hope that you've enjoyed this brief journey through Avril's discography and come back to visit during "The Soundtrack of Your Life" when I'll have another of her songs (or maybe a couple!) to share from my listening over the past year. Like I've mentioned, this album featured prominently in my listening this year. Multiple tracks will probably show up on my Spotify year-end summary.  (546 words) |
I could have probably picked any of the tracks off this album to feature in this challenge, because I think the whole thing is great. Love Sux was released in 2022 and is Avril's seventh studio album. I've been listening to it a lot lately, because it sounds to me like she's really refined her sound over the past twenty years. The rock-inspired tracks are heavy and hard-hitting; the pop-inspired tracks are fun and light. And the more serious power ballad type songs are really resonant. This song is the one I've listened to third-most on the album (the second-most will be the next entry, and I'm saving the most-listened-to song off the album for next February's "The Soundtrack of Your Life" so you all have something to look forward to. This is one of the few songs where I actually don't think her voice (especially during the verses) is particularly great compared to some of her other songs, but the chorus is really poignant and resonant.Like I mentioned in the previous entry ("Keep Holding On" ), I think there need to be more songs in the world that are a little more hopeful. That might sound a little weird to say about a song that talks about being overwhelmed by your life, but for some reason I interpret this song as being about someone persevering in the face of adversity rather than letting it consume them. Maybe I have that wrong, but I actually find this song kind of inspiring and encouraging.(250 words) |
This is one of the few Avril Lavigne songs that I'm aware of which was released on a soundtrack before she released it on an album. It was the lead single off the Eragon movie soundtrack in 2006, and then later included on her third studio album The Best Damn Thing which was released the following year. I've always liked this song because I think there are a lot of songs about breakup and hurt and relationships ending and stuff along those lines, but there are much fewer songs about persevering and continuing to stick together through hard times, and I think we need more of those songs in the world. (113 words) |
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