u/thegreatself

Day... I don't know.

I don't care.

I'm quitting, not counting.

(It's day twenty-one point seven-five)

"You have to do it without the motivation to do it"

Somebody commented basically this somewhere else very recently, and it has attached itself to my brain, as a brain that has always struggled with motivation.

A procrastinator always waits for tomorrow - forever tomorrow.

To quit you have to want to quit - if you don't want to quit, how can you motivate yourself to quit?

Willpower only goes as far as you can stretch it - if you don't want to stretch it, how do you find or create the will to want to stretch it further than it can go?

I don't know - I'm trying to just do rather than just know what to do.

Though knowing what to do is the first step.

Or maybe the step before the first step.

The first step is the act.

To act instead of telling myself how I will act.

To do it without the motivation to do it seems incoherent because it is.

But so is doing it because you are motivated to do it.

A tautology.

An ouroboros.

Which came first,

My emotional dysregulation or my addiction?

Are they different?

Does it matter?

What motivates me?

Comfort - security - familiarity - contentment - peace.

Lies.

What motivates is motivation itself.

The act is the motivation.

The act creates the motivation.

The motivation is nowhere to be found.

A curiosity of language.

Language isn't "the thing" it labels.

Saying "I will quit" isn't quitting.

Quitting is quitting and doing is doing.

You think the motivation comes first.

But the act comes first and the motivation follows.

Is it a matter of "why" or "when" ?

I don't know.

I'm trying to just do rather than just know what to do.

...for a post-truth digital age of manufactured consent and content without substance that both symbolically and literally links Humanity (Us) together as a kind of rudimentary hivemind creating the potential for near-instant communication and cooperation between (almost) every culture and consciousness on the planet across the borders of geography, language, and time and so then shitposting online might be understood as some kind of modern equivalent to Martin Luther's schismatic revolution enacted against an oppressive monolithic institution of unimaginable power.

So in essence, we have to metaphorically nail revolutionary memes to the algorithm, or the aristocratic elite will ensure it remains nothing but an advertisement instead.

Meme-makers and shit-posters will save the world through a war waged on the symbolic architecture of reality itself.

And I don't mean Adam Lazzara's vocals.

Boom, roasted.

Yes, I did make this exact same joke and thread almost 5 years ago but I'm making it again because a song from the "20th Anniversary Edition" just popped up on a playlist I was listening to and it's still fucking there.

Here's a thread from /r/productionglitches from 10 years ago talking about it, and this now deleted thread from 7 years ago has a link to an 'amateur' fan attempt to remove it.

To be fair, it does sound a bit quieter and is maybe not as noticeable, but there still seems to be certain sections where it is glaringly obvious, at least to me - though by now I'm sure most of Taking Back Sunday's fans and the band themselves are old enough to have lost the ability to hear high-pitch frequencies altogether.

Boom, roasted.

Just thought it was funny - and lazy of them and their label - maybe they'll do a 30th anniversary edition reissue of the remaster, and by the 40th anniversary edition they can do an actual re-recording.

If you want a really clear example, listen to when the vocal track kicks in around 0:14 on Ghost Man on Third - if you can't hear it there you probably just can't hear it at all.

I mean “magic” in the same sense that we might colloquially refer to existence itself as “magic” - something immensely powerful that is difficult if not impossible to reduce to or capture completely within the limits of language, where the incomprehensible novelty and absurdity of it is inevitability dulled by perpetual routine.

I mean “weapon” in the same sense that we might colloquially refer to our hands as “weapons” - not defined by that singular purpose, but existing with the possibility of adaptation.

Words and art both possess reality-altering powers - neither merely “reflects” or describes reality, they also change how we relate to and understand what constitutes reality.

The Internet is thus a post-post-modern printing press for a post-truth digital age of manufactured consent and content without substance that both symbolically and literally links Humanity together as a kind of rudimentary hivemind allowing for near-instant and constant communication between (almost) every consciousness and culture on the planet, even across and beyond the borders of geography, language and time which means shitposting online is therefore a modern equivalent to Martin Luther's revolutionary attack against an oppressive monolithic institution of unimaginable power, and the current establishment and institutions of unimaginable power must be utterly terrified of this unifying potential (however immeasurably small) of the Internet and so it must be corporately-controlled and commodified to amplify the divide between people and prevent the only thing capable of ridding humanity of a parasitic class of worthless tyrant and the abstract and often unexamined beliefs that enable and empower them - us, together.

Wars are no longer waged only on and over actual physical battlefields - our modern war is a psychic and spiritual one set in the space of the collective human (un)conscious, and the targets of annihilation are not only people, but the revolutionary possibility and potential they possess and represent - the target is **Truth** to be replaced by **Truth As it Serves the Manufacturer**.

We are in an era of memetic warfare and unless we can understand and figure out how to twist that against itself, our collective human spirit will be swallowed whole and outlived by the last piece of peddled plastic that can be sold for a dollar.

I believe in magic - do you?

I mean “magic” in the same sense that we might colloquially refer to existence itself as “magic” - something immensely powerful that is difficult if not impossible to reduce to or capture completely within the limits of language, where the incomprehensible novelty and absurdity of it is inevitability dulled by perpetual routine.

I mean “weapon” in the same sense that we might colloquially refer to our hands as “weapons” - not defined by that singular purpose, but existing with the possibility of adaptation.

Words and art both possess reality-altering powers - neither merely “reflects” or describes reality, they also change how we relate to and understand what constitutes reality.

The Internet is thus a post-post-modern printing press for a post-truth digital age of manufactured consent and content without substance that both symbolically and literally links Humanity together as a kind of rudimentary hivemind allowing for near-instant and constant communication between (almost) every consciousness and culture on the planet, even across and beyond the borders of geography, language and time which means shitposting online is therefore a modern equivalent to Martin Luther's revolutionary attack against an oppressive monolithic institution of unimaginable power, and the current establishment and institutions of unimaginable power must be utterly terrified of this unifying potential (however immeasurably small) of the Internet and so it must be corporately-controlled and commodified to amplify the divide between people and prevent the only thing capable of ridding humanity of a parasitic class of worthless tyrant and the abstract and often unexamined beliefs that enable and empower them - us, together.

Wars are no longer waged only on and over actual physical battlefields - our modern war is a psychic and spiritual one set in the space of the collective human (un)conscious, and the targets of annihilation are not only people, but the revolutionary possibility and potential they possess and represent - the target is **Truth** to be replaced by **Truth As it Serves the Manufacturer**.

We are in an era of memetic warfare and unless we can understand and figure out how to twist that against itself, our collective human spirit will be swallowed whole and outlived by the last piece of peddled plastic that can be sold for a dollar.

I believe in magic - do you?

Music is perhaps the most "primordial" form of art, with our ancient ancestors likely having the ability to synchronize and harmonize before having the words to even label those "things".

It seems to me that anybody that has ever penned a "protest song" must necessarily believe - whether consciously or unconsciously - that it can function as a kind of practical reality-altering ritual.

Given music's potential to push the boundaries of what we consider ordinary or possible, do you believe it's fair to claim music has certain "magical" properties that can change the material world in measurable and observable ways?

Is art simply reflective of reality, or can it reciprocally shape reality through reflection?

Some simple examples of music's "reality-altering" properties off the top of my head:

- music's impact on motivation / endurance - anybody into any form of exercise can attest to the "power" of the right song at the right time.

- the spontaneous feeling of goosebumps / chills down your spine that can't be replicated by simply playing the same notes in the same order

- the ability to create wealth and command attention - artists possess cultural relevance that can then be used to influence others, sometimes on a massive scale.

Now to the skeptics among us there is nothing at all "magic" about those things, which can ultimately be reduced to and understood as simple physical reactions in the brain and body - but does the nature of transmission itself not imply a kind of invisible thread connecting consciousness?

So, do you think it's a fair assessment to think of all art as a kind of practical magic?

First, it is no coincidence that "dog" is just "god" with the "d" and "g" switched, and since "d" precedes "g" alphabetically it automatically assumes a position of primacy.

1 point dog.

Second, dogs exist in a corporeal state. I can see my dog. I can hug my dog. My dog can lick my face. The existence of god is nowhere near as indisputable - god can't and will never lick my face.

2 points dog.

Third, by their very nature, every dog must possess a more noble spirit than even the best of our species.

>Strength without Insolence,

>Courage without Ferosity,

>and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

>From Epitaph to a Dog by Lord Byron

3 points dog.

Fourth, because of number three, simply existing with the dog should broaden your own humanity - it teaches us something more about what it is to be human and the inter-connected nature of all life.

4 points dog.

Fifth and finally, they're so cute! God is not cute.

5 points dog.

As you can see, I've made a powerful case for worshipping dogs over god.