This post is not about piracy - Post # 10

I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again. I’m perfectly aware of how much of a snore that last post was. I don’t know what’s happened. I think the veneer of blog writing rubbed off. The first few posts were great. Remember Pointy Things? I loved that. Writing these posts has become a chore. It hurts to admit that. I made the last post because I realized that I had to submit a total of 12 posts with only 10 readings to write about. Now I’m running out of time and I have to write this one and two more. I’m not confident that they will be my best work. I still have to decide what I’ll write about for my last post, which I don’t have any readings to supplement. I hope my readers, and especially my evaluator, won’t mind if I use that opportunity to discuss some of the internal debates on ethics that I’ve been having throughout this course. Without further ado, I present my next blog post. Don’t get excited, I have low expectations for the next few posts.

This post is about piracy…

What an awful way to start a blog entry, especially when the topic is actually interesting. I read the chapter and everything, but with the mood I’m in, I think piracy is going to have to wait until the next entry. Just like that, this just turned into a completely different blog post, right before your eyes!

This post is not about piracy.

I recently joined Twitter. There’s a link on the right side of this blog. I’ve noticed that among the trending topics, #thingsthatpissmeoff is there pretty regularly. Sure enough, I just checked and it’s not there. The point I wanted to make, but which now seems pointless, is that the #thingsthatpissmeoff trend pisses me off. It’s just a series of people complaining about the dumbest things. For example:

“Old crusty people taking up space on the highway in rush hour traffic is on the top of my list…” – Nathan Riddell.

I have no idea who this Nathan Riddell is, but I don’t like him. If the elderly in traffic are at the top of your list of things that anger you, where does that leave things like Monsanto completely monopolizing farming or governments supporting corporations that have complete control over the media (I’ll talk about Monsanto in my next post). Stuff like that makes me really angry, and they’re not even on Mr Nathan Riddell’s list. They can’t be, or else “crusty old people” wouldn’t be at the top.

I’m trying to figure out exactly why things like the Monsanto situation make me angry. One reason is that I can’t stand the fact that humans can ignore the throes of death in order to preserve their own bottom line. How fucking sick do you have to be to watch calmly as thousands of your fellow human beings shrivel to a lifeless, bloody pulp at your feet because:

            You wouldn’t sell them the medicine they need.

            No-one can grow food without paying you first.

            You’re pumping oil into their backyard.

            You won’t tell anyone about the genocide going on.

The worst thing is that I’m doing this, too. I’m supporting the people (do they deserve that title) who condone the murder of millions of people by using their medicine, eating their food, driving their cars and being ignorant to the plight of others. I line the pockets of greedy, awful people, and it makes me sick. I am actually nauseous right now, just thinking about it. (It could have been the awful mac and cheese I had for lunch, but the poetic side of me says that my current gastro-intestinal instability is being caused by my conscience.)

That’s why I’ve been struggling with assignments these last few weeks: I’ve been struggling with myself for these last few weeks. A lot of things, including this course, have turned my concept of humanity on its head. I’ve been doing everything in my power to observe and take in content from a variety of sources, and my work has been suffering. I’ve been focussed on input rather than output. While others are frustrated that I’m not doing “work”, I know that something way more important is going on. I’m gobbling up ideas and concepts from everywhere, and I’m chewing on them very carefully and very slowly. I think it’s called learning, and I’m not ready to make a conclusion just yet. In the mean time, I’ll make more blog entries.