Straightjacket

The week prior I watched the 2nd installment of Season 1 of Black Mirror and it was fantastic. It was difficult to understand at first because it was about all these people watching video's and riding bicycles. Once I saw the core of the show, which I won't link because I don't want to write a spoiler alert, it was terrific. If the first episode "The National Anthem" imprinted itself with the pig scene, the second "15 Million Merits" was the rousing speech by Daniel Kaluuya. Kaluuya is also a part of an Oscar worthy movie that is topping the box office right now - the movie being "Get Out". http://www.vulture.com/2017/02/daniel-kaluuya-on-get-out-how-racism-is-like-horror-films.html Last weekend I watched the 3rd Episode "A History of You" but this one disappointed because it went beyond dystopia into the realm of absurdity. The plot depended on us believing that a person who had committed an infidelity would keep the record of it, when this particular show was based on the ability to wipe that record out. There were some dystopian realities that could still be drawn from it but the plot overshadowed that meaning. That being said 2 out of 3 so far is not a bad score for quality viewing. On Friday I will be watching the first of the four episodes filmed for Season 2 called "Be Right Back". I will be back to reference the next two episodes which make up for half of season 2. I might even watch both of these episodes over successive days, rather than successive weeks this time. What I am absolutely sure of is that I am really glad I got to hear about Black Mirror - the review for it above set some high expectations, and so far those personal expectations I have for Black Mirror are really being met. Reply

#11
That Tausif is finding flow between an appreciation of surprise and delight and our energy moving in a virtuous cycle. Too often surprise is viewed as a negative and self-talk moves us into a viscous cycle. Intelligence about our emotions is not emotional intelligence where we have managed to take the whole and cut it into parts - which we then label as particular types of intelligence. The whole includes the positive and the negative flows that informs the colour of our emotions vs. black and white. Reply

#7
Dear Harvey I think I will simply call it Freudian dystopia meeting Seinfeld's Bizzaro World and it is easy to get bound in this straightjacket. Perhaps all of this may transform humanity because as a human race, we tend to go to destructive places before we build constructive answers, as illustrated by the common reality of "history repeating itself". At least there is hope for methodical reasoning produced by Bruce Tuckman - that classic "forming-storming-norming-performing" https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm or that other well worn phrase that there is "method in the madness". One thing for sure, more than ever, the lunatics are not only running the asylum, but they are showing the inhuman face of corporate behaviour, a face that is the chief qualm I experience when I see the words "successful personal brand" a.k.a. Trump succeeded. Reply

#7
Dear Harvey I think I will simply call it Freudian dystopia meeting Seinfeld's Bizzaro World and it is easy to get bound in this straightjacket. Perhaps all of this may transform humanity because as a human race, we tend to go to destructive places before we build constructive answers, as illustrated by the common reality of "history repeating itself". At least there is hope for methodical reasoning produced by Bruce Tuckman - that classic "forming-storming-norming-performing" https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm or that other well worn phrase that there is "method in the madness". Reply

An interesting thread is from Steve Blakeman who introduced me to the Netflix show "Black Mirror" and this was a series of vignettes all made with a new cast that talks about the dystopian reality of media - and remarkably this series was first broadcast in 2011. I watched the first show of Season 1 (There are 3 Seasons) and I found it captivating and insightful. Dark Mirror Buzz by Steve Blakeman https://www.bebee.com/producer/@steve-blakeman/black-mirror-is-a-stark-warning-about-the-perils-of-technology-social-media Reply

#1
#2 #3 #4 The irony is bait. We know this guy is throwing out bait because that is what he is saying and that is his chief hook, but I find myself biting and the moment I did, I have entered into this media asylum Look at the New York Times picture of Milo in a business suit - it is vaudeville politics and the threater of the absurd, where the lunatics are running the asylum. The net effect is not unhappiness, it is confusion and immersion into a media quicksand. I do think the New York Times article was interesting but not because of Milo, but it exposes the heightening of this circus and the signal I read in this, is that this is not the ending of this nonsense, it is an escalation point. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/business/milo-yiannopoulos-resigns-from-breitbart-news-after-pedophilia-comments.html?_r=0 This kind of media puts me into a straightjacket because the more I dip into the more the impulse ties me to it. I had this experience when I sat with my mom to watch her Indian TV soap shows - before I knew it I was addicted to total nonsense - it took a deliberate decision to jolt me back onto terra firma, because this kind of media is parasitic, it consumes. The redeeming value of this mediation into immaturity is it recalls what Guy Debord said about the "Society of the Spectacle" 50 years ago. Two days ago I am glad to see someone at the New York Times address one my favourite media philosophers [he unfortunately commit suicide] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/trump-and-the-society-of-the-spectacle.html GUY DEBORD talked about the straightjacket long before I inadvertently found myself in one. The good news here is I want to get back to freedom. The irony is that the word "Milo" is as distracting to me as the words "successful personal branding". Milo has succeeded in this regard. Reply