Sunday, July 19, 2009

House of M: Pride AFTER the Fall

As one of the most arrogant motherfuckers ever, and possessing the world's biggest ego, I can safely say a lot of shit about hubris.

For one, arrogance is stupid. It will make you complacent. You will start taking things for granted. Things will do things by itself. The keyboard will write the story on its own.

Things will be okay, no matter what you do.

Well, in a Buddhist way, it will be. In astronomical views, nothing matters. People who study astronomy are generally more relaxed. Why? Because they see the big picture. No. Bigger.

I never studied astronomy, but some freaks who do, whom I know, you know what they talk about? Well, the smallest thing would be the survival of the species.

When you look across aeons, or eons - I fucking hate the dual spelling - everything seems trivial.

Things that could be so big on the moment, like a sharp comment or a cynical, even snide remark, a praise - everything - it is all inconsequential. We all are inconsequential, in the end. We are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

Pride got the old media. New York Times. Washington Post. Baltimore Sun. All of it. All the shit. Everything.

You can see this especially in big businesses, big companies.

When you constantly screw the little people, when you believe you are above people - anyone - you set yourself up for the fall.

The higher you think you are, the bigger, the steeper, the longer the fall.

It's like in Dragonball. I'll get to that later.

The media is simply a collection of, well, shit through which information passes through.

We are cooks. We do not create the data. We are not the source of information. We merely present it in a way that is perhaps easier to digest.

All the media, several decades ago, were more or less a bulletin board in print.

When the media took on a personality, or personalities took on the media, that's when they - we - started our long fall.

Going back to the cook analogy, if people don't like our shit, they might go to a different restaurant, or simply cook up the ingredients themselves.

There will always be a need for cooks, as there would always be a need for content creators.

Stupid shit you do, like if the food or the news is late. Or if it's not cooked up to perfection, as ordered, or if it gives poisoning or indigestion, will affect the one thing that is the life or death for restaurants and newspapers - reputation.

Like in Dragonball. Every time you use Dragonballs, a small crack appears inside. One day, the seven Dragonballs will hatch seven dragons whom Goku has to fight. Spoiler alert!

And as we have our heads in the clouds, people fill in the vacuum with something else. Better? Worse? Who cares? It's something else. Something OTHER.

People can only eat the same shit for a limited number of time. After a while, they'll swing to something else.

That's why Madonna re-invented herself many times over the years. Why the late Michael Jackson came up with different dance moves for each album. Why the most successful artists throw variation into their theme. I mean, the Coen Brothers would always have a character who is the Unstoppable Evil in their movies, but it's never the same story. Guy Ritchie does great caper movies, but it's never the same movie.

Point is, the content may stay the same, but the forms must change.

One-trick ponies end up in Vegas. And not at Caesar's Palace. Maybe at a sad, small hotel-casino, where some B-grade star died, hoping, praying for budget travellers with a penchant for the old. And even those guys - the proprietors - would change every so often.

In Thailand, the girls would stay at any establishment for as long as they feel they are in contribution to the thing. As soon as they think they have become boring, they most probably will move on.

There is a place for consistency, and for loyalty. Always, always a place. In a world which will not stop spinning until a few million years more at least, a constant is just as priceless as a chameleon.

Omnia mutantor, nihil inherit. Everything changes, nothing is truly lost.

Look at these frailties, ye mighty, and be humbled. The geeks shall inherit the earth.