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Cultivate Mindfulness: Issue 1 (11/1611)

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Although this post bears no direct relevance to Manga and this is a Anime/Manga fan-site, I found one of the initial contributing factors of what drew me into manga was the story, the very human element within that allowed me to empathize with the characters. For this Reason I have decided that everyday I will post an article that I find thought provoking whether it be Anime/Manga oriented or not; cultivating the mind whether it be through art, manga, literature, film, or any other medium is a worth while pursuit.

This piece is by Steve Morgan as excerpted from ADBusters magazine November.December 2008 issue #80 Volume 16 Number 6

"In the future men will wear t-shirts displaying a picture of their cock and salary.

Women will come in twos, for the monogamous women will have long been bred out of nature in favor of the ménage á trios kind, so that finally, manly hunters can indulge in Miller Lite Fantasies and proudly gather their 15 seconds of commercialized ejaculation.

Light from stars will shine through atmospheric cut outs of corporate slogans, beaming onto Earth great advertisements from the sky.

Metal will erect into the clouds. You will stroke the building, riding it floor to floor, inserting yourself completely. You will let it warm you and feed you, nourishing insulation, fuck your Mother.

Serial TV will be wired throughout your skull, and you will shut your eyes to internally display the good ol’ pastime for your vicarious mind.

Everything will exist outside ourselves as ends, and through there will be means to everything, these means will be owned and assumed. As flies stuck in the web, we will be born as we are caught, our dreams the last measure of freedom we would have sought.

Life will be an ant farm.

Numbers will bleed from the sky- philosophy splashed with rhetoric and rationalism, churchmongers choking on faith pills.

Music will be reduced to one simple tone, perfectly balanced, the ultimate hook, impossible to forget and intrinsically unchallengeable.

Children will virtually kill each other virtually.

Politicians will set up lemonade stands.

Oceans will be drained for real estate and land owners will display souvenirs of Coke cans found littered in their sand yards.

Pornography will ascend to glamorous photos of shiny cars and you will jerk off to such aspirations.

Yin and Yang will go to war.

Physically defective people will be quarantined to parks where families vacation to feel better about functionality.

There will be no place for error.

And here now, I sit around perplexed, a stale pesticide.

In the past, I was a poet, full of diction and intellectual jargon, in love with wordy ideas and mesmerizing language, verbose for the sake of…

I hardly try anymore,

In the future, I never existed."


by Steve Morgan
as excerpted from ADBusters magazine
November.December 2008 issue #80
Volume 16 Number 6
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Comments

  1. Sapphire's Avatar
    Well that was an odd article.

    As for your mention of manga representing humanity, it is probably mainly due to an essay that Tsubochi Shouyo wrote after the Meiji Restoration, where he chided Japanese authors for "not representing human behavior" in their novel works and instead attempting to appeal to the affectual, baser instincts in the reader. (Think EVERYONE writing moe just to sell stuff).

    So he used the West as a framework for the ideal novel, attempting to push the novel into the realm of intellectual endeavor, along side with art, poetry, and play-writing.

    I love character driven works of fiction, where the plot is cultivated through characters who have opposing view points and wills due to whatever past they had or ideals they have now. I want to read stories where characters move the story instead of just react to what happens to them. I love works where the concept of "evil" is ambiguous and personified rather than objectified. Thus, I probably have similar tastes in manga/anime with you.

    As for your new inspiring goal, perhaps I too should write a little every day. Inspiring.
    Updated Wed, 11-16-2011 at 08:36 AM by Sapphire