king diamond!!!

I imagine everyone has their favourite artist or band and their own stories for why they mean so much to them. I'm certainly no different. When I was younger, between the ages of 13 to 18, music was extremely important to me. It was how I expressed myself and dealt with all the emotions I was feeling, some of them dark and painful. But just as in real life, I had trouble finding where I fit in musically. There were things I liked, but there wasn't anything I truly loved until I found King Diamond​.

My first exposure to King Diamond was the music video for "Egypt." I'd never heard nor seen anything quite like it. I was immediately drawn towards the overt mythological and occult overtones; but I was completely captivated by King Diamond himself. His theatrical and almost operatic vocal range, which could go from hauntingly low and demonic to piercingly high shrieks and screams. His makeup, black and white and completely over-the-top, upside down cross and all, yet somehow still sinister. His lyrics, invoking Osiris, Anubis, and Ammit, and centred around one’s fate in the afterlife. The moment I saw that video, I knew I'd found my musical soulmate. It was love at first sight.

I was already familiar with the flamboyant and controversial philosophy of Anton LeVey by then (I mean, what rebellious preteen could resist picking up The Satanic Bible at their local bookstore?), and King Diamond personified it to a T. His music and its occult subject matter, combined with his distinctive look and its liberal use of black leather and satanic symbolism, further stoked my rebelliousness against the conservative, Judeo-Christian culture that dominated Michigan suburbia, inspiring me to foster my own individuality rather than suppress it in order to conform with what was expected of me, and to explore the possibilities of what might lie on 'the other side.'

While I'd later move away from LeVey's philosophy, finding a better spiritual fit first in the likes of Aleister Crowley and later in Buddhism and Christian mysticism, it nevertheless helped me survive high school without losing myself or my mind. It helped me to find pride in myself, and to find strength in the things that set me apart from everyone else. As King Diamond often made clear in interviews, it’s ultimately about questioning authority and doing what thou wilt as long as it’s not hurting anyone else. Our individual lived realities and beliefs can be different, and that’s ok; just don’t be an asshole.

My first actual King Diamond album was Abigail. It was also my first concept album. I can't even begin to explain the impact this album had on me. It's more akin to a revelation than anything rational, but it definitely changed my life for the reasons mentioned above re: In the Shadows and much, much more. A horror story set to music, I'd often listen to it, along with Them and The Eye, at night. It was like the King himself was singing me nightmarish bedtime stories as I drifted off to sleep, transporting me into supernatural worlds where I could temporarily escape from the pressures of being an awkward teen who never quite fit in. Later, I'd go on to realize that women play a prominent role in many (if not most) of his concept albums; and that regardless of whether they're the hero, villain, or victim, they're always powerful in their own right.

I was known throughout my high school years for my obsession with King Diamond. His music and persona became a part of my identity. From there, I'd later go on to fall in love with black metal, which bands like Mercyful Fate helped to inspire. Seeing him live and getting the chance to meet him was an amazing experience, an experience my younger self would have sold his soul for. Today, I met one of my heroes, and arguably one of the greatest musicians, artists, and storytellers of my generation.

impeachment 2019

I just can't get into these impeachment hearings. Like, as 'historic' as they may be, I find myself completely uninterested in them because we already know that Trump is guilty of a number of impeachable offenses since his administration has basically admitted half of them on live TV, we already know that the Republicans are going to try to obstruct the proceedings as much as possible and just flap their biscuits with their fingers in their ears, and we already know that the Democrats are going to proceed as if we're not living in a time when one side is still trying to play by the old rules and norms while the other side is entirely ambivalent, even hostile, to those rules and norms and routinely violates them with impunity.

The only hope of Dems succeeding is for them to get enough of the American people angry enough to force the hand of senate Republicans to vote to impeach, because the latter doesn't care about optics and won't give up their power willingly. Instead of great prosecutors, they need great orators to speak to the people. Because the people are the true power, and they're sure as hell not going to sway Republicans with logic or an airtight case against the present administration's corruption, incompetency, and abuse of power. On the plus side, if impeachment fails, there's an opportunity (however slim) for people to see just how corrupt and toxic our political system is and for all the built up anger and frustration people feel to be directed towards mass protests and a nationwide general strike pushing for a new socio-economic order—a fairer, more democratic socio-economic system that addresses things like racial and gender inequality as much as broader economic inequality. I mean, it's happening in Chile as we speak.

happy birthday, dostoyevsky

Today marks the birthday of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Despite his failings as a person, Dostoyevsky was one of the most influential writers of the last 200 years, as well as my personal favourite. His works speak to me like no others do. More than that, his works were the first to help me to see the way literature often strives and succeeds to express the inexpressible realities of life, the existential joys and agonies we all act out in our minds and in day-to-day lives, and how our imaginations can bring these worlds to life within us.

I realized while reading his works, especially things like The Brothers Karamazov, Demons, and The Idiot, that literature isn't just art or entertainment, it's also a means of self-discovery and a doorway to insights about being human that science and rationality alone are unable to unlock. Literature immerses us amongst these places and people in a way that allows us to live them from all sides and experience them in their fullness, seeing equally into the ecstatic and tormented hearts and minds of each and every character, and what I think ultimately amounts to a collective reflection of ourselves and the many contradictions that embody our humanity.

We are a multitude, with each character reflecting aspects of our own psyches and potentialities, each giving voice to our shared desires and fears, joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, and everything else in between. Some dominating over others and standing out as being more relatable to our own experience. Some making us laugh or cry. Some serving to inspire us in who we wish to become. Still others sobering us to the evils we're all capable of 'if but for the grace of God.' We live through them; but more than that, they live in us, are us, and we can begin to see ourselves more clearly through them.

And that's what truly amazes me—the paradoxical way these fictional accounts of fictional people can somehow express reality better than reality itself often can. How they can enlighten us about ourselves and the world, about the experience of life itself, and make us feel so much so deeply. These stories communicate things indescribable in objective ways. In essence, I increasingly find myself marvelling at great authors less for their artistry and more for the way their art reveals truth. And I have Dostoevsky to thank for that.

cooperation > competition

An interesting excerpt on Medium from Douglas Rushkoff's upcoming book, Team Human:

Evolution Made Us Cooperative, Not Competitive

This is something Peter Kropotkin and Stephen J. Gould both argued—something I personally agree with myself. Life is a struggle. It continually fights against decay, entropy, and catastrophe in the tiny space it occupies within the incomprehensible vastness that is the universe. But somehow, we've learned over time to thrive despite the harshness of it all. And the main way we've done this, I believe, is through increasingly-greater levels of cooperation and an ever-expansive sense of community.

Our history is ultimately one of an intricate and interconnected web of ideas, events, and social relations that have given rise, over numerous generations, to civilization as we know it today, with its beauty and its horrors, its triumphs and its tragedies, its heroes and its monsters. So many mistakes have kept us in a state of nature that's often savage, distrustful, and broken. But the stronger our bonds, the greater our achievements and the higher we ascend. And our biggest mistake is that we've grown accustomed to seeing ourselves as isolated, individual atoms that simply swerve here and there and bump into one another in a chaotic dance of self-interest.

Yet, nature isn't limited to this kind of dance. Individual atoms also cooperate, bond together to create molecules that themselves combined with other molecules again and again to eventually form the myriad of things we can see and hear and taste and touch and contemplate. The stronger their bonds and the more complex (and cooperative) their structures, the more amazing the things they create, even the mystery of life itself. And looking at the state of the world around me, from the threat of catastrophic climate change to the destructive power of war, the only hope for the future I see is a higher degree of cooperation and a more expansive sense of community than we currently have now, as individuals and as nations, overcoming barriers and borders in the struggle to create something altogether new.

Despite whatever fears we may have about the world and one another, and about the harshness of life we're sometimes confronted with, we must abandon our atomistic and overly competitive ways of living and begin to more fully embrace all the positive forces that bind us together. If not, everything that we see and love and hold close to our hearts, our whole world based on interconnectedness, will fall apart in the chaotic dance of self-interest.