Digging Out Your Soul
September 19, 2010
“But I also meet people who love what they do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. If you said to them ‘don’t do this anymore’, they’d wonder what you’re talking about. Because it isn’t what they do, it’s who they are. They say ‘but this is me, it would be foolish of me to abandon this, because it speaks to my most authentic self’ ”.
Over the past two days I’ve been considering the prospects of changing my teaching contract over from full time to part time, that or effectively working less hours for a respective decrease in salary. Although I enjoy teaching, I am not really a teacher, I am working so that my employer gains more money. This is the foremost point of the modern corporation. I am not working for the profession, my students or myself and therefore teaching crushes my spirit.
On the other hand, I feel lucky to have stumbled upon writing, in turn unearthing my natural talent to think and think deeply. Most people never realise their natural talents, even after a life time of searching, so I feel blessed to have discovered mine and to have discovered it so early on in life. Being analytical through writing is my passion, I love it because it is who I am, so writing feeds my soul.
Selling my labour so that my employer can increase their market share, does not serve my humanity, it squanders it. Our society accepts that we cannot own our labour, and therefore we forfeit our destinies to our employers driven by the profit motive. There is an obvious contradiction between the corporation and the workers. My school wants to make money; it needs growth, otherwise it’ll die. Me, however, I just want to do my job and do it as effectively and happily as possible. When I work, I am not working for my own interests (the production), I am working for the interests of someone else.
It’s clear then why I want to “work” less. I want to work to enrich my life and not the balance sheets of a company. Teaching English, as I am now (and while it’s not as soul-crushing as most jobs, I’m quite lucky), dilutes my life, it stops me from better realising my capacities I’ve found in writing and I can’t accept that. I therefore have two choices: try to channel my talents to work within the free market or to decrease my dependency on it (via the companies which exist inside it). I am opting for the latter, hoping to somehow reach the former. It might not make me a rich, but then, I’m already pretty well off.
Posted in Life | Comments (0)
Faust and German Expressionist Films
September 18, 2010
Lately I’ve taken a strong interest in German expressionist films from the 1920s. It all started with my interest in the character Count Orlock from the unofficial 1922 Dracula adaption Nosferatu. This type of film making is a real marvel. Black and white expressionist films use light and shadow to portray and exaggerate character. The silhouette of Orlock walking up the stairs is a classic as it evokes so much dread with such a simplistic approach.
After the success of Nosferatu director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was given a blown out budget where he could let his imagination run wild, and Faust is this creation. In Faust, alchemist Faust (protagonist) is tricked into becoming evil by Mephisto in order to win a bet and thereby allow the devil to rule the earth. It’s an intriguing tale observing the manipulation of intent. Mephisto is played with so much spite, heightened by the angle of shadows which only exaggerate his menace. As seen in the video below, he’s truly a frightening character. Furthermore, the technicality of the flight scene where Mephisto delivers Faust to Italy is nothing short of astounding. How did they ever manage such a scene 90 years ago? Yet, while I love these effects-driven sequences and the simple use of light to add menace to Mephisto or to portray Faust as tired and irrelevant, the rest of the movie, with Faust transformed into his younger self (convinced by Mephisto that he needs to be young again) ditches the fantastical for more of a drama. Alas, it’s quite a shame, but for the excellence of its production and the cohesiveness of cinematography and narrative, it’s more than worth your time.
(Scenes of Mephisto deceiving Faust and the flight to Italy)
I still have The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and two of Fritz Lang’s movies; Metropolis and M in my downloads folder. Of the three, I’m most anticipating Metropolis. If you are interested, please find links to the respective movies below, they are all under public license.
Extra Readings
A Primer on German Expressionist Films
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (download)
(Can’t find a link to Metropolis unfortunately)
Posted in Life | Comments (0)
Buttoning Up (Social Experiment)
September 16, 2010
A few weeks ago I was complemented by four different people on the shirt I was wearing. While I do try to maintain a sense of fashion, I must confess that I was caught by surprise by their comments. While I agree the shirt (pictured) looks nice on me, I wouldn’t claim it all on the shirt.
In Australia, I often find it difficult to find comfortably fitting clothes due to the fact that I do not fit into one of three sizing brackets: anorexic thin and oblong tall, biff and broad shouldered or obese. Due to all this improper sizing, this shirt in particular was a just a tad larger than I would have liked. So, to remedy a puffy-shirted appearance, I rolled the sleeves up and tucked it in firmly. The shirt is also a little more open-chested than my other shirts, so overall (again, see picture) it creates a sort of sexy, flamenco dancer look.
Now, it’s always great to be complemented or looked at, which is why I’ve decided to extend this dress code to my other shirts and see if I got some, if any, different reactions. So, that is, tuck my shirts in firmly, roll up the sleeves and undo an extra button. So far, and admittedly it’s probably just because I am more concious of it now, I’m noticing some differences. In any case, I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how this experiment unfolds.
Posted in Life | Comments (0)
« Previous Page — Next Page »
Post RSS
For your consideration, a blog about video games as written by myself:
