Thoughts on The Fermi Paradox

            So from time to time, I’ll lay awake in bed at 2am, and think about the big questions. Tonight’s question: the Fermi paradox. The galaxy is several billions of years old, why haven’t we seen or been contacted by any intelligent aliens yet? Why haven’t we already been conquered by the Siths? According to Wikipedia: “The Fermi paradox, named after Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations and various high estimates for their probability.” Barring any government cover-ups and conspiracies, of course. I’ve seen weird things in the sky before. Who knows, maybe they have been here. Now before I begin, I’m no scientist. I have a degree in Creative Writing, not science or astronomy. So, my opinion probably doesn’t carry that much weight. This is just my own opinion from doing my own research, which mainly consists of reading books and watching documentaries and such.

            Anyway, I watched this video during one of those late nights grappling with existentialism. This video specifically looks at the Fermi Paradox from the perspective of “why haven’t we already been conquered by colonizing aliens”? And does the fact that we apparently haven’t been conquered mean that intelligent life doesn’t exist outside Earth, at least within our galaxy? It brings up “Fact A”, which is that the aliens have not contacted us or colonized us. And if the simplest explanation in science is most often the correct one, this would suggest that there are no other intelligent aliens in the galaxy and we are alone.

            I think that this is a narrow-minded approach to the question. One of the shortcomings of modern science is that it is founded upon Eurocentric materialist thought. One example of this is that scientists seem to expect intelligent aliens to act just like Europeans did during the colonization of the Americas. They seem to be under the assumption that intelligent aliens, if they saw another planet capable of supporting life, would immediately invade and kill the natives. It’s what we want to do, after all. It’s why astronomers get so excited discovering exoplanets. Isn’t this how all civilizations act? Or maybe, as I’m more willing to believe, this behavior is uniquely human. Who’s to say it would even occur to an intelligent species to invade another planet, even if they found one that they could survive on? Perhaps they actually take care of their own planet, unlike humans, who are so eager to bleed their world dry and then move onto the next planet to destroy, as seems to be the end game for our consumer society. Maybe their society never developed an economic system and proceeded to kill their own environment. Maybe they’re not greedy. There are an infinite number of other ways for intelligent beings to live. We’ve even had many human societies here on Earth that never conquered or colonized, and that lived in harmony with nature. And as for why they haven’t at least tried to contact us, it could be that the distances are too great, the radio signals reached us before we were technologically advanced enough to receive them, or they used some type of signal that hasn’t been discovered here yet. I’ve noticed modern mainstream science doesn’t usually like to think outside the box when it comes to questions like whether or not life exists on other planets. If life exists anywhere, scientists seem to assume, it must be exactly like Earth’s life, evolving under the exact same conditions, and they must be just like us. But life exists in extreme conditions on Earth. Perhaps it is more common than is typically assumed.

            But even if an intelligent species arose somewhere that found Earth through their telescopes and proceeded to salivate and rub their hands together greedily, there are some other logical barriers for why they wouldn’t be able to make the trip. A big one is the vast distances. The nearest star to the sun is about four lightyears away. A lightyear is how far light travels in one Earth orbit. To put that in perspective, it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to Earth, and light could travel around the Earth seven times in one second. Now think about how far it would get in a year. And it’s nearly impossible to travel anywhere near as fast as the speed of light. Light from Earth takes 12 minutes to get to Mars, yet the estimated time it would take for a manned mission to get to Mars is two years. Chances are we wouldn’t be able to reach the next star within a human lifetime. There’s another theoretical idea of a “generation starship”, where you’d have generations of people being born and living their whole lives on a ship. Firstly, that sounds like a cruel fate to bestow on someone who had no choice in being born on one of these ships. Another thing people don’t usually think about is how screwed up your body would be if you were born in space. Here’s a video for more on that topic. Once the generation starship got to the destination everyone’s body would be so screwed up they probably wouldn’t be able to even stand. I think realistically we’re stuck on this planet, and probably any intelligent alien species would be too.

            And as for the idea of a galactic empire, take a look at some of the biggest empires here on Earth through history. Alexander the Great’s empire, the British Empire, Genghis Khan’s empire. None of them lasted very long before breaking apart. Territories rebelled and gained independence, there was in-fighting with the leadership leading to empires splitting up, once the central leader died the empire became disunited. How then, could an empire last when it spans multiple planets? I think Galactic empires, while fun to entertain in science fiction, are likely impossible, and would fall apart before it got very far. But it’s a big, old universe. Maybe it’s happened somewhere, just not in the Milky Way.

            Anyway, those are my thoughts, coming from someone who’s no expert on these things of course. I think there definitely is life on other planets, but the fact that they apparently haven’t tried to visit or contact us isn’t surprising at all when you actually look at it logically, and stop to think that maybe they wouldn’t think like humans at all.

Reflections on Pandemic – Part I

Me during the quarantine.

            So, America…you see why making healthcare for-profit and unavailable to the poor might have been a bad idea yet? No? Well, you will before long. Just wait for more celebrities and politicians to get the coronavirus. Throw some of those greedy CEO’s and bankers in there as well. As soon as people who aren’t poor start getting it, maybe we’ll see some changes. If they can stave off a revolution before that happens, that is. Keep charging people rent and not paying them, choosing instead to throw imaginary money at the stock market, and see what happens. They'd rather keep playing their stupid game of greed than save lives. The wonderful thing about this virus is that it’s exposing human society for the farce that it is and always has been. 

            Anyway, I thought maybe I ought to address the current chaos that our fragile global civilization has been flung into. Now having been through a couple hurricanes since moving to Florida, I’ve already witnessed grocery shortages and a general sense of panic in the air, but this coronavirus pandemic has brought things to a new level. Every event is cancelled, every non-essential store is closed. I’m an introverted shut-in anyway, so being quarantined doesn’t make that much of a difference to me, but I also have a 14-month old son with cabin fever to deal with. However, I think even I am beginning to get cabin fever. I’ve never seen it where everything’s closed. Where when you go outside it looks like a ghost town. Again, maybe hurricanes have given me a taste of it before, but this is still something new.

            Am I afraid of getting coronavirus? Well, I’m 33 years old, and it’s more deadly to older people. I think I’d survive it, as would my wife Deborah and son Jareth. During the initial outbreak I wasn’t worried. But then again, now I’ve heard of younger people dying from it too. One guy was a reasonably healthy 34-year-old Armenian-American too, who caught it at Disney World, not far from where I live. That’s about as close to home as it gets for me. Maybe it’s a gamble I wouldn’t want to take. I remember when I had really terrible bronchitis back in 2012. I almost thought I was at death’s door. Coronavirus is certainly something I wouldn’t want. I don’t want any of the older people I live with to get it either. I have a supply of hand sanitizer I try to keep on my person. I haven’t resorted to surgical masks, but I’ve heard they don’t actually do much anyway. I’m not exactly a nervous wreck over the possibility of getting the virus, but I’m staying cautious too. I’m more just in awe of what’s going on in the world because of this.

235 cases in Armenia as of 3/24/2020. Also, they put a surgical mask on the statue of Mother Armenia!

            Even though I live in Florida, my time spent in Armenia in 2015 has led me to follow the news from there very closely. Sometimes closer than I follow American news to be honest, but that’s in part because I have a supreme distaste for hopeless American politics. The coronavirus finally did get my attention in late January when it hit Iran, one of the countries that borders Armenia. Eventually someone did bring it to Armenia from Iran, but it was contained, and I heard the person recovered. However, then Italy began to get it really bad, and a woman who’d been travelling to Italy came back to Armenia and attended a wedding in the city of Etchmiadzin, spreading it from there. Last I heard there are over 200 cases in Armenia. No deaths yet. The country is on lockdown. No one can fly in with US citizenship. So much for my vacation plans (ha, I'm joking, I'm way too poor for plane tickets to Armenia). But from what I’ve heard the quarantine isn’t being followed very well; much as it isn’t being followed in England either, apparently. Americans already distrust each other and don’t like interacting with one another, so maybe it’s easier here.

            Back home in California it’s pretty bad. San Francisco is empty, the whole state is on lockdown. It happened there before it happened in Florida. Here, we knew it was serious shit when Disney World closed. They don’t even close for hurricanes sometimes, unless it’s really huge and coming straight for them.  Deborah and I discovered a new book shop in downtown Cocoa, Florida, called Hello Again Books. Just opened a few weeks ago. Charming place. They sell coffee and alcohol as well, and do writing workshops and poetry nights. Finally something to do around here. And then the pandemic hits. I’m wondering if the shop will still exist when this pandemic is over, for however long it will last. I feel sad for all the small businesses affected by this. No one’s going to bail them out.

            It’s a lesson on the web of life, this virus; on how interconnected we are as a species. Someone gets sick China; a couple months later my Writer’s Guild meeting is cancelled, the 2020 Olympics are postponed, and the stock market crashes. The Butterfly Effect. It's affected things in both small and huge ways. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it. One would hope this virus ends up making more people look at the big picture, to see reality for what it is and question our priorities as a society. But, sadly some people are determined to keep their heads in the sand, so we’ll see.

            I’ll write about this more as more time passes. Hence this is Part I. How many more parts there will be depends on how much longer this pandemic lasts, and whether or not I or someone in my family gets the virus.

Anyway, have some apocalyptic music. It seems relevant. 

1984 in Music

Sharpie on CD is a very unforgiving medium, before you critique.

            It’s the year George Orwell warned us about (he really should have set the book in 2084 instead). Let's continue the Years in Music series and look at the year 1984.

1984 in Culture and News

From my VHS archives. I used to put those "property of" stickers on everything as a kid.

            This was a really good year for film, as the year brought us Ghostbusters, The NeverEnding Story, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Gremlins, and The Terminator. I’ll be throwing a couple songs from the Ghostbuster’s soundtrack on this mix. I kind of regret not putting the NeverEnding Story theme on this mix now, in light of just now realizing the movie came out this year. Eh, why don’t I put it on the Spotify version? That’ll be a bonus track because so many of my picks are missing on Spotify. Outside of film, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird began their comic book Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which would go on to become a huge franchise, somewhat surprisingly if you think about it. This would become one of my obsessions early in life.

            News-wise, like in 1983, wars and famines abound. Poor Ethiopia.

1984 in Music

            

For 1984, there’s plenty of songs I like, but not too many entire albums. I suppose in which case, I’ll pick Metallica’s Ride the Lightning as my favorite album of 1984, because I was into it in my early teens. My Top 3 songs of the year are Ministry’s “Every Day is Halloween”, Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon”, and Colour Radio’s “Adrianna Dreams”. It’s hard to narrow it down to 3 though, as I like all these songs on the mix.       

            I’ll have to warn you now, the Spotify version of this mix is very sparse. But you can check the songs out on YouTube. And if you find that you like any of the songs, it would always be a nice thing to track down and buy the albums, supporting the artists.

1984 in Music – Spotify Playlist 

Mick Smiley – Magic

            This song is off the Ghostbusters Soundtrack. It’s the song that plays when the Environmental Protection Agency forces the Ghostbusters to shut down their containment unit, causing all of the ghosts they’ve captured to run rampant in New York City. Of course, the Ghostbusters were the ones who decided to keep some supernatural nuclear doomsday device in the middle of a highly-populated city. If they hadn’t been forced to shut it down it could have failed at some point anyway, causing this to happen. You know you’ve reached adulthood when you realize the guy from the environmental agency, portrayed as villainous in the movie, actually had a pretty valid point.

I love this scene in the movie though, and it’s because of this song. The city is erupting in chaos, and almost as a juxtaposition, they have this eerily calm 80’s synth song playing over the apocalyptic craziness. It’s somehow perfect. The full song is a mixed bag for me though, as it has two very different-sounding halves. The first half sounds like it’s trying to rip off Phil Collins. But at the 2:20 mark, it suddenly switches to a completely different song. It’s really strange. I only like the second half, which played in the movie. Luckily people have remixed the song to only include that section. 

Laura Branigan – Self Control

            This song is a cover from an Italian singer known as Raf, and the original was also released in 1984. I can’t think of another time where a cover of a song was done less than a year later. The lyrics appeal to me, which is why I chose it (“I live among the creatures of the night”, sounds like a vampire anthem). It’s another of those I chose when I was putting this mix together, going through a list of actual hits from the year and seeing which ones I liked.

Scent Merci – Better and Better

                Scent Merci was a New Wave band out of Italy. I really can’t dig up a whole lot about them, but they’re pretty good. They were active from 1984 to 1986, from what I could find out. Italy apparently had a pretty strong darkwave/New Wave scene around this time, as this isn’t the only Italian band on the mix.

Obscurity Age – False Illusioni

            Speaking of which, here’s some Italian darkwave I was able to find from 1984 as well. This track is less ambiguously goth than the previous one. Very appropriate band name unfortunately. It was pretty hard to find any information on this band.

Colour Radio – Adrianna Dreams

            Colour Radio was a New Wave band out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And yet they still insisted on having a "u" in "colour" as if they were British. Again, I wasn’t able to find a whole lot about them, but they do have a Tumblr page.

This song is one of my favorites on the mix. It kind of reminds me of really early The Cure.

A Drop in the Grey – All the Same

A Drop in the Grey only released one album, Certain Sculptures, which had this very passionate song on it. It’s a really great song; too bad this is yet another one of those bands that did one album and then split up. When digging for information on it I also found a demo version of the song I hadn’t heard before. And as I’ve said a few times before, whenever there’s a demo version of a song I usually end up liking it better than the album version. In this case though, I think I do like the album version a bit better, as its just more polished and has more energy to it, but they’re both good. 

Echo & The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon

            I wrote about this song after including it on my Moon Mix, so you could go back to that article for my thoughts on it. This one’s a classic.

Turquoise Days – Grey Skies

            This was another UK band, which formed in 1981 and self-released several cassette albums throughout the 1980’s, one of them being this track which was released as a single in 1984.

Ministry – Everyday is Halloween

            This song is a classic goth anthem, and it rings true for me as well. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and a part of me carries it throughout the entire year. The song is about being criticized by normies for dressing like a goth or a punk, a retort to being told “it’s not Halloween”. Halloween is the one time of the year where being dark and spooky is normal. There are some though, who live it all year.

Depeche Mode – People are People

            This is a song that will probably be relevant for as long as humans exist. It’s a way I’d like to look at the world. People are people, regardless of their nationality, political beliefs, or whatever else. But we’re taught to automatically hate people we don’t even know because they’re different from us. It's something I try to remind myself of whenever I encounter nationalist Turks and Azeris; inevitable when you're an Armenian on the internet. 

Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me

            This one-hit wonder could almost be called a fluke. The singer apparently somewhat kidnapped Michael Jackson (a friend of his) and took him to a music studio to sing his part, which may have played a big part in this song’s success. But even without Jackson it’s still a good song. A song for those of us who have had bouts of paranoia. I recommend a review by the Youtuber Todd in the Shadows, he went really in-depth about the history of the song and about Rockwell’s failed attempt to follow it up with something equally as successful. 

Alessi Bros. – Savin’ the Day

            The second song in the mix off the Ghostbusters Soundtrack. The beginning of the song briefly plays when the Ghostbusters are getting ready to go to the tall apartment building where Zool is waiting for them. I always kind of liked the music from that part so eventually I looked up the Ghostbusters soundtrack and found this song.

Edge of the Wedge – She Loves by Numbers

                I know obscurity is a subjective term, as I wrote in one of my recent blogs. But I think a good way to define whether or not a song is obscure is if it’s missing from Spotify, a Google search on the band turns up little to nothing, there are only one or two videos of the song on YouTube, and one of the videos has a comment from someone at least claiming to be a band member. This song hits all of those checkmarks, if you check the comments on the video I linked to above. It’s a great song though, very catchy.

Lost Loved Ones - The Dark

                Besides The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, not a whole lot of gothic rock (called death rock back then) made the charts. This is a good example of the gothic rock out at the time. This is yet another band out of the UK. With a name like “Lost Loved Ones” it has to be nice and dark, perfect for my musical tastes.

Metallica – Fade to Black

            Metallica’s first power ballad, and probably their best guitar work on a song as well. When I was about 15 back in 2001 I loved this album, was obsessed with “For Whom the Bell Tolls” for a while before moving onto this song. In retrospect I think this was probably the best song on the album.

Conclusion

            Maybe I was being too picky, but I had to dig deep to fill up a CD with songs I liked of 1984. The results though were well worth the effort, I discovered lots of great new-to-me music doing this one. 1985 would prove to be equally as much of a challenge.

Spring Equinox – The Birth of Vahagn

Վահագնի փառք:

            In ancient Armenia, the Spring Equinox was celebrated as the birthday of the God Vahagn (Վահագնի ծնունդ). This holiday had similar connotations as Trndez, which was celebrated in February, as it marks the victory of Vahagn over the Vishap (dragons), symbolizing the triumph of spring over winter. Unlike Trndez though, the holiday never got Christianized, hence it isn’t widely celebrated in Armenia anymore. I suppose that’s the one downside when a pagan holiday doesn’t get appropriated by the church. Except for Winter Solstice, Christianity was never big on appropriating celebrations of equinoxes and solstices, tending rather to downplay their significance. There were at least two different ancient Armenian calendars. One of them had Vahagn’s Birth and the Spring Equinox as its New Year (happy 9603 by the way), but the more well-known ancient Armenian calendar has August 11^th as its New Year, as the anniversary of Armenia’s founder Hayk defeating the tyrant Bel and founding the first Armenian kingdom. At least both of those make a better justification than having January 1^st as New Year.

The 5^th Century Armenian historian Moses Khorenatsi, a Christian who often revised ancient Armenian history to suit the Bible, did not make the preservation of Armenia’s original pagan religion a top priority. However, he did supply us in modern times with this fascinating fragment of an old folk song about the birth of the God Vahagn, which would have been sung by traveling bards at the time.

In travail were heaven and earth,

In travail, too, the purple sea!

The travail held in the sea the small red reed.

Through the hollow of the stalk came forth smoke,

Through the hollow of the stalk came forth flame,

And out of the flame a youth ran!

Fiery hair had he,

Ay, too, he had flaming beard,

And his eyes, they were as suns!

Vahagn Vishapakagh (the Dragonreaper) was the God of fire, lightning, storms, and as his title suggests, he fought against dragons.

            With regards to this poem, recently an ancient sculpture was unearthed in Gaziantep, Turkey; historically known as Aintap, an Armenian-populated city until the Armenian genocide, not far from Syria and the Mediterranean Sea. This sculpture depicts a God-like figure emerging from a reed. News articles claimed this was some “unknown”, “mysterious” deity. It’s not a huge stretch to hypothesize that it’s a depiction of the birth of Vahagn. But Turkey wants to erase any evidence of Armenia of course, so they’ll never admit it. The same thing happened when a statue of the Goddess Anahit was discovered as well. If the sculpture had been discovered within the borders of modern Armenia, most likely archaeologists would have no problem saying it was a depiction of Vahagn.

            Despite the whitewashing of history over the centuries, we do have a few stories about Vahagn which have survived the ages. One legend tells that the Milky Way galaxy was created during a cold winter when Vahagn stole straw from the Assyrian King Barsham and dropped bits of it across the sky while bringing it to Armenia, hence the Armenian name for the Milky Way is the Straw Thief’s Way, giving Vahagn a trickster aspect to his personality. Just as Vahagn fought the dragons who were said to cause the deadness of winter and hoard water, Vahagn goes to great lengths to provide for humanity, even if it does mean theft. Vahagn’s wife was Astghik, the Goddess of Love, and he formed a triad with Aramazd, the chief creator God, and Anahit, his sister, Goddess of Motherhood.

            The Temple of Garni, originally a temple to Mihr, was reconsecrated to Vahagn by Armenia’s modern neopagans. There also exists a modern statue of Vahagn in Armenia's capital, Yerevan. 

References

The Gods of Armenia

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Asia/Armenia/_Texts/KURARM/34*.html

fbclid=IwAR3P1AuVkjLa4HL7XFAPZ8eFSonObOFE51yvYfSxtkyhhEH9zgLsbq7ChyA

An Article on Vahagn
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/vahagn-armenian-dragon-slayer-god-and-bringer-fire-005699

The Vahagn Sculpture

https://allinnet.info/antiquities/could-the-mysterious-stele/

Vahagn and Astghik

https://allinnet.info/antiquities/the-genealogy-of-the-love-legend-of-vahagn-and-astghik/?fbclid=IwAR1PqGF6HZaPeDa1LAzDR3aFEgxsKmJOL3n3wU5-3MtK9hWr2vWxEzDIpGA

Vahagn the Straw Thief

https://allinnet.info/interesting/the-armenian-name-of-the-milky-way-galaxy/?fbclid=IwAR0iQQOkIK18V_duYvRZjSG4uUPLXchtJT3BKq6QOZufooZofYUvfxHqVXE

Coming to Terms with Impending Oblivion

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. The only earthly certainty, is oblivion.” – Mark Twain

            I was once so certain I would be famous one day. That I would join the ranks of the great writers of history. But the very slim and unlikely odds of not only impressing a literary agent who receives hundreds of queries a week and only takes on two or three projects a year, but also being widely published, and then becoming wealthy and successful as a writer, are in modern times so astronomically minute, it has forced me to reassess my situation, and lower my expectations. Graduating with a Master’s in Creative Writing and then realizing just how useless this degree is in today’s society and how difficult it is to have your novels published has completely demolished my ego, along with any delusions of grandeur I once had during my innocent youth. I suppose I’ll still write my novels, and still try to get them published, even though it seems insurmountable. What else can I do? I’ve spent my whole life learning to do just that. No one told me how difficult it was going to be. But I have no other skills really, beyond writing, and I suppose drawing. I’m just not made for this world. Perhaps someone will enjoy my work. But will I become the next Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien or J.K. Rowling? The very idea seems laughable. A childish fantasy. No. I would probably stand a higher chance of being struck by lightning a hundred times. I’m not even being pessimistic. I am being realistic. There’s still a chance it could happen, of course, but it is a ridiculously small chance.

            So, in all likelihood, my fate is obscurity. Oblivion. For very few people to read my words. To be forgotten after I am dead. Not that I would be around to enjoy being remembered by then anyway. So perhaps it doesn’t matter. As you may have noticed, obscurity has been a recurring theme in my writing as of late. All of these “songs of the year” mixes, which have been a welcome distraction for me to write so I’m not thinking too hard about the topic this blog entry is covering, are showcases of the obscure. I have been considering the implications of obscurity a lot since I realized my entire education was nothing more than a scam designed to keep me in debt for the rest of my life. I try to give more attention to the obscure. Or to those who I presume are obscure. I tend to like something more if I think it is obscure, whether its music or literature or film. Is it due to a deep-rooted fear of being obscure myself? Do I feel that, if I enjoy and try to spread awareness of these obscure things I enjoy, I will also lift myself out of obscurity? I recently called the Oz books, for example, obscure. Not the first book, obviously, but the sequels. But, someone disagreed with me over on Facebook. After all, they’re in most libraries. The Marvel Comics adaptation of the first six books sold quite well and earned accolades. They’re a lot more famous than anything I’ve ever written, even the later books by other authors are. I however haven’t met very many people who have read or heard of them. And hadn’t read them myself until recently. Who was correct? Both of us? Neither of us?

Obscurity is a matter of perspective. Things can be famous in certain circles and obscure in others. Regardless, L. Frank Baum’s words are still remembered over a hundred years after his death. He had something to say about fame before he ever achieved fame through his books.

“When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.”

 Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/979167-l-frank-baum-i-have-learned-to-regard-fame-as-a-will-o-the-wisp/

He by that time had given up the pursuit of fame and had settled for the joy of having his works be adored by the children. But shortly thereafter, he did win fame through his books. Lightning struck a hundred times, and he became a success. Will my books be adored by anyone? I think it is a lot harder to become famous through your writing today than it was at the start of the 20^th century. There is too much competition now. Everyone’s self-publishing their books, and the traditional publishers are now extremely selective, only choosing stories to publish which they believe will make them the most money. Perhaps, unless I get extraordinarily lucky, only my descendants will remember my words. That seems to be the fate of my grandfather after all, the original Suren Oganessian, who I am named after. He lived an incredible life; he escaped a Siberian gulag camp during Stalin’s reign over the Soviet Union, and wrote a memoir about the experience. But, he is only remembered by descendants and those who knew him, by and large. My being named after him is in effect an effort to keep his memory alive, and to avoid his falling into total oblivion. It isn’t a task I asked for, but it is a task I’ve been given. He’s probably still less obscure than I am. His potential to become less obscure rests on his descendants. Quite possibly on me more than anyone else.

 Does it matter? Is it a futile effort to escape oblivion? Is fame not a vapor, as Mark Twain once said? People still know who Mark Twain was over a century after his death. Will they still know who he was in one more century? They might. In a thousand years? It may be possible, after all we still know about Greek and Roman mythology and the works of Homer, and it is reasonable to think Shakespeare will still be known a thousand years after his death if our civilization is still around, but the likelihood is diminished. In ten thousand years? Probably not. One day we will all be forgotten. It won’t matter who was famous and who wasn’t. It won’t matter who had more of these imaginary numbers we call “money”, it won’t matter who was the leader of a fictitious abstract territory called a “country”. Nothing will matter. Much less the abstract social constructs put together by this species. People who are prideful and boastful are fascinating. They are in denial over how little they matter; how irrelevant and insignificant they are. They’re deluded. It doesn’t matter how grandiose you make your tomb, you’re still going to be dead, gone, and forgotten. In ten thousand years, all the same stars will be in the sky (except maybe Betelgeuse), but we will all be gone. Except for some fossilized beer cans and other plastic and styrofoam trash, no trace of humanity’s existence. Some of the light coming from the stars in the sky right now will not reach this planet before our civilization is completely forgotten. Not even the stars themselves will last forever. Oblivion is the only certainty. Maybe our species will colonize other planets and still exist in ten thousand years, but I have my doubts that our species can survive beyond Earth. Sooner or later, humanity will go extinct. Maybe sooner. We may even live to see it. But, people have been saying “the end is near” since the beginning of history, so maybe not.

            This is a painting I did about a couple years ago, titled “Obscurity”. Charlie Chaplin against the background of fading, degrading film. I was going to sell it once, but no one bought it, so it still hangs in my bedroom. People still remember Charlie Chaplin, even if they haven’t necessarily watched his films. I’ve seen pretty much all of them myself. They are freely available to watch if anyone is interested in such old films. He’s famous, and iconic. But for how much longer will he be famous? A finite time. There will come a day where no one remembers Charlie Chaplin. It has already happened to numerous stars of the silent movie era. Most of the films from that age were discarded, destroyed or lost. No one remembers them. Oblivion will happen to some sooner than others, but it will eventually happen to everyone. Nearly every human being ever born has been forgotten by history. There are over seven billion people on this planet. Ever stop to think about how big of a number that is? And how many of those people have achieved fame?

Look at the pyramids of Egypt. The pharaohs who they were built for are remembered by name, and perhaps by some surviving artwork. The people who actually built the pyramids stone by stone have been long forgotten. One day the pharaohs will be forgotten too. One day the pyramids will be destroyed, even if it takes until the sun expands into a Red Giant and absorbs Earth, but probably much earlier than that. I may join the ranks of the anonymous builders of the pyramids. I am just a miniscule speck. Here and gone in an instant. One of over seven billion of my species, spinning endlessly on a speck of a planet, one of untold trillions in the galaxy, orbiting one of an unimaginable number of stars in the galaxy, within an untold number of galaxies in the universe. Am I significant, or insignificant? What even is significance? A manmade concept. Just like ego, and pride. Meaningless in the face of the vastness of the cosmos. Not even significance itself is significant. When I write, my consciousness screams into the black void and hope my thoughts reach another consciousness. Like NASA’s and SETI’s attempts to beam signals into space in hopes that another civilization will pick them up. Like the Voyager space probe, carrying a golden record with information on it that, even if by some astronomical chance it was recovered by an alien civilization, is unlikely to be understood and decoded.  Humanity’s scream into the void.

But there are counter-arguments to existential nihilism, which is the philosophy I have been most heavily leaning toward in recent years. Nietzsche, the most famous nihilist, even posited that nihilism is something to be overcome on a societal level; that it is only after it is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. It is rather a stumbling block, a hurdle to overcome on your way to higher thinking. The only counterargument that I have heard against existential nihlism which I consider to carry any weight though is that, we, as humans who have a unique ability to observe and comprehend the universe, are among the most significant beings in the universe, as we have a unique ability to give the universe meaning. We may not be, and probably aren’t, the only lifeforms in the cosmos with the ability to comprehend reality, but as lifeforms who have reached this plateau, we represent the universe becoming self-aware. We are the universe observing itself. We are not separate from the universe. We are a part of the universe. We are the universe. The universe has developed a brain, and we are that brain. If the stars themselves have consciousness, which is a theory that I like to believe is true, then it must completely dwarf our own, but, we still have something amazing in our consciousness and ability to observe. 

Life itself is amazing. We are not the same as the rocks. Even a single-celled organism is a higher being than a rock; if of course, the idea of something being “higher” than something else has any objective merit at all, which it may not. But most lifeforms go about their daily business without giving much of a thought about the world around them. Their main concern is eating, sleeping, and reproducing. If they do have thoughts beyond that, perhaps they have no way of communicating them with us. Perhaps somewhere at some time a dog has looked up to the stars and wondered what they were, but we have no way of knowing that it ever happened. Perhaps some extinct species on Earth which we have no idea about reached the same level of consciousness that we have. What we do know is that human beings are moving beyond being motivated by mere instincts. They are thinking beyond the planet on which they live, and comprehending reality, or at least they are beginning to comprehend it. We haven’t overcome our instincts yet, and still have a ways to go before we can completely divorce ourselves from it. This is what philosophies and religions such as Buddhism strive to achieve. To separate ones self from possessions and attachments in order to minimalize suffering and reach a higher consciousness without distractions. The fictional Jedi order from the Star Wars series strives for this in their philosophy. I don’t think I’m quite ready to be a Buddhist or a Jedi, at least not yet. I still enjoy my possessions. I can’t quite disconnect myself from everyday life in that way yet. But I think I am starting to see the reasoning and rationale behind their beliefs. It is an open question whether humanity will destroy themselves before getting much further and achieving some sort of nirvana, but if they can avoid self-destruction, humans may evolve into an even higher level of consciousness. And the chances are something like this has already happened somewhere in the universe.

I suppose that’s all I really have to say about the subject of oblivion. The conflict of whether or not life has meaning hasn’t been resolved in my mind, and likely won’t be for some time, if ever. I do not relish returning to the everyday trivialities of our society when I finish writing this, with its obsessions with that which is insignificant and fabricated. It is an unpleasant fantasy. But what else can I do? Such a strange thing, to be alive. People so rarely stop to think about it.

1983 in Music

            This, the third of my Years in Music mixes, is one of my favorites. Even so, I find that while writing this I’ve struggled to come up with things to say about each song. I think what I’ll do is just keep it minimal unless I do have something to say about the song in question. If it’s a song I don’t think most people have heard I’ll do my best to dig up info about the band or the release of the song. Anyway, let’s have a look at the year 1983.

1983 in Culture and News

The only way to watch Star Wars.

            1983 saw the official beginning of the internet, and the first cell phone was invented. Kraftwerk of course warned us about these things two years prior. The movie Flash Dance brought us the song “Maniac”, and what would prove in hindsight to be the last good Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi, was released, in its original form before George Lucas decided to butcher the original trilogy in 1997 (luckily for me I still got my originals on VHS). I could probably do a whole separate blog entry about it, but then again, I’d likely struggle to say anything about the movies that hasn’t already been said.

            As with every year there were plenty of wars and famines to go around, especially in Africa. Which I suppose is why a few years later that corny “We Are the World” song was made, I’m assuming. I tried to do a little research, before deciding that the more things change the more they stay the same. You can read more here: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1983.html

1983 in Music

            My favorite album of 1983 would have to be none other than Ministry’s With Sympathy, which I’ve reviewed before. Deciding on my top 3 songs is going to be tough this year, but assuming I don’t pick more than one from Ministry, I’ll have to pick “Revenge” by Ministry, “Automatic Man” by Michael Sembello, and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey. Although I really want to include “Let Me Go” by Heaven 17. But you have to make cuts somewhere.

            So anyway, I think 1980-1982 was when the 80’s were getting over the hangover of the 1970’s, and by this year they picked up steam. In 1983, CD’s finally went for sale in the United States, which was great if you were a millionaire but everyone else was using records and cassettes; David Bowie released Let’s Dance and started making dance pop, Metallica released their debut album, and Michael Jackson debuted his legendary music video for “Thriller”. There were still plenty of one-hit wonders to go around, and in the background, synthpop, New Wave and death rock (later known as goth rock) were growing and developing.  In this mix we’re going to have a look at some of these, from synthpop, to New Wave, and concluding with some rock, punk and metal.

1983 in Music – Spotify Playlist             

Michael Sembello – Automatic Man

             

I lied before. The 1980’s actually reached its zenith in 1983, with this song. This song and its music video are the most 1980’s things you will ever see and hear. They might as well have cancelled the rest of the 1980’s and started grunge music early after this was released. But, perhaps because this song went relatively unnoticed, that didn’t happen. Michael Sembello is better known for his one-hit wonder “Maniac”, from the movie Flash Dance. And that was on the original version of my CD mix, but that was made before I heard this. Just have a look at that music video. It has every 1980’s stereotype and trope you can think of.  It features the tale of a mad scientist building a robotic man, who falls in love with a living woman to the scientist’s chagrin, who turns them into stone until they are rescued by Michael Sembello. All set against a neon 80’s background. It’s like if William Shakespeare had been alive in the 1980’s. Such a harrowing romance. The synthwave bands out there today trying to bring back 1980’s-style music should be required to watch this music video.

Corey Hart – Sunglasses at Night

            When you’re as cool as Corey Hart you don’t need to see at night. Being able to see is for nerds. If you’re not wearing your sunglasses all the time, you must be a loser. You should be sleeping with those things on your face.  I mean during the day your sunglasses are just protecting your eyes from one star, the Sun. But you can see hundreds or even thousands of stars at night. So you need even more protection for your eyes at night, right?

            Anyway, after examining the lyrics, the song actually seems to be about being aware of a lover’s deceit, but hiding the fact that you know, just as sunglasses hide your eyes. Whether the singer is being paranoid or whether their suspicions are just isn’t made clear. So, it was a metaphor all along. I think a lot of people don’t get that about the song.

Ministry – Revenge

           

            Another case where I had to settle on one song from an artist when I could have included several. Anyway. Ministry’s debut album is something I’ve done a review of in the past, it’s an all-time favorite of mine despite how it has been disowned by its creator. It’s a narrow race but I suppose if I had to pick a favorite track it would be this one. It has an angry, biting energy to it which precludes Ministry’s future, heavier style, and that’s something you didn’t hear mixed into synthpop all that often in the 1980’s. Ministry could have been up there with Depeche Mode and New Order if they had stayed in this style. But, at the end of the day, an artist should do what they like, so I don’t blame Al Jourgensen of Ministry for changing genres, all I wish is that he wasn’t so ashamed of his old music.

Depeche Mode – Love, in Itself

           

            Another classic and catchy early Depeche Mode track. The lyrics of this one are about someone for whom love is not enough to cure their depression. One wonders if it was written from experience or not. Of course the song doesn’t sound sad, so it’s one of those songs that have a catchy tune but sad lyrics.

Yazoo – Nobody’s Diary

            From the band that brought us “Don’t Go” in 1982, here’s a song from their second and sadly final album. It’s one of those “please don’t break up with me” breakup songs. There’s many different categories of breakup songs. Kind of ironic since the band broke up a few days after this single was released. That was just a thing that happened a lot in the early 80’s.

John Dark – Silhouette

            And we have the first one missing from Spotify, a nice track of 1980’s “beep-boop” music.  I’ll link it on YouTube, with the warning that it’s going to get stuck in your head very easily. John Dark is a mysterious figure, apparently from the UK. Very hard to find any info on the guy.

Car Crash Set – Outsider

            Car Crash Set was a synthpop band from New Zealand, which I think is a first for these mixes.

New Order – Leave me Alone

            This is a track off New Order’s 1983 release Power, Corruption & Lies which is regarded as one of their best albums. Although in my opinion their best music was yet to come.  They were starting to use more synthesizers at this time and distancing themselves from their earlier Joy Division sound, although on this particular track it’s mainly guitar. I wasn’t able to make much sense of the lyrics on this track.

Bauhaus – The Sanity Assassin

            I’ve been leaving Bauhaus off these mixes sadly. I just need to listen to more of them. But I respect the band for codifying goth rock with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. This track is a rare release. The band split up in 1983, and this song along with Spirit in the Sky were released in limited quantities to their fan club who had paid their dues before the band split up. But of course, these days there’s no real such thing as rare music. Spotify even has it.

A Flock of Seagulls – Nightmares

“Mamamama I keep having nightmares”. This song gets stuck in my head for some reason or another. 1983 was a good year for songs like that. This is one of A Flock of Seagulls other good songs that isn’t “I Ran”. There’s a touch of melancholy to this one though, as it seems to be sung from the point of view of a sick child who keeps having nightmares and feels the need to ask if their mother still loves them.

Journey – Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

            This is the most epic-sounding Journey song, possibly the most powerful “power ballad” of the 80’s in my estimation. A song about letting go of your true love so they can be happy with someone else. That would bring up a lot of powerful emotions. At the same time though, I do despise the type of guy who wants to wait in line for you to break up with your girlfriend so they can swoop in like a vulture, as the singer is singing about doing (“if he ever hurts you, true love won’t desert you, you know I still love you”). I knew someone like that when I was first dating my now-wife. Jokes on him though, we’re married and have a kid now. So that may have soured my feelings about this song just a little, but not much, I still love it.

Eurythmics – Here Comes the Rain Again

            An iconic song for any rain-lover, which I am, by the British due Eurythmics. See this was back when a good song could get popular. The song was released as a single in January 1984, but it’s off their album Touch which was released in November 1983, so see it’s still a 1983 song, if only barely. The song has a melancholy to it that carries the energy of a rainy day with it. The opening music even reminds me of scattered raindrops hitting the dry ground when you first realize it’s raining. One of these days I’m going to do a rain mix and this song will definitely be somewhere on it, probably the first track.

Heaven 17 – Let Me Go

            “Daytime, all I want is nighttime, I don’t need the daytime.” My thoughts exactly. This song reached number 2 on the UK singles charts, so I think it was a lot more popular there than in the United States, although I was able to find out it was played on MTV.  Maybe it just didn’t stick in the years to come quite as much. I think British people must have better taste in music than Americans. Then again, who really decides on these music charts anyway? I’ve never once in my life been asked to vote on what song should be on the Billboard Top 100 or whatever. It’s all just what the corporations want you to listen to, shouldn’t put any stock in it at all. I guess its kind of cool when a song I actually like is on it. But no, I should ignore it.

David Bowie – Modern Love

            David Bowie’s opening track to the album Let’s Dance is this catchy rock song which kind of sounds like it’s from the 1950’s. I like the actual song “Let’s Dance” as well, but maybe I like this one just a little bit more.

                                                                                                                                               

Billy Idol – Rebel Yell

           

            The mix picks up energy with this song as we’re now in the rock section of the CD mix. This is a song that I think is very hard to dislike. Billy Idol was made for the 1980’s. It’s kind of sad he was unable to adapt once grunge took over in the 90’s.

Suicidal Tendencies – Institutionalized

            This song was my favorite back when I was 13 years old, but the one I grew up hearing was the re-recorded version from 1993. The tale of a teen who everyone thinks is crazy struck a chord with me back then.

Metallica – Seek and Destroy

            With a lot of these mixes I’m saving the heaviest song for last, as you’ll see when I get to the 1990’s and start including black metal. But all those songs owe a debt of gratitude to early Metallica. When it comes to Metallica, I like pretty much all their albums until Load, after which it’s pretty hit-or-miss. It was kind of a stepping stone into metal for me in my early teens. I was really into Metallica at ages 14 and 15. Even went to a concert of theirs back in 2003. It’s been a while since I really sat and listened to their albums though because I’m more into the goth scene these days. Maybe I ought to. Well, this isn’t the last we’ll see of Metallica on these mixes.

Conclusion

            1983 was a pretty good year for music, wouldn’t you say? In 1984 we have more underground New Wave music to look at. Not to mention songs off the Ghostbusters soundtrack that aren’t the main Ghostbusters theme. Spoiler: Spotify had so few of the songs from my mix I don’t know if it was even worth making one! Which means you may hear something new. Stay tuned for that, and thanks for reading.