Thursday, October 31, 2013

Homosexuality is WRONG



I've been meaning to write about the topic of sexual orientations for some time; I just never got to it, until now. In this particular post I will focus mainly on some aspects of homosexuality, although I am aware that there are several other sexual orientations. Still, with appropriate changes, what I am about to say could probably be applied to bisexuality, transsexuality and what not as well.

When I said I've been meaning to write about this topic for some time, I actually only meant that the idea had crossed my mind. What really triggered my willingness to write to write about how homosexuality is treated in today's society (societies), was nothing but plain ol' anger. You see, a couple of weeks ago I should have been sleeping. However, since tiredness seemed unable to find me, I browsed the interwebs instead. Eventually, I somehow managed to come across these gif images. They immediately caught my interest, since they depict an interview, where discussed is one of the more important topics of the present. That, and the fact that one of the arguing men is the quite famous and easily loveable Stephen Fry. To most people, I think that the gifs speak for themselves. The man from Uganda is basically batshit crazy. In his opinion, it's not as big an issue if young girls are raped in the "right way", as it is if two consenting adults of the same sex have sexual intercourse.

The real problem is that he is not alone with his views. Since the moving pictures had managed to catch my interest, and I didn't feel like sleeping anyway, I decided to look up the source of the interview. Turns out, Stephen Fry has made a two part documentary about homosexuality, so having nothing better to do, I watched them. Now, I am not usually that easily emotionally affected (maybe I'm just too cynical), but I can't recall the last time I felt as sad and frustrated as when I watched the documentary (you can find it here).

There are some things that make me lose faith in humanity, and the way homosexuality is still treated around the world is one of them. It's difficult to believe that after all the years humans have spent on earth, after all the progress in all the areas, we are still the only known species dumb enough to condemn a form of love that is as beautiful as any. And the reasons are even more disturbing.

Not only are there people blaming their hatred of gay people on an ancient book of "wisdom" that also forbids a lot of other stuff that no one seems to pay attention to, but there are those who don't even seem to know a reason for their despise at all. The real root of the problem seems to be idiotic stubbornness, lack of education, and scapegoating. To me it was sickening to watch all the odium that stemmed from the very culture of present Ugandans. Close to everyone in Uganda seems to be against homosexuality, and it is almost like the majority would like to see all homosexuals punished by death.

There are people who try to explain why homosexuality is wrong with ridiculous lies that any sensible child could refute. And those people are all about spreading an image of disgust. They earn a status in society by creating an image of homosexuals that is far worse than any devil you could imagine. And they are all about anuses and penises and sex, they don't even think about the mutual affection people of the same gender might share. Also, in many places in Africa people have been brainwashed to genuinely believe that condoms result in a higher risk for HIV and AIDS, instead of decreasing it. And as we all know, there would be no AIDS at all if only those damn gays would do the right thing and choose to be heterosexual... Because you would definitely want to choose to be homosexual in a country where you might get killed for it. Totally makes sense.

Another thing is, in Uganda there seems to be a constant fear of homosexuals recruiting people to their "lifestyle", especially young children. I mean, it's such an easy bribe! "Hey kid, want to be cool? All you've got to do is to suddenly become attracted to people of your own gender, in order to be hated by all people around you! Sounds awesome, right!!?"

I naturally need to provide some kind of example of what I'm talking about, so here you go:

The infamous "eat da poo poo" priest...

You might laugh at the video, but in reality it's much more severe; some actually listen to people like him, and continue the tradition, so to say. That guy is just one among many. Watch any interview about homosexuality that takes place in uganda, and you will hear similar stuff or even worse.



I know that I've focused pretty much solely on homosexuality in Uganda, but that is simply one of the places where the issue is most apparent. You've all heard about homosexuality in the Western society already, or so I assume at least. It might be difficult to realize the reality of the situation unless you really invest some time into seeing how bad things really are for some people that just happen to not have been born heterosexual. At the moment, I also refrain from further explaining any of my observations; I'm hoping that you readers will understand the key yourselves.


Another most discomforting fact is the current situation in Russia, where progress on human rights seems to have taken a few important steps backwards.







Now, I could talk about this topic forever and ever, for all eternity, but I doubt that'd do much good. If you haven't got the point at this point, I doubt you will at all.

If you want to listen to a lecture with comedic input, about the morality around homosexuality, I suggest you check out this video that I watched just yesterday.






Well, I don't really think there's that much to add to this entry at this point, but please comment if you think of something.



I shall leave you with this:

I think it was Daniel Radcliffe (perhaps more known as the actor in the role of Harry Potter) who said something along the lines of: "You don't need to be gay to be a supporter, you just need to be human."


If there are any of you out there whom really think homosexuality is wrong, I have a bet, or a challenge for you.



Give me any argument against homosexuality that you think deserves attention, and I assure you, I am capable of confuting that argument, while providing 10 counterarguments.


And that, as they are so keen to say, is that.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Stress



Long story short:

There once was a blogger that hadn't written anything in nearly three weeks, and that blogger is me; the end.


Why haven't I written in so long? Several reasons. To begin with, I almost exclusively write during nighttime, not much unlike now. I actually meant to write an entry more than a week ago, but things came in the way! There was a horrible curse laid upon me; that, of being enchanted by a good book. So I finally finished reading "A Game of Thrones", which is the first book in the series called "A Song of Ice and Fire". I was totally spellbound by the book, and its evil genius kept me from writing. Not only that! It also kept me from sleeping much at all. Hence, when I finally finished reading the book, thus getting the time to write, I naturally developed a headache, and trust me; your first wish is not to write if you have a headache. I hate headaches. I even feel a headache creeping up on me right now. FUCK. I'll still finish this entry before going to sleep though.

Other than that, I finally felt like writing in my book for the first time in far too long (as you might have firgured out by now, of course, during nights [even with school the day there after = I'm a schmuck]). And yesterday and the day before that I simply didn't feel like writing (I usually refrain from doing something if I'm not in a mood for it). That pretty much sums it up.


I really should write more in my book, it's not like I'm not motivated to do so or anything, the opposite is much truer actually. I'm not entirely sure why I just don't do it, but it probably has strong relations to the topic of this entry; stress.

If you had already wondered what I was going to complain about in this post, the answer is simple; about the usual stuff. I always say I feel a certain lack of time, and it is beginning to become more apparent than ever. There are simply too many things taking place at the same time for me right now. Even if I would be blessed with the longest vacation ever, I wouldn't have time to do all the things I want to do, so all the extra stuff going on doesn't help at all!


For instance, right now we're (the music class in our school, including me) working on our final project; a musical that has to be finished in about a month. We have to write the script, learn and arrange the music, and learn to act, which as you must understand requires a lot of our spare time as well. Aside from this there're unusually great amounts of homework that is supposed to be done (emphasis on "supposed"). If I know my own best, I ought to begin reading for my matriculation exam in within a week, which will require enormous amounts of effort for a guy like me.

As if that wasn't enough, I got a job offer that will take a lot of time, also from my otherwise free time. I am supposed to accompany a choir on the piano. I'm not good at sight reading, which means I will have to learn the songs by heart at home, in a format that suits for others to sing to it (keep in mind that I'm usually a solo pianist). It's not like I don't want the job, but it couldn't have been offered to me at a much worse time. Before the planned, christmassy concert, we will practice the songs once a week, starting next week. Also, this "workplace" isn't really that close to where I live.

Those are some of the things I HAVE to do. The list of what I want to do, is infinite amounts larger.

I am also not known for being good at dealing with stress. Or well, I kinda am, but with consequences. If I become stressed, I usually rid of it by doing nothing at all, which works for me. Stress is one of my very worst enemies, and I hate it with all my soul. And by not doing anything, I mean that I mostly lie around surfing the interwebs for meaningless things I could do without; no productivity, no accomplishments, no nothing. The same goes if I am handed too many tasks; if I can't decide between them (and doing all of them is not an option), I tend to ignore all of them. Not the best course of action...

I really am worried for how I will be able to read for my exams with my mentality (and trust me, my mentality won't change). I'll probably read far too little, and try to bullshit my way through stuff. But to my knowledge, I'm not stupid; I think I'll manage to force myself to pull through. But I won't like it (first world problems, right?)

I realize that I'm spoiled, but think of this; to a spoiled person, doing something unpleasant can feel just as bad, as doing something drastically more unpleasant might feel for a person that is not spoiled at all.


In case you hadn't realized yet, this entry isn't really drawing towards a conclusion, nor is it going to suddenly turn into a blog entry worthy of your time, but since it is soon to be finished, you might as well read the rest.



I usually try to live for the now, and be as happy (and productive) as possible, but with the much requiring future this close, this becomes more difficult. Some people can use stress to accomplish things more effectively, but I am rarely able to do so. I don't enjoy doing stuff under stress, and if I don't enjoy doing something, chances are I won't do the thing in question very well.

Can you relate?











Anyway, enough of that; I grew weary of the subject (as have probably you done).


I actually finally laid my hands on a decent music program, but I haven't gotten the chance to try it out yet, nor will I for a while, I believe (If you don't know the reason, I recommend you start from the beginning and read this entire entry again). This pisses me of a bit. Sure, I could prioritize the programme and begin messing around with it, but these things really take a lot of time and dedication, so I reckon I'll wait for Christmas or so, before diving into a new world of music production (I really need to learn mixing and putting awesome musical pieces together in music programs in general).

Anyway, there is at least one thing I'm happy about at the moment.

For the first time in a while, I think I really outdid myself with a composition of mine, alas, I find it far too good to be posted here. At the moment, I think it might be the best song I've ever made so far, but I completed the composition less than five days ago, so I might just still be in a hype about it. What I think is so great about the piece, is that it's extremely unlike my usual music style; I'm still exploring very new areas.


That is also the only composition I've created as of late, so in all hurry I did something unusual for today's entry. For the first time in years, I tried out a simple online music making program to see what I could do. So in a pretty short amount of time, I created a 12 second long song. Impressive, right?...

The thing is, for some weird reason, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't save the thing online (I only got an error message). It also said I could download an mp4 of my piece being played by the program, but guess three times if it worked...

So I had to settle for downloading the mp3, and taking some screen captures of it all.

You can listen to the song at the usual place:




I mean come on, the entire thing will take 20 seconds.


It's not that impressive nor is it that original, but I think it still sounds kind of fun.
Here are some screen caps.







So yeah. As you already have noticed (if you were observant), the programme is called "Notessimo", but this is actually Notessimo 2.


If you wish to actually see a more ambitious project (not done by me, but you can get a picture of how it would have looked like, had I been able to save my file online), you could always check out:












Yup. That about sums it up for this time. I hope you get to enjoy a long, stress-free period of life.


I'm out.