20.11.17
– TV series:
“Transparent” (Season 1)
Also watched Season 2 Episode 1 – it was awesome! (1933 is NOT 1994)
Family is the place of unconditional acceptance AND open confrontation.
Boundaries/privacy/individuality
Vs.
Intimacy/belonging/community
There can be no moral strength without emotional vulnerability – authenticity is the real integrity.
Here is a family which refuses to pigeonhole its members into mere social roles……
How many families there still are, where no one has ever really “come out” to anyone else!
Are you curious enough to explore more about Judaism (& Yiddish) now??
“Dayenu”
Jill Soloway
Dramedy
Mensch
Male lesbians (WOW! And I thought I was…… 😉
Re-cheating & un-cheating
“Oy, gevalt!”
verklempt
Easing into the next transition……
Get messy, with this one unapologetic family
Review
http://time.com/3446282/season-review-transparent-is-a-change-for-the-better/
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeQ7WFpSmuU
– Nutritarianism
– PMV Games
subreddit
scalpers
blather
blowhard
bombinate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2017/11/20/
asseverate
Groucho Marx
Reality game show
innuendo/insinuation
Congress Working Committee (CWC)
Parliamentary Affairs Minister
Biocon
Fringe groups
Deccan Herald
Bengaluru FC
Sand brokers
Cricket – test match highlights
– Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself, my lips will praise you. For this reason I will praise you while I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
Psalms 63:3-4 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/psa.63.3-4.NET
How can anything (or anyone) be better (or greater) than life?!
Maybe it is a hyperbolic way of saying that life is worth nothing without GOD’s love……
My life < Your name
Praising GOD with my hands (actions) & praying to GOD with my lips (words)
– “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Groucho Marx, http://www.bquot.es/s/2113
The vital importance of (learning from) history (includes current affairs) & literature (especially fiction)
TV series – education through entertainment!
Vicarious experience via narrative exposure & ritual immersion
– News:
CWC clears decks and dates for Rahul Gandhi’s road ahead: Will be Congress chief in Dec, PM face in 2019
Padmavati row – Mamata criticizes protests; Amarinder says they are valid
India’s WhatsApp arrests: When speech regulation goes “overboard”
Drunk men harass woman IndiGo staffer, fall at her feet and apologise after police intervention
Zimbabwe coup: The house of Mugabe crumbles, but it’s soon to celebrate
Myanmar’s institutional subversion of the Rohingya identity makes repatriation problematic
Confident of making a game out of it: Cheteshwar Pujara.
India vs Sri Lanka: Cheteshwar Pujara Becomes 3rd Indian To Bat On All Five Days Of A Test Match
Doomsday: Has NASA confirmed the possibility of Earth getting hit by an asteroid?
Deadly earthquakes could hit a billion people next year because of Earth’s slowing rotation
Scientists send message to contact alien life
Dengue prevention begins with respect for environment
Doing Daily Household Chores May Increase Longevity of Life: Study
Study reveals Bengaluru residents spend 7% of life commuting
More Youngsters in Bengaluru have back pain
Stop axing trees, promote electric vehicles: citizens
– Open elective course:
The challenge of striking the balance between familiar/acceptable and new/remarkable
21.11.17
– Distinguish:
Restore,
Reset &
Recover
(Windows PC)
– Sitting Zen
Lying Zen
Standing Zen
Walking Zen
– Pessimism/nihilism/cynicism
I love!
– Venting:
What the fuck is wrong with me?!
Why am I so miserable most of the time?
Maybe life just sucks.
Or maybe I need to be hooked on some drug or the other to feel alright.
Could this be genetic?
Or maybe this is because of my negative beliefs and unconventional lifestyle……
I want to be free of the need to feel well. Should I be rid of this need for freedom from emotional health too??
All my knowledge is in vain when it comes to my mental state/spiritual predicament!
I have lost my drive to achieve anything, whether inward or outward.
I just want to give up and relax. Let go, and slide……
I am sick & tired of living as this listless and pathetic son of a bitch.
But I don’t know of any alternative to this life.
If I could only die, and get this all over with.
I wish I could be strong enough to overcome, and flourish in spite of, this thorn in the flesh.
– I watched Stranger Things Season 1.
It started with a bang, but then lost its way, and became predictable, even silly!
I don’t think it’s worth writing a proper review.
How would it have been if the Coen Brothers did it instead of the Duffers?
22.11.17
– Today, I got the news that my open elective course (“The Joy of Learning”) in Christ University would not run this semester, because only 2-4 students had chosen it!
I was more relieved, than disappointed…….
I had been feeling very depressed the last 2 days.
Maybe I should’ve stuck to my original decision to not do anything (like this) for 1 year (June 2017 to June 2018)
– I want to go around, shooting and fucking people randomly!
– Dream:
I am in a school, with Dovina and Vijayalaya. We are being attacked by a mob of hooligans, and are fleeing to a place of safety.
Chellam is helping me with finding a way out……
– What would happen if I stopped following any rule of life and just let my natural instincts dictate everyday behavior?
– iMyfone Umate Pro
https://youtu.be/ZWIbndLJ5VA
WOW! This app gave a new lease of life to my old iPad Mini 😇
24.11.17
– Therapeutic culture
Human potential movement
New syndromes
Emotional incontinence
Victimhood mentality
Airport bookshelves
Expressivism
Managerial spirituality
Executive coach
Competing demands
Hybrid expertise
Postmodern confessional
Fascinating connections & illuminations
Helping relationships
Discourse & network analysis
The emancipation lens
Action research & reflective practice
Associative intelligence
Strategic interventions
coachee
Peer observation
Feedback loop
Systematic scrutiny
Reality principle
– Looking awry to resist, in “Fight Club”
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/criticaltheoryfall13/2013/09/looking-awry-to-resist-in-fight-club/
– Self-esteem & social support
Celebration of the self
Solace, insight, & intervention, for authenticity
Condemned to work out/for our freedom
Moving from contradiction to complement
An engaged space for dynamic strategies
Reflection, research & innovation
Macro-influences & micro-experiences
Refreshing critique –> further developments
Rigorous theorizing without scientific reductionism
Exposing the prevailing assumptions underneath dominant norms
The fetish of the new
Self-integration & self-critique
Contextual discourses and relevant rhetoric
Metaphorical imagination as explanatory theory
Theory – interpret experience, oversee practice and maintain critical self-awareness
Education – orientation + training = development
Letting myself be read by the text
Greed for simplicity
– “Psychoanalysis turns neurosis into ordinary unhappiness”
– Generative education
Vs.
Control mechanisms
– TV series:
Black Mirror (Season 1)
The common theme is the impact of technological/digital lifestyle on human existence – plainly negative!
Every realm – politics, economics, relationships, etc. – is affected – sparing nothing.
Why “black mirror”?? Is it the nihilistic image of man which is reflected by his own creations?
Do you remember seeing your own face on that dark screen?
“The ghost in the machine is your own soul!”
Another powerful argument for the necessity of philosophy/spirituality/religion, to maintain and nurture our core humanity……
But how will we keep them from being digitized?!
A TV series about the evils of the all-pervading media, watched online – how ironic!
There’s no going back now, to a romantic/pristine past. The only way is forward. We need a new vision or the human future to inspire the strategies of our soul-survival.
“Hive mind”
“Horror lark”
lapidary
Totalitarianism and vigilantism
Episode 3 was hitting too close to home!
Review: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/arts/television/review-black-mirror-finds-terror-and-soul-in-the-machine.html
Poster
http://oxfordstudent.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/black-mirror-season-3-poster.png
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jROLrhQkK78
– “Hello sir,
Thanks for the honest question about “What I do all day”…
I didn’t mind it at all 😌”
“I have chosen a contemplative lifestyle, because I want to focus on living in the moment & on self-education.
– I usually have a weekly routine that I make for myself, which includes household chores & spiritual disciplines.
– I also prepare for an annual seminar & retreat, for others, to promote personal growth……”
– Learning Kannada – from English via Tamil
25.11.17
– The experts
Vs.
The Outsider
The kings, priests and judges
Vs.
The Prophet
The Pharisees, scribes and lawyers
Vs.
Jesus
The elders, clerics and academics
Vs.
Me
– Widening Participation in Post-Compulsory Education
Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy
– Official knowledge
Instrumentalism
Critical pedagogy
Communicative justice
The conscience as ethical intellect
Principles/values >> policies/systems >> structures/practices
Examining courses
pace
Critique >> innovate
Higher commitments & concerns
Biography & history
The structure/agency problem
– Yes, I read Critical Theory for entertainment!
And I don’t like those who can’t, or wouldn’t care to, think for themselves……
I need to spend more time on devotional Bible meditation and also just be with ordinary (non-intellectual!) folk.
– What can, or should, the veteran learn from the novice?
– Luk. 20:27-40
There are those who are physically dead, but are alive to GOD, and those that are physically alive, but dead to GOD……
Those who are children of this (evil/passing) age and those who belong to the world to come.
The spiritual life is eternal!
“Children of the resurrection”
Simply dismissing all possibility of “afterlife” today, based on rational/empirical grounds, would be just as foolish as the Sadducees denying the resurrection based on the Law of Moses.
What really matters is not whether you believe there is a future resurrection of the dead or not, but whether you have faith in the unlimited power of GOD (spiritual reality/ultimate destiny of all things, especially humans) which inspires the hope that can drive a radical life in the here and now.
Faith as projection
Vs.
Faith as adventure
Faith as a higher (or deeper!) level of knowledge that is comfortable with doubt and uncertainty – knowing without understanding – yes, I believe it is true, but cannot explain why or how!
Lord, I question, but you help my faith to sustain that questioning, without giving up (on the hope of finding GOD).
– Catherine of Alexandria – patron saint of female philosophers!
– Part-time job with full-time salary 😉
– PC – switched from Chrome (proxy tunnel issue) to Firefox, finally!
Got too tired to tolerate any more bullshit.
– Start preparing for annual retreat & seminar, instead of the open elective course.
– Meditation:
From doing to being
From thinking to breathing
From feeling to observing
– Recollection + reflection >> insight & development!
27.11.17
– From now onwards, my contribution toward others in the form of formal/prepared presentations is over!
– TV series:
Fleabag (Season 1)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge – somewhat like our own Kalki Coechlin
The actress is also the writer! She does look nerdy and artistic……
Why “fleabag”? “an inferior hotel or rooming house”
Is her name really Fleabag in the series?! What did the others call her??
Angst = anxiety (existential) + grief (psychosocial) + guilt (moral/theological) – a summary of the human predicament!
Philosophical aptitude, personal spiritual discipline and relational skills – uniquely essential for survival as a human being
No remorse, no repentance,
No repentance, no responsibility,
No responsibility, no redemption.
All non-theological/amoral spiritualities are just different forms of escapism/self-deception!
Black humor, sitcom, bad girl
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYmENGPlNMk
A delicious review
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/fleabag-an-original-bad-girl-comedy
Poster
http://www.mindcorp.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/mindcorp-creative-agency-advertising-all3media-mipcom-fleabag-keyart-london.jpg
– dive bars
bottom feeders
Mumblecore improv
detumescence
Mordant writing
Offscreen antics
outré
Singer-songwriter
Fourth wall
Private gags
stepmonster
lubricious
Embarrassment of bitches
Tragicomic asshole
turncoat
– “The Pope expertly trolls Trump…”
Ha ha ha ha!
– Movies:
“Atomic Blonde”
Not just another sexy action movie or cold war spy thriller
Theron sizzles and explodes!
The narrative voice-overs are crucial
What if everyone (of the common people) just suddenly stopped (refused to continue) playing their role in the dirty games of the big players?!
How difficult is it to be a soul-survivor, rather than becoming a brutal monster, in this cruel and apathetic world?
Compare with James Bond movies – there’s even a Bond girl!
Draw out the deep & subtle parallels between the ordinary life of someone like me and that of someone like Lorraine
“This is NOT that story”!
Review
http://time.com/4874696/atomic-blonde-charlize-theron-review/
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGDdv88uJsQ
Poster
https://talenthouse-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_994,w_640/v1498151988/user-855400/submissions/dewmny0kdkactpi1mhnw.jpg
– Open elective courses in Christ University:
- Should I try to identify the 6 students who chose my course?
- The pattern among the courses which have qualified to run shows that students choose a course either for its direct career value (a useful addition to their resume when applying for a hifi job) or if they find it immediately relevant or interesting, like “Gender in Popular Culture”. Only courses which are focused in their subject matter are usually preferred.
- I am quite disappointed that there is not much of curiosity about what education itself is (or can/should be) among so-called full-time scholars!My course raises such fundamental (and uncomfortable?) questions!No other course seemed to have such a broad (philosophical or spiritual) perspective/approach.
But actually, I am relieved that I don’t have to sit and prepare for hours, to deliver lectures……!
I don’t believe in that mode/format of learning anymore.
28.11.17
– harbinger
http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2017/11/28/
– Can virtue & ethicality be cultivated personally, without cultural or moral conformity?
Can one be both critical & individualistic, and also be socially responsible?
Compare & contrast:
Relational loyalty
&
Social responsibility
– 1Chron. 16:8,34
Praise the LORD for his unfailing love,
And give thanks for his great deeds.
Unfailing love –> great deeds
Once you experience this, you can go and tell everyone else about (the greatness of) your GOD!
– “Have you begun to stop trying to defend your sins? Then you have made a beginning of righteousness.”
–Augustine of Hippo
Confession >> penance >> reform
Giving up >> new beginning
Either you start righteous and become a sinner, or you start sinful and become righteous!
How you see yourself now will determine where you go next, and ultimately where you end up.
This applies to both individual persons and social groups.
“If so, then…” and “If not, then…”
Self-justification & stagnation
Or
Self-criticism & development
Your attitude to GOD, others & the world, is nothing but an outward expression of your intrapersonal dynamic.
– News:
Master Plan 2031 gives public transport a boost, proposes Metro on Bengaluru periphery.
BENGALURU: ACP MISBEHAVED WITH SEXUAL HARASSMENT VICTIM?
‘Incarcerated’ donkeys released from Uttar Pradesh jail on BJP leader’s recommendation.
Gujarat polls 2017 is all about community votebank: Here’s what BJP, Congress candidate lists tell us.
Bali paradise turns to tourist nightmare as Mount Agung rumbles
SC Dismisses Plea Against ‘Padmavati’, Says Final Call Job of CBFC
Pope Francis urges respect for rights and ethnic diversity, sidesteps Rohingya crisis
Why shouldn’t the public get to know how BCCI is functioning? – Vinod Rai
World Air Pollution Day: 5 ways in which air pollution affects your mental health
Consumer should decide what is good and what is bad: TRAI chief on net neutrality
No loan waiver for capitalists, says Jaitley
29.11.17
– complaisance
Spectacle of animality
Animal interiority
comportment
incontestible
Entomology & philosophy
The insinuations of poetry
The irrational roots of all (including human!) life
The daydreams of our hidden life
The animal, the primitive, the child and the insane
The anthropological machine
Onto-theological critique
Deconstruction of traditional significations
Constructed distinctions & arbitrary boundaries
Beyond representation, toward pure encounter
The discourse of being
Redefining (divine) revelation as the unveiling of our (human) animality
Pardigmatic singularity
Vs.
Sovereign representations
Moving from particularity to particularity, resisting the temptation of universalization
Thingness
Safeguarding precarity
Messianic intervention
The appearance of a justifiable political discourse out of political nihilism
Christianity as the end of theology
Religiously inflected terminology
Canonical moment
Transition from Judaic law to Christian forms of life
Form & content; object & subject; universal & particular
The inevitability of theology
Violent condensation into semblances
– Fully embracing determinism is ultimate freedom!
– Buddha – dropping into the metaphysical, by burrowing into the psychological……!
– Life is suffering (sorrow) >> suffering is life (passion)!
– In the world, it seems that everything at the highest & deepest level is fucked up, and only in the middle is there something good going on……
Getting out of this good/bad mindset is my greatest challenge.
Why is sadness bad, and happiness good?
– My primary goal is to become nothing.
But that is exactly what I am avoiding most vehemently!
– Beyond faith, hope & love
Suffering, death & glory!
– We are just self-deluded animals!
30.11.17
– Lower class immorality
Middle class morality
Upper class amorality
1.12.17
– “Aadharam” Tamil short film
(Referred by Chris Joseph)
My interpretation:
I think it’s about the question of personhood. And the point made is that, the affection (of & for another) (ஆதரம்) is what *creates* personhood.
So, Inba is a person, because of the affection of the protagonist *bestowed* upon “it” (a doll)!
And his son is NOT a person (although a human) because he does not express affection toward his aged & sick father……
– The theologies of cultural intelligibility
Hidden work/secret agents
Forgotten histories
– Theology as ideology
Vs.
Theology as critical theory
The heretic as double agent
De-authorized/uncapitalized truth
Survival & testimony
Dangerous memories
The legal force of cultural forms
The constitution of identity through narrative repetition
Ontology as normative injunction & not original foundation
Masking the ruses
Fleeing game
Weak messianic forces
Deconstruction as a challenge to the sovereign powers
Manufacturing the necessary ground
Signification/representation as the state of original sin
From being to existence
The pure functionality of separating & dividing
The limits of language
Essences, without content
The historic fabrication & institutional authorization of humanity
Pure potentiality ~ zone of indistinguishability
Fractured sense of self ~ caesura
Self-posited uniqueness
Metaphysico-political project
The divine, as an invention, to render the human thinkable
Well-founded, peaceful/natural strength (from below)
Vs.
Artificial/violent power-impositions (from above)
Suspension of all sovereign decisions that underlie the general construction of representations
The revocation of every vocation & dwelling in the indescernibility of our situatedness – our only ethical option.
Risking the emptiness
Central hiatus
A regression beyond
Freed from all indebtedness to the anthropological
The dissolution of politics as the beginning of the ethical task
Poverty of being/world
The movement of openness
The easy perpetuation of violent representations
Immanence ~ materialism ~ pantheism ~ animality
A hidden theology – potential re-enchantment of our post-religious world
Dichotomous logics
Irreducible particularities/absolute singularity
Pre-linguistic paradigms
– Who does the double-agent serve?
Well, himself, of course!
(Or is it the greater ideal of – non-partisan – justice?)
Maybe he’s the only sane one among the lot, of patriots & criminals……
Reality is indefinite!
An unmediated opportunity to encounter the O/other
Conceptual & social indeterminacy
– Effectively challenging any attempt to foreclose critique, resistance & hope
The politicization of education
Developing a language of hope
Power, conformity & reproduction
Organized collective struggles
Civic courage
Productive, deliberative & directive practice
Moral identity & political agency
Popular culture as a teaching machine
Public pedagogy
A democratic perspective
Market fundamentalism
Standardized competition
Deskilling of school faculty
Economic Darwinism
Accused of “Un-American behavior”
– My life:
1. To become nothing (in the eyes of the world & myself). To be liberated from the need to “be someone/do something”.
2. To live intensely & entirely in the moment, and learn to enjoy spontaneity.
3. To participate in the subtle movement of the weak messianic forces that subvert the powers that be.
4.12.17
– gander
5.12.17
– http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/
So, I have decided to buy a 43″ (Full HD) LED TV
– Society of the spectacle ~ spectacular life!
2.12.17
– Conscientious dissent
Public values
Democratic spaces
Social responsibility
Confronting power
Analyzing trends
The moral imperative of political agency
Dialogue & accountability
Neoliberal education
Self-leadership
Citizen power
Questioning common-sense views
A constant re-examination of the boundaries between the sensible & the subversive
Changing the forms of self & social recognition
Diversity, compassion & dialogue
Vital interrogations
Knowledge as a power-relation
The forces that influence & determine self-definition
The construction of experience
The multiplication & dissipation of desire
Shared vision
Ethical intervention
Justifiable policies
Assigned meanings, official knowledge, established modes of authority
Necessary risks
Energizing traditions & transformative skills
Prophetic interpretation
Unlimiting possibility
Inspiring responsiveness
The promises & perils of the future
Legitimation of certain social forms
Imagining a more perfect democracy
Ideals >> questions
Challenges >> struggles
Zombie politics & today’s youth
Against schooling
After-hope
The military-industrial-academic complex
Training in idolatry
Patriotic correctness & academic freedom
Common dreams
Managerialism
Inverted totalitarianism
The professor as public intellectual
Pedagogy as cultural politics
The death (not end) of history
– Pray ~ bray 😉
Immanuel Joseph's Blog 
