A theory on the meaning of life

**NOTE** This isn't part of this blog's usual post style, because in actual fact it's a totally separate thing I wanted to post, I just didn't want to create a new account!**

Oh, humans.   Megan and I have been thinking recently about how destructive they are, about how we seem to just wreak havoc on nature rather than fully contribute to it.  We don’t seem to have a place in it, either.  We’ve been watching a lot of David Attenborough recently, and noticed every animal has a place in the world, it contributes to the life cycle of the ecosystem.  But humans aren’t a cog, they are right up there at the top of the food chain.

When discussing this theory, we said “at the top of the food chain” in harmony as we reached that thought together.  This kind of psychic connection, that is surprisingly common among close friends and family and yet strangely unspoken of in a wider societal context, is so uncommon of other animals.  Yes, many animal species do display groups of them working synonymously with each other through seemingly psychic connections, but it isn’t the same.  I’ve never seen an animal mentalist; no squirrel with a fully bandaged head save his mouth, hastily reeling off the thoughts of random members of his squirrel audience like Derren Brown, for example.

Then there’s the collective thinking we can do.  Studies have shown that if you get a large enough group of people together and have them form a connection, they can begin to think alike.  Only simple things like all thinking of the same number etc., but it begs the question as to what else we can achieve.  After all, we all know the old noodle about us only being able to harness 10% of our brain’s potential.  What if we could harness more?  Somehow strengthen the brainwaves that form this connection with others?

We could reach conclusions that normally one mind couldn’t reach alone, such as solving complex mathematical equations or scientific theorem.  In fact some studies may have been conducted with results towards that effect, though I don’t know for certain, only a vague memory of something I might have read once.  The point is, get enough of us together with enough brainpower and we could start to pick up on the thoughts of other individuals.

This is a cool idea; maybe people would be able to help amnesiacs recover memories.  Use subtle, subconscious psychic connections (for want of a better term, as ‘communicating using the same neural wavelength’ isn’t as catchy) we could peek into the minds of others and recover memories that would otherwise be blocked to the patient.

Either these kinds of connections are or should be linked to Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere theory.  Vernadsky theorises that there are three phases of development of the Earth.  The first is the geosphere, which is essentially the four original elements; earth, fire, wind and water.  Then comes the biosphere, which is of course all the biological life inhabiting Earth.  After that’s done sorting the men from the boys (too bad, dinosaurs) the noosphere emerges.

This is where I veer away from Vernadsky (who goes into harmony with elements through nuclear processing) and err on the side of de Chardin’s continuation.  He supposes that the noosphere is created through the interaction of human minds, a subsconscious neural connection that we all share coming to fruition.  He believes that as humanity strengthens this connection through our ever quickening creation of social networks – and by that I don’t mean Facebook, I mean making us more connected and reachable through advances in transportation and communication, so slightly about Facebook – the noosphere will expand in both strength and awareness, until eventually we essentially ascend to a new plane of existence where our thoughts are all intertwined with one another.  He calls this the Omega Point, otherwise known as “the goal of history”.

C. Lloyd Morgan, and earlier Henri Bergson, linked this with evolution.  He noticed that the most interesting changes in living things were not part of the natural process of evolution, and that rather than being gradual, evolution jumps every now and then in increasingly complex ways.  They also describe an emergent form of evolution called “cultural evolution”, which was sped up by the development of language to a point where cultural and biological evolution will meet in harmony.  This cultural evolution would of course be the noosphere, the elevation of our minds to a fully integrated, global hivemind.

Do excuse my language, but I’m going to discuss Scientology now.  To paraphrase somewhat, they believe along the lines that some dictator alien culled his galactic population by hurling them into a volcano on earth and created an atmospheric barrier to prevent their souls escaping into the cosmos.  They sought refuge in the closest animals around, which where primitive humans.  These souls are what give us the emotions we have today.  This is a loose recollection from what was shown in that South Park episode, but I think it covers the basics as far as I remember them.

Thing is, when you wipe away all the dictator-galactic-empire-population-cull bullshit and just focus on the “primitive humans being granted intelligence” aspect, it doesn’t seem entirely ridiculous.

Ok, so run with me on this one.

Biologically, we have a lot of things in common with other species on this planet.  But the way we think is so different to anything else.  We have a thirst for more of everything that no other animal has shown.  We always want to know more about everything, we always want to explore further, we always want to create more, build more, learn more.  We are never satisfied with our lot, as soon as we reach one thing we set our sights on something else.

Why?  Nobody knows.  We’re still looking.  What do you think the missing link is?  It was that trigger that caused us to veer off from the typical evolutionary path; that made us sentient.  Something happened that caused us to stop thinking like animals and start thinking intelligently, thinking intellectually.  And given that the way we think is unlike anything else on this planet, why can’t that be because it isn’t from this planet?

What is a soul?  Whatever it is, popular theory believes only we have one, nothing else.  Some people believe pets do, but we’ll get on to that later.  Either way, you have to admit that it’s difficult to entirely brush it off as hokum.  There is something special about us, everybody has such a unique personality, such brilliantly different, complex and incredible minds.  Our memories, our loves, our hates, our relationships with others, our relationships with ourselves, our emotions; it is so hard to accept that these are just electrical signals and chemicals buzzing about your head.  It’s easy to believe, yes, science has well and truly established the truth in it.  But just seems like there has to be something more to it than that, there has to be something that makes us us.

This is where my credibility will appear to go out of the window, if it hasn’t done already, but keep reading and bear with me.

So, in the simplest possible terms because I honestly have no idea what the details could ever possibly be, and because I want to make sure what I say is clear and succinct – our lives are a test of some kind.  Some extra-terrestrial initiation process for something, I have no idea.  It seems crazy, it probably is.  But the reason I’m writing it down is, despite how ridiculous it sounds, it actually would explain some things.

Below I’ll talk about the explanations.  If I type anything like ‘this’, you can take those marks to mean ‘for want of a better term’.

1)      We have souls

-        Our ‘soul’, whatever it may be and whatever it may have come from, is placed into a ‘blank’ human being to form a ‘person’

-        This person then goes about their life as any normal person does, growing up, becoming a douchebag, working for 50 years and then dying

-        How they ‘performed’ is measured upon death, and a reward or punishment is given, ranging in severity

-        Throughout this life, obviously, the person has no idea they are an ‘alien soul’ in a human body; all their memories are ‘blocked’

2)      Heaven and Hell

-        Remember when I was talking about our ability in large groups to think alike?

-        Remember when I thought maybe sub-conscious connections like that could, with the right amount of people and/or brainpower, gain access to memories that would otherwise be blocked?

-        Individually, as I said in point 1, we have no idea we’re really alien souls; the memories are blocked

-        However, when we grew in number and were all emotionally connected through the simple fact that we’re the same species, maybe we started to subconsciously access memories from others

-        This would of course be emergence of the noosphere – all human minds connected to one another, sharing thoughts and ideas

-        Obviously the noosphere would have been weak during the rise of religion, as there were far fewer humans then and we hadn’t harnessed the brainpower

-        However, we may have had enough of a connection for individuals to begin to access the idea of the reward/punishment we get when our experience as a human ends, as also mentioned in point 1

-        As we only had the basic structure of this idea, we had to fill in the gaps with our own interpretation

-        Thus the ideas of Heaven and Hell were created

3)      Free will

-        Simple really

-        We can do what we want because this is a test of character

4)      Our place

-        As I said earlier, we don’t seem to have a place on this planet

-        While everything else adds to the lifecycle of the ecosystem, we just run rampant across the globe in a wave of destruction and industry

-        This is because we don’t belong on Earth; it’s just a testing ground to us, so we blindly do whatever damage to it that we want because at the very very depths of our minds there is the slightest awareness of what we really are

A further point Megan raised was that of re-incarnation.  A surprising number of people have been said to recall ‘past lives’ that they lived.  There was a BBC television programme a few weeks ago about a boy who said he lived a past life with a family in Wales.  He spoke about his ‘other’ parents and ‘other’ life quite frequently and in impressive detail.  The family decided to take a trip to Wales to where the boy said he lived, and what they found seemed to back up a lot of what he had said, particularly the house he used to live in.

Reincarnation speaks a lot of living past or future lives as animals, and we thought this actually could stack up with the rest of the theory.  While generally animals, especially when wild, seem quite autonomous and just going about doing standard animal stuff, we do tend to notice characteristics in them, especially our pets.  Sometimes we even liken them to things we as people do.  And a lot of people are of the view that if we have souls, then our pets must do too.  All dogs go to heaven.

It’s generally believed or known, I’m not sure, that cats and dogs found humans rather than the other way around.  They came to us choosing to be domesticated.  As we began to share the same space as them and form a connection through proximity, maybe they began to form part of the noosphere too, or at least became a part of our souls’ ‘reincarnation field’ (in other words, while their minds might not have been complex enough to form part of the noosphere, some souls upon death may have inhabited pets if there wasn’t a human body available – and you can count this entire bracket as ‘for want of a better term’). 

Maybe that’s why we see aspects of human personalities in them, and why their behaviour has begun to change with domestication.  Maybe that’s secretly what ‘domestication’ means – adding another species to the field of reincarnation.

Perhaps this means, then, that this is more than a test, maybe it is a game or challenge where more players continue to join, and when you die you simply re-spawn into another human.  Or maybe it is a test but a continual one, where the participants keep going until the world is destroyed or some other kind of conclusion is reached.  Maybe that conclusion is the forming of the noosphere.  A completely seamless network of 6 billion+ minds working together – that’s a lot of processing power.  Maybe Earth is just one planet in thousands making the universe’s most powerful computer chips.

Whatever the meaning of life is, nobody is even close to knowing it, so it would be unfair to debunk this theory purely due to how ridiculous it sounds to us.  I’m sure I must sound like some kind of conspiracy nut, but I do a lot of thinking so some of it’s bound to end up outlandish.  But if this does turn out to be just some crazy nonsense, I could at least put it forward as a religion.

Easy like Sunday morning

My family has always been very close, but there were none closer than me and my sister, Sophie, to our cousins Lauren and Emily. As soon as we arrived at Grandma’s house, our regular meeting spot, we’d be inseparable. Usually the only reason we did separate was because our parents had to practically carry us to the car so we could all go home.

When I first drafted this piece, I was on the train back home after spending the weekend at Lauren’s house at university to see the new Harry Potter film. Was there a desperate plea to our elders for me to stay longer? No. Did I need to be carried away? Nuh-uh. Were Sophie and Emily there? Nope. We’re all pretty much grown up now, and that makes me quite sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a very enjoyable weekend, even if I did spend longer than I’d have liked on Friday night with my head in a sick bowl. What saddened me was that our childhood seemed to just fizzle out, fade away before we even realised it was going. I think we expected to be told we were approaching childhood’s swansong, were waiting for some rising crescendo to signify we only had a short time left. Instead we ignored it; we were so busy growing up, we didn’t notice it was happening.

A couple of months ago we’d gathered to celebrate my father’s 50th birthday. The next morning Lauren and I were up fairly early, sitting at the breakfast table reading the Sunday papers. It then struck me that we’d somehow turned into our parents. We weren’t running around like headless chickens, fervently trying to cram in all the games we’d hoped to play that weekend, or avoiding our parents at all costs, lest they tell us it was time to go home. Instead we were having a grown up chat about politics and our ‘working’ lives and such, without so much as a mention of our coming, inevitable separation. The worst part about this was that we enjoyed it. We were doing what adults do and it felt quite pleasant. That’s when I suddenly realised “oh crap, I’m an adult now”.

I pointed this out to Lauren as soon as it hit me, and she told me something that sharpened the impact. Being the eldest of our group, I began to mature first. I had no idea what was happening, of course. To me, the childish games the other three played just didn’t interest me anymore, not like the discussions the adults were having did. I felt drawn to the older crowd now, my theory being that I was finally old enough and wise enough to understand what they were actually talking about; when I was a child, they might as well have been speaking Elvish, for all the good it did. I just felt some natural urge to hang around with the adults, and didn’t realise what was going on. Lauren and the others, however, knew instantly. Apparently after one occasion where I’d disregarded their activity ideas and chosen to join the adults, the three turned to each other and exclaimed, “oh no, Matt’s growing up.”

Growing up comes with all kinds of new perks; freedom, wisdom, maturity and others, but I think the worst of these is responsibility. Gone are the days when your life was organised by the schedule of others; now it’s all on you. As a child, I’d hate having to say goodbye to people I had no idea when I’d see again, but rested assured in the knowledge that it wasn’t my fault. I even think on more than one occasion I said “when we’re grown up, we can choose to spend ages together, not just a weekend.” Sadly, that just isn’t true, everyone has that Monday morning commitment that transforms Sunday into home-time. Unfortunately, in this adult life of freedom, choices and goodbyes, there’s only one thing we never chose to say goodbye to, yet is the only thing we can’t choose to bring back: our childhood.

We wish you a manic Christmas

This Christmas my family decided to forego the traditional stay-at-home-and-stress-out method in favour of going to a hotel for the weekend, letting other people do the work for a change. We settled on a hotel in Edinburgh, which my parents had stayed at and enjoyed previously. I was quite looking forward to the prospect, having never been to Edinburgh before, and was eager to start exploring the city.

As of writing, I’ve been here for an hour and already have enough material to write at least a page about my experiences so far. After the usual arsing around unpacking and “settling in” (I still don’t really understand how that works) I geared up and got ready for my first foray into the sights and sounds of the city. I stepped out of the hotel door, put my first eager foot forward and watched it sink into inches of brown, trampled snow. I looked ahead of me and realised I wasn’t going to walk to the Royal Mile; I was going to ski.

After a few minutes of stumbling I was approached by a straggled, haggard man with a fishing hat covered in badges (all bearing at least one profanity) and three lit cigarettes; one in each hand and one in his mouth. He asked me for change in the heaviest Scottish accent I’d ever heard; for a moment I thought he might’ve been choking on a very large marble. I gave him about 37p in change and asked him why he had three cigarettes on the go. “I can juggle them,” he boasted, and jostled into a suitable position (apparently the best stance to adopt while juggling is squatting with your feet facing opposite ways). He threw the cigarettes into the air with an “alley oop” and watched them all land in the snow with a “fucking bastards”.

I decided to carry on, and left him trying to dry his cigs by blowing on them. As I staggered onwards, I finally found my way to the Royal Mile. As if it wasn’t obvious, I soon realised this was a massive tourist spot; the streets were adorned with shops peddling kilts and shortbread and haggis and all manner of things, each with a name snatched straight from “the Big Book of Scottish Clichés”; what better to entice people to drink coffee than a big picture of Rabbie Burns? Where else would sell you top quality antiques except “Bonnie Antiquities”? And why buy kilts from a shop called “Kilts” when you could go to “McKilts”?

Fair enough, I thought. Visitors to Scotland probably do go through the motion of making puns based around Scottish stereotypes, so this kind of tat probably appeals to them. But even the most serious and dedicated shite collector would probably frown a little at a shop selling “Diana Memorial Tartan”. Yes, you read that correctly. Just for dramatic (and very disapproving) emphasis, I’ll say it slowly; Diana. Memorial. Tartan.

I carried on, only tutting a little before shaking it off and enjoying the sights again. This was when a second nutter decided to wander over and chat to me. I dug my hand into my pocket, ready to give the change he was inevitably going to ask for, but the begging never came. Instead, he said “Hey, did you vote for Gordon Broon?” I told him I’d voted for Labour in the last election, and thankfully that was enough to satisfy him. He went on to say, “we treated him like a monster, but WE were the monsters! We’re monsters for electing Davey fooking Cameron!” What happened next was one of those surreal moments I’ll never forget laughing about; he shook my hand and, in a slightly well received way, said “at least you’re a good’un.” Then he turned to the road and, as each car went past, he shouted “Monster!” as loud as he could at it.

Chuckling away, I carried on until I saw something that meant “I’ve had my fill for now, time to head back.” What stood in front of me was a place selling package walking trips around the Scottish highlands. Seems fair enough, right? Yes, that’s a great idea, the highlands are a real treat for walkers. What offended me was the name they gave to this tour service; Haggis Adventures. It was time to head back to the hotel.

I should’ve remembered my lesson from visiting London; history, tourism and maniacs all go hand-in-hand. I think the reason I find these things so fascinating is because I’m so used to the nutjobs in Manchester that I’ve become acclimatised to their ridiculousness, and I need an injection of fresh lunacy to stimulate my senses. I do have to say one thing Edinburgh has going for it over Manchester and London; the girls. Sure, they all look just like the ones you find everywhere, but at least they don’t sound like slags. For some reason, that accent is just effortlessly soothing. Hearing it is like lying in a nice, warm bath listening to Howard Shore’s music.

Speaking of which, I’m currently sat in the lobby of this rather posh hotel on Christmas Eve listening to a harpist playing Disney songs and excerpts from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. It’s very blissful, very comforting and the very thing somebody could just relax in and think about nothing at all. But all I can think of is what madness lies right around the corner for tomorrow.

One foot in the grave, the other in a cradle; maturity's new face

An ex-girlfriend of mine got married this weekend. We’re almost exactly the same age. As soon as I found out it was her wedding weekend, I broke out in a cold sweat. “Married?” I gasped. “At 22? That’s madness!”. Then I remembered a lot of people get married in their early 20s, and almost everyone did a few generations ago. So why was the prospect so daunting and alien to me?

The answer is simple; I am one of a new breed of adult male, a breed that’s rapidly increasing numbers are, or at least should be, a cause for concern. I am a manchild, and I’m scared of marriage because girls are icky.

Ok, so manchildren aren’t that bad. We’re like normal men in almost every way except for our aversion to a sense of maturity, reposnsibility and grownupiness (and as a manchild, I’m neither embarrassed nor concerned about using the word “grownupiness“). We’re the kind of blokes that think a quiet night in is getting wasted with friends and playing video games; the kind that thinks high-brow comedy is boring because there’s no farting; the kind that can’t cope with a serious relationship because they’re for ‘old people’.

I think Dylan Moran explained it best in one of his stand-up DVDs. Having explained the theatrical turbulence girls go through as they reach maturity and beyond, he sums up that a man is just “a tall child holding a beer”. He is exactly right; having looked back on my last ten years in terms of social activities and favourite hobbies, my life is exactly as it was when I was 12, aside from the inclusion of sex and beer (and, to be honest, they’re almost non-existent parts of my life at the moment).

This is obviously the fault of a technologically wondrous quality of life. As a kid, I was obsessed with technology. All the fancy features and weird devices, and the games. Oh my days, those wonderful, wonderful games! The problem was that new gadgets just kept coming, and the lovely games got bigger and better and longer. A hundred years ago children pushed a hoop with a stick. When they got older, they never carried on playing with them. The hoops didn’t become remote controlled, the sticks didn’t start playing mp3s. It was just the same old boring hoop-stick bollocks they’d put up with their entire childhood. When it was time to grow up, they must have done it gladly.

Nowadays, however, the stuff we played with as kids just keeps getting better. How could we possibly say goodbye to something that keeps getting even more awesome by the day? We can’t, so instead of striding into adulthood, we limp there, pulled down by the weight of the adolescence we’re trying to carry with us.

What we’re left with is this bizarre adult-kid hybrid of a man that looks like he’d pull off a formal suit at a gala dinner, but would rather dress up as a power ranger and go to a house party. And sadly this immaturity extends further than our interests; it affects our relationships too.

When it comes to our parents, we’re far too dependent on them. The adult in us enjoys to freedom and responsibility of being our own person, but the child in us is saying “mummy, please can I have some money to play out?” And as far as love is concerned, we act like virgin teenagers; always looking for a brief, week-long whirlwind romance where we can have fun, sleep around and then shirk all responsibility, saying “this is just a fling, I’ve got my whole life left to try and settle down”.

And so we live our lives like morons trapped in a bore’s body. We scupper our chances at emotional connections with long-term partners in favour of internet connections with co-op Halo partners. And as for my ex? Well, I feel sorry for her husband; he must have one awful case of cooties.

"Son of God died today. Crucified by Romans. FML"

Whilst eating my tea last night, I happened to catch the first ten minutes of Emmerdale, and was presented with the Dingle family having a philosophical debate about the causes of suicide. While all their hypothetical reasoning was all well and good, and surprisingly profound for their characters, they failed to mention a deliciously ironic reason - soap operas. Probably not Emmerdale, since their most depressing moment of the night was an awful actor saying "I want to die" in a very monotonous voice, not really heartstring tugging-stuff. Similarly, Coronation Street has far too much humour and normailty to be considered depressing. So yes, I'm only referring to Eastenders.

I've never been massively into Eastenders, so I can't say from personal experience that it causes depression (although the Danielle/Ronnie story moved me to writing a song about it), but I'm going to assume that when a TV show ends with an "if this story has emotionally crippled you, please call this number" message, it's a depressing show. I had heard, though it was never confirmed, that some people have genuinely attemped (and possibly succeeded in) suicide because of something that happened in Eastenders. I find it quite funny that a show set in a rough part of London is allowed to broadcast content that makes people want to kill themselves, but the characters have to call each other "pillocks" because of the timeslot.

This is why I prefer American TV shows. Take Battlestar Galactica, for instance. Everyone always brushes it off as a sci-fi show, and therefore refuses to watch it, but it's so much more than than. Almost every single character was perfectly written, the acting and scripts and backstories combined into making completely grounded and genuine humans... in space. Sure, the plot is a tad ridiculous, and there are several space battles scattered around the series, but most of the time I was watching it, I completely forgot it was a sci-fi; to me, it was a character piece.

Do you remember Martin Fowler on Eastenders? He had one facial expression, was always hoarsely shouting, thought working on a fruit stall was a suitable career and ended up getting a girl pregnant, hitting her boyfriend with a car, then marrying her. Does that sound like a believable human being to you? Now take Gaius Baltar on BSG. He was a very intelligent man who was ashamed of coming from such a poor farming background, and so pushed himself to achieve his dreams. He worked hard, but still retained a secret love for his home and his family. I don't know anyone who wants to work in a shop all their life, or has killed someone and married their girlfriend, but I do know people who have gone from zero to hero without being alienated by their newfound social status. So there we go - somewhere, lost in the ravages of space, flying around in a giant spaceship that can travel faster than the speed of light, are people more realistic than Londoners.

My only problem is that a lot of decent shows are ending, or have already ended. Actually, that's my second problem, my first problem is that I've gotten halfway through a blog entry and have no idea what I'm going to write next. I'd consider writing more on how all my favourite shows are finishing, but I doubt you'd want to read that. Yet I honestly can't think of what else to write. Isn't that just typical of this generation? What on earth am I going to discuss once the things I do discuss have finished contributing anything new to talk about? Do I repeat everything I've already said, or do I stay quiet for eternity? I think this may be touching upon the lack of originality topic from my previous blog entry; have we actually spoken about everything in the world now? Is there nothing left to talk about that hasn't already been talked about?

Of course not, I'm just being ridiculous for the sake of it to keep up with my doomsday persona. Take a look outside and you'll notice that not everything is awful, I just say these things because I, for some reason, am a lot better at complaining than I am at praising. Why do you think I keep mentioning the 2012 apocalypse? It's never going to happen, although try telling that to the fools who think it genuinely is, I just say it because I think it's a suitable plot point; if you were trying to justify why things are bad at the moment, wouldn't you blame to apocalypse as well? The point I'm trying to make, though, is that I do my best not to shove my conflicting views down others peoples' throats. Which is more than I can say for the folk at Westboro Baptist Church.

I only found out about these deplorable people recently, having been in a mass MSN conversation where people were discussing them, and came to the conclusion that Supernatural was right. I always thought these people might exist somewhere, but hoped they were just a myth. Now I know they're real, what else might be real? Ghosts? Demons? Jim Davidson? All our nightmares are coming true people, these hideous creatures are among us. Check under your bed, carry garlic with you, don't trust your neighbours. Just be prepared, lest you fall foul of these insane religious bellends without the adequate tools to fight them off with!

I actually do hate them. Their problem is that they're so determined they're right that it's utterly impossible to make them change their mind, or at least look at something from every angle. Present them with a completely logical argument that invalidates something they've stated as fact, and they'll say "Don't question the Word of God!" or something. How convenient it is to have an all-knowing, all-powerful being with a fetish for keeping secrets on your side. How on Earth are we supposed to compete with that? I'm not trying to say I abhor religion or religious people because I don't, and I'm a very spiritual person myself (though not devoted to a single religion, as such). But why are there people in this world that have to take everything so literally? The Bible is there for people to get a decent sense of morality, it's there to show people what the fundamental aspects of being a decent person are, it isn't literal, people didn't actually come back to life or have their blindness cured or get full off a tiny bit of bread and fish. It's more of a set of guidelines than actual rules; you don't see pirates discussing the literal meaning of parley, do you?

I sent a strongly worded e-mail to these people, basically taking the passages they adhere to so vehemently and explaining how they're doing the exact opposite of what these passages say, and asking them how to explain some glaring inconsistencies and hypocrisies in their statements. If they ever respond, I'll post the results onto this blog. That's if I haven't already killed myself watching Eastenders.

I'd have an original thought, but I'm too busy being [CENSORED]

Well, it looks as though Pixar is finally running out of ideas. Of the four films it's set to release within the next two years, only one, Brave, is an original idea. Everything else is a sequel; Toy Story 3, Cars 2 and Monsters Inc. 2 (the latter of which being scheduled for release in late November 2012, so close to the apocalypse!). Now, don't get me wrong, I think most of Pixar's films are utterly brilliant (aside from Finding Nemo, but don't get me started on why I hate that), but Pixar has been the driving force behind Disney's creative and original output for over ten years now. Surely it's the beginning of the end when they have to start putting out sequels because they can't think of a unique story? This means all hopes of Disney's originality rest on the new hand-drawn animated features they've promised to deliver every two years, which could kill Disney as we all remember it for good.

As soon as Disney said they were returning to their hand-drawn roots, there was an uproar of delight from my generation, the generation that grew up during the infamous Disney Renaissance. With a string of below-average box office failures under his belt, Michael Eisner knew he had to produce something spectacular to send Disney flying back to the throne they deserved. And so they produced The Little Mermaid, and the renaissance had begun. Forget the boring renaissance that started in the 14th Century, statues and paintings and the like can't hold a candle to The Lion King and Aladdin. After years of disappointment, in the space of 10 years Disney managed to prove to the world why it was so universally loved, and everything was good. But what about now?

The problem with modern day Disney is that they've forgotten who they're appealing to. Sure, the kids all love this Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana tripe they keep churning out, but that's because those kids weren't there. They have no idea how awesome Disney can be, and end up settling for this gangrenous swill because it's all they've got to go on. So our generation is left disgusted and alienated, wondering where it all went wrong. If only Disney had done more to appeal to us than fart out sub-par, direct-to-DVD sequels to all our favourite films, things might be different. They seem to forget that we're the generation that's going to produce the children watching their stuff and giving them money in the next five, ten or fifteen years. Which is probably why this animated surge has suddenly come about.

But what if it fails? What if these animated films stay to the same quality as the barely average The Princess And The Frog? We'll be even more disillusioned than before, and we certainly won't allow our kids to watch their output. "Daddy, can I watch the Disney channel?" "WHAT? And put me through the ordeal of watching High School Musical 15? I think not! I'd rather spread Marmite all over my eyeballs!" (This example doesn't have the same effect if you like Marmite, so 50% of you will, statistically, 'not get it') Disney are playing a risky game here, with everything to gain and even more to lose. But if it works out, things might be just as good as they ever were! Which is something I can't say the same about for other well-loved animated productions...

South Park's 200th episode was a great episode, but I also hated it immensely. Going into it, I knew they were going to refer a lot to their glorious back catalogue of hilarious and offensive episodes, but it just turned out looking like a massive ego-stroking session. Matt and Trey have every idea how brilliant their show is, so they shamelessly filled this episode with references to older episodes, most of which had no bearing on the plot, they were just time fillers, which really annoyed the fans. The episode itself was great, but what we wanted was an original story with various significant call-backs justified by the plot. Instead we were given a story quite clearly scrapped together in two minutes, loosely referred to in a two-episode long clip-show of all their favourite South Park moments.

The main background to the episode was clearly the creators doing their best to not-so-subtly voice their opinions on free speech and censorship, while offending as many Muslims as possible for good measure. Well done guys, but I'm quite sure your opinions were pretty well interpreted during the Cartoon Wars episodes - you don't think this should be a 'one rule for one, another rule for another' world. I'm inclined to agree with them though, the free speech in this world is ridiculous. Apparently it's ok for South Park to show Buddha snorting coke or Jesus looking at porn, but we must avoid showing Mohammed at all costs, lest the Muslims bomb us! Just because various extremist (I can't emphasise that word enough) Muslim groups have acted violently towards the West doesn't mean they're all like that. And I'm quite sure the Crusades proved that Christians can be rather violent if they want to be.

I hate to use the phrase "it's political correctness gone mad", but I just have. The problem is it's not the political correctness of the common people that's the problem, it's the executives, all sat in their shiny offices, wearing suits more expensive than my house and trying to control the world. Sure, they'll let us make fun of Buddhists and Christians because they can take it and won't do anything about it, except maybe write a strongly worded letter. But watch out lads! Don't piss off the 'Muzzos', because they're all super violent, yeah? And they'll, like, totally blow us up, man! And that's, like, totally bad for business!

So yes, I agree with Matt and Trey about their message about censorship, but it doesn't make the 200th episode any better because they just repeated the exact same message they made in Cartoon Wars, except taking it to a higher and grander level. Even jokes were reused again and again, signifying that maybe Parker and Stone have run out of ideas as well. Is this what the "impending" 2012 apocalypse is all about? Are we all going to run out of original thoughts until we end up repeating history itself, causing the world to get confused as to what year it is and implode? Or perhaps will the multitude of offended Muslims kill us all for taking things "too far"?

I'll tell you one thing though; if the world is going to end in December 2012, Monster's Inc. 2 had better be good. I don't want to die disappointed.

Street dancer? We'd settle for street sweeper, thanks

It may come as a shock to you, but this is the first time I've written to this blog for quite some time. I'm not entirely sure why either; since I graduated from University, I've basically been sitting around on the sofa of unemployment, looking under the cushions of the internet to see if there are any jobs there. Surely I'd have been able to take the time out from visiting nonsense websites to write a blog entry or two? Just spared a few minutes of my day formulating ideas and noting what I want to talk about? (Well, perhaps not that, I tend to walk into these things blind and make it up as I go along). But that's not what unemployment is all about!

When I was at school and university, I somehow managed to keep up to date with all of my digital exploits. I'm sure old friends of mine will remember the rapidity of my Bebo blogging. Well, all that changes when you're left with nothing to do. If you're a busy bee, it's probably because you add a lot more things to your plate that don't actually need doing. On the opposite end of the scale, when you have nothing to do you tend to keep it that way. A few weeks ago I stayed up for 24 hours just so I could see what a clock looked like at every time of the day; it's just that damn bad. But how can we counter this? How can we snatch just a snippet of focus from a completely disorganised day? I don't think we can, to be honest.

I obviously blame the internet. There's so much out there! With a few choice buzzwords and a couple of clicks, you could find your way to doing anything. Write a blog? Go for it. Put videos on YouTube? Get stuck in. Learn how to defuse a bomb? Sure, if that's what you want. With such a wealth of information at your fingertips, it's impossible to not find something to do. But it's because there's so much to do that you end up doing nothing. One flashy advert can be the difference between doing what you came to do and doing sod all because something else caught your attention. Last week I went online to discover the name of an actor I'd just seen on TV. Somehow that led me to researching to execution of the Russian royal family two hours later. Don't ask me how I got from A to B, because I have absolutely no idea.

The browsers are to blame! Life would be so much better if you could only ever have one window or tab open at any one time, because then you can't open something that arouses your interest to look at later, you have to focus on what you're doing. I don't know how many of you have ever visited the website TV Tropes, but I ended up wasting more hours than I care to admit on that bastard, with my peak "new window" quota reaching around 20, each with about 5 tabs open. That's a lot of useless information to waste your time with, even when that time would otherwise be spent trying to discover new ways of scratching yourself without having to move from a comfortable position.

If that wasn't bad enough, now that the world and his wife is on Facebook and Twitter, the chances of doing something worthwhile with your day are safely tucked away in the cupboard under the stairs, right next to your first bike and all your Christmas decorations. Why on earth would I want to exert myself mentally and physically and do something that could be really beneficial to me, when I could be reading about what Stephen Fry had for breakfast? Ok, bad example, it's impossible to relate Stephen Fry to anything negative, but my point remains; we've become a culture of inane layabouts who are far too obsessed with the lives of other people. We sit around watching television programs about successful people, then get jealous of them because we wish we were successful ourselves. Then the moment passes, and we all shuffle off to the toilet during the adverts before cracking open another packet of Monster Munch. Britain's Got Talent started again last week. What fun it is to watch people doing whatever they can to live their dreams! Such hilarious exploits! I'm so glad I chose to stay indoors on a Saturday night following a long week of 9-5 grinding, rather than being one of those losers, having fun and doing a job they enjoy! Idiots!

Trying to put sarcasm aside, which is quite difficult for me, I really am concerned with the state of underachievers in this country. Obviously there are people out there who could be fantastic at what they do, they just don't have the drive to do it anymore. We've become so used to laughing at people who try to reach the stars that we're terrified of doing it ourselves, lest we get laughed at as well. I was on an employability training course last week, and I got a real insight into my generation. So many of us, me included, had a dream, a single goal or perfect career that we'd love to get into. But when asked what job we'd go for, we practically said we'd settle for anything. The trainers then gave us a moderately hard kick up the backside and drummed the message into our heads; if there's something you absolutely want to do, no matter what, then just go for it. Try your best to get there and your hard work could very well pay off! And I completely agree, people should do what it is they want to do. Otherwise there's no point being alive at all!

The motivational speaker who came to talk to us last Thursday said "if you always do what you always did, then you'll always get what you always got." I'd offer an explanation as to what on earth that means, but I have to go; there's something good on TV in a minute.