Gutter Town

The good stuff goes in the gutters.

[gutter-town]

The Last Fanboy

From an Objective Position: Star Wars Episode 8 - The Last Jedi was a good movie. It followed consist narrative beats, and told a well rounded story with likable characters.

From a Subjective Position: Star Wars Episode 8 - The Last Jedi was a travesty that divided the fan-base and wrecked havoc on previously established continuity.

And

I can fix the franchise with one word. A staple of the series for decades and one that highlights everything both right and wrong with Star Wars all at once. 

That word is: Clones.

Long before Star Wars Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones, cloning was an integral part of the expanded universe, as far back as the original Thrawn trilogy. Characters like Joruus C’baoth, and Luuke Skywalker existed to prove that copies of persons with varying experiences can become very different from their original counterparts. The Dark Empire Saga brought Emperor Palpatine back from the dead using clone bodies, and then, of course, Episode 2 introduced entire clone armies. The best episodes of the Clone Wars TV show were about these troopers on personal journeys of self discovery.

How does this fix the franchise, you may be asking? Well, with Ryan Johnson’s film claiming that backgrounds for Snoke, and Rey would be worthless, and we should “kill the past,” then let’s. But, thinking back to the scene where Rey encounters endless mirrors of herself, we can speculate her origins to be that of a clone. A female copy of Anakin Skywalker. Snoke could also be a clone of Darth Plagueis. He doesn’t have to be the real deal. Just a copy.

I feel this says a lot more than just having no explanations other than the force trying to balance itself. Star Wars isn’t tired, no one simply knows where to take it.

[gutter-town]

The 2nd Age of Enlightenment

Have you heard of Universal Basic Income and what do you think of it? I believe that it is going to become an inevitable necessity as industry becomes increasingly automated. Elon Musk said as much recently in an interview at the world government summit. Studies have shown that UBIs and raises in the minimum wage actually increase productivity and spending, boosting economies. The idea that these things raise price brackets or decrease worker productivity are stories invented to keep the majority of wealth in the hands of a select few. That’s what the economy has become as a whole: a story we tell ourselves. 

When someone has a skill, what is the first thing we usually ask that person: How are you going to capitalize on this? We measure success on financial gain. That’s the story that’s engraved into our society and it’s kept that way to maintain the status quo. It won’t be viable for much longer though. As technology continues to fulfill our basic needs, work is going to become harder and harder to find until we’ll have no choice but to implement a UBI if only to avoid anarchy.

Once we accept this and adopt a system of universal basic income, how will we measure success? Financial gain has always been humanity’s primary motivator because money is fundamental to survival, making greed essential to living and breeding competitiveness into our children, infusing hatred into the deepest parts of our collective unconscious, so deep we either didn’t know it was there or simply refused to acknowledge it (and the many who did recognize the truth, used that knowledge for their own personal ends). I think that this coming change can be sensed and this is why we are seeing such a drastic backlash in the form of men like Donald Trump. The last of the old guard attempting to assert themselves before humanity moves on. The fever trying to burn out the infection before the body recovers.

Eventually, wealth will not be the end all be all of life and something will take its place but what will it be? I hope that the new question asked when someone displays an innate skill or ability will not be: How will you capitalize on this but will instead become: How will this enlighten you. How will this bring you enlightenment and how can you share that enlightenment with others? This is a future that I will admit I sorely desire but I also believe it is necessary and possibly inevitable for humanity’s evolution.

To summarize: Universal Basic Income will become necessary because of the efficiency of automation. The implementation of UBI will alter how we prioritize things in our lives. Money will be less important and how we replace the almighty dollar in the cultural imagination will end up guiding humanity to its ultimate destiny. If we hope to make that fate one of brightness/goodness/wonderment/I don’t know but a desirable one, then we need to replace capitalizing with enlightening. What it means to be enlightened is a topic for another day... or perhaps we’ve already covered it?

[i-create-myself]

Doctor, I let you go.

[gutter-town]

In the end, he knew himself... and he gave his next self all she would ever need to know... 

[dearscriptwriters]

Critics.

Dear Aspiring Scriptwriters,

Don’t let critics get you down, ever. The best, most thorough critic in the world will not spend 1/10th the amount of time on a project as the people involved did. They have no idea how much work it took.

The only critic you should listen to is yourself. You know where you can improve, you know where you fell short this time, because you were there. Screw the rest.

Sincerely,

Dan

[gutter-town]

Don't write for them. Write for you. The story is your reward. Whatever feedback you get is secondary to enjoying experiencing one of your ideas come alive. 

[gutter-town]

You are Your own Worst Enemy

The Doctor is the main character of the long running Sci-Fi BBC television show: Doctor Who. He (now she) is, at least, two thousand years old and galavants about time and space saving whole worlds using nothing but his genius intellect and clever wits. Yet, even a being as brilliant and ancient as the Doctor doesn’t completely know himself.

When inflicted with a mortal wound, the Doctor’s species (the Timelords) have a biological trait called regeneration that heals them and transforms their entire body into a new form. Its a handy little writers trick that has been used to keep the show fresh and allow the actor playing the title character to exit the role without killing the series. In universe, however, it has presented some interesting challenges to the Doctor’s psychology.

The 12th Doctor was played by Scottish actor Peter Capaldi. This presented a unique situation for continuity as Capaldi had already appeared in the series twice before as two separate characters. Then show runner, Steven Moffat promised that this error would receive an explanation in the story. The resulting answer shed a light not only on the psyche of the Doctor but also on the unconscious depths of our own minds.

The Doctor comes to the realization (in episode five of series nine: The Girl who Died) that his subconscious chose his current face as a reminder that he should save people even when its against the rules. This harkens back to the Fires of Pompeii (episode two of series four) when the 10th Doctor (played by fan favourite, David Tennant) saved the family of Caecilius (played by Capaldi who later became the 12th Doctor) even though the eruption of Vesuvius was a fixed point in time.

The struggle to discover his identity is integral to the 12th Doctor’s arc, arguably more so than any other incarnation before him. The mystery behind the meaning of his reoccurring face is one the Doctor unknowingly plants for himself and it takes him a season and a half to uncover. What this demonstrates  is that even the Doctor, a seemingly immortal, infinitely clever demigod (for lack of a better term) still does not know himself and requires subliminal prompts to stay on the right path.

So what chance do you have?

If a being as powerful as the Doctor doesn’t understand his own mind then how can you? How can any of us? Our brains have evolved over several millennia and we’re only just beginning to learn how our innermost thoughts affect our behaviour. The Timelords are (fictionally) the oldest beings in the universe and even they didn’t understand themselves or their actions. The Doctor required subconscious messages from himself in order to grasp his identity and the message was to do good but most of us aren’t that lucky.

Our behaviour is influenced (maybe even controlled) by desires and impulses that reach back into the furthest depths of our consciousness and originate from times unknown. You may believe you know the reasons why you’re doing something but the truth is you haven’t the slightest idea! The Doctor may be fictional but there is a reason why we write him so complex. Its because WE are so complex!

So examine yourself. Reassess, because the next time you believe you’re in the right, you may actually be acting as you’re own worst enemy.

[gutter-town]

You should know that I think your opinions are fantastic

That means a lot, thank you :) Would you mind if I asked how you stumbled across my little town?

[gutter-town]

Check out my new show! This is a talkshow straight out of Gutter Town :)

[gutter-town]

The Star Trekkian Paradox

What is God? To hear my uncle define it: God is inconceivable infinity. We are finite mortals and can’t conceive of the infinite. However, I believe I have something on my person that is infinite and that is: my imagination. It can and has constructed entire civilizations in my mind. Who is to say then that I am not a god? Perhaps my worlds exist in some other dimensional plane for me to do with as I please? 

Never mind that all humans are simply brains and brainstems and we probably created the idea of God ourselves because we evolved to ask the question of greater existence. Never mind the fact that humanity must have constructed the concept of God to make ourselves sleep better at night to soothe our fragile minds into thinking we are either protected, not alone or purposeful. Never mind that because my father informs me that my imagination is not infinite and is informed by my experiences. Fair enough but think of how far we have come!

Our stories, myths and legends continue to become more sophisticated. Television, movies and books show me other universes and tell me of grand places where all of time exist at once. In this manner, I have seen to the ends of existence. I have walked through the rolling valleys of possibility and I have climbed to the very peaks of space itself. I do so even as I type these words. I imagine the great epochs of society on the distant moons of our future empire.

Science fiction, fantasy and speculation have given way to eras of actualization. Star Trek depicts a utopia where monetary value has been done away with and self betterment is the new currency. We can dream of futures such as these but we have not figured that we can make them a reality. This is the paradox. Dreams and reality no longer have to be separated. I sit at my laptop with the greatest concern of my life being how will I earn enough money to support myself. This, in and of itself, is a crime.

There is no one god.

We are all gods.

Its time we started acting like it.

[gutter-town]

The Bridge of Sorry

Why do we say, “I’m sorry?” To express regret sure but then why do so many people say “I’m sorry,” when the fault so clearly does not lay with them? Perhaps they are simply being kind but what good does that do for someone who has been wronged? In theory, only the person who possesses blame can alleviate the afflicted wound with their regret. This is why so many people seek revenge on those that have done them harm. What, then, does sorry do?

When I tell you, “I’m sorry,” it is less for you and more for me. I’m not sorry I did this to you, I can’t be. I didn’t do this to you. “I’m sorry this happened to you.” It allows me to empathize with you. “I’m sorry,” creates a bridge between my soul and yours. It is so much more than regret. It creates a fundamental link between my heart and yours. It lets you know that I feel your pain and that you are not alone in it.

Regardless if the blame is yours. Sorry does not steal your power and make you weak. Sorry is the most powerful phrase of all. It lets another person know they are not drowning in a sea of their own negativity.

Sorry lets them know... I’m here.

[gutter-town]

Choices

We do almost anything to defer them. In lands where we want for very little, choices are the greatest demons of all. We no longer have to fight to live so how we choose to live becomes our greatest dilemma. Will we make the right choice and what happens if we don’t? Will we disappoint ourselves or our loved ones? Will we be happy or will we find anger, despair, or guilt over the consequences?

This reality is yours and you should be proud of it regardless of what falls into it because it belongs to you and only you. Sadness, hatred and shame are powerful pieces of a multifaceted and beautiful existence. Do not shun their coming, rejoice in their feeling! They are a gorgeous aspect of living that only serve to compliment positivity.

The next time a choice comes around, do not shy away in fear of the repercussions, look forward to them! If your choice has aftermath, be glad you have made a change in the world no matter what it is. There are no wrong answers. There are no wrong choices.

Every difference you make is beautiful.

[gutter-town]

Geared Evolution

What is the greatest problem facing humanity today? I am more than interested in improving the lives of the lower classes but what is at the core of every problem facing humanity? We don't understand ourselves. Our personal and interpersonal lives are a mess. I believe this is because we haven't changed in thousands of years. Despite all our technological progress, we still repeat history and humanity as a whole has not learned from its mistakes. 

For example: Trump is not new. He's new for our generation but not for history. He is Julius Caesar and every other horrible emperor (Nero, Caligula) all rolled into one. Even killing Trump would not cure us of his stupidity. Brutus and Cassius believed they would free the republic by executing their friend when all they did was make him a martyr and created a power vacuum for Caesar's throne. There are inherent flaws in humanity that we must overcome and it is becoming more apparent everyday. 

Have you noticed an increase in global self awareness recently? The world is finally starting to ask itself collective questions of morality and purpose. Its why there has been a growing divide amongst the population. Those who are noticing that the world is changing and those who are afraid. Eventually the entire planet is going to come to grips with itself and ask the question: What now? That's where we come in. 

Human beings have evolved mentally further than any other creature we have come across. Its why we run the planet. We exist within our Frontal Lobes (the newest evolutionarily developed part of the brain that holds our consciousness). The more intelligent the creature, the larger and more uncommitted are the areas of the frontal cortex. The Limbic system and the further back, older parts of our brains (that hold memories, deal with emotions and motor controls) send impulses up to our frontal lobes informing us about how we feel and how we should act.  

Lets say you and I are having a fight and you call me a bad name. My amygdala is going to fire neurons that inform my frontal lobe to be offended and pissed off based on memories and experiences and primal emotions. My frontal lobe, with its vast uncommitted space is going to interpret these impulses and roll with them, even though I might know better and despite the fact that it will further dampen our relationship. I will be unaware of how my brain has acted for me and will simply act against my best interest.

Now, what if we could commit those areas of the frontal lobe to interpret the signals from the rest of the brain for us. Give ourselves a little self awareness that will secure people with their own minds? I believe that education from a young age about our brains, the way they work and how they will develop would begin a process of geared evolution slowly. Children need to know that their egos are going to give them strength and also hinder them throughout life. They need to be aware that it is not useless to develop their inner self. 

Today's society puts so much emphasis on personal ego (as it is generally what the rest of the world sees when they look at you. Think of ego like armour, it protects you but it also fights and keeps people out) that it unintentionally condemns the self (and in doing so, personal identity. The ability to define yourself.) If we can teach these things at young age then perhaps our brains will evolve on their own. I mean that's what evolution does right? We adapt to survive. Well I think this is one adaptation that the world is going to need extremely soon. 

[gutter-town]

y'all play D&D

who don’t play D&D? I sure do.

[gutter-town]

Stories From The Skirmish

Overwatch is the greatest game of all time. If Blizzard continues to supply additional free content then I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. The gameplay is timeless and there are enough characters to keep the game eternally fresh. (If you’re reading this after Blizzcon 2017 then I hope you’re even aware of more free content in the form of a 26th playable character!!!)

But I’m not writing today about how good the gameplay is or how diverse the characters are or how much I wish Soldier 76 was my father (I can dream!). No, today I am writing about the most interesting, varied, complex, and thought provoking part of the game: the skirmishes.

Frustrating? Perhaps. Tedious. Undoubtably. But you can’t tell me, if you play Overwatch, you haven’t had some fascinating encounters in Skirmish mode. With no set game mode or objectives, the skirmish is basically a glorified waiting room. For those of you that don’t know, Overwatch is a purely multiplayer game so while you’re waiting to join a game, often you have the option to drop into a skirmish and hang out until a game becomes available. This is where the fun begins:

Players here often enjoy themselves by showing off their sprays, emotes, voice lines and also killing each other (though I personally frown upon such behaviour). My most memorable experiences from Overwatch are interactions with enemy players in the skirmish. There’s just something so entertaining about sharing quality time with characters that I am supposed to be violently murdering. Perhaps its the alternative to violence that I find so appealing or the creative ways we find to communicate with one another while we’re limited by character interactions. 

Though, if I’m being honest, one of my favourite skirmish moments never even happened. Its a brainchild of mine that I combined from an experience I had while playing Berserk and the Band of the Hawk:

I load into a skirmish as Soldier 76 (my go to papa-bear) and I quickly find an enemy Lucio who I befriend. We interact through our sprays, show each other our emotes, sit together, shoot some stuff and then the Lucio begins to run away. I follow him back to his spawn point and then he starts acting erratically. I begin to get frightened but I trust my new friend. He begins circling me, making me quite nervous and then he attempts to boop me off the edge. I make it out of the way in time but he won't let up. Now he’s actively trying to kill me! I scream at the television, “NO! We’re friends! Why are you doing this?” but he still won’t let up. He’s beginning to drain my health but I refuse to fight back. “Please, don’t make me do this!” I shout to no avail and my finger finds its way to the right trigger. I kill him in self defence. I am awash with shame. Why must we be driven by our darker impulses? We were having a good time, laughing (or at least I was with the Soldier laughing emote) and sharing and then everything went wrong. Did I do something wrong? Did he become tired of me or was the whole thing a ruse to try and push me off the edge from the beginning? I wish to ponder on the event more, to indulge in personal introspection. This has already been an exciting skirmish and I am ready for a game but before I can think another thought, the Lucio respawns. I am speechless. He skates over to me like nothing happened and says, “hello.” I am unsure what to do let alone how to feel. Do I return the favour in one sense... or another? I access my communications menu and then another Lucio emerges from the spawn point... and then another... and another... and another... more than I could ever count all yelling their voice lines and performing their emotes. Then... they attack and I shoot like my life depends on it. In a way it does. I drop one Lucio, two, three, four, five, six. My ultimate attack is built and I use it. Tactical visor fires at Lucios  uninterrupted as the screen fills with nothing but green pixels. I can’t see anything but dying DJs and the game can’t load more than one death animation for him at a time. The repetition destroys my senses as my ears are filled with overlapping sounds of death. The speakers on the tv are drowning in Johnny Cruz’s (Lucio’s real life voice actor) “agh’s,” and “ugh’s,” over and over again until the reverberations are harmonic and melodic. For one single moment, I am caught in a symphony of death, rebirth, life, art, afterlife and colour...

And then my game loads.

It doesn’t matter to me that this moment never actually happened because it does for me everyday. Possibility is life’s great mystery and sometimes the greatest moments we have come from the places we least expect them.

[disneystheweekenders]

Some Ms. Tonitini awesomeness for your dashboard!

[gutter-town]

This is what I’m talking about. Did nobody listen when they were younger? Well its never too late. Here’s Ms. Tonitini to lay out life... Although she did get divorced so I guess we all got problems.

[gutter-town]

Relativism

How do we define ourselves and our self worth? We do it in relation to other things that we perceive as important. Civil institutions, peers and, of course, parents. What they say is important and that’s what we internalize as important. This is why there are people who value immoral things like racial superiority. They define themselves in relation to their parents ideals or their society's ideals (in the case of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Trump’s America).

I used to wonder as child why people didn’t pick up on the lessons taught by television programming. Shows like Recess and The Weekenders had morals that instructed me on how to be a better friend. Characters like TJ Detweiler and Tino Tonitini learned important lessons in the span of a twenty minute episode that made them better people. Lessons on self sacrifice, equality and the power of friendship but when I would venture out into the real world, I would find that other people hadn’t learned those lessons. They may have watched the very same shows that I did but they hadn’t learned. Why? Why was my viewing experience different from theres’?

Relativism. Those lessons weren’t important to the figures in which they related themselves. An ignorant and racist father is not going to care what lessons his child was being taught by television so why should his children? They define their self worth based on his acceptance of them.

We need to broaden our range of relation. Defining yourself based on one person or institution is going to sorely limit you and hurt you in the long run. You will never get the acceptance you so desperately seek if you look for it in one place because that one place defines itself based on something else and so forth. My father defines himself based on his relation to the legal system. The legal system defines itself based on its relation to government. Government defines itself based on its relation to... god?... the people? Who knows. This is the problem.

Next time you wish to define yourself, do so to everything. Feel connected to everything. Relate to everything no matter how ridiculous. Learn from everything and in so doing, you will begin to learn about yourself.

[gutter-town]

The Other

Why must we hate others? When someone takes issue with you for your skin colour, weight, gender, sexual orientation or simply your actions, is their grievance really with you? Even if you have directly harmed the other, what is it that is really causing them distress? 

It is your reactions, your mental interpretations and your emotions that dictate your responses but it is easier and perhaps more cathartic to blame other humans. It makes us feel more secure in ourselves that we are not like those who are different (worse) than us. We have often demonized entire cultures of peoples throughout history in order to justify our own existences.

But this is an old way of thinking. All humans are essentially the same with differing genetic codes and experiences. We all feel the same powerful and motivating feelings and thinking of humans as any different should no longer be acceptable. Hurting others can no longer be tolerated.

We may need an other to demonize on occasion however. History has also shown us that the idea of an other enemy can be incredibly motivating as with the United States space race with the Soviet Union that took humanity to the moon. This is perhaps the greatest achievement of our species and it was achieved through rivalry. So what are we to do?

Why can’t death be the enemy? Why can’t we be trying to beat death? Each person feels the call of the void behind our eyes. It screams all the negativity in the world into our ears. It creates unreal expectations and causes friction between us and our loved ones and generally destroys lives, all because we desire perfect experiences during our short time on this side of the vale. That is the true enemy.

All life is awesome. Where their is life, there is the potential for greatness. Each of us is capable of incredible feats. This is why every human is deserving of respect, praise and even worship. We are the living and together we can hate the dead. We can despise our flaws even as we accept them because we know that we can overcome them. We can use our time before we give in to the eternal sleep to realize the full extent of our waking selves, to love those who are the same as us and to seek out new forms of being, on this world and those far away.

Perhaps that is all we need to know. Maybe the great enemy we need to loathe in order to fuel ourselves has been with us all along, waiting for us to fail but, as Beric Dondarrion says, “We won’t find much joy while we’re here but we can keep others alive.” 

“Death is the enemy, the first enemy and the last. The enemy always wins but we still have to fight him and maybe that’s enough.”

We can come together over our despise of the great other: death and maybe... that’s enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DcAbD0_H3k

[gutter-town]

We’re all Actors.

How many people do you interact with in a day? Do you tell your life story to each one? No. We select and choose our behaviour carefully for all the others we see. We play different roles for different people.

We’re all Oscar worthy actors and almost no one realizes it. There is a world of thoughts, feelings and desires within each of us but we so rarely show that to the rest of humanity.

This is our self and it is responsible for our trusting nature, our imaginations and our playfulness. What we show to others is our ego. The ego is versatile and interacts with others for us. The self is fragile so the ego acts like a shield, putting up a defence and acting for the rest of society, filling roles and entertaining.

We interact with our egos on a daily basis but it is our self that contains our true emotions and we often confuse our feelings between our selfs and our egos. This is when we get angry or sad for no apparent reason. You see, our society puts much more emphasis on our egos than our selfs because that is what everyone else sees most often.

Our society is fake, just like our egos. They’re fronts, played upon the world’s stage but they’re hollow. We suppress the self because we believe it to be useless in a world of acting, of egos.

This is why spending time with family members can feel like the hardest work while a strenuous job can feel like play. The places where we use our egos cause us the most stress because true emotions come from the self.

The ego is the greatest acting device there is because it can imitate or take on any role demanded of it. It makes the world turn but this neglect of the self is what is dividing and hurting us. This is where being yourself comes from. It may be scary and leave you vulnerable but using the self will satisfy you more than the ego ever will.

Try using your self the next time you think you must use your ego. Work doesn’t need to feel like work. If we use the self about our world and balance the scales between ego and self then work will begin to feel less demanding. For those who employ their selfs when others typically use their egos, work… becomes play.