nodak

life is good. it's difficult, but good. I just watched A Clockwork Orange. I thought it was good. the language in the movie was a bit difficult to pick up, but the general themes and conflict resonated clearly. i think it's really an interesting thing - to see what you feel when the protagonist is commiting vile acts with his gang, to when he goes to jail and then the treatment, to the heartbreak he experiences at home, to the retribution he experiences with his friends and the beggar on the street and finally the writer who's wife passed away.

I was rather disgusted with the acts, but the way the music in the movie was playing, it was weird how they came to my brain. It was almost comical when he killed the cat lady with a giant penis. It was also pretty clear that it was from the 70's with the cinematogrophy at that moment. I was expecting the treatment to be a lot more disturbing, but nothing really moved me that terribly. Group rape is something that really infuriates me, but even while I watched the movie I wasn't overly disgusted to where I needed to turn the movie off when seeing that. It really questions my own morals and standards, that if I'm able to view something that awful and not be significantly moved, am I numb to the awful inevitabilities of our society? One way or another, if anyone rapes someone female that I'm related to, know, or see, that person will probably die by my hand. In many ways it's equivalent to homocide.

when the protagonist experiences the retributive justice for his earlier acts, I felt compensated, in a way. I wanted him to go through what he put others through. yet this feeling causes me to question that type of teleology with me. if my system demands that every person experiences what they give to others, would I really want what I give out? I think I would, since I generally am pretty happy and try to add fun and life to conversation and situation, but at the same time, I do ignore the homeless from time to time, I get angry and stereotype people and box them in when they do things that appear cruel or bad to me. I'm spoiled, rich, white upper-class, and so I really couldn't tell you what's it like to be a bi-racial, homosexual jew with no money.

People being born in different situations also give rise to retributive justice reconsideration. For if we are born with inalienable rights, as Mr John Locke claims and which I agree, then perhaps the burden for correcting this injustice falls on my shoulders. Yet what I do to help? I support a little girl in Africa, and she writes me the cutest letters ever, which are written out to Regan Jordan Patrick because my name probably comes like that (Regan, Jordan Patrick). But what does this do? Maybe a lot. Maybe nothing at all.

My current plan is to become an I-banker, rape the American economy for all the money I can get, and fly planes over Africa, India, and Western China and Indonesia with food, water, and SCIENCE

its breathing

and it happens so consistently