Major Choices In Life In A Nutshell

What is Brendan Eich?

Nearly everyone has heard of how Brendan Eich, Mozilla's former CEO, stepped down because of a scandal around his contribution to an organization that sought to ban gay marriage. Conservatives and liberals have been engaging in heated debates on this matter and this post isn't to determine who's right or who's wrong. What it is meant to discover is the phenomenon itself.

The interpretations I've encountered are:

#1: Opposing liberals meant that Eich made a strategically wrong step. Admitting to failure, he decided to step down.

#2: His personal standpoint went against the very mission of Mozilla, which was not creating profit but spreading openness, freedom and such with a diverse community.

These arguments. however, don't directly lead to the actual consequences. The reasons why these are misleading, inaccurate arguments are:

#1: Even though in politics and everyday life we all try to bring our own views to victory, a liberal couldn't oppose Eich. A liberal answer to his donation would have been nothing but total respect. That is because such a reply would be in favor of diversity, although all-inclusive includes the ones, who don't agree even with inclusiveness. There are many forms of liberalism but none of them would scold Eich's contribution to that organization. In summary, he couldn't oppose liberalism in a way that would lead liberalism away.

#2: Brendan Eich made his contribution as an independent individual, back in 2008. Now he spoke against everything that could oppose the gay society. He realized that holding up such views would definitely infringe Mozilla's mission. Still, his altered position promoted diversity. One could say that he is responsible for the collectivity of his actions but he actually faced this past act of his, trying to make it fit to the company's mission. Opposing Eich would actually mean failing this mission because at least toward him they close their imaginary gates and would exclude him.

What I'm trying to articulate is that there cannot be any idealistic reason to support his stepping down. On what grounds do many support it then?

(Before making my thesis, I want to note, once more that I'm not saying Eich was right or wrong when donating to the anti-gay organization, neither the same about his stepping down. Now back to the point...)

What this case tells us is that though people sympathize with liberalism or communitarianism or anything else, most of them don't actually belong to them. Eich's opposition (the kind, which doesn't only have a different view but instead is actively against him/agrees with his resignation) doesn't consist of liberals or any other group of idealists, instead of people, who may sympathize with them but they themselves are essentially different.

Carl Schmitt wrote that the main function of politics is to distinguish between friend and enemy. Schmitt wasn't a liberal--more importantly he wasn't an idealist but a realist.

Eich's opposition makes an enemy out of him. They called on Mozilla users to uninstall their browser and stop using their products. They took up a fight against him with smart methods, ones, which were enough to make the continuation of his being a CEO impossible. 

It's not a question whether or not Eich was right but whether or not he is a friend to us. Not a liberal community opposed him but rather a realist one that, at best, only serves a liberal community. They can sympathize with liberals but they can't be them.

The reason why I thought this whole matter important to see is that it's not the age of idealism any more. Of course I can't deal an absolute in regards of this because the political sphere is very mixed and while there are realists in it, we can just as easily name another huge group of idealists. My ultimate point is that this presently emerging trend is, contrary to popular statements, not liberalism, or any other form of idealism but realism instead, where one can't rely on rights or morals, only on the inclinations of those, possessing power.

The right answer is always figured out early on, when it isn't, it means, that you are not ready to know it.

Converting friendship to love (?)

Today I had a very inspiring conversation about love. Someone asked me if my falling in love with my girlfriend was instantaneous. To give a sufficient answer, I had to start from a couple years ago.

In the first years of highschool I had a girlfriend, then we broke up. Then I was attracted to a girl I didn't actually know. It was a very mindless and surprisingly pricey crush/relationship, anyways hard to define and completely irrelevant... I had all these, while my girlfriend and I were only friends.

My experience was, that love is a relationship, where you can't fully trust the other, you have to provide, where feelings are forged and you can't be honest about it, where you kind of get all used-out for a made-up ideal, which doesn't even exist in real life. With this sad and depressing concept I often pictured myself lonely in the future.

HOWEVER, and this however is, I suppose, one of the most important howevers in my entire life, I had a very great friend. She was my secret's keeper, someone, who understood me and whom I understood just as much. She was the most important person to me and I was 100% aware of this but considering what Iknewabout love, I figured it's the best to be friends and not even the slightest bit lovers...

After a long and fruitful friendship, and some disappointing experiences with other girls, the big, romantic turn occured. We (I mean my girlfriend and I (of course)), went to a big christian youth conference, where there was a seminar about how we relate to the people. The preacher said, that we should inspect our lives and find the leaks on our relationships and go and try to mend them. My first thought was a girl I was very keen on getting to fall in love with me, who would've thought... BUT a little later that night, I realised how twisted my life was and more importantly my relationships. And then I started to have faith in love, where you care, you respect, you can be honest, and most of all, you finally are whole.

There was one person, who I felt all this with. And it wasn't and still isn't just some mindless emotional stuff. This is a wonderful, deep and meaningful relationship. It takes you to places you never thought existed. You feel its stunning heights and the somehow hopeful depths. It isn't contrary. It's honest and clean. It makes you balanced and your life seems to finally get on the right track.

I'm in love. Not in the blinded, naiv kind. It's true love and sometimes it comes along with troubles, no doubt, but it feels just right. I'm grateful for my wonderful Girlfriend. Whenever I look at her, or listen to her or just simply think of her, I know, that this is where I belong. She gives me that feeling, that I'm finally home.

I could write houndreds of books about my remaining thoughts on love but this is a piece, which I felt like sharing...

A truly brilliant argument has been made here about the importance of representing diversity. All the points that have been made are understandable and more than that, they are deeply rooted in the world of morals. Once again, this is brilliant.

On the contrary, it is a wrong reply. Of course diversity needs to be represented and of course writers better think outside of the box. But to, and I quote, "call bullshit on whining about diversity", is aggression.

Taking up a fight against oppression and mis-/underrepresentation is a noble quest. However, when you put pressure on an amateur writer, in order to make them write differently because of the lack of POC or LGBTQ or other similar groups in their own work of fiction, you are, in a way using coercion. You use your authority without respect toward the person in question.

Writing fiction grants people absolute creative freedom. It gives them nonetheless when they start producing mistakes. A mistake can be in the nature of grammar or plot but it can also manifest in leaving out the diversity of our world from their fictional one. It will, in all probability, result in simply not getting published, or even if they get that far, not receiving a lot of praise.

Tolkien's work is criticized often because it is stereotypical. It originally meant that good characters remained good ones and bad ones remained bad. Contemporaries like to call it stereotypical because it involves no POC and such. However, Tolkien did not as far as consider anything but white folks because he had certain historical interpretations and theories, which he wanted to involve in his fantasy books. His ideas were about English people and French people and he mainly thought about the English people he saw around himself and not people from other lands.

Yes, Tolkien could have been concerned about diversity more and in the sense that we use this word today. Of course he did not, still he wrote relevant fantasy novels. Evidently, not focusing on writing about diversity does not equal failing at writing. Then it begs the question: if there are ways, where people do not include POC or disabled characters in their stories, still can become great authors, why is this blog so strongly against people, who tend to take up this other mental? I thought this blog is about writing tips and not political ones.

Now this is another question: can one write a blog, where, if opposed, his political views will not affect his actions and reactions? Naturally, this is very hard to imagine. Still, it seems as though central attitudes of the blogger and the writer meet in a conflict. But this is not true. The person, who tries to write and struggles to include 'diverse' characters, does not believe or promote that POC are inferior or that disabilities do not exist or whatnot. This person might be, in real life, a great supporter of diversity, even so, they might be homosexual. This question was in the nature of literature and not political philosophy or traits of personality.

I must return to a point I have already made. This is an aggressive, maybe oppressive response. The person, who asked the question, did not oppose anyone, they just failed to portray a group of people. It is a nice thing to encourage them to invest more and work a little harder, in order to understand others, different from them, but to say that they are wrong to not include such characters is unfair and flat-out oppression. It is because you, with your relevant authority, influence them to make a point in their writing, which they originally did not intend. It is just right to stand up for the people, who fail to do that for themselves, and I, personally, am with you there. But this is just writing. It is not professional and it is unfair to tell people what philosophy to follow when writing. One could stand up and tell people that they should exclude christian characters from their books because christianity promotes hate and inequality. (I must note that this is a false argument) But if people started to just use atheist characters, their stories would change in nature. (I must also note that it could be rarely applied because christian characters are seldom written and I think hardly anyone disagrees with this practice) The change, although, would not be because the list of characters would be less diverse but because the authors, who initially planned to involve them, had their reasons why they had that certain set of characters the way they are.

Writers can, of course, err and they should be encouraged to be empathic and thoughtful, it is a very noble thing, I say again. But this is not political propaganda for or against diversity, it is fiction. One could easily oppose me, by saying that at least implicitly it is against POC for instance, since they are not included. But the lack of promotion is not the same as opposition.

Diversity is to be promoted and encouraged, it is not a question, but a natural truth. But the only right way to stand up for a good cause is peaceful and requires a meek and humble soul.

Writing is not about your comfort. I have no idea who sold you the idea that writing is a comfortable, easy thing. Pushing yourself as a writer is part of the experience. If you feel uncomfortable about writing diverse characters, then you need to double down and commit yourself to doing the best...

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I decided that this blog won't have any pretensious notion, so there you have it, no fake art, just a usual pose ;)

In the past few years my activity on tumblr has been irregular. I have written original posts but also did a great deal of reblogging and quoting, which are both very nice but are not why I want to have a blog. For me it’s a place for intellectual exercise and an outlet of thoughts. I want to be more focused here to chisel my mind and crystallize my opinions and thoughts, therefore I will make an attempt at returning to exclusively post original content and I want to be more committed. If I could write here everyday I’d be thrilled but that’s probably way too much to be crammed into my schedule--which I admit is not full momentarily but airy spaces of time for relaxation are what keep me mentally fit so I don’t intend to deprive myself of them.

This is it for now, writing it down only so that I will be more motivated to follow through.

Neat compositions

There’s no happy ending with me.