(Image taken from The Book Of Bunny Sucides by Andy Riley)

Sing your tune, do your thing, be like the bunny. Easier said than done. There are consequences, repercussions, aftershocks. You can’t just do whatever you want. But why the fuck not? It’s because we become comfortable with what we are. And we no longer feel the need to know who we are. Hence we stop growing, stop evolving. Just so that we don’t have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

“Evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.”
                                                                                      – Tyler Durden, Fight Club

I love that line. I quote Fight Club quite often, and with reason. It’s my bible. Many people claim that The Godfather is their bible. “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Powerful line, sounds damn cool. Makes an over-weight, pot-bellied, balding dork feel omnipotent just before he snorts out an incoherent chuckle and goes back to fantasizing about his favorite silicon-implant diva. Now I’m not being an ass-hole (well maybe I am), we all want to be Mafia Dons who can command respect and authority at gunpoint. But hey, we ain’t. So back to my bible. And it’s verse.

Evolution is a painful process, and sometimes it means going back rather than moving forward. But the purpose is to reach your core, rather than add more layers to your already cluttered self. The purpose is to reach that primal instinct, that part of you that doesn’t try to reason so god-damn much, which simply believes in your gut, in you.

So you keep looking, trying to find out what you’re made of. What you’re capable of. So you can challenge yourself. And try to prove that you have that belief in you, that conviction. Thus you evolve, and everything else either falls into place, or falls apart. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Because you’re invincible. You can take it all.

BRING IT ON!

The challenge really would be to ensure that this fresh, thought provoking, edgy and truthful media vehicle is not allowed to be usurped by corporates to their benefit, making it as redundant as the others, especially when it comes to credibility, freshness and freedom of expression. Corporates can only swim with the tide; stand against it or force a turn and the river will swallow you. Click here for the entire article.

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I realized after reading that article that blogs are almost like one of those old start ups, the ones that were born in garages and ended as big corporations. And now similar garage incs. are trying to be set up on internet blog sites. Small start-ups that might turn into something big. That is the power of blogging. And power attracts the powerful. Enter the corporates.

Corporatization used to be like a juggernaut, an unstoppable force that simply destroyed whatever came in its way. But now the rules have changed. Warfare isn’t limited to the powerful. Guerilla tactics can topple giants and turn demigods into dust. So the mammoth transform into sabertooths, and thus begins the hunt.

Corporations, especially in IT, have become famous for buying out garage incs. that might turn into threats later. They smell out new ideas, and buy out the minds. Call it mergers, takeovers, partnerships or buy-outs, but simply put, the big keep getting bigger, and the small perish before they grow. So has happened in the real world, and is happening in the virtual one.

Content is a commodity now. We thrive on it, it’s our feed. For some of us, it’s even our high. And blogs are churning out content faster than you can say “Holy information dissipation!” Content sells, and every marketer out there knows that if it sells, market it. So why let go of a perfectly good marketing opportunity. Like fear, corporations can smell a good marketing idea, pounce on it, brand it and adapt it to their brand philosophy before it matures.

So enjoy them blogs, them free-spirited garage incs., them freedom-of-speech idealists, them big-idea dreamers, while you can. Cause once corporate branding takes over…

DEFY THE TOUGHEST STAINS

A commodity has two definitions:
      1. Raw material that can be bought and sold
      2. Something useful or valuable

Well, while the nation celebrates 2nd October as the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi, I… ahem… ponder where he would fit in that definition. And though he once was integral to our freedom, today he is being bought and sold all over the world. From media, to movies, to books, to posters, to art, to shirts, to mugs, to even games.

Not that I’m a Gandharian. Hell, I don’t see myself subscribing to his philosophy in this lifetime. But there is one thing I love about the man. His ability to sell an idea. His idea of what freedom was, and how we could achieve it. He believed in something, and that was all he needed. Everything else just fell into place.

“Evolve, and let the chips fall where they may”
                                                                                   – Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Ironic though, how close Fight Club came to the ideology that was Gandhi. But the underlying philosophy of both was “You have to give up”. We had been giving in for such a long time, conforming to the rules of a different society, longing for their acceptance, that we had become comfortable with the idea of slavery.

All Gandhi did was teach us how to give up. More than freedom from the intruders, we needed freedom from ourselves. From our outlook. We needed to free our minds. And that was the whole idea. He sold it to us. And we bought the most valuable commodity we could afford. And it paid off.

Times have changed, and the world is more dynamic (read unstable) than it ever was. Gandhigiri ™ might not be able to change the world anymore, but ideas will. And those who can sell them will create history.

 I’d seen Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels quite some time back, since then I’d been waiting to get my hands on Snatch. Finally did, and though Lock-Stock had a better plot, Snatch is cinematic brilliance.

“Really Mr. Pseudo Critic?”

Well, yeah. I’m mean take the scene where the hare is chased by the dogs, while Tyron is hunted down by them goons. Or the musical score that plays while Mickey O’Niel (Brad Pitt)’s trailer is burnt to the ground, with his mom still in it. Or even them boxing scenes, almost in the league of Fight Club. But the one sequence that takes the cake is when Avi (Dennis Farina) comes to Britain. Fuck! That was movie magic right there.

And might we forget the verbal exchange amongst the cast? Hard to. But nowhere near as poetic as Pulp Fiction. Now that too is another topic. Hats off to Brad Pitt in this one though. For that illusion of being an actor that he tries to create every time, this time he actually succeeded. That accent of his was something worth remembering. And then there’s also the Pricks & Balls speech, with a Replica facing off a Desert Eagle, sheer primal poetry.

Snatch. Bliss.

We all sell our souls, it’s the deal you make that counts. I’d penned this line around 4 years back, never really given it much thought. But somehow, it’s starting to make a lot of sense these days.

Went to see a rock show yesterday at Pragati Maidan. Five good bands, two of them actually good. Superfuzz is going to be big in the coming months, and Zero owns whatever it plays. But they wouldn’t have played today if some 28 year old MBA in Yamaha’s Brand Management division hadn’t said “Hey, lets promote the brand by setting by a bunch of rock shows called Yamaha ROXX. It’s going to be perfect for our urban youth target segment, aged 18-25, Sec A, Males.” So before every band starts, all they have to say is “We would like to thank Yamaha for this opportunity.”

Yamaha was the official sponsor of this one, Hero Honda was there at the IIT Delhi rock show last week. Apparently rock shows are the perfect grounds for bike brands to create an impression on the… ahem… impressionable youth. So what? Right? Right. Music sells out, and the sanctity of Woodstock is reduced to a show of bike ads in-between rocks performances. Hell, even during them.

But we signed on the dotted line. We made that deal. We said its okay, show your ads, we won’t mind. We said, hey its just advertising. We conformed. But somewhere down the line, the deal went sour. We never read the fine-print. Never thought that if your soul could be sold, then what couldn’t be.

So, what deals have you made?

1. I looked at the different blog sites available, short-listed two based on popularity.
2. Did a comparative analysis based on the features and tools they offered.
3. Checked availability of “cool sounding” names for my blog. They were available on both (That makes ‘em either ultra-cool or crappy-like-hell. And why should that matter?).
4. So, I created accounts on both.
5. Then I checked out which of these two looked cooler (Sigh).
6. Both looked good, so I went looking for user-comments on the sites.
7. Well, apparently blogging isn’t just about writing anymore. It’s a community of tech-junkies that thrive on tools, and features, and xml, and css, and widgets… and every other dynamic/customizable/linkable/add-on crap that germinates on the NET.
8. So, finally, I said FUCK IT! And chose the one that loaded first.

So whats the big friggin’ deal? There is none. And that’s exactly the problem. It should be a “big friggin’ deal”. We have all these rules and methods, all these useless options, all this crap that surrounds us. And we either justify it, or simply give in.

I don’t care about breaking the rules, but I sure as hell won’t conform to them. 

I’m here to give up. And the sooner I do that, the sooner I fall free.

Here’s to the first step towards the cliff…