Top 10 Songs to Lift Your Spirit

So far, 2014 has been a shitty year for my clique when it comes to romantic relationship. Maybe there's something wrong with the feng shui or it's just the way it is. In order to not be bitter, I decided to compose a list, consisting of top 10 uplifting songs (in random order) that are constantly playing in my room whenever I am feeling down for my borderline bitter clique to enjoy. Who knows, maybe you are in the need for some uplifting songs as well.

S Club 7 - Bring It All Back

"Don't you know it's true what they say that life, it ain't easy; but your time's coming around..." This song never fails to make me happ(ier) whenever I'm down by reminding me there's a always light at the end of the tunnel, and that everything will make sense in the end. BANZAAAIIII...!!!

Ace of Base - Beautiful Life

Whenever I'm down, I'm just lucky that I have friends that are willing to hear me bitch about what I feel. And when they're down, I just want to be there beside them and stay until the break of dawn. That's how much I love them. *virtual hug!!*

Roxette - June Afternoon

Roxette - June Afternoon oleh Roxette-Official

Do you know how freaking hard it was to find this V-klip? Even Per Gessle could not find the video he posted on youtube (says the internet). I remembered being young and feeling a sense of warmth every time I saw this video. It's just so colorful and bubbly and fun, and it's just what I needed. 'Cos life's so very simple, just like la la laaaa...

Sting - It's Probably Me

No matter how alone you felt like, just remember that somewhere, somehow, Sting is stalking you and making sure that you are alright.

Sophie Ellis Bextor - Mixed Up World

...but then again, it's not me who is mixed up. It's the world. There's nothing wrong with me. B-)

Frente - Accidentally Kelly Street

"It's Sunday every day, and there's no need to rush around, inside of everybody there's sun and laughter to be foooouuuuuunnndddd...."  

Republica - Ready to Go

For those times you don't feel like getting out of bed, play this song as loud as your hardware allows you to. 10 times. Guaranteed to lift your spirit!

New Radicals - You Get What You Give

Why this song? Not only because it is filled with beautiful aphorism, but most of all because it reminds you that no matter how bad a person makes you feel, karma's a bitch and she'll be back to haunt the person with three times more pain. Buahahahahahaha... >=D

Björk - Army of Me

This song is uplifting in a noir kind of way:

you're allright
there's nothing wrong
self-sufficience please!
and get to work
and if you complain once more
you'll meet an army of me

OST Grease - We Go Together

And finally!!! A song to remind you how beautiful friendship is, how awesome the 80s was, and how skinny John Travolta as Danny Zucko. Need I say more?

The Way You Did Once Upon A Dream

Let me just start by saying: what kind of parents in their sane mind would name their child Maleficent? It's like condemning your child to a lifetime of crime and hatred or, at the very least, bad luck. Future parents, the name you give to your child would stick with them for the rest of their lives. So please, make sure it's a good one!

The story took place in a fantasy world, where two kingdom lived in terror and hatred of one another. One of the kingdom, a monarchy ruled and inhabited by realist humans, seem to be threatened (or was jealous a more proper word?) by its neighbor, a rich hippies community inhabited by ents, naiads, dryads, trolls, fairies, and many other beautiful mythical creatures. The strongest of which was Maleficent, a beautiful and kind-hearted fairy with a avian-like features; seemingly the last of her kind.

 To make a long story short, Maleficent met a human boy, fell in love, was abandoned, and reunited with her true love (or so she thought) only to be broken by her true love. After she was hurt, physically and mentally, bitterness got the best of her. Poisoned by hatred and anger, she turned the whole magical moor into a dark place. I don't blame her though, if a man drugged me and cut one of my organs out, I would also most  probably be bitter and vengeful.

The mean man (whose name I've already forgotten) that hurt Maleficent because of his stupid patriarchal ambition ascended into the neighboring kingdom's throne and basked in the glory of his newly acquired power for a while, without even considering the consequences of his action to Maleficent. Even when Maleficent openly showed her frustration by unleashing a badass burst of power towards the sky. After a while, the oblivious new king had a baby girl and the whole kingdom, along with three stupid traitor fairies from the moor, rejoiced in festivity. When a guy hurt one of my friend in such evil manner, I would never visit his daughter's christening. Let alone giving her lavish gifts. Just saying.

Maleficent, still hurt because of the betrayal, crashed the party and set a curse on the unbelievably cute baby, humiliating the king in the process. This Maleficent, being smart and powerful, made the spell unbreakable by any force in the world, except a true love's kiss, which she truly believed did not exist. A decision she later regreted. Kids, this is exactly why you should never ever ever make important life-changing decision when you're angry. Take a moment to reflect if it was really something you really want before taking drastic measures.

Making a stupid choice when you're feeling hurt is one thing. Making them because of unreasonable pride is another. Humiliated and terrified by Maleficent, the king decided to give her child for safekeeping to the three traitor fairies, who are highly incompetent in raising a human baby, and preparing himself for battle with Maleficent. Another message to all of you parents out there: when you're trusting your kid to another person, make sure you do a thorough background check!

Maleficent, being naturally curious, could not stay away from the baby. She kept watch, and in the process, took care of the little princess from the shadows. Without Maleficent's presence, I am confinced the little darling would have been dead by the third day. Unfortunatelly, being raised by the three fairies who were clearly on drugs, the little princess grew into what I usually refer to aspartame type of girl. Sweet, but artificially sweet. So sweet that it left a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

Somewhere along the way, the princess met Maleficent and shared a mother-daughter bond with her. Genuinely caring for the princess, Maleficent tried to revoke the curse, but was unable to do so. So she tried to protect the princess by asking her to live with her in the moor; but Aurora found out that it was Maleficent that cursed her when she was a baby, and thing went downhil from there.

I could carry on bragging about the whole storyline but that would be extremely boring. For most everyone in the planet knows how the princess pricked her finger on the spindle and slept. However, it's not the kiss of a smitten teenage prince that woke Aurora in this particular story, it was the kiss of a motherly figure: Maleficent.I enjoy this twist of plot because, personally, I never believed in love at first sight. For me, love is something that needs to be nurtured over time, there's no such thing as instant love. Although lust at first sight, often mistaken as love at first sight, is a very real thing for me.

This scene reminded me of Chi'i**

The other thing I really really like about this movie is how it portrays Maleficent. Maleficent is everything a woman should be. She is beautiful, smart, strong, proud, and kind. For me, her emotional slip only shows that it is your flaws that makes you truly remarkable. It shows that beings made mistake, but if you have a strong enough core, you will rise against anything that comes your way. I think that is a very important message to pass on to the children. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, the king is exactly how a person should never be.

Personally, I think the king is plain old awful human being, a product of an awful system in an awfulk society. Blinded by ambition, he did not mind hurting a person who genuinely cares for him. And the worst thing is he blamed the person for being hurt, and refused to accept that what happenned to him was in fact the consequences of his own action, creating more pain in the process. Sadly, I think there are a lot of this type of people around in this world that we are living in.

Anyway, lately I seem to disagree with public perception on good movies. Although this movie seem to receive rave reviews; I was just in love with every aspect of the movies. The plot, the characters, the setting, the CGIs, and the values that the movie showed were exactly my cup of tea. 

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*Picture of Maleficent on a cliff taken from this page.
**Picture of Maleficen flying was taken from this page.

Who's Ready To Be Transcended?

Johnny Depp. That was the sole reason I watched Transcendence. I have always been a bit of a geek whose interested in sci-fi movies; however, after watching Her, I am convinced that no other AI movie can top that one. At least not this year. But then again, this is Johnny Depp. So I went and watched. Is Transcendence a good movie, you say? It has Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, and Paul Bettany! How can it not be a good movie? But, for a movie with Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, and Paul Bettany; it could have been better.

 The first sign that Will's consciousness has been succesfully uploaded.*

Will Caster. Super brilliant scientist who is obviously under the spell of his super brilliant (and extraordinarily hot) wife. Which is actually a good thing. He has the idea to do something wonderful, but it's his wife's vision to create a better world. In a sense, they are both pushing each other to be a better version of themselves. Evelyn as a better scientist, and Will as a better human. That, in itself, is the sweetest version of love, at least in my opinion. Tragedy struct when some tech-savvy Luddites (I know, it's oxymoron. They're not actually Luddites, they're just as paranoid as I am) decided to poison dear sweet Will with Polonium. I never could understand people who have no issues of taking a life for their cause. But, I think that is for another discussion.

The impending doom of Will Caster somehow jump-started PINN, the AI project Will and Evelyn has been working on. Along with their friend Max, they uploaded Will consciousness into PINN. How on earth there were three starstruckingly beautiful scientists on an IT-research team, I would never comprehend. To make long story short, Will was uploaded before his death, and later connected to the internet. Given access to the fast amount of resources on the world wide web, Will transcended. He became a limitless entity with the capability to ever expanding. What a scary thought.

Singularities
Enough with the synopsis. I think there are a million interesting aspects that can be discussed from this movies. However, I'll limit myself to three of the most interesting things. The first one is about singularities. After Will was transcended, he discovered nanites that can replicate itself in some ways and help regeneration of any material, biologic or artificial. This is of course a major breakthrough for the medical world. However, there's a catch. Anyone who has these nanites in their system is automatically linked to Will as a part of his network.

Working in the NGO field, I realise that networking is essential for success. The problem is, in this particular network, it seems that Will took over the sovereignty of each cured individuals. The only one who would think this is not wrong in so many levels is probably Thomas Hobbes. The dystopia portrayed in Transcendence reminds me a lot of Hobbes' concept of nation-state, where he prescribed people surrender their individual sovereignty to a nation-state for their own good.

Will's justification of 'transcending' people is (probably) to open each people to the limitlessness that he is experiencing, by giving them access to his endless stream of information. Yes, individuality might provide people with biological boundaries. But it also means people have their own private spaces, which could not (and should not) be invaded by outer beings. By 'transcending' people, Will robs people of their free will.

Further, singularities made everyone connected to each other. Which means attack to one organism will affect the whole colony. This is why Evelyn can easily destroy the whole colony, simply by exploiting Will's weakness, herself. In this sense, I still consider individualism as superior to singularities. A colony formed by unique individuals will be more complex than one made of similar minds. There will be more aspects to deal with, thus making these colonies more unpredictable, and can defend themselves better external attack.

Existentialism

Undoubtedly the best looking AI ever.**

What constitute existence? When Morgan Freeman's character was first being introduced to PINN, he asked the if the AI is self-aware. PINN said that it was a difficult question to answer. And indeed it is. Up to a point, PINN is sentient. It is made self-sustaining and is able to think for itself. After Will's memories and personalities were updated to PINN's motherboard, the questions became more difficult to answer, as it impersonates a person's characteristic so seamlessly.

This is actually a classic question in all AI movies. R2D2 (Star Wars), Sonny (I, Robot), Gigolo Joe (AI), Samantha (Her), and transcended Will can all think and demonstrate some sort of emotion. But as they do not constitute of biological parts, can they really be called 'beings' and share the same rights that human beings enjoy? Ignorant as human being is, I don't think we will even bother to answer this question before we were faced with immediate threat of Machine rebellion as pictured in The Matrix. I really think we really should start to wonder upon this question now before it's too late and we were forced to block the sun ray and find refuge underground.

Communication
The third most interesting aspect to explore from this movie is more down to earth: communication between Will and Evelyn Caster. Transcended Will has a knowledge so vast, no un-transcended mind could comprehend. Not even Evelyn, his livelong companion. I think Samantha also had this issue, where the physical world no longer can contain her.

Will Caster reminds me of another Johnny Depp's character,
Mort Rainey from Secret Window. Minus the axe-wielding
alter ego.***

A good, working communication is essential in maintaining any form of relationship, especially one as intimate as shared by Will and Evelyn. In order to have a working communication, related parties need to have a degree of compatibility that enable them to speak on the same frequencies. Transcended Will can no longer speak to Evelyn the way he used to as human, and Evelyn's limited mind can no longer accommodate Will's overwhelming knowledge. That was why she started to doubt him, which lead to both of their demise.

Conclusion
So was Will Caster really transcended? I would have to disagree. The one that was transcended was a copy of Will. The real Will Caster died due to radiation poisoning. And although a seamless copy remains existing within PINN, the real Will was gone, and he did not feel anything that his copy felt. Everyone else around him, especially Evelyn, merely felt the illusion of his presence around them when in fact the real Will has died. They're just trying so hard to cling on something they do not want to let go, and in the process caused more hurt than necessary. However, this is a personal opinion of mine, which is still highly debatable.


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*Screenshot of Will's first effort to communicate was taken from this page.
** Picture of Gigolo Joe was taken from this page.
*** Picture of Mort Rainey (Secret Window) was taken from this page.