Various ideas of a spontaneous nature

The following are a collection of random thoughts and ideas that have sprung up in my mind from time to time. Sometimes they spring into my mind during the night when I'm sleeping, sometimes when I'm waiting at the train station. Whenever one occurs that I think has some degree of insight or interest I'll record it into my phone, and I thought I'd like to share my collection here. I'll add to the list as more come and they should be treated as a launching off point for some particular concept or philosophical idea rather than a conclusive theory.

Thought One: Art has no purpose other than itself, no observable function unrelated to its own conception.

Thought Two: A country should be measured by the commitment of care it bestows to its weakest and most vulnerable members. I find this statement extremely interesting because it seems to be one that any politician would readily make without actually thinking out what it actually means. It's like a penultimate political statement, which like most altruistic statements, sounds good and probably is admirable but is never explored or questioned. I always find that politicians or leaders are always uttering lines like 'moving forward', 'bringing change,' 'creating tolerance' and others without explaining what exactly that means. To me they're almost euphemistic because they can be said and will meet very little resistance because they sound so good and reasonable.

Maybe, I've been reading too much 1984 but it seems that this sort of language can leave politicians unaccountable to a certain degree. For instance, the term 'moving forward' would have been perfectly applicable in Nazi Germany after the Nuremberg Laws were issued, at least from that government's perspective.

Thought Three: This is one I borrowed from an extremely distinguished English historian, Eric Hobsbawm: "The rise of bourgeois democracy saw the progression of development undermining its own foundations." I found the statement very provocative and synonymous with movements like the French Revolution. For instance, Francisco Goya's painting "Saturn Eating his Children" pops into my mind immediately when I read this sentence. I think that expectations and unchecked 'progress' can always be dangerous and that we should also remain vigilant, even to the things that are freeing us from our past imprisonments.

Thought Four: Fight club is interesting because the narrator is only able to abandon consumerism and materialism by becoming Tyler Durden whom is the embodiment of the perfection he has been trying to procure. It's paradoxical. Pretty self-explanatory. He creates Tyler Durden in order to escape his obsessiveness towards being perfect, but as Tyler says, "he looks how he wants to look and f--s how he wants to f---." So, the entire premise of the film is contradicting. I think the violence often and unfortunately eclipses the philosophical grounding of the film - like nihilism.

Thought Five: This is my favourite thought I have recorded because I find it the most simple yet also the most profound. It is, you've got to be who you want to be first before you can do the things that make you them. I find that so much of society is geared towards improving yourself, changing yourself first, educating yourself so that at the end of it you are somehow enabled to make the achievements you've always wanted to. I find that becoming the person you want to be is a position you'll find yourself in after you have accrued 'proof' that you have made that achievement .But in order to do it you have to make a serious leap of faith and change your life.

I don't particularly like the guy, but I was once watching an interview with famous chef Gordon Ramsay. They asked him what should a young chef do to further his career. He said "go live in a strange place that scares the s-- out of you, like France or Barcelona." I found that so inspiring because it would force you to be brave and adventurous.

So these are my thoughts/ideas for now. I had to put them up because I hated the idea of leaving them in an old Nokia that will probably breakdown soon.

- Matthew Ricks.