Part of my inactivity here has been due to broader activity on Supraterranean.com. After all, I did redesign the site in September. Then I went on a two-week cross-country road trip in October. And from mid-October almost until Thanksgiving, my work situation was consistently hectic. Now it’s December, and I’m just focusing on winding down and avoiding frostbite.

I’m also going through some personal creative transitions. I think it’s natural for a writer (or any kind of artist) to always be evaluating oneself, and asking what can be improved in method, style, and purpose. The purpose aspect is the most pressing right now. For those of you who have traced my activity on this blog, you know the general timeline of my reading and thinking process. The biggest milestone this year was Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. The book felt like a climax for the journey into literature and philosophy that began for me around the fall of 2005. The premise of the book was that we live in a world defined at all levels by one concept: absurdity. Camus argued that, despite the lack of inherent meaning in life, one can develop meaning and purpose through an unending dedication to creative work. It seemed to take a step beyond the basic tenets of Existentialism, and at least in some ways, it felt like the answer I had been looking for.

Yet in reality it was only a theoretical “answer.” I knew from the moment I started writing four years ago that I was doing it for the sake of writing — because I would enjoy it regardless of what came out of it. It didn’t matter to me if people read it or if I was paid for it, so long as I felt fulfilled by the activity. However, I was still nursing the fantasy of one day becoming a published writer, even if one with only a modestly sized audience. In other words, I never wanted to be famous; I just wanted to be appreciated, and know that I affected someone’s life or made them think. Actually those two things — changing lives and inspiring thought — never changed. I still very much want to do that.

I won’t yet be able to accurately explain what has changed here. Part of it has to do with the way my blogging and web projects like Supraterranean had become a compulsive activity. I felt like I had to do them (for professional and/or personal reasons) — and anything you have to do soon becomes something you don’t want to do.

You may have also noticed that I haven’t posted much creative writing on Supraterranean.com this year. There are reasons for that as well. My life has undergone many changes in 2009. I was unemployed, then employed part-time, then in July I was boosted to full-time. I’ve lived in three different rentals, two in Ann Arbor and one in Ypsilanti. My girlfriend is about to move far away for vet school, at which time I’ll be caring for our two dogs by myself. And every month that goes by, I start to realize how absolutely different adult life is from what I had always imagined it to be. What I mean to say is, it sucks.

Okay, so maybe I overstated that. And of course that statement is tainted by the current state of things in Michigan. In fact, a lengthy essay about being a young adult in Michigan is what broke my drought of long-form writing. I just published the essay, entitled “Indecision Over Michigan,” on Supraterranean and Generation Y Michigan (a Michigan Radio site looking at why so many young adults leave Michigan).

The essay was over 11,000 words long — making it the longest thing I’ve ever written in that genre. It was so refreshing to think that I could have just kept pushing forward, and I might have eventually reached book length. I still don’t feel like I exhausted the topic, and I keep having further realizations as the days pass. For example, I didn’t mention in the essay that, while Ann Arbor consistently gets placed on lists of the best cities to live in the country, it might be one of the worst for young professionals. What I mean is, the population of people between the ages of 22 and 30 is minuscule. To be blunt, I feel really alone here. I feel like, for every month that passes, I have one less reason to stay in Michigan. After December there will be three: (1) my job, (2), my family (minus one of my brothers, who moved to L.A. in 2008, and who will be there at least until Michigan’s film industry can offer more work), and (3) northern Michigan.

It’s not just the economy, or having to drive everywhere, or the absence of recycling in my apartment complex. The whole state just feels really stifling right now, like the air itself is weighing down on me. Part of what I want to accomplish is to make people use their imagination, open their minds, and not let themselves become the walking dead zombie adults that most do turn into. But most people in Michigan would be content if they had a job, a place to sleep, and a TV to rot in front of.

That’s not enough for me (I don’t even have cable TV right now, by the way). I want to feed my craving for adventure and my sense of wonder. I think I’ll end on that note, and the only way to do that properly is to reference the most famous (and, sadly, the most overused) Jack Kerouac quote, from the book On The Road:

“…The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’” (pp. 5-6).

* * * * *

What’s more interesting to me is that most people leave out the sentence before that: “They rushed down the street together, digging everything in the early way they had, which later became so much sadder and perceptive and blank.”

I still feel like the inner adventure (into one’s own psyche) is the one to focus on, but we young adults are very set on action in the external realm (as I discuss in my essay).

Well, I was going to discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, and then mention how I intend to write shorter posts here (shorter, as in 500-800 words, instead of 1,000 to 1,400) to afford myself time to work on more long-form writing projects. So much for that!

WordPress is basically a lightweight content management system. Behind the scenes, this will take my workload down from about 40 hours per month to about 4-6 hours per month. The most notable front-end improvement is the automatically populated home page, which displays the most recent items from a variety of categories.

Category/section pages: Anywhere you see a category name (like Fiction or Photography), you should be able to click it and see a list of everything that’s been posted in that section in reverse chronological order. WordPress and the amazing Linoluna theme do this automatically!

Issue archive pages: Same as the category pages, except this will group posts from each month together. You’ll be able to find these links in the right sidebar under “Issues.”

Author pages: This is one thing I’m really excited about! I’ve been wanting author profile pages since I launched the site in June 2008. Once they get updated, these pages will contain a photo, biography, email link, and a list of everything that author has published on the site.

RSS Feeds: You’ll find all of these soon on the RSS Feeds page.
-Main feed: This one is super easy — http://supraterranean.com/feed/
-Recent Comments
-Categories: Anything posted in a certain category. So if you just want to follow Poetry or Video posts, you can do that!
-Tags: Same as categories, but even more specific
-Authors: To get an author RSS feed, just add “feed/” to the end of the author page URL. Example: http://www.supraterranean.com/author/tpierson/feed/
In other words, any archive-style page on the site has an RSS feed. Just try adding “/feed” to the end of the URL.

Front page:
- Most recent posts from various categories show in main area, with featured items in a slideshow view at the top
- Sidebar has Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Most Viewed, Most Commented, Most Recommended, Most Emailed, Recently Tweeted, Most Tweeted (note: I still need to tweak some of these to get them working)
- Also, headlines from Refractor Blog, Issue archive links, and an Arts & Culture news box with headlines from Michigan Radio and NPR

Article pages:
- Recommend function replaces star ratings. This decision was partially inspired by JS-Kit.com‘s ill-conceived decision to drop everything but their comment service, which they’re renaming Echo. It’s totally out of my control, but ratings on the old site will become inactive in November 2009. But also, I didn’t like the idea of rating creative work. I want the site to be a constructive environment.
- Similar Posts: This function should grab similar posts by category, keywords (tags), and author, and display them at the bottom of articles when applicable.
- Disqus Comments: Disqus.com is an amazing comment service that is portable across the web. You’ll notice that many big sites use the service, like Mashable.com. I also put Disqus comments on the Michigan Radio website at work.
- Share button from AddThis. I used this on the old site too, since they provide dozens of social networking links for you to send pages to.

Email updates using Feedburner.com — you can subscribe here. They also provide a mobile page that can be viewed on any internet-enabled mobile device: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/supraterranean

- I’ll now use a rolling submission process, so there are no deadlines. Posting schedule changes from once a month to more like once a week. Each month will still be collected under issues archive.

Category names: Film changed to Video. Audio was added. Multimedia was removed, since now we can cross-categorize posts if needed.

- Message board has been removed because it was totally unused

- Admin Blog name was changed to the Refractor Blog. This refers to idea of a telescope that brings all sorts of faraway things into focus. Plus I’m an astronomy nerd.

- Your old links should still work if you published material on the old site. I’ll be linking to old archive pages so people can browse content from issues #1 to #14. I tried to keep the new site’s visual feel similar to the old site, while making the necessary updates.

I worked all last week and most of the weekend to customize the Linoluna theme for WordPress. Things have gone better than expected, so I plan on launching the new site tonight! Until then, here’s a shot of the front page to get you excited (click to enlarge). Thanks for your patience and support. I’ll provided a detailed explanation soon so you know about all the added features.

This is a sneak peek at the new article view (click the image to enlarge). As you can see, the title and text will appear much like they do on the current site. The banner image will now be 616×200 (actually probably more like 616×300) instead of the previous 450×250 (a little wider, but not quite as tall). You’ll also get to see where you are in relation to the home page — that’s right above the title.

One of my favorite things about the Linoluna theme is the info box on this article view. You’ll get to see the author, publish date, section (category), # of views, # of comments, link to print, and link to email. There will also be a share button to send the page to various social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. And I will have a Recommend function — probably a heart icon that you can click — which will generate a Top Rated list on the home page. This is a slightly different take on the current ratings methods. It will be easy to switch at the last minute, so let me know what you think about the single recommend versus five-star ratings.

Also, if you click the author’s name, it will take you to an author page with everything they’ve ever published and a biography! That means I’m going to have contributors make author accounts on the site as soon as I set it up at Supraterranean.com.

Stay tuned for more updates! I’m excited!

(p.s. – All this is subject to change, so don’t get mad if something does…)

As for me, I’m experiencing a different kind of downturn. I’m the least productive I’ve been in years — that is, in the self-directed creative realm. You can’t force this sort of thing, but I have a duty to persist, darn it. I’m running this crazy website, so of course I can’t just up and disappear! But no oil exists to get my rusty creative gears back into functioning order. Only time…

While I’m working out my own personal creative blockade, I’ll at least try to post on here with news about Supraterranean.com. The most pertinent update right now is that Issue #12 (June 2009) features the the first two audio pieces ever published on the site. I considered adding an official Audio section to the site, but it isn’t feasible at the current time, and I thought that they’d fit just fine in the Multimedia section. So official Audio recognition will have to wait until some kind of major site redesign.

In related news, this issue marks the one-year point for Supraterranean. I can’t believe it! It seems like only yesterday I was spending endless hours designing a table-based HTML website that was outdated by the time it went live on the web. But I kid! I’m just ready and willing to admit that I’m not a web programmer.

I’ve had a great time with Supraterranean despite the amount of work it requires. I am proud of every issue we create together. I appreciate that you open yourself up and contribute your creative work. I truly feel that we’re painting a new kind of picture of our culture. I was fortunate enough to achieve clarity in expressing exactly what I wanted the site to be (in the Goals section of the About Us page). Those goals haven’t changed at all. I feel that such a specific mission gives purpose and strength to our online community.

In other words, it’s your magazine; I’m just the voice behind the curtain. If I can do anything to improve your experience at Supraterranean.com — as a reader or contributor — please let me know. I can be reached at admin [at] supraterranean.com.

But to whichever group you belong, you may have noticed the Twitter widget situated in the right sidebar of this blog. It essentially lists all recent posts for the Supraterranean Twitter account, where I post the headlines from and links to all content from each monthly issue on the site, Supraterranean.com. It’s kind of a bare-bones approach to Twitter, but remember, I’m from category two, and I’m still finding new ways to use the site.

Those of you in category three might now be asking yourself, “What’s the point? It’s boring and useless. People just post what they’re doing at various times throughout the day. That’s not interesting. And I don’t want to share that kind of personal information on the web for everyone and their grandma to see.” Well stated, category three.

However, there’s more to it than that. I recently started working as web manager at an NPR affiliate station, and we’re finding that Twitter is extremely useful. In fact, in my four weeks on the job, I’ve almost become convinced that Twitter is drastically more useful for a media organization than for any individual. We can distribute headlines for all our news with a convenient link back to our website. Anyone following us will see these links, and they can easily keep up with the news.

They can respond to us with an @reply (now simply called a “mention”). For example, let’s say someone likes a post I put on the Supraterranean Twitter account. If they want to reply, they might post the following: “@supraterranean That was a great poem by Joe Shmoe. Thanks for being super duper.” This will show up in my reply box, but it’s a public message that remains on their page. Another cool development is called hashtags, essentially keywords denoted by a pound sign (“#”). You may have noticed that I started adding keywords to the Supraterranean posts. A poem gets keywords like #poetry and #writing. As of now, the best way to search Twitter is at Twitter Search, which will eventually be integrated into the site itself. Go there and type in the keywords I just mentioned. I bet you’ll find some content from Supraterranean.

None of this impresses you? You remain skeptical? Or, like Jack Lessenberry, the senior political analyst at Michigan Radio, you think that social media are “the real al-Qaeda plot to destroy western civilization.” But wait! There’s more! Twitter isn’t just a destination; it’s also it’s own middle man. The third-party applications and services being built around Twitter are often more interesting than the site itself. Programs like Twhirl and TweetDeck allow you to keep track of posts, replies, direct messages and more, right from your desktop. Sites like Tweetburner and Tiny.cc allow you to shorten links so that you can fit more text into Twitter’s 140-character limit. TwitPic makes it easy to share photos in Twitter. FriendFeed can aggregate all your activity on Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and pretty much every other social site.

Are you still bored? Or more to the point, are you still confused? If there’s one thing I want to convince you of in this post, it’s that Twitter is a positive presence on the web. That’s because, no matter what actually happens on Twitter, it is constantly evolving based on how people use it. Hashtags evolved because people started putting the pound sign (“#”) in front of keywords, not because some company made people do it. More importantly, it’s all about sharing! It’s the single greatest method for share links that has emerged on the web so far. Yeah, Facebook has updates (and they might have even done that first), but by being tied to the rest of Facebook, those updates will never be as capable of flexing and maneuvering as Twitter updates are.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Twitter seems simple, but that’s just because we’re still thinking of more interesting ways to use it. I just heard about a small publisher in New York called Muumuu House, edited by writer/blogger Tao Lin, that purports to publish Twitter posts. I’m not joking at all. Follow this link and you’ll find “Selections From Chris Killen’s Twitter Account” (edited by Tao Lin). What’s there? One example: “2:22 AM Mar 16th my penis feels like a CD i never listen to anymore.”

My favorite use of Twitter so far is by anti-pop star Lily Allen (Twitter @lilyroseallen). She’s currently on tour in the U.S., and she’s been holding Twitter scavenger hunts for concert tickets. She arrives in a new city, posts a riddle on her Twitter account with a hint as to the ticket location, and then updates when the tickets have been discovered. I think that’s a freaking cool idea.

Even just posting on your own page and not paying attention to other people, you could come up with creative ways to use Twitter. Take still shots from your favorite movies, post them using TwitPic, but include a quote from that scene and challenge people to guess the film before clicking the image link. Track every instance of the most random keyword combinations you can think of: #seaweed #wax; #carrot #car; #dog #cake; and then Re-Tweet those posts on your own account (FYI, “RT” on Twitter means, re-tweet — essentially repeating or forwarding what someone else has already posted). Write impromptu haikus and click update.

If this blog post fails to inform or inspire, hopefully it’s because — as I already pointed out — the system is still developing. I’m convinced that it will get more and more interesting, so I’m content to take it for what it is right now. What seems like anarchy today will feel like a regular old institution a year from now, so be patient and maybe you’ll enjoy yourself.

p.s. – Feel free to follow me @ndmeador

UPDATE 4/21/09: This weekend I found someone doing something new and interesting with Twitter. They’re called “Retweet Bots.” Essentially whenever someone types a certain phrase on a Twitter update, and that certain phrase has a bot set up, the update is picked up and the author receives an automatic reply. For example, if you include the expression “Oh snap!” in your update, a retweet bot by @natefanaro will catch it and reply to you.

But that’s not the coolest part. What’s more exciting is his website, where the bots display in real time all the Twitter updates they’ve collected. You can even follow those bot accounts and see all the funny messages that come up! So it may not have any practical use (not yet anyways), but it’s still fun and creative.

I write to you with mixed tidings for the new year. It’s hard for me to believe that Supraterranean has existed for six months. It has been a wild ride, for me at least. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the development and maintenance of the web site – some for grad school credit, most enjoyable, but all unpaid. The positive support of contributors and the audience has kept me motivated. I try to view the site as a long-term commitment, since it will take an extensive effort to make Supraterranean a permanent fixture on the web.

If my impression is correct, the founding goals and ideals represent something the world isn’t used to. And in some cases, people are downright bewildered. Therefore, it’s been extremely difficult to convey to the public exactly what I had in mind in the first place. The past six issues have been an attempt to show instead of tell. I’ve tried to accelerate the process by contributing much of my own material, as well as writing at least weekly on the Admin Blog. I continually edit the “About Us” page, as I further refine the mission of the site. But through it all, I’ve stuck to the core idea: to publish all valid submissions without applying a selection process.

I’m also putting to use the digital marketing skills I accrued in a fall 2008 internship in an attempt to boost site traffic. Since its founding, Supraterranean.com has seen almost 2,500 unique visitors, with a monthly average over 300. I still have many plans for the site, which I have described to you on various occasions thus far. I want it to be a fully interactive community with profiles, tags, recommended content, cross-categorization of articles, RSS feeds, and more. Of course, that would probably require some kind of funding to get the help of professional web developers. I also never got to have a launch party, and I’d still like to schedule some kind of celebration, if only a one-year anniversary.

This can all be put off, as long as the site sees a steady flow of contributions and traffic. However, that hasn’t been the case. In December, I only received poetry submissions. I need contributions in fiction, nonfiction, essay, film, photography, art, and multimedia in order to publish a complete issue. In the meantime, I’m considering switching the site over to a rolling publication process, where new content would be posted as it is received. Supraterranean.com was intended to be a showcase for creative exploration and personal expression, and it’s up to all of you to take advantage of this resource. And remember, while most literary magazines require a paid subscription, Supraterranean.com will always be free to use.

I appreciate your interest and attention, and I hope you choose to submit your creative work to Supraterranean now and in the future. Please make sure to follow us on Twitter and join the Facebook group and/or become a fan on the Facebook page (see the Links page). Best wishes in 2009.

Sincerely,

Nick Meador

Creator/Administrator of Supraterranean.com

I can’t even believe we’ve had six issues! Technically the six-month mark will be December 23, but that’s not too important. Anyways, the past six months haven’t seen too many changes to the look and feel of the site. It’s been more a of a long process of fine tunings. Still, I have so many plans for the site and so many ideas for improvements, but no funding — or web developer friends willing to redesign the site. Just a few of my ideas: creating a fully interactive community with profiles, tags, recommended content, cross-categorization of articles, and more.

I think Supraterranean will do just fine the way it is, but “just fine” isn’t enough for me. Anyways, I should be back to blogging in a few days, once things are cleared up over at MusicEdge. Have you joined us on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter? If not, please do! Twitter is turning out to be an especially valuable resource for sending daily updates to followers.

Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17254185263&ref=ts

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Supraterraneancom/51508395623?ref=ts

MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/supraterranean

Twitter page: http://twitter.com/supraterranean

Q: You have an idealistic site, aimed at showcasing the output of creative people. Do you get a lot of hits? Do the folks you showcase find an audience?

Q: How many other sites are there that are trying something broadly similar to what you’re doing? What kind of audiences do they pull?

Q: Why should anybody go to your site instead of one of the others – or vice versa?

Q: Ever been to one of the really large creative showcase sites like allpoetry.com? How easy or hard would it be for a good poet to get noticed there? How many people would be likely to notice them?

Q: So, some creative product “goes viral”. How would the audience of a successful viral product of today compare with the audience of guys like Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur? Is the difference due to quality of the work, or structure of the media?

Q: Do you think creative work that “goes viral” does so because it’s better than the stuff that doean’t? Or are there other reasons? If so, what would those be?

Here is an excerpt from my response:

To address your point about finite human attention, the core of my argument is that the FM radio and MTV model of music distribution is dead. My stance is more like, “Nobody has power, because power is an illusion.” I say the “center” isn’t worth fighting for, because music is an art form, and the center is based on manipulation and deceit. I think it’s safe to say that mass-produced garbage is usually the opposite of art. American Idol is crap, but it’s not intended for music lovers; it’s for pop culture addicts and those who like being indoctrinated. It’s our monetary system (capitalistic or otherwise) that turns music, books, and other artistic creations into trashy consumer products. I think it’s worthwhile to express yourself, search for truth, and work for progress — but not on the condition that you must be paid for it. Yes, I’d like my passion to be how I make a living, but it might be a long time until that happens.

I am also interested in the back and forth shift from underground to mainstream, especially with music. However, I have become convinced that musicians aiming for the center are looking for a music career, and that undoubtedly removes them from the realm of art. Talk about a paradox: indie music has taken over the public consciousness, turning many bands into the exact opposite of what they first stood for (e.g. — Modest Mouse, The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie). I’m not sure that I’d want another Nirvana, but I was never a huge fan. They probably did take advantage of that “psychic desolation” you mentioned. But I think we’re approaching a point when everyone turns their attention inward. We must work on the evolution of human consciousness if we are ever to move beyond the repetitive failures of the last 60 years (or 4000 years, depending on how you see it). And somehow, this always returns me to Fight Club.

I just watched Zeitgeist: Addendum, so I’m sure that is flavoring my lingo here. Essentially the Internet is the best modern example of how our world is constantly in an emergent state. There is no stationary point. It’s ever-changing, ever-growing, ever-improving (hopefully). What has happened in the past decade with music and the Internet does seem like anarchy, but that’s simply because methods of finding music are constantly emerging, and they’re being refined and improved.

The Internet provides many options for finding new music, none of which involve searching through thousands of albums. But then again, I feel that if a band is important enough or valid enough or determined enough, they will somehow find the route to their audience. I get a weekly release newsletter from AllMusic.com, which I can scan for band names and genres, then link to the page if more info is needed. Pandora and Last.fm are both tailoring playlists to the listener’s tastes. They work on slightly different systems, but are both pretty effective in introducing new music. There are also online publications and music blogs. (However, I wrote an essay about Pitchfork. You might be interested in reading that one as well.) Then there are the traditional, but always less used methods of talking with a record store employee or frequenting your local indie music venues. Personally I didn’t have that option before the Internet, because the area I grew up in had neither in close proximity.

I wasn’t familiar with AllPoetry.com or any creative showcase sites. It seems like a good idea. Initially, I’d say my site is different because of the various types of content published here. Secondly, I modeled my site after my favorite print and online publication design, so that people can self-publish their work in a professional, attractive setting. I admit that I needed a place to publish my work, and I was largely unsatisfied with journalism, book publishers, and literary journals. But my work is in no way showcased here, especially if more and more people start to submit (eventually I want them to be able to submit themselves, so that there only need be moderators to check that the creative work is legitimate and not an advertisement, etc).

As for traffic and audience, Supraterranean was launched on June 23, 2008, only four months ago. The site currently gets about 300-400 unique visitors per month. I’m hoping that will continue to grow. I did create the website with an idealistic foundation — the most extreme goal being a revolution of the publishing industry. However, I won’t be disappointed if I don’t meet that goal. Even if this site becomes an incubator for writers, filmmakers, and artists to learn and grow, so they can then move into some aspect of traditional publishing, that wouldn’t disappoint me. I don’t expect Supraterranean to be the end point of progress. It’s just (in my eyes) vastly better than the current system. I think that the publishing industry is about to face what the music industry just went through. One example is Amazon BookSurge, which provides self-publishing opportunities for authors.

~~~~~~~

As you can see, some of these topics have already been addressed on this blog. But I’m hoping that interactions such as this will become more commonplace on Supraterranean.

I know what you’re thinking. “Abstain from voting?! But that would mean surrendering one of our great American rights. If we don’t practice our rights, we will lose them. And that would mean eventually losing our freedom.”

First of all, let me specify that this is not a personal recommendation — at least not for the current election. This endorsement is being made as the Administrator of Supraterranean.com, a website founded on principles that are new and confusing to many modern human beings. Take the Goals list on the About Us page, for example:

• To undermine the power of major content corporations who distribute most of the media to which people are exposed.
• To fight the disease of anti-intellectualism rampant in the U.S. and around the world.

I readily admit that this stance has been influenced by the films Zeitgeist (2007) and Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008). I saw the first back in March, and the sequel about two weeks ago. The first film drew connections between Christianity, the 9/11 attacks, and the Federal Reserve bank. The sequel picks up at the same place, going into further detail on our monetary system. They explain (in considerable detail, given the riddling topic) how the very core of our society is fraudulent and corrupt. Essentially, it’s impossible to have a fair, just, or sustainable world that is based on our kind of monetary system. It doesn’t matter if it’s democracy, dictatorship, socialism, or any known government. They are all part of the grand scheme of Globalization. We are all slaves, and we don’t even know it — but those in power are well aware. We have to undertake mindless, repetitive, and often useless jobs in order to survive, let alone “succeed.”

But the film explains this far better than I can in a ranting blog post, so let me progress to the point. Do you ever wonder why the Presidential Election appears to be a choice between only two candidates? In actuality, ANYONE CAN BECOME PRESIDENT. So why is it always one of two or three candidates offered to us by major political parties? The film argues that corporate approval and sponsorship are ultimately what determine who becomes president. To accept this requires a better understanding of what corporations can get away with in our society.

We don’t live in a democracy. America is a democratic republic. The popular vote does not determine the president. The president is chosen by an Electoral College, who supposedly act on our behalf. For proof of this, look back at the 2000 election. Al Gore received 48.4% of the votes, while Bush received 47.9% (See the Wikipedia page for more statistics). And yet Bush became president. Why? Because the American public doesn’t decide who becomes president — the corporations and banks do. Furthermore, it won’t make much difference who becomes president. It pains me to write that, because I feel that Obama is more than qualified for the position. But the problem is with the presidency, not the president.

Zeitgeist: Addendum also argues that this system is failing. We all witnessed the market crash recently. This is the only possible outcome in an imaginary monetary system where inflation is inherent. Bush’s $700 billion bailout will not help anything. All it does is privatize a whole lot of public wealth that should have gone towards making our country a better place.

So the biggest lesson to take from the two Zeitgeist films is that the solution lies at the core of the problem. If a tree has a disease, you don’t trim off the leaves or a branch; you cut the tree at the stump, or even remove the roots altogether. All of our symbols and theories and concepts, all of our governments and religions and ideologies, all of our companies and organizations and clubs, all of our friends and families and loved ones —-  these are all automatically infected by the monetary system.

Unfortunately the second film makes a concrete solution seem even further off than the first film. That might be because the human race still has some evolving to do before we can achieve a solution. However, they do propose five points for positive social action:

1. Boycott CitiBank, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. They are the most powerful and have the deepest ties with the Federal Reserve.
2. Boycott TV News, and turn to independent sources on the Internet that cannot be controlled by the corporations.
3. Boycott the Military. It’s just an instrument for corporate action around the world. It takes advantage of the anger and confusion of young adults, and then abandons them — if they aren’t killed first — to drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness.
4. Put pressure on the Energy Companies. Seek out sustainable methods of energy and transportation. If the companies don’t provide these, find other ways. (But keep in mind that an energy company might be in the same corner as the public. Their primary goal is to keep the world lit up and running, not to swim in profits). My recommendation: also pressure automobile companies.
5. Reject the Political System. Democracy is a sham. Therefore, voting is not only irrelevant, but also irresponsible.

Don’t delude yourself into thinking that voting is a sufficient way to participate in our world. Don’t underestimate your imagination, since that is the greatest tool bestowed upon humanity. Most importantly, don’t forget that any and all change begins with yourself, the individual. The film states that the revolution will first be one of consciousness. This theme has been constant in literature and philosophy throughout recorded history. The more people who devote themselves to an inward revolution, the better off the world will be.

For more info about the original Zeitgeist film, read my editorial hosted on SpartanEdge.com (published 3/19/08). Read more about The Zeitgeist Movement at their website. Read about the Venus Project (design pictured below) at their website, cuz I’m out of steam.

Design by Jacque Fresco

Other links:

IMDB – Zeitgeist

Wikipedia – Zeitgeist – Zeitgeist: Addendum