Isolated System

First, put the volume on! You must feel the bass line on this one! Perfect ride!

Well, you can already guess, I am huge fan of Muse. They are true food-for-ears. Furthermore, they reflect perfectly some of the main global issues. It was clear since forever that music cannot change the world. It may influence individuals, but it won't affect the people who are products of our pop-culture. Yes, I am fond of making a certain sharp division between people who are products and individuals in this society.

What is a Product?
It is a person who has lost its individuality in the long run in our society. It is a person affected by popular phenomenons and a person devoted to materialism. We are society of production and production. We always want more and more. We always want something new; we want new gadgets, new clothes and then we want this and that. These product-persons are grabbing always more and more. They prefer the City Malls and they are fond of checking in on Facebook from fancy cafes, empty heads who do not read books or watch quality-made movies. I sound too harsh? I know I do. Never mind that!
How to connect this with Muse?
Very easy! In a system where everything is focused on production and sale and more production and more sale; in a consumer's made society, the entropy can only increase. What will be the final scenario? In their Isolated System video, Muse are making an outstanding metaphor of one plausible outcome of such system. It is an isolated system, a narrow-minded system. It is our system.

Dear reader, I hope you are not a product!

Three Songs for Morning-Bus-Ride

Every morning, I enter the bus and I am headed to my university. It's one long boulevard - a 20 minutes frenzy bus ride. I have time to play few songs, but always in my music selection I have three specific songs I would like to play.

1. Radiohead - 2+2=5

I started listening this song last year when actually my English teacher played it on one of our classes. We needed to use this specific song and think of how we can make an advert out of it. It was funny exercise actually and afterwards I got addicted to the tune. I imagined an old grey man sitting on his bed in a dark room. He enters the bathroom and he uses some new random shampoo. I advertised a shampoo in my imagination with this song. The old men leaves the bathroom all refreshed and new, opens the window and so on and so on.
Why am I writing this? So, I enter the bus every morning. Skopje is quite a grey city in autumn and winter. It's also polluted city. Polluted by politicians, by trash and kitsch and ugly sculptures and fountains. It makes me think, this city would need a lot of 'shampoo to get all washed up'. However, it's not only the politicians fault. It's the people as well. 2+2 makes 5 for most of men and not only here in my country, but look at it on a global level. In the first place, Radiohead produced this song in 2003 as a reply to Americans selecting George Bush as a president (if I remember well). For Americans, it was conspicuous that 2+2 makes 5 by making such choice.They were not paying attention.

2. Muse- The 2nd Law: Unsustainable

Muse's latest album again throws the real light on our society. The female voice included in this track openly sends the message what will happen if you continue to be unsustainable.

All Natural and Technological processes proceed in such a way
The availability of the remaining energy decreases
In all energy exchanges if no energy enters or leaves an isolated system
The entropy of that system increases
Energy continuously flows from being being concentrated to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted, useless
New energy cannot be created and high grade energy being destroyed
An economy based on endless growth is UNSUSTAINABLE.

The fundamental laws of thermodynamics will place fixed limits on technological innovation and human advancements
In an isolated system, the entropy can only increase
A species set on endless growth is UNSUSTAINABLE.

3. Muse- Madness

Finally, I have to play this other song from Muse. Human emotions.

Cheers,
Trickster