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What is Brendan Eich?

Nearly everyone has heard of how Brendan Eich, Mozilla's former CEO, stepped down because of a scandal around his contribution to an organization that sought to ban gay marriage. Conservatives and liberals have been engaging in heated debates on this matter and this post isn't to determine who's right or who's wrong. What it is meant to discover is the phenomenon itself.

The interpretations I've encountered are:

#1: Opposing liberals meant that Eich made a strategically wrong step. Admitting to failure, he decided to step down.

#2: His personal standpoint went against the very mission of Mozilla, which was not creating profit but spreading openness, freedom and such with a diverse community.

These arguments. however, don't directly lead to the actual consequences. The reasons why these are misleading, inaccurate arguments are:

#1: Even though in politics and everyday life we all try to bring our own views to victory, a liberal couldn't oppose Eich. A liberal answer to his donation would have been nothing but total respect. That is because such a reply would be in favor of diversity, although all-inclusive includes the ones, who don't agree even with inclusiveness. There are many forms of liberalism but none of them would scold Eich's contribution to that organization. In summary, he couldn't oppose liberalism in a way that would lead liberalism away.

#2: Brendan Eich made his contribution as an independent individual, back in 2008. Now he spoke against everything that could oppose the gay society. He realized that holding up such views would definitely infringe Mozilla's mission. Still, his altered position promoted diversity. One could say that he is responsible for the collectivity of his actions but he actually faced this past act of his, trying to make it fit to the company's mission. Opposing Eich would actually mean failing this mission because at least toward him they close their imaginary gates and would exclude him.

What I'm trying to articulate is that there cannot be any idealistic reason to support his stepping down. On what grounds do many support it then?

(Before making my thesis, I want to note, once more that I'm not saying Eich was right or wrong when donating to the anti-gay organization, neither the same about his stepping down. Now back to the point...)

What this case tells us is that though people sympathize with liberalism or communitarianism or anything else, most of them don't actually belong to them. Eich's opposition (the kind, which doesn't only have a different view but instead is actively against him/agrees with his resignation) doesn't consist of liberals or any other group of idealists, instead of people, who may sympathize with them but they themselves are essentially different.

Carl Schmitt wrote that the main function of politics is to distinguish between friend and enemy. Schmitt wasn't a liberal--more importantly he wasn't an idealist but a realist.

Eich's opposition makes an enemy out of him. They called on Mozilla users to uninstall their browser and stop using their products. They took up a fight against him with smart methods, ones, which were enough to make the continuation of his being a CEO impossible. 

It's not a question whether or not Eich was right but whether or not he is a friend to us. Not a liberal community opposed him but rather a realist one that, at best, only serves a liberal community. They can sympathize with liberals but they can't be them.

The reason why I thought this whole matter important to see is that it's not the age of idealism any more. Of course I can't deal an absolute in regards of this because the political sphere is very mixed and while there are realists in it, we can just as easily name another huge group of idealists. My ultimate point is that this presently emerging trend is, contrary to popular statements, not liberalism, or any other form of idealism but realism instead, where one can't rely on rights or morals, only on the inclinations of those, possessing power.

my head is hurting because i thought about my future for 0.3 seconds

You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.  Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Revelation 3:17-20 (via thatwhichdoesnotsuffer)

This was taken a little while ago at a wedding. She's stunning

A little experimentation. Take some time to watch it and then to think about it before you'd be foolishly judgmental. If you're rightfully that, it's ok. But only then. Enjoy :)

Hope comes with faith. Faith is originated from past experiences, revelations and decisions, while hope in the other hand, is belief in uncertain things of the future, which could not be thought of without the first word of the sentence. Of course, without hope, what good would faith be?

The Secret Life of ME

Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) got some harsh reviews on accounts of being a cliché and of praising the sort of life that only a substantial amount of money can make possible. Some critics even say they'll graciously overlook these because Ben Stiller's just not that profound and we like him for his unique and entertaining humor, not his abstract thoughts. I watched the movie today and I was blown away.

I had quite low expectations because of the reasons above, and my intention was simply to watch something light and to relax. It was light, yes, and it was relaxing, true, but it wasn't at all as superficial as some say.

The title character, Walter Mitty, is a guy, who, after his father's death, became a responsible adult, who had to put aside his dreams and desires, in order to provide for his family and himself. He lived a life, where adventure existed only in the form of fantasies and daydreams. The movie is about his brave moves of going out to the wild and exotic parts of the world.

I admit, even in my brief summary it sounds like a cliché. However, what makes this movie extraordinary is there, among those lines. It's not the story of a man, who's just a little gray piece of paper (even one of the characters says that he imagined him as that) but someone with a past, with hopes and dreams and abilities. I can't stress abilities enough because that's a crucial point in Walter Mitty's greatness. He does the things that he can actually do and not the impossible. In an early scene we see him perform cool skateboard tricks and that's him, not his imagination, him. Now I'm not saying that someone has to be able-bodied or some such thing to live a good life. My point is that this story shows us a guy, who's coming from somewhere and goes on doing amazing things that he's had the potential to do all along. If he's an athletic guy, then it's a good thing he does things that require that.

Another important element of his character is that he wants to travel. You can say that everybody likes traveling and it's their financial states that prevent them from going to see the world. However, this is a misconception. I see people around me everyday, who say they wish they could go abroad and see this and that part of the world but in reality, they're afraid of people, who don't speak their language, they're uncomfortable with hiking, they hate spontaneity and so on and so forth. If pricey hotels with fancy rooms and fluent English concierges is what you want, then that's actually achievable almost exclusively through spending a fortune on it. If you want to see nice landscapes but only without breaking a sweat, here's tumblr, where there are endless photos that you'll be happy with and that's that. But if you're one of the few adventurous people out there, willing to jump in the ice-cold ocean, then you can do that on very little money.

My point with these is that looking at the events in the movie very specifically will make you say that yeah, it's pretty cool but no one can actually do that. But those specific events would take place in the life of that very specific Walter Mitty.

This movie is about the lifestyle that our generation has forgotten but even a hundred years ago it was the prevailing idea. And I remember that when I was seventeen I wanted to be a journalist and travel to the Sahara and climb the Mount Everest. I know, from my own experience, that abandoning these dreams won't erase them from the fabric of my mind, only I can oppress them with the new idea of life. But it's wrong. It's so wrong actually that my fear or reluctance to realize at least some of them has resulted in having me now with a poor heart, probably incapable of climbing the Everest but at the same time, a heart that's aching to do it.

My conclusion is that not all of us are adventurers or journalists and we shouldn't try to be the things we can't be, so it's not necessary to pretend we're Walter Mitty. However, figuratively, our generation's father died and we've become responsible. But it wouldn't be irresponsible to stop playing it safe and stop living petty lives. We complain a lot and believe all the crazy-labels that are put on all sorts of awesome things and I think these two things are on the top ten list of things that are wrong with people of this era. Let's try to change that.