Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Joker

This is an introduction of the series of posts that I have entitled 'The Joker'. Here I'll share some of my ideas and thoughts that I'd come across and I hope you will get some interesting insights. As far as development of mind, body and spirit goes, this will serve to improve the mind. A philosophical theme if you will...

Who is the Joker? Well... Let's try to answer that question...
In order to fully understand this concept of the Joker it is VERY IMPORTANT TO LISTEN TO THIS AUDIO CLIP! It's a lecture of the one of the greatest philosophers in 20th century in my humble opinion, Alan Watts.
It is just a part of the lecture. You can find the whole lecture on youtube as well as many other clips of Alan Watts, and I strongly recommend you do so. If you've already taken the time to read my post, listening to this one for about 15 minutes won't be trouble for you. Click play...


After listening this I think you are getting the picture of what the Joker really is...
The Joker sees the corruption in the world and uses humor and eccentric behavior to show it to the masses. The Joker is an enlightened person, but to the rest he appears to be a fool. But in fact the ruling class is making the masses stupid so that they can use them. The joker sees the hypocrisy that's all around him. The Joker sees this world as a big joke. The Joker is the enemy of the system.

All the sages, philosophers, saints, artist etc. were considered as jokers by their contemporaries. Check the biographies of Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, Socrates, Osho, Confucius...
You can find jokers in all walks of life. Especially in martial arts. The true martial artist has to be the Joker. In this era ,whether he or she would like it, martial artist will be looked upon as a fool.
Just read the posts on sifu Lee's videos for an example. You can find something like:'You're a joke. Stop embarrassing  yourself. You're acting like a fool...' all over them. Who says that? Well the masses of course... People blinded by the propaganda that's making them sheeps, and in that way they are easy to be controlled.

We have all had heard of Batman right? And yes, I wanted to be Batman when I was a kid too... But pay attention to this...
Batman is actually a ceo of a multinational corporation. The Joker is a sadistic murderer that likes torturing people and creating havoc for his own amusement. Batman fights crime and rushes to save the world from that evil Joker. Ever heard of spinning the facts? Well this is just one of many, created by this popular culture in order to distort the facts and keep the millions of people in the dark.
In real life, multinational companies are the true mass murderers. Have you noticed that none of the so called superheroes opposes the ruling system? They are stopping the bank robbers, but in fact it is the banks that are robbing us. The Joker sees this world as a joke and he' just having fun. Of course I don't agree with his methods, killing and blowing things up... But it would be like just if they would make a movie where Dana White, the head of the UFC, is the hero and where sifu Lee is a criminal. They change facts on purpose so that the truth could never be revealed.
Throughout history the people who tried to influence others and change the world into a better one, were either marginalized, ridiculed or even killed.

They want you to think that this is the Joker


But in fact here's one

The Jokers are everywhere, in music, art, religion, philosophy, movies, literature, science and, believe it or not, one even stranded into mma. But more of that in the next post. Stay tuned for more and if someone tells that you are a joke, take it as a compliment....

7 comments:

  1. Dear Alex,

    Thank you for this article, which joins the concepts of Bodhisatvas (sorry if I have mispelled it) and other sages choosing opprobrium volontarily.
    One important seems to be that sages cannot live correctly in this world, filled with corruption. Therefore, they had to find a strategy to intaract with society, without loosing their purity.
    Once again, thank you for sharing this, I will probably spend some time studying this in depth in the coming days ;)

    Todai Ling

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll be looking forward to Part 2. This first instalment was interesting, though I'm not entirely sold yet on the sage as joker/jester idea. Yes, I recognize that the sage definitely shares some cognitive territory with the joker. Both of them can see through the cultural constructs that others take for granted. However, the joker is ironically (in my experience) not a happy character at all. He feels trapped, his smile is painted on at best, and his attire (or in some cases lack thereof) are an outlandish attempt at resisting for the sake of resistance itself. The sage, to the contrary, though mocked very similarly, has managed to truly free himself, lives in joy, and does what he loves to do out of passion, never contempt

    It can be very difficult to discern between a sage and a joker. But the latter is far more common. I myself have been the joker, during at least one period of my life. While trapped in a service contract with the U.S. Army, I became very resistant and did everything in my power (short of getting thrown in jail) to persuade my commanding officers to release me. They in turn used all of my efforts against me by making me into the joker, and they had the power to do so. They played off my exploits to make the resistant things I did funny, in a dark manner, so that others would both laugh at me, and perhaps hate me. A simple example... There was a big inspection coming up, a visiting general with several stars on his collar would be coming through. We were to do everything we could to make ourselves and our unit look good. The men worked for days on end, scrubbing and polishing everything. I refused to lift a finger on my own. Or, when supervised, I lifted that finger with obvious and purposeful ineffectiveness. When the day for the inspection came, we all had to go stand out in formation. The general walked down the lines, followed by our company commander, and our first sergeant. Any criticisms of our appearance were noted. Whoever received the least criticism would be given two days leave. When then came to me, in my wrinkly uniform and scuffed boots, the general just snorted. Then the company commander checked to see if I was wearing my dog tags. I was. He read the religious affiliation out loud, where I had stamped 'HUMANIST ATHEIST'. The guys around me smiled, trying not to laugh. The first sergeant said, "Figures." And they moved on. So I ended up being the guy with no actual criticisms marked down, and therefore won the two days off, even though I'd purposely come to the inspection unpresentable. This gave guys a lot of laughs, but at the same time pissed a lot of people off. I was glad to get the leave, but still miserable having to continue my enlistment. That's what being a joker is like. But I suspect that being a sage is different. I'm open to be convinced otherwise

    ReplyDelete
  3. I do very much like the distortion you've pointed out with the popular culture Batman example. That's a great insight. I'll never look at a super hero again without asking myself whether or not they live in service of (or themselves represent) the industrial ruling class

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks guys for positive comments. In my opinion a joker is someone that stands between an average person and a sage. The joker is something you could call a ''missing link''. I think that all sages were jokers in their youth and yes, jokers do sometimes hide behind the ''tears of a clown''. That's why a sage is usually portrayed as an old wise man, because it takes time to overcome all the obstacles that the joker faces in life. It is known that Confucius was very sad towards the end of his life because he wasn't sure that his teachings are going to be accepted. One person may be a sage for you, but someone else would consider that same person as a joke. Whether one person is a joker or a sage is, in the end, a matter of perspective. There's a very thin line that makes the difference. That's why I decided to point out some of the jokers that I find inspiring. They may not be sages in the strict way of looking at things, but at least they are showings us the right way. Also most of us can relate to them and that's a big thing in our overall development. Stay tuned... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I would agree with that, Alex. Very likely most sages start off as jokers, and have to learn to transcend the symptoms of their initial disenchantment, sadness and anger

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very interesting post Alex and very insightful replies. I am very much looking forward to taking a look at the video posted and will respond back when I can. Thank you very much for sharing, I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow..Speaking of Batman, he is my favorite superhero. If you have seen the dark knight, notice how The Joker laughs at every single hit Batman throws at him. Batman was full of anger, Joker is having fun being hit. Lol. It seems that Joker transcend his pain just by laughing. He accepts the pain therefore it is nonexistent. Batman was going Yang. Instead of trying to oppose Batman with Yang, he fought back with Yin. At first I thought that Batman was the right side to pick but really we should understand both sides. Thanks for sharing Alex.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.