Shhhh! Digital Media: 06/15/24

My character from one of my favourite E-Sports franchises...

She's somewhere between Ai Yuanlin Ying, Mila Ren Dubel,
Monique Defleur, Alicia Westin, Jinn Hua and Kori Jonglyu.

Greetings from the land of Shhhh! Digital Media once again, just north of Lake Ontario from within Regent Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Yes, you read that right. Everything originating from Shhhh! Digital Media is created in an apartment within my home/office dwelling in 200 Sherbourne Street, suite 701.

So I spent the last three days working on the source code to another project I'm working on in Delphi (a Pascal derived language with an Object Oriented framework and integrated IDE that compiles directly to native machine code and includes a built-in x86 assembler as well).

I'll be getting back to writing for The Butterfly Dragon and Tales Of The Sanctum soon, as well as working on moving forward with my Unreal Engine project(s). There's a lot to do, but not as much time to do it. So I've just got to spread myself thin.

The Creation Of A Brand...

Over the course of the years that I've spent creating this, my content brand, there have been many attempts to outright take it, or to associate it in ways that it has no bearing whatsoever.

As I've often alluded to, this involves attempts at stealing or swapping my identity with that of others, or associating me with activities that are not a part of my lifestyle or attitudes.

Colour symbolism often plays into such efforts by the kind of people who attempt such things, and this sort of an effort is always geared towards creating an association or misimpression, and in doing so, provoking me to respond in such a way so as to deal with such misimpressions or alterations of my identity, or what the colours of Shhhh! Digital Media represent.

You could in a sense call such efforts, attempts at social puppetry. Creating situations that make a person feel as if they require a response to clarify any misimpressions presented during the creation of such situations and the more extreme the reaction towards the opposite ends of that impression, the better for the groups that make such attempts.

In fact, there's a whole art to these sorts of things, and their effective timing is often referred to as the rhythm, and no, I'm not talking about music or even music theory at all, even though one certainly benefits from such knowledge. I certainly have and I'm ever so grateful for it.

I'm talking about the dancing of politics which also works as the politics of dancing, for those of you who still recall the eighties in all of their (big hair) glory, because the politics of dancing is also the name of a popular song from that era, whose name seems to fit the duality of today's editorial topic.

Hence The Dancing Of Politics...

The dancing of politics refers to the attempt of a person to avoid getting shot in the feet by an association or accusation directed towards their person, by way of insinuation or implication and this is akin to those old western movies where you'd see ruffians and old west gunslingers shooting at the feet of some poor character, often yelling: "dance varmint!", which of course the poor miscreant would then have to humour such a request to avoid getting shot in the feet.

Of course, that entire setup is actually a cunning metaphor for the nature of social politics, especially that of those who's lives are spent in one form or another in front of the public eye. Directly or indirectly.

And of course, for any good dancing, you definitely need some rhythm, and a good sense of meter or timing. At least as much so as the people shooting at your feet, lest you want one of their shots to hit you and cause damage.

Timing, is only possible through the dichotomy of anything involving opposing paradigms of some form. Two, for the most simple of rhythms, and as many more as you have timing and rhythm for. The entire concept of time signature in music is based upon this idea. For instance, a marching band often plays music with a time signature of 2/4. That is, every bar has a total of two beats, and every beat is regarded as having the duration of a quarter note. One beat is often accented, while the other isn't, giving way to the concept of rhythm and duality. This works well with a marching band, because you have two feet, and marching in rhythm is an important part of the process of training a lot of people to work together. This however is not a critique of marching bands or the military. I'm just using this example to demonstrate the concept and will no further make references in that direction.

For the purposes of this demonstration, we'll stick with two opposing paradigms, which is often better phrased as duality, my favourite of subjects given my allegiance with Zen Buddhism and Taoism, though I honestly believe, we all have the right to believe as we choose, even to not believe at all. Sure, we get along better with people of a similar inclination, but we also learn much more from people who have different views and life experience than do we.

I digress however, because I just might be dancing ;-)

Back to the dancing of politics.

From A Home Office - A World Presence - A World Responsibility

With my living and working in Canada, I naturally don't take part in the due process of voting in the United States Of America, nor will I endorse any electee of any election. I sometimes might make allusions to party leaders in the course of a story and a few have appeared in my stories from both the United States and other countries, though for the most part, I stay away from actual politics, unless its to protect the idea of neutrality. Certainly, if I'm delving into scandal within a story, then I use fictitious characters and situations and keep a good distance between actual existing political process and the given storyline.

Given the current fragile state of the world in which we're living, which is a hotbed of many dualistic issues that often require one to take up a sidedness that betrays the notion neutrality. The idea that certain kinds of issues of conflict are better resolved through diplomatic neutrality, rather than being swayed into the extremity of imbalance from which it is very difficult to return. Like the pendulum of a ticking clock suddenly trying to find rest at the center once again, being swayed back and forth between the two sides of extremity on the long journey towards its point of rest.

The alternate perspective however is that friendship and allegiance are both proven through the demonstration of bias, either for or against a friend or ally in need.

Further complicating issues are the actual aspects of morality involved, especially in terms of conflict or war. However, when you have two friends who are both fighting each other, sometimes the best stance one can take is to support both in their life and peace, but not their conflict, and that requires an even keel. Not very good for the kind of people who might be shooting at your feet in trying to force you to dance.

Its All Music Theory...

Hence, rhythm is the ability of one to sway another against the sidedness of any duality or paradigm made up of two different sides, despite what is at the center of such an issue or conflict (if indeed conflict is at all involved).

As soon as you sway or appear to be made to sway, leaning in favour of one direction or another, that gets the rhythm going, and we start to see the effects of meter and tempo, because in most cases, a person who is made to appear to sway in a direction that they don't factually lean towards (or against) will undoubtedly correct their stance by swaying in the opposite direction to regain their balance.

Tada! There we have tempo! Because as soon as you attempt to correct your imbalance, you risk going out of balance towards the opposite side, which again would require you to push back in the original direction you'd been swayed.

Meanwhile, the same people who tried to start this entire process of your dancing, are still shooting at your feet. Their bullets? Issues from either side of whatever duality you happen to be caught in the middle. If you stop swaying with the timing of these shots at your feet, you stand to get shot by one of those bullets, meaning that whatever that issue related to, hit you and you're seen as having wronged one of those two sides, which further impels you to overcorrect your balance in favour of the one you wronged, despite you not having actually wronged anyone. You're being purposely teetered in the hopes that you eventually lose your balance completely to one side or the other.

So you could say that your motivations for dancing are entirely the result of the ones doing the shooting, and every time they throw you off balance, you're going to risk overcorrecting yourself to adjust your balance to the opposite side. Of course, the ones shooting at your feet, are undoubtedly attempting to get you to bias the side of their choosing.

In fact, those shooting at your feet, likely are representives of each side. Side A and side B. Left and right. Whatever paradigm along whose axis you're being swayed. One or more from one side, one or more from the other, and they're just working together in order to make you dance, as punishment for not picking a side.

How far off kilter and to which side you're forced, could be expressed by the term polarity. Any analog metronome (a time keeping device often used while practicing musical performances) is composed entirely of that. An instrument not unlike the pendulum of a clock, that teeters from one side to another with timing in accordance to a rate of tempo measured in beats per minute (bpm).

The more extreme your imbalance, the harder you're going to try to force your way back in the opposite direction to attain balance and this overcompensation might serve to increase the extremity of your polarity. The amplitude from which you're opposite the center on either side.

There's Nothing Quite Like Dancing...

There's nothing like watching a great dance performance by skilled dancers who love to dance, and who call their own shots in dancing. They choose their song. They choose their tempo. Their rhythm. They choose their dance. They're working with the music in their presentation of a real form of art, hopefully learned by their own propensity for enjoying music, and their body. In your youth, there are few better ways to enjoy it than that.

On the other hand, there's people who enjoy making others dance, though not as part of such an artistic and skilled performance of music and body, but rather, of politics. The punishment for those who choose not to pick a side in support of a conflict, whose resolution will be achieved not by focus on the conflict, or polarizing those involved, but on the solution and in accordance with principles that protect both sides and work towards peace and stability.

Dance!

Now this doesn't necessarily work well for an election, per se, unless you're not from the country whose election it is. Then, it entirely makes perfect sense. Especially if you're an influencer of some form or appreciation, whose voice carries a little weight or more. In such a case, its an immense responsibility not to interfere, except to remind those who are participating in the vote, that the vote is entirely their responsibility and that they should be aware of all the social aspects that can manipulatively go into electioneering.

If in other words, you cast a ballot because someone is shooting at your feet, and your ballot is used entirely to avert the repercussions of those shots, which stand to bias you in the public's eyes in one way or another, and hence violate the privacy of your vote which can have consequences if others know which side you voted, unless of course you are in full support of your party of your own freewill and choice. Not simply because someone was shooting at your feet.

These ideas are more important now than ever and one of the biggest reasons that I decided to address this issue with this editorial, was because while playing an online game as ShhhhDigital last night, some of my fellow teammates (whom are chosen at random) decided to alter the appearances of the makeup of our teams to suit their needs and especially so in relation to the branding of the upcoming United States Of America elections.

Given the events of past in relation to politics in the United States Of America, the election has turned into a vehicle of branding, that often involves race and colour symbolism, especially black and white. That is, one party is being branded as the black party, in reference to skin colour, and much the same, another party is being branded as the white party, in reference to skin colour. Now this branding is gross generalization in my opinion, because nobody has black skin, and nobody has white skin and no two people have the exact same skin colour.

I understand that some feel that such branding is necessary to implore voters of other ethnicities to participate in the vote, but branding parties by race is how many great injustices throughout history have begun, while voting on the basis of race stands to create an even further chaotic foundation from which to build a government.

The Game Of Dance...

In all fairness, at least in last night's game, there were attempts to balance things out, and for a short time, there was the diversity of representation of every culture amongst the teams I played upon. I noticed that when the team was out of balance, that some players elected themselves to represent the missing cultures, and that was very inspiring, given the fact that I often play representing a gender and culture that is not specifically my own, quite simply because I want to see that gender and culture better represented in online gaming and in other online avenues. It was clear that many other players chose to do the same, and for the first two thirds of my playing time, the teams I played on as ShhhhDigital, were a center of representation and good balance.

Where there lacked women, the players would quickly repick another character that made sure that everyone was represented, and in all irony, this is a very important theme in one of my currently unfinished stories: Suffragium Per Proxy, the very same one I initially started in 2021, but gave up writing in favour of developing my three story anthology: Three For Women. In March of 2024, I returned to Suffragium Per Proxy and it is still one of my high priorities, but one that cannot be forced, or turned into a battle of gender rights versus race rights. People that push things in that direction disgust me. Gender is represented in every culture, so why would anyone want to exclude gender in favour of race?

Beyond that point, it seems that the dancing of politics became involved, and that some of the players in later games, began using that power of representation in a purposely unbalanced manner so as to create an impression of racial sideness in lieu of the upcoming election in the United States Of America, that cast me to one side of one extreme. In essence, it doesn't matter which extreme it was, because either way the intent would have been to provoke me to dance in the opposite direction, and get caught in the rhythm between the two sides, trying to overcorrect for the imposed imbalance.

Like when a line of people in an outdoors class environment are confronted by the teacher, who seeks a volunteer from amongst their numbers, and everyone in the line except for one person takes a step backward. The group volunteered that person, rather than the person volunteering from the group.

As I stated, I Shhhh! Digital Media, aka Brian Joseph Johns, the founder and writer of everything you read here and one who shares in a great deal of the responsibility for artwork with many other skilled and incredible artists of various vocations, I do not vote in the United States Of America, and I take very seriously my responsibility to show at least neutrality with regard to any aspect of racial branding of parties according to the colour symbolism of black and white. Shhhh! Digital Media does not represent racial branding by its own use of colour symbolism, nor do I endorse it, least of all as part of elector party racial branding.

Its a great responsibility to vote, and remember that when you do, that you are giving a voice to your own ideas of the direction your country should voyage, but you might also be giving a voice to those who don't have one at all (voting has an age restriction for instance, and there was a time when it was a very one sided right with regard to gender). I support responsible voting, but I don't support racial branding of parties.

During the time of this last leg of my online gaming last night in a very frantic E-Sports action title that I really enjoy playing, this imbalance of representation began as a tactic to associate my brand with a specific sidedness of race, entirely in an unbalanced manner. Not only that, but it was accompanied by actual harassment from my neighbours, and others loitering outside of my building of residence as well, and this was likely occurring as part of an effort to replace the impression of my identity, to replace the association of Shhhh! Digital Media towards an ends that takes it away from its roots, and to give the idea to others that Shhhh! Digital Media is created by someone different than actually keeps all of this going in terms of the content and monstrous effort.

This brings me back to the Dancing Of Politics...

If I hadn't been aware of rhythm and polarity as concepts, I might have gone way off kilter, and ended up being played according to someone else's rhythm, tempo and sense of polarity as a means to manipulate me and create imbalances that I would later be forced to address to retain balance, hence dancing.

Sometimes however, being aware of concepts can also serve the purposes of throwing you off balance, for when you realize you're being played in such a manner, and by those who are aware, it stands to harden you, which can often be just as bad, if not much worse.

Sometimes it pays to recall this advice: The flexible tree moves in the wind. The hardened tree is brittle and breaks.

Ultimately, I love music and dancing, though I am far from being a skilled dancer myself. I am however skilled in music theory thanks some members of my family from long ago, back in the days of the Harbour Castle Hilton and its revolving restaurant. Back in the days of the Three Crowns Restaurant. Back in the days of abundant Alaskan King Crab legs dipped in butter, garlic and herb sauce. Back in the days of live bands and lounge gigs. Back in the days of Anson Avenue and summertime pool parties.

However, I decided that rather than let the last part of last night's team representation sway me in any direction, that I'd rather just deal with it like someone who knows. Really knows.

I am proud of my origins, however my Shhhh! Digital Media brand and colours are not meant as those of race and skin, for nobody truly has black skin and nobody truly has white skin and no two people have exactly the same skin colour.

Shhhh! Digital Media's colours represent something that transcends those ideas altogether, in favour of something more. Something of our driving passion, like the yearning and the learning, and the heart and mind of a butterfly, the drive of a dragon that never dies. The truth in all of its glory and tragedy. The truth in all that is shared and remains hidden.

Of all that is science and magic, without the underpinnings of superstition and that is what Shhhh! Digital Media is about and what it is is in people with which it already has much in common.

If you enjoyed this, I'm just glad that we had something that we could all share.

When you vote, do so responsibly and recall that right was fought for and cost the lives of many other people throughout history from thousands of years ago right until this very moment.

Its as important a responsibility as that of the responsibility of representation that results from getting elected, whether you come from a country with a Queen's, King's or Emperor's Crown, or a Parliament and Senate, where elected officials represent the people before the Governor General or the Speaker of the House. Whether you're part of a system of appointed representatives that internally votes for the person who will lead the ruling party. Whether or not you vote for a President in a Republic founded Democracy.

Shhhh! Digital Media retains its neutrality and the convinctions of my conscience. My message is in my writing. My brand is independent of any political endorsements other than those that arise from conscience.

However, I leave you with this song because I'm not a big fan of the dancing of politics, but I am a big fan of...