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provoke

14 February 2010

#45 Go clubbing sober

Provoke your friends and see what happens.

Provoke your friends and see what happens.

For a full autumn, I was on medication that didn’t mix well with alcohol. Since I'm in a band and my friends went pubbing a lot; I didn’t stop going out, however, I was completely sober. The most common scenario was the following:

22:00 - We get there. A and B ask if I’ll have a drink and I say that I’d like an non-alcoholic alternative. No one reacts. Nobody thinks it’s weird.

23:30 - B wonder if I can’t just have one beer. I say no. He’s a little annoyed and goes dancing to a song I’ve never heard. I'm a bit tired.

00:15 - A arrives and asks if I'm ashamed of her for drinking. I say no, get a bit annoyed, then I go urinate. I buy another non-alcoholic drink with orange juice in. I feel rejuvenated.

01:30 - B comes and pushes me and stares me in the eye and says with a slurred voice that I have no right to think that I’m better than someone else just because I don’t drink and he’s sure as hell not out every night but when he is maybe he likes to have a few beers and I’m not to fucking stand in a corner taunting him the entire evening, just because I'm fucking stuck-up.

01:32 - I go home.

Required time: 
A full evening / night. About 4 - 6 hours depending on how long you can keep up.
Cost: 
Ten euro for drinks, tops. Maybe an entry fee if you go to a club.
Cons: 
Your friends might get annoyed and you may start hating people.
Pros: 
It is a study in human social structures. You won’t get hung over. You won’t have to spend tens of euros to become dizzy. You train your ability to pick up people even when not drinking, being social even if you haven’t been drinking and having fun even when you’re not drunk which could you come to use at celebrations and places that doesn’t serve alcohol.
Taggar: swimming against the stream, provoke, doing your thing, clubbing
20 January 2010

#20 Write an opinion piece just to provoke

It’s easy to become obsessed with the idea that everything you write, say and do must have meaning and relevance. It doesn’t. In the same way it’s easy to become obsessed with the idea that everything you write, say and do must be true. It isn’t. And to sum up, because all good things come in threes, you also believe that everything you write, say and do must have a unified agenda and can’t be contradictory. It doesn’t. So what’s the frequency, Kenneth?

Write an opinion piece just to provoke. Choose a current topic then sit down and write 2500 characters, and Google an image that fits and send it to all the country's discussion pages. Pretend that you are an immigrant woman who gets beaten, pretend that you're a gay man who is harassed at work or an illegal refugee who learned Swedish by e-mail courses. Find an oppressed minority to hide behind and post a witty title:

 

- They want to fire me because I’m a Nazi.

- I lost my baby - now I want revenge.

- Fat people should be killed.

 

Sit down now and read through your entire opinion article and link immediately remove all that is conscience and political correctness. The aim with this piece is to fuck with them all. Try being a splinter in their ass. Just have fun with your provocative side, see how it feels, how it tastes. Worst case scenario, you grow as a person.

Required time: 
Two hours.
Cost: 
Free.
Cons: 
People may get upset, send you angry e-mails, and worst case scenario, send you threatening letters in which they tell you they’re going to do bad things to your cat.
Pros: 
You get a reaction out of people.
Taggar: writing, provoke, provocative, obstinate