Thursday, November 3, 2011

Swag vs. Mojo

Forgive me for not blogging in a while. The whole 'blog makeover' thing didn't pan out as well as I had hoped, thanks to the rising notoriety of Bærs as well as having a life (something I didn't do too much in the summer). What I emerged from my surprisingly forgettable hiatus to discuss with the internets (aka myself) is a philosophical concept. A construct dating back to our forefathers, our ancestors - a concept older than time itself. A school of thought so entrenched in Eastern Philosophy, that the Western world has even already found a way to package it, and sell it back to us in the form of cheaply made trinkets that we're just gonna owe back to China some day anyway.

This is the concept of Swag vs Mojo.

At first you may look upon these two arbitrary indicators of "coolness" as one in the same. Isn't mojo just the word for swag in British? (this is actually a common misconception - swag in British is actually "class"..trust me, I know a guy)

I'll get into it in a lot more depth once I finish my masters in hippie philosophy and write my thesis on the topic, but the fact of the matter is that neither swag nor mojo can exist without the other. They are codependant entities that can exist in isolated situations, but can never be referred to without conjuring up the other for context. A kind of philosophical Peanut Butter & Jelly, if you will.
Either the most zen way to
carry your notes to class,
or the most awkwardly appropriate
porn storage device on the market

So what does this mean?

It means that everyone has within them their own version of swag vs. mojo. It could be your yin vs. yang, your form vs. function, your style vs. substance...hell, it could even be the voice inside of your head vs. the body that lives around it that tells it not to kill everyone all the time - I don't really care. I intentionally made the system overly vague so that it could apply to a multitude of situations. Even my own father has gone so far as to abstractly adopt this belief system into his poker strategy, and anyone that knows my dad knows that he does not fuck around with his poker strategy.

Here's what it comes down to:

Swag is a condition of the body. It has to do solely with appearance and outward demeanour. Until recently, not much was known about this condition, but in this 'prescription age' we're living in, doctors have started the mass-diagnoses. Check out the preview for the documentary below:



Sean Combs: No Swag
What is important to note is that Swag Syndrome is an external condition that does not affect the mind, so much as exhibit uncontrollable audible as well as physical outbursts which can temporarily and permanently disable the patient. This is important remember as we move on to mojo.


As arbitrary as swag can be, it is recognizably quantifiable (for example, "Swagger on a hundred/thousand etc." can be used to denote a variety of levels of Swag). Mojo is not this way at all. Mojo's like the opposite, dude. You can't count mojo, nor can you pin mojo down - that's the beauty of it. Mojo is something that every person has that no one can take away from them. Described as, "a certain 'I don't know what'" by the only scientist to have ever successfully stolen a man's "mojo" (Phd in Evil Science 'Dr. Evil') this condition is more concerned with the intrinsic qualities within one's personality rather than the outward effects they exhibit within society. Watch exclusive footage of the world renowned Evil's keynote speech below:





If you look like this,
you're probably
trying too hard.
So why the hell does any of this matter?


With great swagger comes great responsibility. Any human being living with this condition known as 'Swagmojosis' (aka everyone in the world) should learn that neither swag nor mojo should be employed without the balancing force of its counterpart. A lotta swag and no mojo is like a lot of bark and no bite...a lot of talk with no walk...a lot of preach with no practice - everyone's going to be able to tell that you're trying too hard.

Consequently, if you have mojo, you are doing a disservice to the world by not sharing it with everybody. Mojo is depth, and if the deep don't turn the swag jets on every once in a while, the rest of us are forced to wade around in the metaphorical piss of the shallow end that's filled with people that think it's a good idea to look like the cast of Jersey Shore.

So don't preach if you haven't practiced, and if you're practiced hard and taken your notes, go ahead and do some preaching. 100$ says there's someone out there who wants to read your twitter feed. As we enter Movember, there are men all over the world who are grappling with rapid and unexpected changes in swag and mojo that inevitably accompany facial hair. I like to serve as a Public Service Announcement to let you know that you are not alone. We're all facing this shit-storm of swag and mojo every day, so I say it's time to man up and stop giving a shit about how a couple hairs on top of your lip make you look. If you ain't got no mojo, yo mo ain't got no swag yo..y'know?

Swoop.