Borknagar Lyrical Meanings???

Icy? Can I see that piece of art?


Oh man I completely forgot about that piece I should dig it out sometime. I can't believe how arrogant I sound about my art back then too because looking back I was awful. It's sitting in my attic so I'll climb up there sometime and get it out, I never did fully finish it because I'm never really satisfied with my paintings but the sketches should be lying around too which I can end up showing off easier.

In all honesty most of my more "serious" pieces of art have some influence from Borknagar in it, even if the image itself doesn't really seem to have any blatant links to the lyrics. Can't really say any other band can do that for me.
 
Oh man I completely forgot about that piece I should dig it out sometime. I can't believe how arrogant I sound about my art back then too because looking back I was awful. It's sitting in my attic so I'll climb up there sometime and get it out, I never did fully finish it because I'm never really satisfied with my paintings but the sketches should be lying around too which I can end up showing off easier.

Your art is great! Of course, I'm an outside observer, but it's great technically (of course), but it also has a certain sense of whimsy that's missing from a lot of other people's work. That makes it fun. (And that sheep just crack me up!)

I know what it's like to hate your older stuff. I write fiction (I'm not published, however, except for a couple ancient webzines), and I think the same way. My old stuff? Wow. Just crap. But, for all the crap stories I've written in the past, it's teaching me to write better - and hopefully the stories and scenes I write now are less horrid than the stuff from the past.

It's all part of the fun of creating :)
 
I actually love my old drawings, they made me smile every time I look at them :p

Well, back on topic.
This may sound a bit weird, but last year I've analysed lyrics of Colossus, Liberated and Nocturnal Vision Revisited in my work for the high school final exams last year. The title of my work was "Existentialism and its influences in literature", followed by thesis "man as a fundamental being desiring to be a god". Well, I don't know if you were inspired by that stream of philosophy when writing those lyrics, but they - especially colossus - fit just perfect in the topic of my work ^^ (Too bad it was an oral exam, so I don't have any text to show you:p)
 
"Existentialism and its influences in literature", followed by thesis "man as a fundamental being desiring to be a god".


"Colossus" is not about existentialism - it is my attempt at a scientific theory about how the universe is. My personal belief - and I regard this as the truth - is that there is no meaning behind life, there are no gods or higher intelligent beings who made the universe. There isn't anything special about life on Earth - life is scattered all over the universe (remember the size of the universe is too big for us to comprehend).

One problem with intelligent minds (=human) is that they have to put more into things than what the things are. A simple thing like evolution is just too simple and "not worthy" for a lot of people. They have to put a lot of existentialism into it.

So, you're extremely lucky to get born, you live without a higher meaning, you die and there is no life after death. We better make the most out of it when we live because we only get one opportunity! That's why I'm playing poker and having a beer with my good friends tonight.
 
So, you're extremely lucky to get born, you live without a higher meaning, you die and there is no life after death. We better make the most out of it when we live because we only get one opportunity! That's why I'm playing poker and having a beer with my good friends tonight.

So could we say that Colossus is some kind of Nietzschean? : o This sounds like his invitation to dance on our tombs...
 
"Colossus" is not about existentialism - it is my attempt at a scientific theory about how the universe is. My personal belief - and I regard this as the truth - is that there is no meaning behind life, there are no gods or higher intelligent beings who made the universe. There isn't anything special about life on Earth - life is scattered all over the universe (remember the size of the universe is too big for us to comprehend).
(...)
So, you're extremely lucky to get born, you live without a higher meaning, you die and there is no life after death. We better make the most out of it when we live because we only get one opportunity!


Those are ones of the major concepts of sartrean existentialism (the one I've analysed in my work). In opposite to other philoshopy streams, atheist existentalism is somehow related to science. It denies god, afterlife, any higher meanings of life - we live our lifes for no greater reason. It shows our lives in biological (or scientific, if you want) way, rather than spiritual. It shows our littleness and hopelessness in compare to infinite universe - in Colossus you referred to the exact same thing; No matter how strong we are, we're just a little part of the infinite universe, meaning almost nothing to the overall process of life and death.
I'll keep it this short, I hope you see what I mean :)

No. It's about science - not philosophy.

But we can look at it in a little philosophical way, can't we? :)
 
i dont like borknagar lyrics...its all about money, beer, and bitches. come up with something meaningful guys.
 
"Colossus" is not about existentialism - it is my attempt at a scientific theory about how the universe is. My personal belief - and I regard this as the truth - is that there is no meaning behind life, there are no gods or higher intelligent beings who made the universe. There isn't anything special about life on Earth - life is scattered all over the universe (remember the size of the universe is too big for us to comprehend).

One problem with intelligent minds (=human) is that they have to put more into things than what the things are. A simple thing like evolution is just too simple and "not worthy" for a lot of people. They have to put a lot of existentialism into it.

So, you're extremely lucky to get born, you live without a higher meaning, you die and there is no life after death. We better make the most out of it when we live because we only get one opportunity! That's why I'm playing poker and having a beer with my good friends tonight.

I feel the same way but causes me great amounts of anxiety that never goes away. How do you cope with this belief?
 
just dont think about things in a negative way. sure it seems quite obvious that we get one life without any fantasies, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Just be like "wow, I was born..created to exist in this massive universe of space and time. Its time to get fuckin crazy and do whatever I want!" Like asgeir said, hes gonna drink and play poker with people he loves being around.

its that simple. Systems like politics and religion tend to give people the idea that they are not allowed to do anything awesome, because if you don't obey their rules...you'll get punished in the end. And if you do obey the rules, you will get rewarded...see they have you by the dick either way, but its not like that. You don't die and go to some make believe place to be punished. You just die with no regrets and no loose ends! your free. So really their is nothing to worry about in life, because your gonna die anyway!
 
Mostly knowing there isn't an afterlife and when you die it's just like it was before you were born, nothingness.


If you don't think there's an afterlife then why are you anxious about nothing? If I'm going to be anxious about anything then it will be how it is to actually die, hehe. Hopefully it will happen fast, but I don't waste time thinking about things I can't do anything about.