Tonight I was working on a novel I am writing in collaboration with a friend of mine. After three hours, I came up with one page! But let me explain....
The one page was a "world description". The novel is a science fiction slash fantasy novel. It is set on a fictional planet that requires certain characteristics, therefore I had to make one up that fit the description; and in the fantasy genre, world-building is an essential part of the process. But being a bit of a literalist, I couldn't just "make one up". I needed to have a semi-scientific basis for these conditions.
Now I would never call myself an amateur astronomer. I don't even own a telescope! But I've always loved space and all things space-related, and am fascinated by astrophysics. As a kid I knew the names of all the planets in the solar system, in order, and what type of planet each one was. As an adult I have enjoyed the abundance of information that is available on the Internet to Mickey Mouse astronomy enthusiast hacks like me. I have very much enjoyed learning how nuclear fusion works. I was excited when I learned that scientists had actually created real antimatter! I am secretly proud that because I know how black holes work, I am no longer afraid that the Large Hadron Collider might accidentally destroy the Universe. I can relate to most of the really nerdy stuff they show on The Big Bang Theory, like getting excited about bouncing lasers off the Moon, and watching science fiction DVDs with the commentary turned on.......
.........I am very worried about myself actually.
Anyhow, tonight, when I created my planet, I had a few things to work out.
Firstly, because most stars in the Universe exist in binary pairs, I decided that my planet should be in a binary star system. But I wasn't interested in the whole "two suns" motif, because 1. it's been done to death, and 2. a planet that orbited two suns at once would more than likely be completely uninhabitable, spending most of it's year in either extreme heat or extreme cold. So my planet is tidally locked to a small, cool, red dwarf star, meaning that one whole hemisphere of the planet is facing the red dwarf star constantly (like the bright side of the Moon to Earth), and only the far side that faces the larger, hotter, brighter and further star is habitable.
Secondly, I had decided that the day-night cycle should go: short day, night, long day, night, with the nights being of equal length. How does this work, I hear myself ask? So my red dwarf star has a highly eccentric orbit around the larger hotter star, meaning it has two very close approaches and two very far approaches, which allows the short day on the close approach, the long day on the far approach, and the night in the equinoxes, making it the same length every time. Of course this assumes that the red dwarf's orbital inclination to the larger star is basically zero, the eccentricity of the orbit is symmetrical, and that my planet has zero axial tilt - no problem. It's my planet, it can have zero inclination, symmetrical eccentricity and no axial tilt if I want.
Thirdly, my planet had to be completely covered in rock, and suffer violent sandstorms, with sandstorms always at night, and infrequently during the day. No problems - it's covered in rock, just like Mars or Venus. But the sandstorms? Aha! This can be caused by convection currents, as air from the temperature-constant bright side interacts with air from the temperature-fluctuating far side. And of course, at night, when the temperature of the two sides would vary the most, the sandstorms would be constant.
Fourthly, it's only a small world, but the gravity has to be the same or very similar to Earth's. How does that work? Of course - the planet has a very large, very massive iron core. This also explains how it creates a magnetic field strong enough to contain an atmosphere thick enough to support human life and minimise temperature fluctuations, whilst at the same time shielding the planet from the ferocious tides of two solar winds. Not only that, but with such a massive iron core, space-faring humans would be crazy not to go there and mine the crap out of it, right?
So now I have a nice little world in a nice little binary star system with all my environmental preferences neatly accommodated by the information I procured from Wikipedia, the NASA website, the Universe Today website, the Popsci website, and some website about Greek mythology (my planets and stars are named after figures from Greek mythology, partly because my collaborator had already given my planet its name, and partly for reasons that I really don't have time to explain in this post).
I'm a bit worried that someone that actually knows something about astrophysics will read it one day and laugh at my Mickey Mouse astronomy. But I'm not going for the "hard science fiction" angle. In fact, my world description is probably already too technical for the everyday Joe Blow fantasy-genre fan, and exists mainly for my own reference when describing certain events, and as a guide to how the environment on the surface would appear to a human observer. It's a science fiction slash fantasy novel, so hopefully it will be a bit more accessible to most people than the kind of stuff the guys off The Big Bang Theory would be interested in.
The next step is the characters. If it took me three hours to do one page about an inanimate lump of rock, I hate to think how long that will take!
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Ignoramus
This week I had an experience that showed me how little I knew about certain things.
It also showed me that whilst I am not stupid, I am not necessarily as intelligent as I may think, and that there are people around me whose brains work far better, more quickly and more efficiently than mine.
How does intelligence work anyway? And what defines intelligence? Is it merely the ability to remember a large number of things? Is it the ability to process large amounts of information, or maintain large and complex trains of thought, without getting distracted and losing the objective? Is it therefore a capacity issue? A "mental bandwidth" issue?
And how much of intelligence is innate, a "talent", and how much of it is learned? How much of what we perceive as intelligence in another person is actual mental ability, and how much of it is just mental discipline, the result of a well-exercised mind? We're all familiar with the person in our lives who could have been and done so much more with their talents and abilities if they had just applied themselves, paid attention in school, not been slack and lazy and pushed themselves. Is this person less intelligent for not putting in the effort (i.e. would they currently be more intelligent if they had of) or are they just as intelligent, just mentally undisciplined, with large quantities of mental processing power going to waste?
I know for myself that I found school relatively easy. I could usually come up with the answer to most questions by making an intelligent guess. This, coupled with laziness, meant that when I saw that I could get an average result with little to no effort, I thought "why try harder?" and pretty much just coasted. Certain teachers (bless their cotton socks) took me aside and told me I would not be able to rely on just pure intelligence for much longer, but of course, I didn't listen, because I was fifteen and had the world and everyone in it pretty much worked out. Why bother learning maths? I was going to be a bass player in an improbably popular rock band and would never need to know what pie squared was. Why try harder to learn German? I'm only doing this subject because the alternative was Agriculture, and I don't want to do all those outdoor lessons in the winter. And Chemistry! Even though I find it amazingly interesting, the concepts don't just immediately resolve themselves in my head, therefore I find that, in the face of having to put effort into understanding them, it's too hard and "I don't get it" and I'll just ride it out and hope the end result doesn't stuff up my year 12 results too much.
This became a really bad habit that is with me to this day. The problem then became that whilst yes, a lot of stuff I understood almost instantly, a lot of stuff I didn't; but instead of trying to figure it out, on a sub-conscious level I imagined that I understood it anyway, and just ploughed on with my own imagined framework, coming up with answers that sort-of fit sometimes, and sort-of didn't at other times. This has been very limiting. If only I was one of those "good" kids that had had the sense to push myself to the limit and really achieve something better than what I did. Shoulda coulda woulda.
But I think that, unfortunately, most people experience the same thing subconsciously at a certain age. They decide that, whilst the world didn't make sense before, it does now, thanks to this marvellous little worldview framework that I've knocked up using ordinary household perceptions, preconceptions and prejudices, and woe betide anyone that tries to tell me differently.
There are different types of ignoramus.
1. The proud ignoramus.
This person is actually proud of their profound ignorance. "I don't know anything, but my opinions are so good I don't need to!" Their opinion is their reality. They substitute knowledge for opinions. And, sadly, most of the time their opinions aren't even their own. Is this why advertising is so successful? "This product costs twice as much and is the same as the cheaper one, but the packaging looks nicer and the TV says it's the best one on the market, so I'll buy it." If ignorance was an Olympic sport, they would be three-time gold medallists. They look down on educated and inquisitive people with contempt. "What do you mean, you want to have a balanced opinion? What do you mean, you want to find out all the facts? What do you mean you want to hear both sides of the story? Pfffffft! This is what I think, for absolutely no reason, and if you don't think the same then you're an idiot!" Unfortunately, many proud ignoramuses are just mentally lazy intelligent people, their cumbersome mental powers going completely to waste on fantasies and imaginings instead of being used to correctly perceive their environment. The proud ignoramus is to be avoided - their ignorance is contagious.
2. The angry ignoramus.
This person knows they are not as intelligent as others, and is mad as hell about it. Therefore they avoid any interaction with information because to them it highlights their inability to process it. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, they too create a fantasy framework in which either a) they are intelligent, and everyone else is stupid, or b) they are at the correct level of intelligence, and everyone who is less intelligent than them is stupid and worthy of ridicule, and everyone who is more intelligent than them is arrogant, up themselves, not to be trusted and to be avoided at all costs. These are the types that end up in charge of totalitarian regimes. They see their warped sense of jealousy as a perfectly sound and valid reason to begin a vendetta against a person, group or social organisation. The only reason they are an ignoramus at all is because they spent so much time being pissed off that someone else was more intelligent than them that they had no time to actually exercise the intelligence they did have. The angry ignoramus is liveable with, but only if you are able to convince them that you are no more, or no less, intelligent than them.
3. The misguided ignoramus.
This person usually has been taught from quite a young age that the only thing worth knowing is XYZ and everything else is crap. For example: "my son doesn't need to go to school and learn all that crap. He needs to get an apprenticeship and learn a trade. Then he'll be a real man, not one of these poofters who sits on their arse in an office or a laboratory behind a computer all day." The misguided ignoramus may also have become the way they are due to social or peer pressures: "all the other blokes at school are only interested in cars, girls and beer. Therefore the only things worth knowing about are cars, girls and beer." Sometimes the misguided ignoramus has been led astray by society, and is a victim of propagandist advertising: "I really feel like a beer. A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer. And the best cold beer is.... but I'm a bit hungry. I feel like a burger. Should I go to burger joint A, or burger joint B? I know, I'll go to burger joint B, because the burgers are better at burger joint B." The misguided ignoramus is harmless enough, but may not allow you into their social confidence if you do not drive the right make of vehicle, live in the right kind of suburb, barrack for the right sporting team, watch the right kind of American crime shows, eat the right kind of burger and drink the right kind of beer.
4. The blissfully unaware ignoramus.
This person is often also a misguided ignoramus, and can usually be found in the company of the proud ignoramus (the angry ignoramus thinks they're bloody stupid and won't have anything to do with them). Due to social and societal conditions, this person is completely unaware that they don't know anything, because their world is their sphere, and their sphere is so small they know everything about it. They will react to new information with suspicion and fear, because it's unfamiliar, and that makes them feel uncomfortable, because it doesn't fit with the way things are, which is they way they always have been. These are the kind who are born, live and die in the same suburb or small town, and who think going to Tasmania counts as having travelled overseas. They can be quite lovely and easy to get along with, if you can understand a single word they say.
Of course their are more kinds (including the kind that writes blogs attempting to delineate types of ignoramus when they don't know everything themselves), but in my own observations of life these are the main types. Unfortunately, being an ignoramus of any sort does not prevent you from getting into a position of power and influence in society. It's also sad to note that intelligence seems to have no influence over whether or not one is or isn't an ignoramus. Becoming an ignoramus is a choice. Whether or not this choice was yours is not the point. The point is, there is one choice which is yours and yours alone, and that is the choice to stop being an ignoramus.
So how does one stop being an ignoramus? Stop telling yourself that you know everything, that you've got the world figured out, and that you don't need to learn anything more. If you form an opinion, remind yourself that it is only an opinion and in the absence of the knowledge of all facts may not be entirely correct. If everyone around you keeps telling you how smart you are, start hanging around someone who's smarter, in order to avoid little-big-fish syndrome. What's little-big-fish syndrome? Being a big fish in a little pond, who thinks he's reached his peak because he doesn't become a bigger fish, without realising it's just because he's still in a little pond.
The experience I had this week made me realise just that - maybe I'm a big fish in a little pond, and instead of getting into a bigger pond, I've allowed myself to become comfortable thinking bigger of myself than I really ought to. But the experience I had was a part of me attempting to get into a bigger pond, so I'm not going to get all bent out of shape over it. If I make it into that pond, it will be an awesome opportunity that will stretch me and force me to work hard to reach my potential, which honestly does scare me a bit. But I'm a lot more scared of being trapped by little-big-fish syndrome, so I'm more than ready to make the leap. If I don't make it into that particular pond there'll be others, until one day I'll find myself in the pond that allows me to grow to the size I was meant to be.
It also showed me that whilst I am not stupid, I am not necessarily as intelligent as I may think, and that there are people around me whose brains work far better, more quickly and more efficiently than mine.
How does intelligence work anyway? And what defines intelligence? Is it merely the ability to remember a large number of things? Is it the ability to process large amounts of information, or maintain large and complex trains of thought, without getting distracted and losing the objective? Is it therefore a capacity issue? A "mental bandwidth" issue?
And how much of intelligence is innate, a "talent", and how much of it is learned? How much of what we perceive as intelligence in another person is actual mental ability, and how much of it is just mental discipline, the result of a well-exercised mind? We're all familiar with the person in our lives who could have been and done so much more with their talents and abilities if they had just applied themselves, paid attention in school, not been slack and lazy and pushed themselves. Is this person less intelligent for not putting in the effort (i.e. would they currently be more intelligent if they had of) or are they just as intelligent, just mentally undisciplined, with large quantities of mental processing power going to waste?
I know for myself that I found school relatively easy. I could usually come up with the answer to most questions by making an intelligent guess. This, coupled with laziness, meant that when I saw that I could get an average result with little to no effort, I thought "why try harder?" and pretty much just coasted. Certain teachers (bless their cotton socks) took me aside and told me I would not be able to rely on just pure intelligence for much longer, but of course, I didn't listen, because I was fifteen and had the world and everyone in it pretty much worked out. Why bother learning maths? I was going to be a bass player in an improbably popular rock band and would never need to know what pie squared was. Why try harder to learn German? I'm only doing this subject because the alternative was Agriculture, and I don't want to do all those outdoor lessons in the winter. And Chemistry! Even though I find it amazingly interesting, the concepts don't just immediately resolve themselves in my head, therefore I find that, in the face of having to put effort into understanding them, it's too hard and "I don't get it" and I'll just ride it out and hope the end result doesn't stuff up my year 12 results too much.
This became a really bad habit that is with me to this day. The problem then became that whilst yes, a lot of stuff I understood almost instantly, a lot of stuff I didn't; but instead of trying to figure it out, on a sub-conscious level I imagined that I understood it anyway, and just ploughed on with my own imagined framework, coming up with answers that sort-of fit sometimes, and sort-of didn't at other times. This has been very limiting. If only I was one of those "good" kids that had had the sense to push myself to the limit and really achieve something better than what I did. Shoulda coulda woulda.
But I think that, unfortunately, most people experience the same thing subconsciously at a certain age. They decide that, whilst the world didn't make sense before, it does now, thanks to this marvellous little worldview framework that I've knocked up using ordinary household perceptions, preconceptions and prejudices, and woe betide anyone that tries to tell me differently.
There are different types of ignoramus.
1. The proud ignoramus.
This person is actually proud of their profound ignorance. "I don't know anything, but my opinions are so good I don't need to!" Their opinion is their reality. They substitute knowledge for opinions. And, sadly, most of the time their opinions aren't even their own. Is this why advertising is so successful? "This product costs twice as much and is the same as the cheaper one, but the packaging looks nicer and the TV says it's the best one on the market, so I'll buy it." If ignorance was an Olympic sport, they would be three-time gold medallists. They look down on educated and inquisitive people with contempt. "What do you mean, you want to have a balanced opinion? What do you mean, you want to find out all the facts? What do you mean you want to hear both sides of the story? Pfffffft! This is what I think, for absolutely no reason, and if you don't think the same then you're an idiot!" Unfortunately, many proud ignoramuses are just mentally lazy intelligent people, their cumbersome mental powers going completely to waste on fantasies and imaginings instead of being used to correctly perceive their environment. The proud ignoramus is to be avoided - their ignorance is contagious.
2. The angry ignoramus.
This person knows they are not as intelligent as others, and is mad as hell about it. Therefore they avoid any interaction with information because to them it highlights their inability to process it. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, they too create a fantasy framework in which either a) they are intelligent, and everyone else is stupid, or b) they are at the correct level of intelligence, and everyone who is less intelligent than them is stupid and worthy of ridicule, and everyone who is more intelligent than them is arrogant, up themselves, not to be trusted and to be avoided at all costs. These are the types that end up in charge of totalitarian regimes. They see their warped sense of jealousy as a perfectly sound and valid reason to begin a vendetta against a person, group or social organisation. The only reason they are an ignoramus at all is because they spent so much time being pissed off that someone else was more intelligent than them that they had no time to actually exercise the intelligence they did have. The angry ignoramus is liveable with, but only if you are able to convince them that you are no more, or no less, intelligent than them.
3. The misguided ignoramus.
This person usually has been taught from quite a young age that the only thing worth knowing is XYZ and everything else is crap. For example: "my son doesn't need to go to school and learn all that crap. He needs to get an apprenticeship and learn a trade. Then he'll be a real man, not one of these poofters who sits on their arse in an office or a laboratory behind a computer all day." The misguided ignoramus may also have become the way they are due to social or peer pressures: "all the other blokes at school are only interested in cars, girls and beer. Therefore the only things worth knowing about are cars, girls and beer." Sometimes the misguided ignoramus has been led astray by society, and is a victim of propagandist advertising: "I really feel like a beer. A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer. And the best cold beer is.... but I'm a bit hungry. I feel like a burger. Should I go to burger joint A, or burger joint B? I know, I'll go to burger joint B, because the burgers are better at burger joint B." The misguided ignoramus is harmless enough, but may not allow you into their social confidence if you do not drive the right make of vehicle, live in the right kind of suburb, barrack for the right sporting team, watch the right kind of American crime shows, eat the right kind of burger and drink the right kind of beer.
4. The blissfully unaware ignoramus.
This person is often also a misguided ignoramus, and can usually be found in the company of the proud ignoramus (the angry ignoramus thinks they're bloody stupid and won't have anything to do with them). Due to social and societal conditions, this person is completely unaware that they don't know anything, because their world is their sphere, and their sphere is so small they know everything about it. They will react to new information with suspicion and fear, because it's unfamiliar, and that makes them feel uncomfortable, because it doesn't fit with the way things are, which is they way they always have been. These are the kind who are born, live and die in the same suburb or small town, and who think going to Tasmania counts as having travelled overseas. They can be quite lovely and easy to get along with, if you can understand a single word they say.
Of course their are more kinds (including the kind that writes blogs attempting to delineate types of ignoramus when they don't know everything themselves), but in my own observations of life these are the main types. Unfortunately, being an ignoramus of any sort does not prevent you from getting into a position of power and influence in society. It's also sad to note that intelligence seems to have no influence over whether or not one is or isn't an ignoramus. Becoming an ignoramus is a choice. Whether or not this choice was yours is not the point. The point is, there is one choice which is yours and yours alone, and that is the choice to stop being an ignoramus.
So how does one stop being an ignoramus? Stop telling yourself that you know everything, that you've got the world figured out, and that you don't need to learn anything more. If you form an opinion, remind yourself that it is only an opinion and in the absence of the knowledge of all facts may not be entirely correct. If everyone around you keeps telling you how smart you are, start hanging around someone who's smarter, in order to avoid little-big-fish syndrome. What's little-big-fish syndrome? Being a big fish in a little pond, who thinks he's reached his peak because he doesn't become a bigger fish, without realising it's just because he's still in a little pond.
The experience I had this week made me realise just that - maybe I'm a big fish in a little pond, and instead of getting into a bigger pond, I've allowed myself to become comfortable thinking bigger of myself than I really ought to. But the experience I had was a part of me attempting to get into a bigger pond, so I'm not going to get all bent out of shape over it. If I make it into that pond, it will be an awesome opportunity that will stretch me and force me to work hard to reach my potential, which honestly does scare me a bit. But I'm a lot more scared of being trapped by little-big-fish syndrome, so I'm more than ready to make the leap. If I don't make it into that particular pond there'll be others, until one day I'll find myself in the pond that allows me to grow to the size I was meant to be.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The middle of Nowhere
I returned home yesterday from an interstate trip. The occasion? My sister's wedding. Did I enjoy the wedding? Yes. Did I enjoy driving with my family to my erstwhile country-home-town and staying there for half a week? Not really. Why? Two words - screaming baby. (Plus on the way over my eldest son took some skin off his hand coming off a slide in Lameroo, then chucked a whitie in the supermarket and vomited freshly-ingested hot dog all over me, but that's another story). I will skip the Albury stay for now because it really wasn't very interesting, apart from my sister's wedding (and everyone knows how boring it is listening to someone talk about a wedding), and talk about two main parts of the journey to and from.
First, let me tell you about the Big4 Paringa Holiday Park in Deniliquin, NSW. It's great. I'll prove it! Here are some photos:
This is the cabin we stayed in. That's me holding the towel (the tall one). Looks pretty nice huh? No, not the towel, the cabin. Wait 'til you see the view from where I'm standing:
Nice! It was on the Edwards River which runs through Deniliquin. Below is a photo of me attempting to be a half-decent father and taking my son on a bike ride:
Apart from my sister's wedding, this was the highlight of the whole trip for me. If you have to stay in Deniliquin, make sure you stay at the Big4 Paringa.
But this brings me to my second aspect: a little town in north-western Victoria called Ouyen.
There are a few words and/or phrases that sum up my experience of Ouyen: flies, mosquitoes, assorted other little flying bugs, dust, funny-smelling meat, funny-tasting meat, grubby little cafes, haunted pubs. But in amongst all the dourness there were some remarkable positives. It's hard to delineate them though, so I'll tell the story instead.
On the way over to Albury, we stopped for the night in Ouyen at the Hilltop Motel. Phil and Julie (the proprietors) made us feel very welcome and were very pleasant conversationalists. The rooms were clean, comfortable and inviting, and after my eldest son and I had enjoyed dangling our feet in the pool and talking to some random old Pom who was having a swim for a while, we headed into town on foot for a meal at the Victoria Hotel.
From the outside it looked just like any other really old pub. After locating the particular front door that led to the meals area by trial and error due to the lack of signage, we entered the foyer. It was like stepping out of the driver's side door of the DeLorean. There was a sunken floor with antique mosaic tiling, an old wood-and-glass framed reception office that looked like it hadn't been used since 1953, and a massive wooden staircase obscuring the entrance to the dining room.
The dining room itself was newly refurbished, although this probably took place in the fifties, when ornate ivory-coloured fake ceilings and crystal-shaped plastic light fittings that looked like miniature upside-down Fortresses of Solitude were all the rage. (Google it all you non-Superman fans). There were about twenty tables for two, and one big long table for twenty running right down the middle of the upper level. That's right - another split level room! The lower level was a bit more modern, I'd say seventies era based on the wood-grain finish plywood covering every available surface.
So I decided that there was only one way to make this place better - beer. I went to the little bar on the lower level and asked for a beer. As this took place in Victoria, what I got was a "pot" of beer, although it didn't come in a pot, it came in one of those dimpled glass mugs they used to have at the Adelaide Uni bar. It contained Carlton Draught, which, when you are stranded in a regional Victorian pub, isn't so bad. I consumed it whilst waiting for my meal, and decided to go for a wander to the front bar to see what else they had on tap. I discovered that they actually had four different varieties on offer: Carlton Draught, Carlton Cold, Carlton Light, and VB. Maybe I've been spoilt by the plethora of lagers and ales on tap in Adelaide pubs, I thought. I decided I'd best stick with the Draught for my second round.
It was a good thing, actually, that my surrounds in the pub were a source of such amusement, because we were left with plenty of time to survey them whilst waiting for our meals. About an hour, to be exact. This is probably where the "haunted" bit comes in. I'd say there aren't any actual ghosts at the Vic Hotel, it was probably just my imagination getting away from me as I stared at the century-old (or what seemed like century-old) first dining room next to ours, which was partitioned off from us except for a gap through which I could see a pianola, and with very little else to do other than share wisecracks about how daggy the place was with my wife, prevent my son from sliding off his chair onto the floor, and wander around in the front bar in a fruitless search for half-decent beer. My mind began to dwell on how many people must have come and enjoyed this place over so many years. The part we were in was actually called the "ladies' lounge", and I imagined ladies dressed up in those big old frilly dresses with the big bums and the bonnets, smoking cigarettes out of black holders, sitting around sipping soda water and complaining about how positively boorish men had become in these modern times whilst their husbands sat in the front bar, drinking a narrow selection of parochial lagers, smoking cigars and complaining about how outspoken women had seemed to become these days. Then you start imagining that you can feel the atmosphere of those former times, and you can almost hear the laughter and the stilted accents, and you freak yourself out a little bit, before realising that you've wandered halfway up the stairs to the accommodation section and it's dark, and maybe I'll go back downstairs and have another pot of Carlton Draught.
After said hour, our meals arrived, and I must say - they were fantastic. Seth (my eldest son) had spaghetti bog, my wife had roast lamb, and I had the mixed grill. The meat actually didn't taste funny here, and the steak on my plate was cooked to perfection, as was the bacon and the sausages. My wife's roast was a little bit dry, but only around the edges (from sitting under the heatlamp waiting for my meal to be ready). The juicy bits were tender and very tasty. Another great aspect of this meal was that we were able to charge it back to our motel room - something we hadn't been able to do anywhere else since our Hamilton Island holiday in 2006. Quite progressive thinking for the middle of nowhere, one of the benefits of being in a small and largely traveller-supported town.
On our second stopover in Ouyen on the way back to Adelaide, we decided that, whilst the meals were great, we would give the Time-Warp Hotel a miss. I had eaten a few times before at the Mallee Route Cafe, and had decided well in advance that we would eat there this time. In my past experience it was clean, the staff were friendly, and the food was good. Plus, if you read the sign out the front, they serve "Expresso Coffee", which to date I have not seen for sale anywhere else. (I once paid $2.50 for a mug filled literally to the brim with Nescafe Blend 43 at a truck stop in Ouyen. I'll take Expresso Coffee over that any day!) You can imagine my chagrin when we drove past and saw all the chairs upside down on the tables! This was not good. Where else was there to eat? The Fairy Dell Cafe? (yes, that's really what it's called). No - it smells funny, and it doesn't look clean. And they rent DVDs from there. Don't ask me why, but I don't trust eating establishments that rent DVDs. We drove past the Ouyen Club - closed. Plus it looked crap anyway. I saw a sign pointing to the Ouyen Golf Club. I headed in that direction, imagining a club house and eatery the likes of which you may find in Adelaide. I quickly realised on arrival there that apparently, in regional Victoria, a corrugated tin shed qualifies as a club house and no, there was no restaurant.
We headed back to the hotel room in despair. What were we to do? Go without? Eat the complimentary jam biscuits for tea? I looked in the visitor's guide. But it says "Mallee Route Cafe, open 7 days from 8am - 8pm". Something's not right here! So I picked up the phone and gave them a call. They answered! I said "are you open?" and they replied "yeah!" as if to say "waddya reckon ya clown?" I said "OK, it's just that I drove past and all the chairs were upside down on the tables and the lights were off" to which they responded "ah nah, just cleanin' the floors." Er... OK. You clean the floors with the lights off? I decided that asking more questions was a bad idea, and just went there and got some takeaway. And yes, I must admit that the floors did look very clean. So did the rest of the place actually. There was no funny smell, and no DVDs. My hamburger meat did smell funny, but it tasted nice, and I heard no complaints from my wife regarding the lasagne, or my son regarding his chicken bites. (My youngest son, who currently lives on breast milk and formula, complained a lot, and loudly, but he did that for most of the whole trip anyway, so I can't really attribute that to the Mallee Route Cafe).
So we survived our two nights in the middle of Nowhere, and came out with some tales to tell. But can I offer you interstate road travellers some valuable advice: if you have to stay overnight in Ouyen, stay at the Hilltop Motel, and eat at the Mallee Route Cafe.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
To blog or not to blog
Yes, I know I said I was going to do this every day. But I've been busy. Work, kids, stuff etc.
Plus I'm not great with obeying my own rules. It's like when I took up running a few years ago. I'd always meant to do it, and had set my alarm early and said to myself: "tomorrow morning, when your alarm goes off, you MUST get up and go running!" Then when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning I say "stuff you self" and go back to sleep. So I just kept setting my alarm, putting my running shoes beside the bed, until one morning, without giving myself any prior warning, I got up and went running. Then I just kind of kept doing it. It was like the elephant in the room. I knew it was there, but I didn't talk to myself about it. And it seemed to work.
So here I am, staying up late when I'm tired, and just blogging. I've actually just spent a few hours writing something else so I don't really have a lot to say, except if it's about the future of digital newspapers, or how Dropbox works, or how it's great to have external hard drives plugged into your wireless router and dropboxes and stuff if you actually remember to copy that really important file that you did on the laptop onto them, otherwise you'll have to trudge off to the loungeroom and turn the laptop on and copy into your dropbox and onto the network drive (because you got so scared you'd deleted it when you couldn't find it anywhere you made yourself a little bit obsessively paranoid) before you can use it on the desktop.
My blogging may also drop off during the next week and a half due to all sorts of stuff I've got on but I'll still try to do it, because it's been a good exercise, forcing myself to put my thoughts into writing, forcing myself to describe in English what's been going on inside my mind.
Which reminds me - I've read my posts, and it seems like I think about serious stuff most of the time. No wonder I can't lighten up! Plus, disturbingly, I've already noticed a pattern: partially humorous opening remark, followed by opening discussions leading on from the remark, followed by a little story from my life, followed by grandiose moral posturing about the radical issues I feel it relates to, followed by some kind of home-made platitude along the lines of "if we could all just think like me, everyone in the world would transform into cosmic beings and be happy", before finishing off with a funny little kicker just to even the mood. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself, but I'd rather be like that and be able to self-criticize than do what the Yanks do and tell myself I'm so amazingly wonderfully incredibly brilliant, intelligent, sexy and (to top it all off) humble and self-effacing that nothing I ever do could be anything short of the most brilliant thing ever to be written in the history of sentient life in the Universe, therefore I should feel comfortable with the pile of luke-warm, insipid, beige tripe I just choked up onto the plate, pat myself on the back and eat another side of ribs, a donut, and a bowl of diet ice-cream covered in fat-free maple syrup. I'm sure a healthy perspective is somewhere in the middle of the two.
Enough pendulum-swinging for one night. I have to get up at some ungodly hour tomorrow and attempt to find my way to work on Adelaide's woefully inadequate public holiday transport timetable. TTFN
Plus I'm not great with obeying my own rules. It's like when I took up running a few years ago. I'd always meant to do it, and had set my alarm early and said to myself: "tomorrow morning, when your alarm goes off, you MUST get up and go running!" Then when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning I say "stuff you self" and go back to sleep. So I just kept setting my alarm, putting my running shoes beside the bed, until one morning, without giving myself any prior warning, I got up and went running. Then I just kind of kept doing it. It was like the elephant in the room. I knew it was there, but I didn't talk to myself about it. And it seemed to work.
So here I am, staying up late when I'm tired, and just blogging. I've actually just spent a few hours writing something else so I don't really have a lot to say, except if it's about the future of digital newspapers, or how Dropbox works, or how it's great to have external hard drives plugged into your wireless router and dropboxes and stuff if you actually remember to copy that really important file that you did on the laptop onto them, otherwise you'll have to trudge off to the loungeroom and turn the laptop on and copy into your dropbox and onto the network drive (because you got so scared you'd deleted it when you couldn't find it anywhere you made yourself a little bit obsessively paranoid) before you can use it on the desktop.
My blogging may also drop off during the next week and a half due to all sorts of stuff I've got on but I'll still try to do it, because it's been a good exercise, forcing myself to put my thoughts into writing, forcing myself to describe in English what's been going on inside my mind.
Which reminds me - I've read my posts, and it seems like I think about serious stuff most of the time. No wonder I can't lighten up! Plus, disturbingly, I've already noticed a pattern: partially humorous opening remark, followed by opening discussions leading on from the remark, followed by a little story from my life, followed by grandiose moral posturing about the radical issues I feel it relates to, followed by some kind of home-made platitude along the lines of "if we could all just think like me, everyone in the world would transform into cosmic beings and be happy", before finishing off with a funny little kicker just to even the mood. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself, but I'd rather be like that and be able to self-criticize than do what the Yanks do and tell myself I'm so amazingly wonderfully incredibly brilliant, intelligent, sexy and (to top it all off) humble and self-effacing that nothing I ever do could be anything short of the most brilliant thing ever to be written in the history of sentient life in the Universe, therefore I should feel comfortable with the pile of luke-warm, insipid, beige tripe I just choked up onto the plate, pat myself on the back and eat another side of ribs, a donut, and a bowl of diet ice-cream covered in fat-free maple syrup. I'm sure a healthy perspective is somewhere in the middle of the two.
Enough pendulum-swinging for one night. I have to get up at some ungodly hour tomorrow and attempt to find my way to work on Adelaide's woefully inadequate public holiday transport timetable. TTFN
Thursday, September 30, 2010
iPhone blogging
It's actually quite tedious blogging from an iPhone, so this will be a short one.
They are quite nifty little units, but they have their limitations. When I first got one I was expecting it to be a lot more gimmicky than it was. The email feature is handy, it syncs with outlook and has a web browser. For serious business use though, you can't go past the Blackberry. But considering I only really need it to play games whilst on the toilet, it does the job nicely.
I was thinking today about the 80's, when there were no mobile phones, no SMS, no facebook, no blogs, no wikipedia, no online maps and no emails. If you said to your friends "I'll meet you at the show at 7", you went there at 7 and hoped your friends would turn up within visual range. If you couldn't find them, you would go for a wander and hope to run into them. Then if you couldn't find them after that you would go to a payphone and call their house. If they weren't there, you would call around your other friend's houses to see if they were there, or if not speak to someone who might know where they went. Then if you still couldn't find them you would assume they were there somewhere and enjoy the show, because if you didn't end up running into them at the show you would probably catch up with them next week some time.
Now days, you say "I'll meet you at the show at 7", then when you turn up, SMS them saying "I'm here". If they don't turn up within 5 minutes you SMS them again saying "where the hell are you?" and then if you still can't find them you ring them and stay on the phone trading landmarks until you bump into each other. You enjoy the show and enter several facebook status updates to the effect, then go home and write about it on your blog, entering a google maps reference link so people could see exactly where on earth you had such a great time. Your friends read your blog and post replies containing links to humorous topics on wikipedia that relate to something you were talking about. Then when you get to work on Monday you email your work friends telling them what a great time they missed out on.
You know what I'm going to say next, right? It was better when everything was so much simpler? Wrong! I think technology is fantastic, and the fact that it's so much easier to communicate with everybody these days is brilliant. I'm so glad I found my high school reunion being organized on facebook, and that I can stay in touch with old buddies via a simple SMS or email, whereas in the 80's I would have long lost touch with them unless I sat down and wrote an actual letter, on actual paper with an actual pen, then stuck it in an actual post box and hope it made it.
So I'm all for technology. But I think my next blog will be touch-typed whilst sitting at my good old pc - my index finger is killing me!
They are quite nifty little units, but they have their limitations. When I first got one I was expecting it to be a lot more gimmicky than it was. The email feature is handy, it syncs with outlook and has a web browser. For serious business use though, you can't go past the Blackberry. But considering I only really need it to play games whilst on the toilet, it does the job nicely.
I was thinking today about the 80's, when there were no mobile phones, no SMS, no facebook, no blogs, no wikipedia, no online maps and no emails. If you said to your friends "I'll meet you at the show at 7", you went there at 7 and hoped your friends would turn up within visual range. If you couldn't find them, you would go for a wander and hope to run into them. Then if you couldn't find them after that you would go to a payphone and call their house. If they weren't there, you would call around your other friend's houses to see if they were there, or if not speak to someone who might know where they went. Then if you still couldn't find them you would assume they were there somewhere and enjoy the show, because if you didn't end up running into them at the show you would probably catch up with them next week some time.
Now days, you say "I'll meet you at the show at 7", then when you turn up, SMS them saying "I'm here". If they don't turn up within 5 minutes you SMS them again saying "where the hell are you?" and then if you still can't find them you ring them and stay on the phone trading landmarks until you bump into each other. You enjoy the show and enter several facebook status updates to the effect, then go home and write about it on your blog, entering a google maps reference link so people could see exactly where on earth you had such a great time. Your friends read your blog and post replies containing links to humorous topics on wikipedia that relate to something you were talking about. Then when you get to work on Monday you email your work friends telling them what a great time they missed out on.
You know what I'm going to say next, right? It was better when everything was so much simpler? Wrong! I think technology is fantastic, and the fact that it's so much easier to communicate with everybody these days is brilliant. I'm so glad I found my high school reunion being organized on facebook, and that I can stay in touch with old buddies via a simple SMS or email, whereas in the 80's I would have long lost touch with them unless I sat down and wrote an actual letter, on actual paper with an actual pen, then stuck it in an actual post box and hope it made it.
So I'm all for technology. But I think my next blog will be touch-typed whilst sitting at my good old pc - my index finger is killing me!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The next level
It seems that the majority of people enter the world at a particular level of life, find it comfortable, and stay there. I'm sure we all know people who were amazingly talented musos, or writers, or graphic artists, or sports people, or business-minded types, who tried a bit of this and a bit of that and could have gone on to do so much more, but were just comfortable where they were at and never achieved anything like what they were capable of. Or maybe they weren't entirely comfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to actually do anything about it.
Then there are those that are born at a particular level and are trapped there, and can't get out - minority groups, lower socio-economic groups, crime- or poverty-stricken families, foster children, street kids or orphans, etc. They may have all the talent in the world, and they may want to move to the next level, but they can't. They either don't have the mental and emotional resources and discipline, or they have factors in their life actively seeking to keep them where they are, maybe even pull them down to an even lower level, or both, and they never move on.
On the other side of the spectrum we also have those that are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and their bum in the butter, who are a little bit too comfortable and lazy, and for completely different reasons, never learn to develop the mental and emotional resources and discipline to keep functioning at that level, and whose lives gradually decline until their children's children are back at the poverty line.
So what is it about the select few who really achieve something worthwhile in life, and change society and the world for the better? It's funny how they all seem to have risen above some form of massive adversity in their life - maybe they were the wrong race, or their parents were on the wrong income level, or they were just born on the wrong side of the tracks - and beaten all the odds to become something and someone amazingly spectacular. Look at people such as Dr Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela, or Stephen Hawking. What would the world be like if they hadn't resisted all downward-pulling forces and risen above the norm to be and do great things?
I think the key is the fact that they were not comfortable at the level of life they were at, wanted to move to the next level, and persistently tried and persevered until they made it there.
And it's not necessarily the level they arrived at that seems to make the difference - it appears to be the act itself of rising up that did the trick and released positive energy on a scale sufficient to change the world.
Maybe all the good that the world needs is sandwiched in thick layers between these levels, and one human being puncturing it to move up to the next one makes it spurt everywhere. Conversely, as one descends to a lower level, negative energy is released and has a detrimental effect.
It's also worth noting that the means by which one ascends to these upper levels is different for each person. This means two things to me:
1. It's no good copying what someone else has done - it was their journey, not mine, and it won't work the same for me; and
2. It's no good comparing myself to anyone else - they are on their journey, and I am on mine. The steps we both take towards our own individual goals, no matter how similar they may seem, are bound to be wildly different.
Now anyone that has read my Facebook status updates knows how egalitarian I like to be about these things, but I can't help thinking that whether you are a theist, a deist, or an atheist, the goal of life seems to be the same - grow, develop, expand, learn. Maybe we have a divine destiny to rise above our purely mortal existence into transcendence - or maybe we are being beckoned by the forces of nature into new realms of evolutionary development that go beyond necessity and survival of the fittest. Who really knows for sure? But for me it's a comforting thought that although my beliefs may be fundamentally different to my neighbour's, we can still both work together towards the same goal, and succeed, and both be the better for it.
Anyway, I've spent all evening beginning my latest attempt to break into the next level and it's scary! Yes it will bring increased rewards, benefits, knowledge and insight, but it also always brings increased responsibility and opposition from those downward-pulling forces. But at least I've busted through enough levels already to know it and be prepared for it.
Here's to climbing that ladder ;-)
Then there are those that are born at a particular level and are trapped there, and can't get out - minority groups, lower socio-economic groups, crime- or poverty-stricken families, foster children, street kids or orphans, etc. They may have all the talent in the world, and they may want to move to the next level, but they can't. They either don't have the mental and emotional resources and discipline, or they have factors in their life actively seeking to keep them where they are, maybe even pull them down to an even lower level, or both, and they never move on.
On the other side of the spectrum we also have those that are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and their bum in the butter, who are a little bit too comfortable and lazy, and for completely different reasons, never learn to develop the mental and emotional resources and discipline to keep functioning at that level, and whose lives gradually decline until their children's children are back at the poverty line.
So what is it about the select few who really achieve something worthwhile in life, and change society and the world for the better? It's funny how they all seem to have risen above some form of massive adversity in their life - maybe they were the wrong race, or their parents were on the wrong income level, or they were just born on the wrong side of the tracks - and beaten all the odds to become something and someone amazingly spectacular. Look at people such as Dr Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela, or Stephen Hawking. What would the world be like if they hadn't resisted all downward-pulling forces and risen above the norm to be and do great things?
I think the key is the fact that they were not comfortable at the level of life they were at, wanted to move to the next level, and persistently tried and persevered until they made it there.
And it's not necessarily the level they arrived at that seems to make the difference - it appears to be the act itself of rising up that did the trick and released positive energy on a scale sufficient to change the world.
Maybe all the good that the world needs is sandwiched in thick layers between these levels, and one human being puncturing it to move up to the next one makes it spurt everywhere. Conversely, as one descends to a lower level, negative energy is released and has a detrimental effect.
It's also worth noting that the means by which one ascends to these upper levels is different for each person. This means two things to me:
1. It's no good copying what someone else has done - it was their journey, not mine, and it won't work the same for me; and
2. It's no good comparing myself to anyone else - they are on their journey, and I am on mine. The steps we both take towards our own individual goals, no matter how similar they may seem, are bound to be wildly different.
Now anyone that has read my Facebook status updates knows how egalitarian I like to be about these things, but I can't help thinking that whether you are a theist, a deist, or an atheist, the goal of life seems to be the same - grow, develop, expand, learn. Maybe we have a divine destiny to rise above our purely mortal existence into transcendence - or maybe we are being beckoned by the forces of nature into new realms of evolutionary development that go beyond necessity and survival of the fittest. Who really knows for sure? But for me it's a comforting thought that although my beliefs may be fundamentally different to my neighbour's, we can still both work together towards the same goal, and succeed, and both be the better for it.
Anyway, I've spent all evening beginning my latest attempt to break into the next level and it's scary! Yes it will bring increased rewards, benefits, knowledge and insight, but it also always brings increased responsibility and opposition from those downward-pulling forces. But at least I've busted through enough levels already to know it and be prepared for it.
Here's to climbing that ladder ;-)
Monday, September 27, 2010
Procrastination
Ugghhhhhh....... why is it that instead of doing what I want to do, I come up with excuses to do what I feel like doing instead?
I want to write. I want to write my novel. But I'm too tired tonight - work was a killer. It's Sunday night - I need to relax before I start the working week. I should finish off that chapter - but I think I'll play Call of Duty instead; besides, playing Call of Duty kind of inspires me to write.... except that I seem to do an inordinate amount of getting inspired compared to the amount of time I use that inspiration to write. I've been drinking - and I can't write when I've been drinking. It clouds my thought processes too much, and I need to be "sharp as a tack" when I write my novel. I just don't feel inspired, I think I'll leave it until tomorrow night to write it. But then tomorrow night I might want to watch a TV show or a movie instead. Just one night out of the week won't hurt? It's not like I sit watching TV every night.... sometimes I play Call of Duty instead. Or fart-arse around on the internet. Or say "I'm going to bed early tonight" and go to bed at 9pm, then lie there playing games on my iPhone for two hours. Sometimes (deep breath) I actually go to bed at 9pm and go to sleep then wake up at 6am the next morning feeling refreshed! But, then, I've gone to bed at 9pm and not done anything, let alone something productive.
Take last night for example. I said to my wife "I'm going in to The Boys' Room to do some writing". (The Boys' Room is the name of our garage that we have carpeted and painted and converted into a study/kids play area - that's right, the two most purpose-opposite rooms of the house combined into one). She said "OK". Then after dicking around on the computer for 20 minutes I come out to the lounge-room to get my headphones. "I think I'm going to watch a movie" I say. She shakes her head and says "tut tut" before saying "don't go complaining that you don't have any time to write then". To which I am about to make a very witty and sardonic reply when I realize she's right, and just leave before I get myself into trouble (again).
So I go to The Boys' Room where my computer is, which I built with my bare hands (and a screwdriver). I get my Blu-Ray disc of "2001 - A Space Odyssey" and stick it in the tray. I plug my headphones into the speakers and watch nigh on two hours of cinematic magic. Then go to bed thinking "why didn't I do some writing?" Now to be fair, 2001 - A Space Odyssey is very inspirational for an aspiring science fiction writer, but (again) there's something to be said for getting inspiration, and quite another thing to be said for actually using the inspiration to do some writing.
The answer? Get off your fat arse, stop procrastinating, and just bloody-well do it. Ben Lee said it best: "just do it, whatever it is, whatever it is, just do it".
Why don't I just do it?
I could come up with a bunch of lame excuses. I could also come up with a bunch of very able-bodied excuses. But at the end of the day, that's all they are - excuses. I'm afraid of failure; I'm afraid people will think my writing is bullshit; I'm afraid people will laugh at what I do; I'm afraid of wasting effort when perhaps this whole "me being a writer" thing is a pipe-dream and I've got no hope at all. Maybe there's all sorts of psychological factors and things from my past etc. that make me afraid to just do it. But I can sit around all day, whining about how crap my past was, and how many opportunities weren't handed to me on a silver platter, and nobody helps me - it won't get the job done. Plus I think every human being on the planet, no matter how privileged or otherwise they are, can be tempted to think that - some people land with their bum in the butter then complain when it starts melting.
But there is (as always) the other side of the coin. If I sit down and force myself to write, I really will come out with a bunch of uninspired bullshit. So I do need to write when I'm feeling the inspiration - but how to not let this become yet another dart in my arsenal of excuses? I think I have to sit myself down and force myself, not to write, but to calm down, stop the mind from ticking over, focus on the task at hand and get in the zone. I've done it before, so I know it can be done.
I've been telling my three-year old son that he can do whatever he sets his mind to. And I honestly believe that with all my heart - you can do whatever you set your mind to. But that's the trick - dismantle the platitude, and we realize that that's the hard part - setting your mind to it! But set your mind, and keep it set, and the world is your oyster (to use another platitude).
My sister and her husband said if I mentioned them in my blog they would give me $2. Here's to my first paid writing gig!
I want to write. I want to write my novel. But I'm too tired tonight - work was a killer. It's Sunday night - I need to relax before I start the working week. I should finish off that chapter - but I think I'll play Call of Duty instead; besides, playing Call of Duty kind of inspires me to write.... except that I seem to do an inordinate amount of getting inspired compared to the amount of time I use that inspiration to write. I've been drinking - and I can't write when I've been drinking. It clouds my thought processes too much, and I need to be "sharp as a tack" when I write my novel. I just don't feel inspired, I think I'll leave it until tomorrow night to write it. But then tomorrow night I might want to watch a TV show or a movie instead. Just one night out of the week won't hurt? It's not like I sit watching TV every night.... sometimes I play Call of Duty instead. Or fart-arse around on the internet. Or say "I'm going to bed early tonight" and go to bed at 9pm, then lie there playing games on my iPhone for two hours. Sometimes (deep breath) I actually go to bed at 9pm and go to sleep then wake up at 6am the next morning feeling refreshed! But, then, I've gone to bed at 9pm and not done anything, let alone something productive.
Take last night for example. I said to my wife "I'm going in to The Boys' Room to do some writing". (The Boys' Room is the name of our garage that we have carpeted and painted and converted into a study/kids play area - that's right, the two most purpose-opposite rooms of the house combined into one). She said "OK". Then after dicking around on the computer for 20 minutes I come out to the lounge-room to get my headphones. "I think I'm going to watch a movie" I say. She shakes her head and says "tut tut" before saying "don't go complaining that you don't have any time to write then". To which I am about to make a very witty and sardonic reply when I realize she's right, and just leave before I get myself into trouble (again).
So I go to The Boys' Room where my computer is, which I built with my bare hands (and a screwdriver). I get my Blu-Ray disc of "2001 - A Space Odyssey" and stick it in the tray. I plug my headphones into the speakers and watch nigh on two hours of cinematic magic. Then go to bed thinking "why didn't I do some writing?" Now to be fair, 2001 - A Space Odyssey is very inspirational for an aspiring science fiction writer, but (again) there's something to be said for getting inspiration, and quite another thing to be said for actually using the inspiration to do some writing.
The answer? Get off your fat arse, stop procrastinating, and just bloody-well do it. Ben Lee said it best: "just do it, whatever it is, whatever it is, just do it".
Why don't I just do it?
I could come up with a bunch of lame excuses. I could also come up with a bunch of very able-bodied excuses. But at the end of the day, that's all they are - excuses. I'm afraid of failure; I'm afraid people will think my writing is bullshit; I'm afraid people will laugh at what I do; I'm afraid of wasting effort when perhaps this whole "me being a writer" thing is a pipe-dream and I've got no hope at all. Maybe there's all sorts of psychological factors and things from my past etc. that make me afraid to just do it. But I can sit around all day, whining about how crap my past was, and how many opportunities weren't handed to me on a silver platter, and nobody helps me - it won't get the job done. Plus I think every human being on the planet, no matter how privileged or otherwise they are, can be tempted to think that - some people land with their bum in the butter then complain when it starts melting.
But there is (as always) the other side of the coin. If I sit down and force myself to write, I really will come out with a bunch of uninspired bullshit. So I do need to write when I'm feeling the inspiration - but how to not let this become yet another dart in my arsenal of excuses? I think I have to sit myself down and force myself, not to write, but to calm down, stop the mind from ticking over, focus on the task at hand and get in the zone. I've done it before, so I know it can be done.
I've been telling my three-year old son that he can do whatever he sets his mind to. And I honestly believe that with all my heart - you can do whatever you set your mind to. But that's the trick - dismantle the platitude, and we realize that that's the hard part - setting your mind to it! But set your mind, and keep it set, and the world is your oyster (to use another platitude).
My sister and her husband said if I mentioned them in my blog they would give me $2. Here's to my first paid writing gig!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Memories
I'm having a bogan renaissance - listening to Guns n Roses (Use Your Illusion I, if you must know). Ahh, the early nineties! It was like society had a hangover from the 80's, and was busily chugging down Aspro Clear and eating bland fatty food in an attempt to recover.
I was a teenager in the early nineties. I was really hung up on the past in those years, like really really hung up, hankering after times gone by. It may have been because my childhood had been the happiest time of my life up to that point, and the time I was in then was crap. But it became a serious issue for me. I only realised it when I started hankering after a time which I had already spent hankering after a previous time again, and I thought "hang on, this is rubbish, I'm going to hanker my life away". Then I finally listened to what most people say all the time, something along the lines of "what's past is past and we don't know what's to come, so enjoy the present", and started living in the present. It was surprisingly pleasant and I stopped missing out on all the stuff I had been missing out on whilst in mid-hanker. But I also believe that there's nothing wrong with the odd spot of harmless nostalgia. It's like going on a holiday and taking photos. If you never look at the photos once in a while you miss out on the whole memory. And music is such a great memory trigger. You can feel what you were feeling at that time, remember what you were interested in, the type of things you were thinking about, with an amazing clarity. And sometimes, remembering the past can be an incredibly powerful tool for good.
I went to my 15-year high school reunion in November last year. It was, without a doubt, one of the best nights of my entire life to date. It was like a fail-safe reset switch for me. It was the school I went to after getting booted out of the high-school I had gone to for 5 & 1/2 years, at which I had been having that crap time I mentioned earlier. In the 6-odd months I was at the new school, I made friends that I am still in contact with today. They accepted me as one of them almost instantly - a stark contrast to my experience at the first school. This, coupled with the intense internal changes I was going through at the time (issues that were brought to the surface as a result of leaving the first school, and being dealt with for a change instead of just being swept under the rug as per usual) resulted in an overall experience that was immensely positive. After this was when I moved to a different state, went to uni, got caught up in more negative behaviour, had some painful relationship breakups, got sucked in to an over-the-top religious movement, etc etc etc. There were some amazing positives in the intervening time as well - marrying my wife, having my first son, making some great new friends - it was by no means all bad. But when I went back to my old home town, and got together with my old mates, went to some of the old pubs and discussed some of the good old times, it was like a mega-memory trigger, bringing back all the positive emotions and mindset of that time. It was the "reload fail-safe defaults" switch for my soul. Like when you plug your iPhone into iTunes, it has a button saying "Restore". You press this button if you are having issues with the phone's operation after recent changes, and you can revert it back to a more stable operating state. Somehow, after that night, the bad stuff in between seemed to matter a whole lot less, and I was freer to enjoy the good stuff I'd picked up, because I had been "rebooted" with the most important thing I had learned in that time - I'm me, and that's bloody-well OK - a conviction that had somehow been eroded.
The experience of that night has stuck with me until now, and I think it always will. I'm so grateful that I could put some of my life's negative experiences into such a comprehensively positive frame, which is one way of transforming negatives into positives and coming out of life's knocks the better for it.
Based on my experience of that night, I have re-worked an old familiar saying, and I think it's my new motto. It goes like this:
"When life hands you lemons, make vodka and Red Bull. Lemonade is for cissies."
I was a teenager in the early nineties. I was really hung up on the past in those years, like really really hung up, hankering after times gone by. It may have been because my childhood had been the happiest time of my life up to that point, and the time I was in then was crap. But it became a serious issue for me. I only realised it when I started hankering after a time which I had already spent hankering after a previous time again, and I thought "hang on, this is rubbish, I'm going to hanker my life away". Then I finally listened to what most people say all the time, something along the lines of "what's past is past and we don't know what's to come, so enjoy the present", and started living in the present. It was surprisingly pleasant and I stopped missing out on all the stuff I had been missing out on whilst in mid-hanker. But I also believe that there's nothing wrong with the odd spot of harmless nostalgia. It's like going on a holiday and taking photos. If you never look at the photos once in a while you miss out on the whole memory. And music is such a great memory trigger. You can feel what you were feeling at that time, remember what you were interested in, the type of things you were thinking about, with an amazing clarity. And sometimes, remembering the past can be an incredibly powerful tool for good.
I went to my 15-year high school reunion in November last year. It was, without a doubt, one of the best nights of my entire life to date. It was like a fail-safe reset switch for me. It was the school I went to after getting booted out of the high-school I had gone to for 5 & 1/2 years, at which I had been having that crap time I mentioned earlier. In the 6-odd months I was at the new school, I made friends that I am still in contact with today. They accepted me as one of them almost instantly - a stark contrast to my experience at the first school. This, coupled with the intense internal changes I was going through at the time (issues that were brought to the surface as a result of leaving the first school, and being dealt with for a change instead of just being swept under the rug as per usual) resulted in an overall experience that was immensely positive. After this was when I moved to a different state, went to uni, got caught up in more negative behaviour, had some painful relationship breakups, got sucked in to an over-the-top religious movement, etc etc etc. There were some amazing positives in the intervening time as well - marrying my wife, having my first son, making some great new friends - it was by no means all bad. But when I went back to my old home town, and got together with my old mates, went to some of the old pubs and discussed some of the good old times, it was like a mega-memory trigger, bringing back all the positive emotions and mindset of that time. It was the "reload fail-safe defaults" switch for my soul. Like when you plug your iPhone into iTunes, it has a button saying "Restore". You press this button if you are having issues with the phone's operation after recent changes, and you can revert it back to a more stable operating state. Somehow, after that night, the bad stuff in between seemed to matter a whole lot less, and I was freer to enjoy the good stuff I'd picked up, because I had been "rebooted" with the most important thing I had learned in that time - I'm me, and that's bloody-well OK - a conviction that had somehow been eroded.
The experience of that night has stuck with me until now, and I think it always will. I'm so grateful that I could put some of my life's negative experiences into such a comprehensively positive frame, which is one way of transforming negatives into positives and coming out of life's knocks the better for it.
Based on my experience of that night, I have re-worked an old familiar saying, and I think it's my new motto. It goes like this:
"When life hands you lemons, make vodka and Red Bull. Lemonade is for cissies."
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
It continues
Day 2 of my blog. I'm not at work today (contented sigh) because my youngest son Micah had an ENT appointment and I have an appointment of my own this afternoon.
When Micah was born, he was diagnosed with bilateral vocal palsy. Which is a nasty medical way of saying that his vocal cords were stuck. They did a barrage of tests to make sure it wasn't a nerve or brain damage problem, and when that was all ruled out (relieved sigh) they said it was "idiopathic" vocal palsy. What does "idiopathic" mean? It means, basically, God knows what's caused it, and God knows how to fix it. There was nothing we could do, which for a parent is incredibly frustrating - your little child, whom your instincts are telling you to protect at all costs, is in distress, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Grrr.
The problem presented itself as a high-pitched "squeak", which the docs call a "stridor", whenever he breathed in. This is because his vocal cords were partially over his airway and the air whistled as it went down, same as sucking air through a squashed straw. The docs all said we would know when it got better because the noise would go away. Well, the noise has been significantly diminished over the first five months of his life, but it hasn't gone away completely. It's not high-pitched any more, and he hardly ever does it, but it's still there.
So today the ENT stuck a telescopic camera up through his nose and down into his throat to try and see if the vocal cords were moving. He said they were moving a bit but not as much as he'd like to see. He had said if he can see that they are moving OK, we won't have to see him again. But after the examination he booked us in for after Micah's first birthday.
It was funny how differently my wife and I interpreted this appointment's results. My wife was hoping and believing that the ENT would say the problem has gone, he's all better, I don't need to see you again. Then when he gave his diagnosis she was upset and disappointed, really took the wind out of her sails. Me on the other hand, I knew that his noise was still there, so I assumed he would see that the problem had not completely fixed itself and would want to see him again, so I came away feeling a lot less deflated. We both also interpreted his comments differently. My wife heard: "his vocal cords still aren't really moving"; I heard: "I can see some movement there, just not as much as I'd like to see to be able to say he's all better". My wife made the rookie error of inadvertently asking him to give a definitive answer on something. She said: "the fact that he's improving, would that be because the spontaneous recovery has already begun?" (spontaneous recovery seems to be the only way that idiopathic bilateral vocal palsy can be fixed). The ENT, his training coming to the fore, said: "yes, possibly, BUT it could also just be because he's growing and his airway has expanded". At which, again, my wife heard: "it's probably just that he's grown bigger and his airway's expanded", and I heard: "yes, it's POSSIBLY because spontaneous recovery has begun, but it could also POSSIBLY be because he's grown bigger and his airway has expanded".
It's interesting to me how the knowledge you accumulate in your life, say in the course of doing the job you have, the things you read and the TV programs you watch, can affect your subsequent experience of life and by extension your subsequent accumulation of further knowledge. For example: I work in a profession in which we also have to learn to not give definitive answers: "is my car going to be a write-off?" - "it's impossible to say until we get the assessor's report". "When are you going to pay my claim?" - "all things being equal, and IF we obtain this or that information we need, we SHOULD be able to settle your claim SOME TIME next week." My wife is a teacher, and is required to give definitive answers: "is my child learning at a sufficient rate?" - "well, he's only up to his third reader, and the rest of the class is up to their sixth, so NO HE IS NOT". "Will my son have to repeat this year level?" - "well, he WILL NOT pass this subject, and he WILL NOT pass that subject, and he WILL NOT have enough marks to go through, so YES HE WILL". Knowledge is always the determining factor though. My wife's work world is one of quantifiable knowledge - the children must reach this level and that level, and we can measure it by this marker and that marker. My work world is a little more hazy - comparing people's circumstances against the black-and-white of the policy wording, then making value judgements about people we can't see, circumstances we did not witness, and how far we can bend the rules to accommodate their wishes. In short, we use knowledge in a much more fluid fashion.
I am a fan of science (as well as science fiction). I love reading about physics and chemistry, except when it's something I don't understand. Hence I don't read it very much. But I love the scientific method of obtaining knowledge: I make an observation, then do an experiment to confirm my observation. Then publish the results of my experiment in a paper, and at the end of the paper make an assertion about the knowledge I believe has been exposed by my experiment. Then my peers review the paper to see if the ideas are sound or not. Then, finally, once my peer-reviewed paper has passed muster, others do my experiment to see if they get the same results. If they do, then and only then, is what I discovered considered scientific, empirical, verified and verifiable knowledge. My wife is not a fan of science and science fiction. She is a dancer, she is creative, emotive and intuitive. She lives in the world of emotion and art and all things right-brain. Therefore, when the ENT refuses to give a definitive answer on any of our questions, I am completely comfortable with this because I am able to read between those particular lines, whereas my wife experiences a disappointment of hope and interprets the outcome of the appointment as negative.
I believe knowledge is extremely important, and more people could do with learning a thing or two. It amazes me how much our modern society is bent against knowledge, and bent more towards accommodating people's stupidity and mental laziness. Examples of this? Someone falls over the railing on the top floor of the Myer Centre, and instead of erecting signs saying "don't be an idiot and sit on the railing", we put shade sails across the ground floor. Someone topples over the edge of an escalator, we don't put signs up saying "stop being an idiot and dicking around on the escalator", we put higher side-rails up. I would have thought that as society and humanity moves onwards and upwards we would have learned better than this. Knowledge begets knowledge, and if our school systems were geared towards actually imparting knowledge to our kids, and teaching them how to accumulate knowledge for themselves, rather than towards learning arbitrary facts by rote and repeating them parrot-fashion in order to churn out workers for the capitalist system, society as a whole would suffer a lot less from social ills and injustices (and less idiots would fall over the side rails of escalators).
But we also need the creative, intuitive, spiritual side of life. Without it, where would the colour of life be? If more people followed their gut instinct, listened to their inner voice, instead of just living life by rote, I believe we would all be a lot happier and healthier. So take responsibility for your own life, your own actions, and your own knowledge, but don't forget that you are a human being, who's value comes from the fact that you are conscious and breathing and can communicate your ideas and emotions, and not from what you can produce for the consumerist economy.
It feels funny blogging halfway through the day, when there is more of it yet to experience. But if you want to know what my own appointment is - this is a blog, not a dear-diary.
When Micah was born, he was diagnosed with bilateral vocal palsy. Which is a nasty medical way of saying that his vocal cords were stuck. They did a barrage of tests to make sure it wasn't a nerve or brain damage problem, and when that was all ruled out (relieved sigh) they said it was "idiopathic" vocal palsy. What does "idiopathic" mean? It means, basically, God knows what's caused it, and God knows how to fix it. There was nothing we could do, which for a parent is incredibly frustrating - your little child, whom your instincts are telling you to protect at all costs, is in distress, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Grrr.
The problem presented itself as a high-pitched "squeak", which the docs call a "stridor", whenever he breathed in. This is because his vocal cords were partially over his airway and the air whistled as it went down, same as sucking air through a squashed straw. The docs all said we would know when it got better because the noise would go away. Well, the noise has been significantly diminished over the first five months of his life, but it hasn't gone away completely. It's not high-pitched any more, and he hardly ever does it, but it's still there.
So today the ENT stuck a telescopic camera up through his nose and down into his throat to try and see if the vocal cords were moving. He said they were moving a bit but not as much as he'd like to see. He had said if he can see that they are moving OK, we won't have to see him again. But after the examination he booked us in for after Micah's first birthday.
It was funny how differently my wife and I interpreted this appointment's results. My wife was hoping and believing that the ENT would say the problem has gone, he's all better, I don't need to see you again. Then when he gave his diagnosis she was upset and disappointed, really took the wind out of her sails. Me on the other hand, I knew that his noise was still there, so I assumed he would see that the problem had not completely fixed itself and would want to see him again, so I came away feeling a lot less deflated. We both also interpreted his comments differently. My wife heard: "his vocal cords still aren't really moving"; I heard: "I can see some movement there, just not as much as I'd like to see to be able to say he's all better". My wife made the rookie error of inadvertently asking him to give a definitive answer on something. She said: "the fact that he's improving, would that be because the spontaneous recovery has already begun?" (spontaneous recovery seems to be the only way that idiopathic bilateral vocal palsy can be fixed). The ENT, his training coming to the fore, said: "yes, possibly, BUT it could also just be because he's growing and his airway has expanded". At which, again, my wife heard: "it's probably just that he's grown bigger and his airway's expanded", and I heard: "yes, it's POSSIBLY because spontaneous recovery has begun, but it could also POSSIBLY be because he's grown bigger and his airway has expanded".
It's interesting to me how the knowledge you accumulate in your life, say in the course of doing the job you have, the things you read and the TV programs you watch, can affect your subsequent experience of life and by extension your subsequent accumulation of further knowledge. For example: I work in a profession in which we also have to learn to not give definitive answers: "is my car going to be a write-off?" - "it's impossible to say until we get the assessor's report". "When are you going to pay my claim?" - "all things being equal, and IF we obtain this or that information we need, we SHOULD be able to settle your claim SOME TIME next week." My wife is a teacher, and is required to give definitive answers: "is my child learning at a sufficient rate?" - "well, he's only up to his third reader, and the rest of the class is up to their sixth, so NO HE IS NOT". "Will my son have to repeat this year level?" - "well, he WILL NOT pass this subject, and he WILL NOT pass that subject, and he WILL NOT have enough marks to go through, so YES HE WILL". Knowledge is always the determining factor though. My wife's work world is one of quantifiable knowledge - the children must reach this level and that level, and we can measure it by this marker and that marker. My work world is a little more hazy - comparing people's circumstances against the black-and-white of the policy wording, then making value judgements about people we can't see, circumstances we did not witness, and how far we can bend the rules to accommodate their wishes. In short, we use knowledge in a much more fluid fashion.
I am a fan of science (as well as science fiction). I love reading about physics and chemistry, except when it's something I don't understand. Hence I don't read it very much. But I love the scientific method of obtaining knowledge: I make an observation, then do an experiment to confirm my observation. Then publish the results of my experiment in a paper, and at the end of the paper make an assertion about the knowledge I believe has been exposed by my experiment. Then my peers review the paper to see if the ideas are sound or not. Then, finally, once my peer-reviewed paper has passed muster, others do my experiment to see if they get the same results. If they do, then and only then, is what I discovered considered scientific, empirical, verified and verifiable knowledge. My wife is not a fan of science and science fiction. She is a dancer, she is creative, emotive and intuitive. She lives in the world of emotion and art and all things right-brain. Therefore, when the ENT refuses to give a definitive answer on any of our questions, I am completely comfortable with this because I am able to read between those particular lines, whereas my wife experiences a disappointment of hope and interprets the outcome of the appointment as negative.
I believe knowledge is extremely important, and more people could do with learning a thing or two. It amazes me how much our modern society is bent against knowledge, and bent more towards accommodating people's stupidity and mental laziness. Examples of this? Someone falls over the railing on the top floor of the Myer Centre, and instead of erecting signs saying "don't be an idiot and sit on the railing", we put shade sails across the ground floor. Someone topples over the edge of an escalator, we don't put signs up saying "stop being an idiot and dicking around on the escalator", we put higher side-rails up. I would have thought that as society and humanity moves onwards and upwards we would have learned better than this. Knowledge begets knowledge, and if our school systems were geared towards actually imparting knowledge to our kids, and teaching them how to accumulate knowledge for themselves, rather than towards learning arbitrary facts by rote and repeating them parrot-fashion in order to churn out workers for the capitalist system, society as a whole would suffer a lot less from social ills and injustices (and less idiots would fall over the side rails of escalators).
But we also need the creative, intuitive, spiritual side of life. Without it, where would the colour of life be? If more people followed their gut instinct, listened to their inner voice, instead of just living life by rote, I believe we would all be a lot happier and healthier. So take responsibility for your own life, your own actions, and your own knowledge, but don't forget that you are a human being, who's value comes from the fact that you are conscious and breathing and can communicate your ideas and emotions, and not from what you can produce for the consumerist economy.
It feels funny blogging halfway through the day, when there is more of it yet to experience. But if you want to know what my own appointment is - this is a blog, not a dear-diary.
It begins
I am starting this blog for one reason and one reason alone: I want to be a writer. And apparently, all writers have blogs. In fact, to get a job as a writer, some employers expect to see your blog address on your resume. In the old days you would keep a journal, and write in it every day. But journals are so, like, 20th century OK? So a blog it is. Plus the statistical likelihood of someone reading my blog as opposed to someone reading my journal is considerably higher.
Which brings me to my next point. I always thought that blogs were a bit pretentious (for people who aren't celebrities, anyway, like Twitter), and I kind of still do. Which brings me back to my first point. I am doing this so that I can improve as a writer, and not because I am under the impression that great hoards of my friends are interested in the most boring and monotonous details of my day. But it's a great chance for people to know what you are thinking about that they wouldn't otherwise find out, I hear you say. Well, if people want to know what I'm thinking, they can always just ask. And the fact that I am not bombarded all day every day by questions like "what are you thinking about?" "what do you think about this?" "do you think that? If not, what?" goes to show that people, in the main, whilst they may like me well enough, aren't necessarily interested in what I think. So if anyone is interested in what I think, and is too afraid to ask, they can read my blog.
Which brings me to point number three. I do not intend, in any way, to edit or water down what I put in this blog. So yes, there will be swearing. Yes, there will be opinionated statements about politics, religion and the workplace. And yes, most of it will be utterly boring to most people except me. If I feel something is just too controversial, I just won't write about it at all. Otherwise, what you see here is straight from my brain. You have been warned.
It's strange to think that one day, in the future, when I may just have succeeded in my writing endeavours and am somewhat of a celebrity or well-known writer or something along those lines, that people may find this blog and go back and read this, the very first entry, with something closely akin to interest. So let me explain how I decided I was born to write:
1. Loved writing in high school and always got great marks in English for my creative writing.
2. Decided I wanted to be a muso and studied music at University for six years.
3. Decided I also wanted to be a bong-smoking hippy and gradually devoted more of my time to getting wasted and tripping out.
4. Nearly lost my mind on drugs, had a religious renaissance and got involved in a religious organization, and decided that I wanted to be a full-time minister of modern religion.
5. After many fruitless years (and much of my time and money) spent on this pipe-dream, decided I was meant to just be a worship-muso.
6. Then decided that no, I was meant to be a "real" muso.
7. Then said no, actually, that's right, I love writing. Maybe I'm meant to be a writer, and to hell with all this religious bullshit.
8. Started writing my first novel, began collaborating on a second, and decided I needed to start a blog.....
Anyway I was going to keep this short. Plus apparently for this to work I have to write in it every day. I don't want to blow all my stuff on the first entry so here's lookin at ya sideways.
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