tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39120549492104921282024-03-18T19:51:58.547-07:00Sam Lloyd's BlogThe title says it all, really.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-38654339426841608532017-05-17T04:53:00.000-07:002017-05-17T04:53:48.422-07:00I did a Thing and I'm a little bit proud of itWhen I set out on this digital journey, my ultimate dream was to be a professional blogger, sitting at home in my underwear (on cold days at least) pumping out blog posts and getting fabulously wealthy.<br />
<br />
I quickly realised it wasn't as easy as all that, and that I knew virtually nothing about being a professional blogger.<br />
<br />
So I got a job at a marketing agency as a "copywriter". I put "copywriter" in inverted commas because within the space of a week I was designing marketing materials and writing the company blog. Before long I was wireframing websites, building web pages, and literally anything else that I wasn't abjectly hopeless at.<br />
<br />
After a short time there I got a job at a real agency and found myself handling a portfolio of 15 SEO clients, making sales calls, writing blog posts and social media updates, and ghost-writing magazine editorials.<br />
<br />
Fast-forward to now and after handling a giant worldwide social media account and several massive AdWords campaigns, I'm about to start a new job as the digital marketing coordinator at a NFP.<br />
<br />
All of this from just wanting to be gainfully unemployed...<br />
<br />
Anyhow, in amongst all this, I helped a friend of mine who runs a personalised beverage company called Brewtopia. They sell personalised beverages - you order your beer, cider, water, or wine from their website, design your own label, then get it all shipped to your door.<br />
<br />
It's pretty cool.<br />
<br />
The Thing that I did that I'm a little bit proud of was a small project involving a one-page website aimed at the on-premise cafe and bar sector. Essentially, if you own a cafe, bar, corner store or speakeasy, you can order <a href="https://www.cafebeverages.com.au/" target="_blank">house-branded drinks</a> and sell your own stuff instead of stuff from the supermarket.<br />
<br />
I helped them design and build the page, set up the hosting, install the SSL certificate - all things that a few years ago, I wouldn't have even known how to spell.<br />
<br />
So... this is the Thing, and I'm a little bit proud of it because I didn't learn it in school. I taught myself how to do it, I had a great time, and I ended up helping a friend with it.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-37316647421212758412015-02-23T14:48:00.000-08:002015-02-23T14:48:12.502-08:00Sam Lloyd's Blog has moved!Hi all<br />
<br />
From now on my blog can be found at:<br />
<br />
https://samlloyd1976.wordpress.com<br />
<br />
Thank you!Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-6105236594158563842015-02-20T23:51:00.001-08:002015-02-20T23:51:42.421-08:00The IneffableI've always loved the word <i>Ineffable</i>. And I just can't seem to put into words exactly why.<br />
<br />
What does it mean? Look it up in a few dictionaries and the basic gist is:<br />
<br />
<i>Something so awesome no words can describe it. And you can't even find words to begin describing the awesomeness.</i><br />
<br />
Ever since I learned the word I would often think about it. Surely there are words you can use for everything? How could there be things we know and experience that you can't put into words? Words are what we think with after all?<br />
<br />
But then I started to think about this, and really, we learn words when we're very young, but we were thinking before this. We just didn't have words to translate our own thoughts to us. You can teach a parrot words, and some of them can even attach meaning to them, like that African Grey parrot that is capable of telling the difference between a circle and a triangle, and when you show it two triangles of the same size and ask which one is bigger, the yellow one or the red one, it responds with "same".<br />
<br />
In essence we humans use words to label our thoughts. This is what allows us to convey our thoughts to other humans, much as I am doing right now. But every now and then we get stuck for words. Maybe we are tired and can't come up with the right words. Or maybe our memory misfires and we get frustrated by this word that is "right on the tip of our tongue" but that we just can't get out.<br />
<br />
But in reality there are a lot of thoughts and experiences that have no words. I personally believe there is a part of every language-speaking human being that still thinks without words.<br />
<br />
(I must be crazy, choosing to write a bunch of words about things that have no words).<br />
<br />
There are words in other languages that belong to thoughts, feelings or experiences we don't have English words for, and single words that we have entire sentences for and vice versa, but I'm not really talking about that.<br />
<br />
We can form entire concepts and narratives in our mind at lightning-quick speeds that are too slow for words, but I'm not really talking about that either, because if you thought about it you could eventually put it into words.<br />
<br />
I'm talking about the part of you that is on a level that there are no words for in any language.<br />
<br />
And as you may have suspected, I'm having trouble finding the words to describe it.<br />
<br />
Maybe I should share with you how I visualize the human mind, whatever the word "mind" means to you, which is a discussion I am not going to go near. Today, anyway.<br />
<br />
I picture layers of words in concentric circles. There are the words at talking pace, which is the outermost layer. These scroll along like an internet news feed and are the words we generally say out loud. They tend to be censored, filtered, adjusted to suit the audience, shoehorned into politically correct statements.<br />
<br />
Next is the inner monologue, the one that moves at lightning speed. This is where your spoken words start from, then move into the outer layer. These are concepts, impressions, feelings and ideas that we have words for, complete with all the swearing, racism, sexism and dirty jokes. Don't worry, the outer layer will filter all that stuff out.<br />
<br />
Last is the bit right in the middle. This is where it all starts. There are no words here. This is raw data. This is where all the information that the brain receives, from within and without, is spurted into your conscious awareness. It is from this place that you then start allocating words to the data. Words and phrases such as "ouch, my tummy hurts" or "wow, those jeans make you look fat!" and "gee, it's hot today".<br />
<br />
Of course, conducted by organic machinery as this process is, it's not perfect. Every now and then something will come all the way out into the open air leaving us saying "Um, did I just say that out loud?". Likewise, some thought, concept or impression will find it's way to the outer layer that does not, and cannot, have words allocated to it, because there are no words suitable. This is why expanding your vocabulary is a fantastic idea; it increases the likelihood you will have appropriate words to allocate and your mind machinery won't come grinding to a halt.<br />
<br />
But even then, this is not really what I'm talking about.<br />
<br />
Assuming you have a functioning brain, you have a sense of "self". There is actually a part of your brain that is dedicated to giving you the sense that you are a distinct entity in this world, and if this part of your brain is damaged or switched off for whatever reason, you will experience the dissolving of the ego and oneness with everything that has been described by people before in numerous scenarios.<br />
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Over time and as we grow and mature, this sense of self becomes very detailed. We store what we think of ourselves, what we think others think of us, the person we want to be, the person we think we are, the way we think we act, the way we think other people perceive how we act, all in this tiny little box we call our "self". It becomes more than just that specific region of our brain; it becomes our own image of ourselves.<br />
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If you're a reasonably self-aware person, you can probably look at this system image from time to time and assess how you're measuring up to it (a habit that can be unhealthy unless it's done the right way). You can even sum up it's attributes and allocate words to them. This is my personality section. This is my "what I enjoy doing" section. This is my music section. This is my favourite film genre section. This is my "who I am when I'm with my friends" section. This is my "what I think about when I'm by myself" section.<br />
<br />
But if you keep looking long enough you will find a section you can't really describe. What is it? There aren't really any words to describe what this section of me is, but it is still a distinct section. And I use it, but I can't really describe what for. What does it do? Well, I know it's there for a reason, but I can't really describe when, where and how it does what it does.<br />
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The reason I bring it up is because, far from being an unnecessary mental appendage, I believe it is an essential part of who we are, and I believe it is important for us to keep trying to put words to it. The reason being, I believe this is the part of us that inspiration comes from, and the process of continually trying to put words to the wordless is where we get all our new ideas from.<br />
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Some are better at this than others - I quite often look at different people and think "how the heck did they come up with that? And why didn't I think of that?" So I do my best to grab a hold of the ineffable part of me and keep trying to allocate words to what comes out.<br />
<br />
Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about, and others know exactly what I'm talking about. Get to know your ineffable self - there aren't quite words to describe how awesome that part of you is. (Groan). Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-19646889472553542702015-02-11T18:12:00.000-08:002015-02-11T18:12:22.377-08:00In memory of my best mate Phil HeadingIt would have been Phil's 42nd birthday today.<br />
<br />
No words can sum up how shit it still is without him. And I still love him just as much now as I ever did.<br />
<br />
But in honour of his birthday, here is the speech I read out at his funeral.<br />
<br />
RIP Phil, you silly bastard. 2 Samuel 1:26.<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>"I first met Phil in 1996. I was a drug-addled teenager
running back into the arms of the church, and Phil was basically the same but a
few years further down the road to recovery than me. I still remember the first
conversation I ever had with Phil: </i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Phil: “Gday mate, I’m Phil.” Me: “Hey mate, I’m Sam.”
Phil: “So which church did you go to before you came here?” Me: “the pub.” Phil
laughed. And so a mateship was born.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>There was many a funny moment in our history. When
passionate young Christian men go and hang out together, drink slightly too
much beer and start satirising the world, you just know there will be guffaws
aplenty.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Phil was always impulsive, sometimes with hilarious
results. I remember telling him I’d never done a burnout in a car. So he immediately
went off and snuck a little oil tin out of the shed and applied it liberally to
the back wheels of the little red Datto, and we then filled the streets of
Seacombe Gardens with rubber smoke. Probably should have driven a few streets
away from his house first, but at least I got to do a burnout.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Then there was the time he wanted to attend a leadership
training conference, but couldn’t because he had work commitments. So – he quit
his job and went to the conference. Quite an elegant solution really.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Then there was the time that I mentioned in passing that
it would be cool to just have a party for no reason. Before I knew it, Phil had
ordered two full lambs from a local butcher, hired a spit and was asking if I
could buy the booze and should we throw it at my in-laws house. It was always
fun surfing one of Phil’s waves. We rocked up at Peter and Susannes, with music
blaring and this great big spit tied straight onto the roof of my old HQ
stationwagon, and proceeded to throw one of the best parties I’ve ever been to.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>I was also privileged to witness the very beginnings of
his relationship with Catherine. I think I know when it all started really.
They had been sort of coolly interested in each other for a while. But then one
day we were going off paintballing at Deep Creek. I was driving my
custard-coloured Volvo, Phil was in the front passenger seat and Catherine was
sitting behind him. Phil decided he had an excess of mucous that needed to be
disposed of. So, of course, as any red-blooded Aussie male would do, he sent it
flying out of his open window. Not realising that Catherine had her window open
as well, which led to her being rather unceremoniously covered in his
expectorant. I’m pretty sure that was the moment she said “yep, he’s the one!”</i></div>
<i>
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<i>Phil was the best man at my wedding, resulting in some of
the funniest wedding photos I’ve ever seen. I don’t think Phil ever really grew
out of that seven-year-old phase of pulling silly faces in every photo you’re
in. The best part though was when my wife and I were trying to be all very
pensive and romantic for some photos out the front of Adelaide Uni, on North
Terrace where there is a statue of some guy sitting in a chair. We put on our
best pre-selfie-age duckfaces, only to look and see that Phil had somehow, in
his full three-piece groomesman garb, climbed the thing and was sitting in the
guy’s lap. It had to be at least two and a half metres off the ground. Why oh
why couldn’t the photographer have taken a photo of that? It would have been
the best pic of the day. Of course afterwards came the trademark Phil apology:
“I’m really REALLY sorry about that! I feel so bad!” We loved it so much we got
the funniest one of them blown up to put on our wall.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>Phil and I always just seemed to be on the same wavelength.
We always just got each other. We would have these ridiculous conversations,
going off on wild tangents, but we never seemed to lose each other’s thread.
Same sense of humour, same passion for music, same laid-back attitude to life.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>And that just seemed to continue throughout the rest of
the time we were mates. We were both either in similar places in our lives, or
one in a place the other would come to soon. Whatever was going on with us, one
always seemed to understand where the other one was at.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>Phil never judged anyone. Never ever judged anyone. He
could strike up a friendship with just about anybody, and forgive pretty much
any offense. His range of friends was so wildly diverse because he just
accepted everyone for exactly who they were. He was who he was, and he made no
apology for it, but even if others didn’t extend him the same courtesy, he
wasn’t bothered. He just shrugged it off and waited until they got over
themselves, then invited them around for a beer.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Phil was an absolute crackup. I simply can’t remember any
time I spent with him when he didn’t make me laugh. And he didn’t even have to
try, because it was simply his outlook on life that lent that dry wit to every
word he said.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>And he was smart. Damn smart. I think he was the smartest
person I ever met. He was getting distinctions in his law degree, and only quit
because he couldn’t stand the subculture – he came to our house wearing his
“law” jumper one day and said he had to wear it at uni otherwise he wouldn’t
fit in with the in-crowd. His understanding of politics was breathtaking, and
he had a mastery over the written word I could only ever hope to attain. He
could run intellectual rings around anybody, but of course, he never did,
because that kind of thing just wasn’t in his nature. His mind was always
ticking over on a level I couldn’t even comprehend, but his heart was still big
enough to stoop down to my level to keep the conversation ticking over. </i></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>And that was such a typical Phil thing. Unless you spent
the time to get to know him, you would never know what a cognitive colossus he
was, because he was never one to show off, or belittle, or condescend. To the
outsider, he was just the lovable larrikin, the affable bogan, the long-haired
lout who always just worked a trade. But those who really knew him knew that
hidden under that mullet and goatee and pair of $10 servo sunnies was a brain
of epic proportions.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>He was definitely the class clown, but he also had a
serious side. For the time we were involved in the church he was very serious
about his Christianity. He would spend hours studying and meditating, just to
understand a little bit more of the God he believed in – yet he was more
“Christlike” than anyone else I knew. He was serious about politics, and the
exploitation of the worker under the current capitalist regime – and he would
be the first to maintain that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government. He was serious about music. There was
never music not playing around Phil, and he had a near magical ability to just
happen across random new bands to listen to. He was serious about his family
and worked his butt off to provide for them. And he was serious about his
friendships. For all his appearance of the mate who was good for a laugh and
not much else, he would show no hesitation to wade into the mire of someone
else’s dark times and share the load with them. I’m sure many people here today
have personally experienced that.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>And that was one of the aspects of Phil that astounded me
the most. Now I haven’t had the perfect life and I’ve suffered my share of
trials and traumas, but it paled in comparison to the wounds of the past Phil
carried around with him. But do you think that would ever wipe that toothy grin
off his face? No way. And it amazed me that in spite of all his own battles he
could still show such amazing empathy to others. He genuinely felt for others,
and he translated that empathy into action.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>I remember the last time I saw Phil. I was at home
recovering from an operation, and he drove all the way from down south to my
house up north to visit me. He knocked on the door, I opened it and was greeted
with that trademark cheeky grin. He had a backpack with him. I thought maybe
he’d packed a lunch. But he sat down on the couch with me and watched the daggy
old war movie I’d just started watching. He didn’t say a lot, neither did I,
because he wasn’t there to flap his gums. He just came to spend time with me
whilst I convalesced. He opened the backpack and pulled out a beer. Then
another one. And another one. Aaaand another one. He didn’t ask to put them in
my fridge, he just kept them there with him. He didn’t offer me one because he
knew after my operation I couldn’t have one anyway, and he didn’t make me feel uncomfortable
for it. And in a way, to me this perfectly sums Phil up. Going to great lengths
just to be there for a mate but making out like it was no big deal, carrying
around whatever he felt he needed to get by, all by himself, not asking anyone
for help, and not crying out for attention. And maybe in the end this was his
downfall – he cared for and looked after others more than he cared for and
looked after himself.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>I still can’t believe he’s gone. I keep expecting someone
to ring me and say that it was all just a terrible mistake, he’s fine, he just
went on holidays without telling anyone. Which is the kind of thing that
wouldn’t surprise me if he did.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>I still can’t believe I am not going to see that
ear-to-ear grin, or hear that hearty guffaw again.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>I still can’t believe I am not going to go hang out at
his house again, sit around drinking beer and dribbling the kind of nonsense
that only he and I could.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>Phil – seriously dude, what gives? I knew I valued your
friendship, but I never realised how much I NEEDED your friendship. You were
the constant reassuring presence at the back of my mind, and it was comforting
to know that at any moment I could get a text message in a New Zealand accent,
asking if I want to go see this that or the other band, or catch up for a beer
at lunchtime, or come over and hang out. Why did you take that away from me?</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Who am I going to go and see King of the North with now?
And who am I supposed to carry down an extremely steep and narrow staircase after
they’ve polished off a whole hipflask of Jim Beam and have been temporarily
robbed of the ability to walk?</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>Who am I going to watch The Song Remains The Same with,
or Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii with? And who is going to put some rubbish movie
on for me to watch then fall asleep on the couch without telling me how to turn
off the TV and the sound system?</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>Maybe life can carry on as normal. Maybe I can get over
this grief and just get back to it like nothing happened. But of course I
can’t. I’ve never had a friend like you, and I never will again. You are a
singular icon in my mind, standing tall and proud, with none who could ever
compare.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
</i><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i>I remember the day I heard that you had gone. I had to
leave work as soon as I got off the phone, I just couldn’t keep concentrating.
I walked to the bus stop and stood there next to the Adelaide GPO. Then the
clock tower chimed, but one of the bells must have broken, because some of the
chimes didn’t ring. And I thought – that’s the world now. The world is missing
one of it’s most vital components, and it will never sound the same again.</i></div>
<i>
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<br /></div>
<i>
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<i>But one thing that can never be taken away from me, or
from Catherine, or from Josh, or Ella, or Riley or Reece, or from anyone who
ever knew and loved Phil, is that for a while – he was here. We have more than just
memories of Phil. He left an indelible imprint on our lives that will never
fade like memories do. In a very real and non-wishy-washy sense, his spirit
still lingers in our lives, and his presence will always be a factor in them,
because for a short time we got to share them with Phil. He was one of those
unique buried treasures whose love for life and people was contagious.</i></div>
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<i>Josh, Ella, Riley, Reece – you should be proud of your
dad. He was strong. He was brave. And he was the most selfless person I’ve ever
known. If I could ever be just half the person he was, I will be a much better
man than I am today. And I’m just his mate. You are his kids, the people he
loved more than anything and anyone else in this entire world. He may not be
around anymore, but you can know – not just think, not just believe, but KNOW –
that your dad’s love is still with you, and always will be. And he would want
you to have the best lives you could possibly have, even if he couldn’t be in
them.</i></div>
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<i>For the rest of us, let me offer some advice. I’ve
adopted a new motto – WWPD – What Would Phil Do. When we are figuring out how
to cope with his absence, how would Phil handle it? After he’s sat out on the
back porch by himself drinking beer staring off into space and listening to
Cold Chisel that is? How would Phil want to be remembered and his memory
honoured? I’m pretty sure, after we’ve given ourselves the time and space to
grieve, he would want us to crank up some Sabbath or some Zeppelin or some
Floyd, get together, have a barbie, enjoy each other’s company and laugh. Laugh
loud and from the gut, teeth bared, eyes clenched shut and clutching the
stomach. Because that’s what Phil would do."</i></div>
Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-66528882626896630622015-02-10T01:15:00.000-08:002015-02-10T01:15:15.644-08:00Teleportation - an existential crisisNow I could pretend that I am using this topic as a springboard to open a discussion about the nature of existence, consciousness, what makes you "you" and all that stuff.<br />
<br />
But who am I kidding? I'm just nerding out.<br />
<br />
You are a starship captain in the Star Trek universe. You take your first nervous step onto the teleporter pad, and wait for the engineer to throw the lever, instantly transporting you onto your new starship. What happens next?<br />
<br />
To an outside observer, you are surrounded by a wispy cloud of light, you disappear, then reappear in a wispy cloud of light at your destination. Simple.<br />
<br />
But what about your own personal experience of the voyage?<br />
<br />
Believe it or not, teleportation is real. Admittedly we can only teleport single photons of light, but we can do it. But the process involves destroying the original photon and recreating it at the other end.<br />
<br />
Let's imagine that this is how Star Trek teleporters work. The teleporter machinery reads you down to the last individual quantum particle, destroys you, then recreates an exact replica at the other end, complete with all your memories leading up to the moment of teleportation.<br />
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The you at the other end has only just been created literally a second ago, but it has all of your memories, so according to this new you, it experienced stepping into the teleporter, being surrounded by light, a brief moment of nothing then back to being surrounded by light at the other end. But the old you experiences stepping into the teleporter, being surrounded by light, then all of a sudden finding themselves standing at the pearly gates saying "I don't remember entering <i>these</i> coordinates!"<br />
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It's an easy enough mistake to make. The very first human being to be transported pops out at the other end and says "yep - she works a treat!" not knowing they had just been killed. So then everyone thinks it's safe and zips here there and everywhere by transporter, creating clone after clone of themselves that simply remembers a nice quick transporter journey.<br />
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So every time Captain Kirk is beamed down to the surface, the last thing he remembers is stepping into the transporter beam. Then when the new Captain Kirk beams back to the ship, the last thing he remembers is being engulfed in the transporter beam. And so on and so forth, with an endless parade of Kirks whose lives all end on the dispatch side of a transporter journey, until the very last time he ever transports anywhere, and his last clone goes on to live the remainder of the original Kirk's life with countless memories of being safely transported in the transporter here there and everywhere until he finally dies of natural causes instead of instant transporter beam disintegration death like so many Kirks before him.<br />
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Even if you could find a way to transport the original matter, so that no-one's body was being destroyed and then a copy created, it would still involve ripping you apart atom by atom, flinging you across space then putting you back together again. A process that would undoubtedly kill you anyway. In which case the first person to be transported would reach their destination and instantly flop on the ground like a marionette with it's strings cut. Which would then lead them to the quantum teleportation idea, which everyone would think is safe, and refer the previous couple of paragraphs for why this would be a problem.<br />
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It's the problem of continuity, and it's the same problem with uploading your consciousness to a computer. The uploaded version of you is still just a copy. The original you is still in your body. You could probably even have a nice conversation with yourself before you keeled over from whatever disease you had that you were uploading your consciousness to try and avoid.<br />
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It's a problem that was handled nicely in the movie The Sixth Day, when Mr Bad Guy clones himself and the clone wakes up before the old him is dead.<br />
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There are some people who don't see a problem with this. "Hey" they say, "if I still exist in some form or another, so what if I'm not around to experience it?" But, um, I kind of have a problem with that, because, you know, I don't want to die in a transporter room, or spend my last few seconds watching how much fun my digital copy is having without me. Besides, we can already do this kind of thing anyway - it's called having kids.<br />
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So now we could go into the whole thing of "but what makes you you?" and "where does this idea of me come from?" But...... let's not.<br />
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For now I can confirm there is no way I'm stepping onto any transporter machine or uploading my consciousness to any digital heaven until they sort these kinds of problems out.<br />
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And to answer your question, yes, this is the kind of crap I actually spend time thinking about.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-55639628920115971512015-02-02T19:05:00.001-08:002015-02-02T19:05:13.364-08:00MindfulnessThis week I discovered the concept of mindfulness.<br />
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Now like I said, I only discovered it this week so I'm not pretending to be an expert, but just in this short time I've found it ridiculously useful.<br />
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Put in it's simplest terms, Mindfulness is forcing your thoughts to be focused on the moment and nothing else.<br />
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Expanding on this a little bit - instead of letting your thoughts ruminate on the past, strain and squint into the future or scurry in circles around today's to-do list, you force them to focus on right here and right now, to the exclusion of all else.<br />
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So let's backtrack a bit and talk about how many minds you have.<br />
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"What do you mean Lloydie? How many minds? I have one, of course!"<br />
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But if you take a second to delineate between "mind" and "brain", it gets interesting.<br />
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Most of us, when we use the word "mind", use it as an overarching term to describe the sum total of our brain activity, but with emphasis on the sum total of all our thought activity. But what is a "mind"? Where does the mind start and end? And....... how come I can even have a concept of my own mind?<br />
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So now we're in murky waters, so we'll keep it high level and avoid arguing about consciousness and sentience and all of that hard stuff that I'm tired of trying to figure out. Things make a lot more sense when you use the word "mind" in a much more utilitarian way.<br />
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Whatever you do, DO NOT think about white elephants.<br />
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You just thought about white elephants didn't you? Tsk tsk tsk. OK, let's try this again.<br />
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Whatever you do, DO NOT think about white elephants playing golf.<br />
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You did it again didn't you? You probably even added a nice green playing surface, a few trees, a blue sky with some nice fluffy white clouds and a bright yellow sun, along with the white elephants holding their putters with their trunks, didn't you?<br />
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The reason you couldn't possibly <u>not</u> think about white elephants playing golf on a nice day is because there is a part of your brain that just chatters away, all day every day, in a constant stream of words, and never ever shuts up even for an instant.<br />
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But where this starts to make sense is that there's another part of your brain that is listening to this chatter. You saw the images, you saw the nice green grass, smelled that freshly-mown putting green smell, heard the leaves rustling as the trees gently swayed in the sweet-smelling wind, and felt the warmth of the sunshine on your face, because your inner chatterbox immediately regurgitated the suggested thought. But your inner observer <u>observed</u> this and filled in all the rest of the details.<br />
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This is how your brain works. It receives the jumbled cascade of your sensory input and rearranges it into familiar shapes and sensory experiences that match your memories of those same experiences prior. Your brain <u>watches itself</u> sensing the world and interprets it into a language that you will understand.<br />
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Too much too soon? Let's just cut to the chase.<br />
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The easiest way to make use of this in your everyday life is to understand the difference between your "Thinking Mind" and "Observing Mind". The Thinking Mind is your inner chatterbox, and your Observing Mind is the stenographer. You can actually think about your thoughts. And where this becomes something you can use is when you understand that the Thinking Mind is where your emotions lie.<br />
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Have you ever been so utterly devastated about something that you were in tears? Maybe you had just received some devastating news, or a loved one had said or done something ridiculously hurtful. You were a blubbering mess, so you decided to make yourself a comforting warm beverage. You put the kettle on the stove, then sat on the couch blubbering away, the Thinking Mind chattering away about how hurt you feel, and how devastating this is, and why did this happen to me, and this is the worst thing I've ever felt, and how can I go on after this. Then you looked over at the kettle and thought "I'd better make sure I turn that off before it boils over!". A purely un-emotional and pragmatic thought from the Observing Mind, reminding you not to burn the house down.<br />
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Before I discovered this concept I had two big problems: 1. I was completely wrapped up in my emotions, and 2. I was zoomed in on the negative. I would take the big picture of my life, scan the entire image for any negative aspect, no matter how small, then zoom in on them until they were all I could see. Then, because I was submerged in my own emotional quagmire, my entire world became these negatives and nothing was good any more. I did this with my job, my marriage, my kids, my house, even myself.<br />
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The biggest problem with this is that, when you live submerged in your emotional ocean, you suppress any negative emotion or thought, for fear it will capsize your tiny little boat and you will sink forever into the ominous depths. Then as a result of this, because these emotions and thoughts are actually you trying to tell yourself something important, and no-one tells you to shutup and go away and gets off lightly, they start shouting at you, and pounding on the door of your mind, demanding to be heard. So you fight them off even more, and they demand to be heard even more, and so on and so on until there is a screaming match going on inside your head that you can't escape from.<br />
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But when I broke it down into the Thinking Mind and the Observing Mind, I realised a few things.<br />
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1. <u>I am not my emotions</u>. <br />
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I feel my emotions. I have emotions. I am not a bundle of pure emotion, floating around in a multi-coloured vapour. My emotions are like a sense - my brain can't feel physical pain, but when I feel emotional pain, it means something is not connecting the way it should up there, and I should give time and space for myself to rectify it.<br />
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2. <u>Negative emotions are good, valuable and useful</u>.<br />
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There is a reason part of you is screaming at you and demanding to be heard. How would you feel if you were trying to tell someone something really important, and they interrupted you, told you to shutup and piss off, no-one wants to hear what you've got to say because you're an idiot? Has anyone ever spoken to you like that in your life? And if they did, how would you react? You wouldn't put up with that kind of treatment from another person, so why would you treat yourself like that? Emotions are messages. Negative emotions are just as important as positive ones. In fact, maybe more important - they are the warning signs that you need to give yourself some attention and look after yourself before you end up in a mess.<br />
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3. <u>Letting your negative emotions be heard removes their power to consume your life</u>.<br />
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Once you stop telling yourself to shutup and piss off, and listen to your negative emotions, you get the message and the emotion passes. Hang on, I don't feel so angry any more! Wait a second, a minute ago my life was crashing down around my ears, now I can easily see a way through the mess! Hold the phone, one minute I'm plotting to obtain an assault rifle and make that dickhead at work wish he'd called in sick, the next minute I'm laughing at how silly this all seems! By giving yourself the time and space to process the negativity, you feel heard, you feel valued and you feel like your opinion means something. Once you start taking better care of yourself emotionally, you start to feel better almost instantly.<br />
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Well this is all very wonderful Lloydie, but how do you even do all this? <br />
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<u>The first trick is this</u>: when you feel a negative emotion, don't associate with it by saying "I feel angry" or "I feel sad" or "I feel scared". You are not your emotions. Instead, say "I feel anger" or "I feel sadness" or "I feel fear". This way you are reinforcing the fact to yourself that you <u>have</u> emotions, they don't have you. I was amazed the first day I tried this. It felt silly at first, like I was an alien from some awful 60's sci-fi series, but it worked! Instead of washing over me like a tide I was going to drown in, they bubbled up and danced in front of me like little semaphore signals. I didn't rush it, but by repeating to myself "I feel anger, I feel sadness, I feel fear", eventually the cause of the anger, sadness and fear became apparent. And my Observing Mind could easily see what the problem was and why these signals were being received, and it turned out it was an easy fix after all. By not giving my Thinking Mind the pulpit I was able to identify the short-circuit, remind myself that those things were in the past, they are not happening to me now and I don't need to worry about it ever happening again. The next day I felt like a million bucks.<br />
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<u>The second trick is this</u>: pick a time, pick a place. Maybe sit down, maybe just stand there. But deliberately set aside time to engage all of your senses in this present moment, and this present moment alone. The feel of the chair I am sitting in. The feel of the keys of the keyboard under my fingers. The multi-coloured glow of the computer screen. The sound of the vacuum cleaner, and my little son playing his imaginary games in the other room. The fragrance of the leather of my chair and the scented candle in the kitchen. Immerse yourself only in Now. It won't be long before the Thinking Mind decides to take a break as well, your guard will come down, big problems will become little problems and a dead-end shows you the secret passage-way.<br />
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<u>The third trick is this</u>: think of your emotions as leaves floating on a stream in front of you, or cars driving past on the road in front of you. You are not bobbing along with the leaves, you are not driving the car. You are standing on the bank or the kerb, watching them flow past. You are not being sucked in by the undercurrent or getting mown down by a drunk driver, you are quietly standing there, observing the leaves and cars as they pass.<br />
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I could bore you with all the details of how this has changed my outlook on life, and how much better I feel even after just one week of thinking like this, but I won't. Instead, I will say that once you become "the master of your domain" and "lord of the manor", you will feel a lot better too.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-80528202362715884012015-01-26T19:29:00.001-08:002015-01-26T19:29:57.515-08:00Bump - Just WriteWhat does one write when one wants to write but doesn't have anything specific to write about?<br />
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I'm good at writing. Always have been. Never studied or anything, just have always been able to do it.<br />
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I started a fiction novel a few years ago. I've almost finished the first act! Everyone who read it can't wait to see what happens next.<br />
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Well what happened next was life. New baby with health issues, changing jobs, buying houses, life life life! And the fiction novel has been patiently waiting on my hard drive and quietly bubbling over in the back of my mind ever since.<br />
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But now my life is at a point where I've realized you just need to do it. Don't wait for the inspiration or motivation, that will come when you just do it. Don't wait until you're over your fear of churning out a load of rubbish, just churn it out. Don't wait until you have something to write about, just write.<br />
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My day job entails a lot of writing - email communications, policies and processes, executive summaries, formal letters, client summaries, reports, data, there was even a magazine article thrown in there - so it's not like I haven't been writing. But it's been a long time since I created anything of my own.<br />
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Call me a weirdo, but ever since I knew how to type, a blank word document would get my pulse rate up. Just look at it! All of that pristine white space! Just waiting to be filled with sentences and paragraphs!<br />
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For me that is the joy of writing - creating something out of a white space of nothing. You start with a blank screen, fill it with sentences and paragraphs, and the joy of creating emotion out of those words - excitement, fear, joy, sentimentality, elation, amusement - for me is akin to the joy of creating music.<br />
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In a way that's exactly what it is - creating music with words. Forming sounds not out of vibrating strings but out of people's thoughts. Creating imagery not with notes and beats but by directing someones inner voice. That's exhilarating.<br />
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So you know what? Time to just write. You can write about wanting to write and not knowing what to write about and before you know it you've filled a whole page. How very satisfying!Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-75634777075205997302011-03-02T04:28:00.000-08:002011-03-02T04:28:45.863-08:00Believing SkepticIn accordance with my facebook status update of 9th February, here is the blog entry more fully explaining my new-found position.<br />
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Up until very recently I was under the same mistaken impression that most people are, being that a skeptic is basically the same thing as being a cynic, and being skeptical is being cynical. This is, however, not the case.<br />
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"<b>Cynic</b>: a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view."<br />
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"<b>Skeptic</b>: a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. A person who habitually doubts the authenticity of accepted beliefs."<br />
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Therefore when I say I now consider myself a skeptic, I do not mean I have engendered a generally distrustful attitude towards people. And whilst I may question certain fundamentals of the Christian religion, I have not shed my belief in God.<br />
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Skepticism is a process, and a skeptic is a person who requires a higher standard of evidence. When I call myself a "Believing Skeptic", I am calling myself someone who still believes in God, but requires a higher standard of evidence for commonly held beliefs, especially the beliefs of Evangelical Fundamentalism.<br />
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For the larger part of my life (being from the age of four until late last year), I was an Evangelical Religious Fundamentalist.<br />
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"<b>Evangelical</b>: denoting or relating to any of certain Protestant sects or parties, which emphasize the importance of personal conversion and faith in atonement through the death of Christ as a means of salvation."<br />
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<div>"<b>Religious</b>: appropriate to or in accordance with the principles of a religion."<br />
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"<b>Fundamentalism</b>: a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming."<br />
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I believed that the entire universe was created in six literal days by God, that evolution was a load of crap, and that scientists were so hell-bent on being rebellious against God they had created an entire system with which to deny Him.<br />
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I believed that the Bible was a literal historical account, including the creation narrative, the exodus, and the events in books such as Daniel and Jonah.<br />
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I believed that after death, the souls of everyone who did not believe in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (ie was converted, or "saved") were thrown into an eternal hell of unspeakable torment from which there was no escape for all eternity, regardless of the deeds done whilst in the body.<br />
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And I also believed that believing the above was essential for one's own salvation, such that if one deviated from one's belief in any of the above, that one would themselves be thrown into an eternal hell of unspeakable torment from which there was no escape for all eternity, regardless of the deeds done whilst in the body.<br />
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And there lies the rub, and my main bone of contention (or the particular bone of contention I have time to discuss in this one blog entry): the Fundamentalist view that anything other than blind belief in the tenets of Fundamentalism itself constitutes disbelief in God and results in eternal damnation.<br />
</div><div>It goes something like this:<br />
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<i>"If you don't believe that every word of the Bible is literally and ineffably true, how can you believe it is God-inspired? And if you don't believe that every word of the Bible is God-inspired, how can you say you believe that any of the words of the Bible are God-inspired? And if you don't believe that the Bible is God-inspired, how can you say that you believe in Jesus? And if you don't believe in Jesus, how can you say that you are saved and any better than an unbeliever? And if you're an unbeliever, how do you suppose you can escape being BURNED IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY? AAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!!!!!! AAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!".</i></div><div><br />
</div><div><i></i>This is a baffling string of logical fallacies and straw men tied to straw men with other bits of straw, and has done nothing to better the human condition or improve the lives of its proponents or anyone else. It has done nothing to endear the attitudes of humanity towards altruistic or philanthropic ends, it has not increased morality, compassion, justice, mercy, grace and love. It has segregated the Fundamentalists from the rest of "The World" (those evil un-converted people who don't believe in the tenets of Fundamentalism and who are possessed by "the spirit of the world" or "the god of this age") into various in-fighting camps that drag people down instead of lifting them up. It has turned the attitudes of the world not against injustice, inhumanity, evil and selfishness, but against itself and anyone else who could feasibly be tarred with the same brush. And (most personally to myself) it has done scant more than fill well-meaning and God-loving individuals with such a crippling fear of unspeakable eternal torment with no hope of escape that they are too afraid to move, let alone grow, develop, learn, and contribute to the betterment of the human race.<br />
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I would gladly welcome any comments anyone has on this post. If you know someone who is a skeptic or an atheist, or a fundamentalist or other kind of conservative Christian, and you think they might have something to say in response, please tell them to have a read. I would love to see as many different responses and perspectives as possible regarding the uncharted metaphysical waters I now find myself sailing. Maybe as I delineate my position more thoroughly it will help some people through some of their own stuff, then become inexplicably popular, become a quick and easy means of fame and fortune for me and enable me to spend the rest of my life sipping lattes on my back porch in my pyjamas. It never hurts to dream.</div>Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-24433252470213749612010-11-05T06:42:00.000-07:002010-11-05T06:42:01.160-07:00Mickey Mouse Astronomy 101Tonight 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....<br />
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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.<br />
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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<b> </b>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 <i>actually created real antimatter!</i> 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.......<br />
<br />
.........I am very worried about myself actually.<br />
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Anyhow, tonight, when I created my planet, I had a few things to work out.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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?<br />
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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).<br />
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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.<br />
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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!Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-20538306398648565322010-11-04T05:25:00.000-07:002010-11-04T05:25:49.010-07:00IgnoramusThis week I had an experience that showed me how little I knew about certain things.<br />
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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.<br />
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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?<br />
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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?<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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There are different types of ignoramus.<br />
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1. The proud ignoramus.<br />
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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.<br />
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2. The angry ignoramus.<br />
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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 <i>are</i> intelligent, and everyone else is stupid, or b) they are at the <i>correct </i>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.<br />
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3. The misguided ignoramus.<br />
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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 <i>real</i> 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.<br />
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4. The blissfully unaware ignoramus.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-10521998288073836982010-10-13T05:30:00.000-07:002010-10-13T05:30:59.733-07:00The middle of Nowhere<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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 <i>everyone</i> knows how boring it is listening to someone talk about a wedding), and talk about two main parts of the journey to and from.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYENImz-F_97dgMH7CTHxFCVcKhljcc0tqyiU0eUCpu_9IKwufVXUh3t86_dvc_dgM4DIFGvUi2cN2lBsw-jYNueGCoxEbnvcMQJSssNB3W0JEvcJFbXWH7_A6A7V5Ay4Yl757aG83BGM/s1600/img_1307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYENImz-F_97dgMH7CTHxFCVcKhljcc0tqyiU0eUCpu_9IKwufVXUh3t86_dvc_dgM4DIFGvUi2cN2lBsw-jYNueGCoxEbnvcMQJSssNB3W0JEvcJFbXWH7_A6A7V5Ay4Yl757aG83BGM/s320/img_1307.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFxkai2yYrAd6YSxZgw6I7DKljIcKT4e9P3Nsrh7mVSNnGrajn-Au4tuMitMVRpQ967C0eDdQ3sAoJWJ5CmctjU9bhMfrVmuSqOPJD63DbtgjLfohcdgqlkj0aRYkTHXqJZHEbraof_Yk/s1600/img_1313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFxkai2yYrAd6YSxZgw6I7DKljIcKT4e9P3Nsrh7mVSNnGrajn-Au4tuMitMVRpQ967C0eDdQ3sAoJWJ5CmctjU9bhMfrVmuSqOPJD63DbtgjLfohcdgqlkj0aRYkTHXqJZHEbraof_Yk/s320/img_1313.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ds9Uztmcs8tEnEiYjJ_5wttV9k1ChxPHgzuaXzKwDnqEwnPHzD5IMYmXCsB0Q8eVXd2jcIU1Nw1J8za2WXV2uNHc8Al_YOM97pMCIwGp427rAdsOnEyfVqlRb5urLavQoRbY1Uvkssj-/s1600/img_1276.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ds9Uztmcs8tEnEiYjJ_5wttV9k1ChxPHgzuaXzKwDnqEwnPHzD5IMYmXCsB0Q8eVXd2jcIU1Nw1J8za2WXV2uNHc8Al_YOM97pMCIwGp427rAdsOnEyfVqlRb5urLavQoRbY1Uvkssj-/s320/img_1276.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">But this brings me to my second aspect: a little town in north-western Victoria called Ouyen.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGB0a3taiQZCMB68_QTVUdr92aLJAqq0X_Am1nMoee2IeuRzwd1avLtJbD_uEuJG4ufTeCbpfAulDdS_9AHeMTHoy81_6rVWfGTCdFAVTd7jaoCx18bjGN6meviE2VNqN2RDyfazXwV5Nu/s1600/Ouyen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGB0a3taiQZCMB68_QTVUdr92aLJAqq0X_Am1nMoee2IeuRzwd1avLtJbD_uEuJG4ufTeCbpfAulDdS_9AHeMTHoy81_6rVWfGTCdFAVTd7jaoCx18bjGN6meviE2VNqN2RDyfazXwV5Nu/s400/Ouyen.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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 <i>little</i> 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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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 <i>did</i> 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).</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div>Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-261742629293100252010-10-03T06:47:00.000-07:002010-10-03T06:47:16.612-07:00To blog or not to blogYes, I know I said I was going to do this every day. But I've been busy. Work, kids, stuff etc.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <i>and</i> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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. TTFNSam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-62335785613482164402010-09-30T06:42:00.000-07:002010-09-30T06:42:03.847-07:00iPhone bloggingIt's actually quite tedious blogging from an iPhone, so this will be a short one. <br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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!Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-15589413397854091352010-09-28T07:09:00.000-07:002010-09-28T07:09:06.998-07:00The next levelIt 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <i>too</i> 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.<br />
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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?<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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:<br />
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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<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <i><b>really</b></i> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Here's to climbing that ladder ;-)Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-40114289188579553192010-09-27T06:07:00.000-07:002010-09-27T06:07:02.631-07:00ProcrastinationUgghhhhhh....... 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?<br />
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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 <i>feel</i> 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 <i>go to sleep</i> then wake up at 6am the next morning feeling refreshed! But, then, I've gone to bed at 9pm and not done <i>anything</i>, let alone something productive.<br />
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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).<br />
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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.<br />
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The answer? Get off your fat arse, stop procrastinating, and just bloody-well <i>do it.</i> Ben Lee said it best: "just do it, whatever it is, whatever it is, just do it".<br />
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Why don't I just do it?<br />
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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.<br />
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But there is (as always) the other side of the coin. If I sit down and <i>force</i> 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, <i>focus</i> on the task at hand and get in the zone. I've done it before, so I know it can be done.<br />
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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 <i>whatever</i> you set your mind to. But that's the trick - dismantle the platitude, and we realize that that's the hard part - <i>setting your mind to it!</i> But set your mind, and keep it set, and the world is your oyster (to use another platitude).<br />
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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!Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-55336613705430041822010-09-23T05:11:00.000-07:002010-09-23T05:11:52.643-07:00MemoriesI'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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <i>immensely</i> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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:<br />
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"When life hands you lemons, make vodka and Red Bull. Lemonade is for cissies."Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-19503452460965010522010-09-21T20:51:00.000-07:002010-09-21T20:51:44.009-07:00It continuesDay 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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".<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <i>only</i> 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.<br />
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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).<br />
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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.<br />
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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.Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912054949210492128.post-6700040710266283772010-09-21T05:56:00.000-07:002010-09-21T05:56:38.516-07:00It begins<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span>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.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">1. Loved writing in high school and always got great marks in English for my creative writing.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">2. Decided I wanted to be a muso and studied music at University for six years.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">3. Decided I also wanted to be a bong-smoking hippy and gradually devoted more of my time to getting wasted and tripping out.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">6. Then decided that no, I was meant to be a "real" muso.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">8. Started writing my first novel, began collaborating on a second, and decided I needed to start a blog.....</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">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.</div>Sam Lloydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05829486855035131620noreply@blogger.com0