Australia Day / Invasion Day etc

This argument seems to come up every year.

Firstly, some background facts.  No offence to the indigenous Australians, but they were not the first people here.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains The remains at Lake Mungo, identified as the 'earliest human remains' are described as 'gracile' meaning of slender build and features. as opposed to the very robust features of what is condisered a modern aboriginal male.

Also, there are extremely large differences in cave painting style found in the Kimberlies http://www.futurity.org/rock-art-clarifies-demise-of-pre-aboriginal-culture/ of which is suggestive of a different set of cultures in this country, pre dating modern indigenous Australians.

So what happened to these people?  Well, they're not here anymore, and the current indigenous Australian pride themselves as great warriors.   Most likely, given that all homo sapiens is a species of war, they wiped out these people.  Genocide.

Genocide when done correctly is unpunishable.  When there is nobody left to point out the crime, then there is no crime, it seems.  Nobody talks about these earlier inhabitants, and even to mention them draws cries from groups.

Every year on Australia day there are calls to return the country to it's original owners.  If by 'owner' we mean the original inhabitants, they are not here anymore, modern indigenous Australians wiped them out.

Every year on Australia day I hear protests about 'why are we celebrating invasion day/genocide day'.    Genocide is a term that means to wipe out or nearly completely wipe out a race.  Such as mine.  When such events happen, what is left is such a small minority that they have no power at all.  Indigenous Australians have land rights, separate laws, special inclusions and support for health, housing, welfare, education, shit, even buying of cars.  Thats anything but powerless to be in a position to negotiate all of that.

I'm so sick of walking past Redfern station and being told by a protester 'go back to your own country you white cunt'.  I'm not white for starters.  I can't go back to my country.  All record of my family living there was wiped out.  All paperwork is destroyed, and all elders that knew where my land was are dead.  There are no protectionisms in place for my race, because we were basically eliminated apart from a few disapora across the globe.  This is what genocide is.  We are not significant enough to start any noticeable movement.  We would rather just get on with life and not create a fuss.

Anyway.

The moral is, you create your own suffering.  When my country of origin celebrates it's inauguration day, so be it.  I don't focus on that, I focus on where I am going with my life.  I don't choose to feed my own suffering.  This invasion day bullshit happened hundreds of years ago, nobody cares anymore.  My genocide was 80 years ago, and everyone's already forgotten.  Modern Indigenous have a plethora of opportunity available to them, should they decide to take it, but it seems a lot are just focussed on the past.  From my perspective, you're still here, your family are still here, your culture is still here.  Thats a lot more than what a lot of people have, including myself.

You create your own suffering.

Balance

Its all about balance isn't it?

Every day is a day full of new things, experiences, memories, learning, teaching, enriching this whole experience of living.

Every day we lose 24 hours of life, walk a little further away from the innocence of our youth, and take another step towards death.


Its all a part of how everything maintains a balance in one way or another.

I've a mixed view of youth.  One part of me misses the wide eyed approach to life I used to have.  Another part of me knows full well that I couldn't go through it all again.  Not for fear, but sheer boredom of having to live the experience again.

What makes an experience just that is the unexpected, and how we react to it.  Change and new things define us as who we are, enrich us as people and teach us more than any of our professors.

When we stop looking for these experiences is when we start to die as evolving, learning, humans.

Wake up tomorrow.  Do something different.  Know that by the end of the day, you will be closer to death, that your youth has faded just that much, and that those wrinkles are from smiling.

The unstoppable media machine

I can be quite a negative person. 
I stand by my post of three emotions.  That is all I have.  In order to function normally as a member of society, I construe all other emotions in order to make it look as if I am normal.
Its necessary.  I've already learned how difficult life can be if you are 'different', and it's not worth it.  To be passed over in job interviews just because the secretary who is screening the initial applicants 'got a weird vibe from you'.  To miss out on opportunities just because you couldn't make friends with the business owner.

I'm forgetting my point.
Subsequently, a lot of my behaviour needs to be derived from my surroundings.  From people I associate with, I listen to the way they speak, I watch with interest the facial expressions of those whom have lots of friends, I notice how humans interact with each other.  Through analysis and remembering, I function well now as a normal human being.  By turning on certain traits, I can charm almost anybody.  I can be your best friend in 10 minutes if I want to.  Its an incredible skill to have, tricky, but out of all the education I have, its this that gets me the most work.

As a consequence of assimilation of all these traits, I am basically blotting paper.  I absorb all that is around me, whether I like to or not.
I used to be a very negative person. Over the past 2 months, I've cut all common media out of my life.  I'm no longer so negative.  I'm no longer absorbing the rubbish, the lies, the twisted truths, the hyperbolism and the hype that comes from modern media.

I've realised that most of the stories on the news are unnecessary to live a modern life.  I've learnt that most of the stories on the media are only half the actual truth, and that if one digs deeper you will find there is a rational explanation for why.  I've learnt that instead of a lot of bad in this world, that in fact there is a lot of balance.

Know that there are always two sides to every story.  No one is inherently evil.  The world can be a better place if you look out for your common man/woman.

That violent sociopath whom is about to go on a killing spree might just change his mind if you hold the door open for him instead of letting it slam in his face.

Sometimes good deeds, random good deeds such as giving a stranger your parking ticket when it has a few hours left, can make someone's day.

Do things because you want to be a better person, not because the fear of the wrath of god is with you.

Get your news by asking your neighbor how they are, not from the advertising driven idiot box.  Its funny how I know about the war in Iraq but I don't know what my neighbors name is.

All the hate directed towards Allyn John Slater

This past week we've seen three tragedies:
The murdering of an innocent girl, Trinity Bates.
The prosecution and very public incarceration of a less than sound person, Allyn John Slater.
The amount of hate in our society becoming apparent and flooding the internet in the form of Facebook hate pages directed against the latter.
Here's something controversial: people like Allyn John Slater aren't born that way.  They are spawned from hate.  We are all born innocent, just like that girl was, but if along the way we are subject to hate, misery, persecution, lack of love, then a monster like Allyn John Slater we can become.

Hate made Allyn John Slater, and now we see more hate directed towards him, and the cycle continues.
I'm not defending him.  I'm just saying setting up or contributing to the amount of hate that is already there is not constructive.  Hate doesn't go away, it stays there, like rubbish, until someone does something about it.  Writing up a Facebook page dedicated to 'the Chemical Castration of Allyn John Slater' just fuels hate, which then continues on its cycle.
You might think its harmless, that you are just venting, but if you 'vent' like that every day, eventually it becomes a habit, then it becomes part of you, just like smokers whom start on 1 cigarette a week become addicts.  Hate is addictive.  It doesn't go away if you blurt it out online, it just manifests itself.  The only way to get rid of it is to understand its source, and extinguish it.

If we apply more of this logic to people like Allyn John Slater, and help them extinguish their hate, then we would have a lot less of these terrible, terrible crimes in our great country.

Workplace Enthusiasm

I went to a xmas party over the weekend.  I'm no social butterfly and meeting new people takes a lot out of me, mainly cause I have to try so hard to look interested and maintain banal conversation.

These outings are however a necessary part of living in society, and so I put my best effort in most times.  

I find that the best way to maintain conversation is to actively ask the other person a whole heap of questions about themselves.  People tend to love talking about themselves, and will think that you are an interesting person, even if you don't say a word but listen.

I met one chap whom at 34 years had worked only one job in his entire life.  He proceeded to tell me that his place of work (a financial services firm) was the best place ever to work.  I continued to ask him why, and I received a 10 minute soliloquy about about the company culture, how some people 'just don't fit', how he'd never leave, how he feels so great to be part of something as its being built, how he started at the bottom, and how he's so well looked after.

Firstly I was happy for the bloke, but then after a while it felt like I was talking to a religious nutjob, except his religion was company culture.  Its so sad that at his age he hasn't yet realised that every job you work, no matter what company, in what country, or what position, that you are only there to make the company money and keep it alive.

Some may argue that I'm just cynical, but I used to be like him, until I had my spirit broken by not one but three different firms.

You may argue that he is happy, albeit naieve.  When I thought about it, I concluded that no, actually it is me that is happier, as I am living in the reality that I know what the truth is, I have no loyalty to any company as no company has to me, and that I am only around as long as they keep paying me, and pay me well.  I finish on time, take a fat paycheck, all because I let my employers know exactly how much effort I put in, and that I'd quite happily go elsewhere if the money or hours suited.

I wish I could have told the guy the same.  Just quit, see what else is out there.  Inevitably one day you are going to have a irreconcilable difference with a new boss, or the company will take some policy change as determined by the board, and the place will be different.  Your loyalty over all those years will be forgotten in a heartbeat.  All the things you like about the place will be gone, and you will be left there, working 12 hours a day as expected, for a wage that you compromised yourself on because you fell in love with where you work.

Don't be afraid of selling out to the highest bidder people.  There's more to life than just work. 

 

I haven't sold out to the man.  I am the man.

Duality

I grew up on an isolated livestock farm in country New Zealand, and in my time there I learnt to be incredible frustrated with sheep.
Sheep are plain dumb fucking animals.  I've seen that many get stuck on fences, walk into ditches and not get out, follow each other round, all the stories you hear are true.  Cows and pigs are a lot smarter, horses have attitude problems, but I'm getting off my point.
We pride ourselves as individuals, but so many times we follow the crowd in a sheepish mentality.  We believe everything that happens on the news and get upset by it, when most of the stories are deliberately told one-sided to get you watching and the ratings up.  The other day in the train the carriage was full and I noticed everyone standing was facing one direction, and it wasn't the direction of the doors. 
The other day I saw a lady with pram waiting at the bottom of the stairs whilst a whole flock walked past her, none offering to help.  She was amazed when I offered.
Infinitely more disturbing are those stories where you hear about a person in dire straits, albeit a car accident or receiving a beating /mugging, even when there are plenty of other people around.  Other people all waiting for someone else to do something.

Which are you?  Would you react in a time of need or would you stand by dumbstruck, waiting for someone else to take the initiative?
I know which kind I am, and even though it gets me into trouble sometimes, I'm proud of it.  Someone once told me that life isn't a spectator sport, which I believe in full.
To all those sheep, those who don't help the elderly, to those that walked past the poor woman with the pram, to those that get upset by the rubbish touted as the news, I hate you all for not thinking, for not being, for not thinking for yourself.
But I would give my life for any of you in a heartbeat.

Its the duality I bear.

Three Emotions

One common theme of my life, and one that took me 25 years to realise, is that I have only three emotions:
Serenity
Depression
Rage
I don't know whats its like for the normal person, to have this wide scope of feelings, but its something thats caused me to be an outsider most of my life.
I remember when Grandad died when I was 5 and I was just mildly confused at what all the fuss was about.  I kinda knew the guy was pretty old so I figured it was only natural.
I got sent to a psychiatrist at 8 whom diagnosed me as depressed.  Isn't everybody depressed?
It was hard to make friends at school, the kids seem to want you to be empathetic towards them which I couldn't do.  I got beaten up every day for a year by this kid who loved WWF wrestling and used me as an involuntary wrestling partner.  I let it go as I figured he wasn't doing much harm.  One day he hit my head on a desk and I flipped out and strangled him until he passed out.  Kinda got in trouble for that.

Its been hard, especially trying to keep in control of that old rage thing.  Even now I still have problems sometimes trying to keep it in check, however from the outside I just seem like any other kind good natured individual.  I've got my poker face down to a T.  I just hope like shit that nobody will ever push me too far.
The hardest thing though, is being able to feign all these other emotions in order to be able to function as a person.  Its expected of us in order to be accepted into social groups to be able to listen, smile, and otherwise react appropriately to a given emotional input.
Anything else would mark us as an outsider to the tribe, an anomaly, an intruder.

Doing this all day every day sure as hell wears me out.  Small wonder I long for time by myself.

The best things in life ain't free

I've had 'The best things in life are free' rammed down my throat by cheesy idealists all my life, and I've believed it up until recently.
I define 'free' as something that comes without cost. I think that is a fair enough definition.
I think the said 'cheesy idealists' mean to imply that shit like air is free, and even I have to admit air is pretty fuckin good, I mean I use it on a daily basis, so I'll give them that much. Air kicks ass.
I'd consider that the only exception though. Everything else that is free is probably bad for you. I'll give some examples:

Mainstream media/free tv news. I don't know what its like in the rest of the world, but here in Australia the news segments are basically poorly written and full of sensationalism. They hype up stories about nothing to the extreme, so that you feel compelled to watch, and then sit there and soak up the advertising during the breaks. The advertising revenue pays the journos, and the machine feeds itself, making more crappy poorly researched articles with keywords as 'affecting ordinary australians' and 'convicted child molester' or whatever public heartstring is relevant at the time.

The free magazines you get when you take the train: here in Sydney we have MX, which I read twice. Basically MX portrays itself as a news magazine, but its just a few articles cut and pasted off the internet and printed amongst a swaggering of advertisements. Again, its only the most controversial articles that make it, and 90% of the time there is no truth, research or fact checking involved.
Reading MX will actually make you stupider. Fact.

Public drinking fountains? People piss in those. I'd rather drink from my four dollar bottle than get some kind of UTI in my mouth thanks.

Actually there is very little out there that is truly free come to think of it. Linux operating system is free, but requires such an investment of time and inconvenience (I have been using linux for 4 years. My current machine is Linux, and if the wireless drops out it requires rebooting, the screen settings refuse to remember and I get dropped to 600*800 each time despite me manually changing the config file, I have to run KDE desktop due to a mysterious black screen issue on gnome desktop... tons of issues.) so thus warrants it to not be free.

Oh, and I'm moving off Linux back to Mac next week. I think I'll be a happier person because of it.

Immigration

I have mixed emotions about the Sri Lankans that are currently stuck in Indonesia.
Firstly I will state that one of my best mates is Sri Lankan, and I think they are great people, so read this in context please.
I'm a little confused firstly. If they are truely fleeing from something nasty, then wouldn't any place apart from where they came from be great? I mean, they are in Indonesia now, but they refuse to get off at Indonesia, saying that they want to go to Australia.
I don't know about you, but if my family was under threat from war or famine, I'd be sailing to the nearest place that had no war or famine. I'd love Indonesia.
I think the core of the problem is the people smugglers. They have evidently promised these poor souls that Australia is a land of milk and honey, where people will wait on you hand and foot, you will never have to work, and you will be able to live a decadent lifestyle of your wildest dreams.
Its how the people smugglers manage to convince them a boat ride is worth their entire life savings, house, and everything else they may own.

I can only imaging that is why we have problems with integration of some immigrants here. Instead the life of luxury they expect, they find that typical life in Australia (well, at least in Sydney) means working 45+ hours a week for barely enough money to cover the rent for the shoebox you live in. If only they knew, they might choose paradise in Indonesia instead...

I do feel for them though, they are just pawns in this game. Of course they don't want to go back to Sri Lanka, they have nothing left there, all was sold to pay the smugglers.

Alive and Breathing

Life's not easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it.
(pic: Hubble deep field. i.e. the universe as it was 10 billion years ago)
No matter where you look, so long as you aren't staring at the world through rose colored lenses you see despair, hate, greed, and poverty. I don't claim to have a solution to everything, hell there's that much context and interconnectedness today that there is no way we can commit to any sort of change without everybody, every single living person, making a change themselves.

If we want to feed the poor in Uganda, we need to stop eating so much ourselves, so that global food prices can relax.

I don't mean to claim that life is getting harder for us, in fact its the opposite. 340 years ago, there were millions of people dying of bubonic plague. In 1918 over 50 million people died from a H1N1 strain of the flu known as 'Spanish Flu'.
Thanks to today's modern medicine we hardly see such panic, except from the media.

Through Medieval times violence, murder and war were a way of life. Although people think that crime is worst today, it pales in comparison to even 20 years ago thanks to the technology and research available to today's police force.

The point is, no matter how bad we think things are today, they have been a lot worse.

It almost seems that a lot of the grief, especially in westernised culture, is somewhat self inflicted. Depression, drug addiction, and biker gangs are all mostly the result of too time and nothing constructive, or seemingly worthwhile to do.

People look to a lot of different things in life in the pursuit of an answer, be it addiction, stamp collecting, motorcycles, violence, we are all looking for the same thing. An answer, a minute of clarity, even just a sign.

In the murky depths of my soulless existence, when thinking of what will become of the dust on my bones, I like to remember that for this brief moment in time, the 60 odd years I have, that I was here, and alive and breathing.

Its all I can ever ask for.

Times change

Whats depressing is that as I get older, more and more of the people I used to know seem to give up on life, from bad decisions, from lack of heart, from broken dreams.
To me, the worst thing that can possibly happen to oneself is to endure complacency, for it is when one stops striving to be better, that one begins to die. When you give up trying to make your life better, you allow your life to get worse.

I know that these next five years will see myself grow even further from my friends, the ones that have decided to buy large cheap homes in not-so-great suburbs so that they can have the illusion of wealth they so strive for, the ones that decide to stay in bad jobs when the only thing holding them back from pursuing something better is their ingrained fear of rejection, the ones whom think they are too old to make something of their lives so they just give up.

Maybe its just me, maybe I'm just foolhardy, maybe I'm the one who should 'settle down'.
Nah fuck that.
I don't claim to know everything about life, but I know this much:
The only thing you leave behind are your children.
Life's over before you really begin to enjoy it.
Happiness lies in the endless pursuit of perfection.

I'll keep listening to myself until I stop making sense

Addiction

We are addictive by nature.
Its pretty easy to find something you are addicted to in your life, be it physically or psychologically.
Cigarettes and heroin can give us a physical dependency.
Whats also dangerous is that other substances, like marijuana and coffee can be psychologically addictive, as the user is addicted to the way it makes them feel.
I was a heavy pot smoker for a good 5 years of my life, and it was quite hard to kick. I never had any severe withdrawal symptoms, but after being stoned for so long, it becomes your normal state, and literally I was smoking at one point just to feel normal.

Its not only substances that can be addictive. I've seen it often enough where people are addicted to a feeling, an emotion.
Sometimes its being in love, where someone will let themselves fall for the completely wrong person, based on an allusion of what the person is like. Destructive relationship ensues, and then repeats as the addict loves to feel in love.
Depression can be addictive. Its not unusual to indulge in melancholy, as sometimes just to feel something, anything, can be better than feeling nothing at all.

Anger is an interesting one. So prevalent in our society it is, and the cause of all our wars, our murders, and most of our pain.
A common psychological misconception is that if we don't release our anger, that it will come out in other ways (e.g. 'Me Myself and Irene').
The truth is, releasing anger, be it hitting a punchbag, yelling at a subordinate, or killing a hundred people in a game of counterstrike, makes you feel good.
When you do something that feels good, you want to repeat it .
Its what we are.
Addictive.
When we feel that release of anger, and the rush we get, its addictive, and we crave more, so we become prone to getting angry a lot more.
If you learn to control your anger, it fades to nothing. You can focus more on other tasks that are more important in life.
As I've found.

Survival of the Fittest

Its a well known, but not often disclosed fact that a lot of the world is stupid.
Anyone whom has done any work in any customer service based field is aware of this. I'm not saying you need a degree, or other forms of higher education to avoid this classification, I'm talking about basic common sense, which as the old adage goes, isn't so common.

I remember a lot of times whilst working in IT support, despite being calm and helpful, there were some people to which logic does not apply, they who think that yelling and making a big deal is a valid way of getting what they want, that their needs trump the needs of others, and that their time is more precious than yours.

I blame it on self esteem. There's been all of this talk over the past 10-20 years about self esteem, that kids must have high self esteem to be successful in life, that kids whom have self esteem already are successful, I'm sure you have heard it.

The problem with this is in the cause and effect relationship: Its assumed that
:: Kids that have high self esteem are successful, hence high self esteem leads to success.

Whereas, I think its more of the case as in
:: Kids that work hard at sport and their studies and become good at what they do, are happy with themselves, have high self esteem, and then are successful in life.

What society has pushed into our children is that you must have high self esteem to be successful in life, not good grades or sporting prowess.
Hence now we get a sea of people, whom have no obvious skills, be it sporting or academic or otherwise, whom have this inflated sense of self worth and esteem, based on nothing.

These lads and lasses are quite the picture, and I'd guarantee you know one. they are typically moody, think quite highly of themselves, don't seem to be good at anything, love talking about themselves, cannot take the tiniest bit of criticism (as they have no real talent, critique of them brings their whole card castle self esteem crashing down), won't try new things out of fear of being bad at it at it and actually showing the world they suck, and are generally, douchebags.

Which brings me to the initial argument.

I used to hate capitalism, and used to think that money was better distributed to the common hardworking man. Until I worked 2 years in technical support for an ISP.

It was then I discovered the 'douche' as described above, and was disturbed at how high a proportion of society they make up.
Not willing to sacrifice my quality of life to have to put up with these people, I can come to only one conclusion: rip them off. Rip them off blind. Let them get away with their insulting, ignorant and otherwise unhuman ways, and rip them off, overcharge, undersell, do whatever you can. We all know they aren't smart enough to realise. Use their money and skills to better exist. That way they can continue with their inflated sense of ego and I can afford to live somewhere they aren't.

Its simply natures way: Survival of the fittest. The weak feed the strong.
Man I hated tech support.

Life as a Machine

Given enough computational power, the domain of problems for which a machine can process approaches that of our own. For example, say we have a computer that runs software that evaluates what other computers are used for. Increase the power of the machine by ten, then we can use the computer to evaluate what purpose the other machines are for, and how they could be made more efficient. Increasing the scope of the problem domain to include the computer itself, it can then begin to question what it's own purpose is.
I've been given this example, "the ability to question our own existence", as the justification of a soul by a few people.

I'm not much of a person to believe in the eternal soul, maybe inversely its because I've lived a thousand lives and I'm tired of not seeing any change, maybe it just seems irrational. Maybe its my version of hell to continue living beyond death, either which way I see no evidence of any kind of eternal soul living within us.

You can break all human emotion down into logical constituents. All emotion is a result of evolution and learned behavior, mostly from when we were more primitive animals. Fear? You feel your heart race, your body tense, adrenaline courses through you, its a conditioned response to enable your body to perform and run/jump/fight in times of danger. Love, well without any sense of love we wouldn't procreate, and then hence we wouldn't exist. I fuck, therefore I am.

I guess my point is, that the ultimate human form is one devoid of all out primitive emotions (isn't that what we are trying to do anyway? When we tell our children to stop misbehaving and 'grow up'? When we frown upon celebrities acting out childishly? As to why we cannot just punch the boss in the face when he threatens us with dismissal?) and we find ourselves as purely logical beings, where every input produces an exact output, regardless of what we are 'feeling'. Where we do things because it makes sense, not because of an underlying, semi-controlled primitive urge.

I can only dream of such a world... but for some I guess it could be a nightmare.

The ultimate human state is that of a machine. Devoid of emotion, and logical.

Some will argue about the soul, the spirit, whatever you could call it. Every human has a inbuilt fear of death, and it is mirrored in many ways, through trying to stay beautiful, to religion, belief in heaven, belief in the eternal soul. I don't have that.

It may appear my life is lacking because of the lack of belief. I like to think the opposite: that because I am not blinded by these, because I am not holding out for an eternal soul, that I want to do all my living while I am alive, I should hope to be able to make as much of that as possible before I sleep the last time. I will breathe, sleep, dream, walk and think as much as I can.

A moment of clarity is worth a lifetime of lies.

Adrenaline

Another day in the life as me, another walk through the lost souls, the public transport, empty nameless faces, all chasing some sort of dream.
I wonder if they aren't so far disconnected, if somehow they are chasing the same thing, albeit differently.
When the body is under duress, it produces stress hormones, such as noradrenaline and cortisol. Noradrenaline binds to the same Adrenergic receptors as adrenaline, producing a similar, albeit somewhat psychoactive effect.
That is, the busy executive whom is juggling a large deal, or under pressure from his superior, may in fact be simulating a similar rush to what I get when hitting a hill on the snowboard, or surfing.
For me, its stronger than any coffee, better than most drugs, a clean, mind clearing high that I will always chase, be it on a motorcycle at 200, eyeballing someone who could very obviously kick my ass, saying something in public that could cause a reaction, skateboarding a bowl.
The businessman traveling on the 9:00am train to Wynyard is most likely as sleepy eyed from the lack of a rush as I am, dead to the world unless his eyes are dilated, heart pumping, and head filled with white noise between the thoughts.

We are just slightly different people chasing the same old dame.

Time

Quantum physics tells us that time, like all other dimensions, can be quantised. There is a minimum unit of time, as there is a minimum unit of distance, of matter, and it is these impossibly small increments of time that make up the continuum we experience.
At any given moment, in any ordinary day, there are literally billions of these time segments flying by. An analogy is those cartoons you see that work by flicking through the cartoon book, and on each page there is a picture of a dog or similar, and each subsequent picture is changed slightly, but if you flick the pages quickly the dog looks like its running.
In between these moments, what happens?. Nothing can exist without time. If we lose a spatial dimension, there still exists a perfectly valid two dimensional world with time, albeit devoid of life and matter as we know it. Time justifies not only our insignificant existence, but that of the dimensions that support the universe.
So in between these moments, what I suspect, is that for one tiny, almost inconceivable amount of time, there is perfect silence, perfect still, for the tiniest amount of time, before the universe turns the page and everything has moved ever so slightly, like in the cartoon dog analogy.For that period of time, the whole state of the universe is remembered, all matter is halted, all dimensions are paused, all photons stop, all vibration ceases, to then carry on again when the quantum time pause resumes.
Its these moments I live for.

Happiness in the pursuit of perfection

I watch a lot of people as they go. I enjoy picking up on other peoples habits, their inconsistencies, their faults. Its what makes us 'human'. It gives me material so I can act the better person myself, instead of the cold machine like socially unacceptable personality I actually have.
Most of the time its unavoidable, for some reason the paranoia that haunted my childhood has flowed into my adult life as a constant awareness of my surroundings. No matter where I go, I'm constantly listening, touching, smelling and looking 360 degrees, absorbing every facet of whats near. It can be quite intimidating sometimes, places with great crowds and excitement I tend to avoid as it becomes somewhat overwhelming for the senses.
Its great when it all works though. The only thing that makes us feel alive is the ability to sense our environment, ask any blind or deaf person. To have all of ones senses constantly in overdrive, its... like one is more than alive, intrinsically assimilated with the surroundings, with inputs flooding in a lunatic calm. Its like you are the only thing that matters. That everyone else is simply going through the motions. That you are the only one truly alive and breathing. That you are freed from this vile coat of skin that is to be human.

I'll argue to anyone that to be alive simply means to be human. Being alive transcends humanity, or any concept that we may have. Being alive is a supreme mathematical state, a chaotic superposition of billions of microstates into one macro: Breathing. Beating. Alive.

Violently Apathetic

Oh thats just nasty, the Jakarta bombings. I wonder if the bombers have any idea what their actions do around the world, especially knowing that so many more people will now frown upon Islam.
I know Christians that are living in regret of things that people from their religion did hundreds of years ago, I can only imagine what your average Muslim must be going through about now.
Also related, this is why Australia must take necessary steps to ensure that people whom try to come into this country via Indonesia actually are refugees. If these people are smart enough to get into the Ritz with all its security, bring in appx 200kg of explosive, they are definitely smart enough to get into this country on dodgy paperwork. If I really was a refugee, and I'd made it to Australia, I would have no problem waiting even 6 months in camps in order to get my perm residence visa. How long would you wait to join this great country of ours?

If we find those responsible for training those smart but weak minds that did these bombings, I'm not in favour of a violent demise for the, Lets just forget about them. As in lets lock them up somewhere, and just forget about them, open the door in a years time and collect their bones kind of forget.

Nice People

One the train today, there was a young lady who was so kind to speak loud enough such that all in the carriage could hear her. One thing she said got me thinking:
"You should stay away from him, there's a reason he has no friends. He's not a good person".

I mean, what is a 'good' person? As I've grown old before my time I've realised some traits that I used to think as good now just piss me off. Traits such as:

'Easy Going': Can quite often be a synonym for 'lazy' or 'doesn't care' or 'runs when the shit hits the fan'.
'He's a real nice guy': he's an absolute pushover, doesn't aggravate anybody with a differing opinion.
'He's so quiet spoken': Too scared to make a change or say what needs to be said.
'He's so laid back': Unemployed.
'Nothing gets to him': Nothing gets to him, not education, not poverty, not the destruction of the environment...

There are enough problems in the world as it is, and as far as I am concerned unless you are part of the solution you are part of the problem. The road to hell is paved with apathy. Those that don't care, or are easy going are not good people.

I have no friends but thats more due to the fact that after 30 the amount of guys that are physically able to spearfish surf and skate drops off quite remarkably... Oh yeah and because I'm an egocentric asshole with a god complex. Hahha

The day in review

Finally, after five full days of near total incapacitation from swine flu, and a couple of false recoveries, I went to work and managed to do a full days coding.
I also managed to pick up some more work coding at another place. Going to be pretty busy for the next few months.

Anyway - the day in review:
Jamie Neal found after 11 days out in the bush: This goes to show how long the human body can survive in the bush if it is prepared, and if it has a calm, rational mind. The Blue Mountains is a beautiful but rough place, so many have died up there. Its a relief to finally hear this guy come out alive, especially after so many of us had given up.

Indian Hacker grounds RAAF site: some Indian kid (presumably) removed the front page of an external facing RAAF site for public information (basically about as hard as taking down my blog and putting a penis picture up instead), put up a page insisting on the cessation of violence against Indian Students,and spelled 'pwned' as 'pawned'. I don't understand this, why hack the RAAF? They're not Lebanese. Maybe its a big hoax.

Honestly, not much is really happening in Sydney right now. Stockmarket is up, I'm over the flu, tomorrows Friday, it doesn't get much better than that. Hence the picture of jesus riding the dinosaur highlighting creationisms arguments against evolution.
Ps anybody else have a problem with the new Ice Age film being called 'dawn of the dinosaurs'? I'm pretty sure that the Mammoth came a long time after the T-Rex....
Have a good day people