TwistedTripper's Abyss

PM Howard skates on thin ice!

2007-04-23T21:49:00.000+10:00

Prime Minister John Howard has announced the federal government's plans to inject a further 150 million dollars into the war on drugs, in particular to fight against what the media has coined as the "ice epidemic". It seems rather odd that the PM would say that he is proud of his zero tolerance approach to the drug problem when almost 75 percent of this new funding will be directed towards the addiction treatment industry and a mere 40 million to be allocated to law enforcement. It would seem that Howard has fingers in all pies when he attempts to placate the masses with rhetoric about what is essentially a highly emotive social disorder. It is also amusing that Howard takes possession of the falling heroin overdoses, which is somehow a reflection on his government's tough on drugs stance. It is clearly a result of Asian crime syndicates moving away from the poppy fields into the more profitable business of amphetamine manufacture and distribution. I guess all the Howard government's rhetoric is just a ploy to gain votes in an election year.

I personally would rather see the funding going into research, only because the treatment of addiction is statistically an abysmal proposition. At best what we as a community can hope for, is a 10 to 15 percent success rate out of any treatment method and those figures are highly optimistic. If we are to fund the treatment of addictive disorders then I'd like to see the a good proportion of this funding in alternate approaches to addiction treatment, alternatives like SMART Recovery. The mental health services, which is the front line is in the battle with crystal Methamphetamine could do with a significant boost from this allotted election bribe as the most dangerous affect of amphetamine use is psychosis. It would be a pity and seem like a waste of funds if the greater proportion of 80 million dollars were only available to prop up existing rehabilitation centres that are affiliated with traditional 12 Step therapy which is arguably non treatment. We'd be fooling ourselves if we believe that a system that coerces substances abusers into treatment programs that promote 12 Step philosophy as the only way to treat addictive disorders will benefit the community in a significant way. Some not so favourable insights into into the effectiveness of 12 Step treatment can be found in the Orange Papers, it is compelling reading for anyone interested in the treatment of addiction. Wasting funding on drug diversion programs such the drug court is in my opinion tax dollars going down the drain. No one can force a person into sobriety so sending criminals to rehab is not going to have any significant impact on the successful treatment outcomes of these individuals.

It is an ineffectual use of resources that could be better spent in the long term on developing policy that decriminalises substance abuse and promotes real education rather than half baked educative programs that depict some misinformed sensationalist message aimed at political votes rather than useful information on harm reduction and prevention. Spending more money in social services and mental health will be a better instrument in fighting addiction rather than passing the buck into a no responsibility hands in the air rehabilitation system that has essentially no better outcomes than no treatment at all.

I can see why the government is happy with their system, it is a system that requires a minimalist expenditure in a short sighted vision. If the addicts are passed into a system that perpetuates for the most part 12 Step self help and away from relatively expensive professional therapy the costs seem an advantage. Voters aren't going to be happy if the government supports a program of professional help for what the community at large sees as a moral failing. However the costs are a misleading when one considers the high relapse rates of addicts and consequential hospital admissions with further detoxes and rehabs and damage that relapses often incur. Ultimately the tax payer dishes out for these failures and it is swept under the cover of yet more treatment through coercion.

The cost adds up and it may be time that we voters seriously began to look a little deeper than an added 150 million dollars.

Hypocrisy

2007-04-22T23:32:00.000+10:00

There's something strangely appalling when one enters into the halls of hypocrisy and is then outraged that another could be exhibiting a behaviour that they themselves are not above. I am speaking in terms of family and it never ceases to amaze me; the dynamics that are present in dysfunctional relationships. My dad was having a go at my brother, which was somehow directed at me for some unbeknown reason and he was somewhat upset at my brother's alleged state of well lets just say inebriation. I couldn't help but think that this is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. I really don't understand why it is such devastating news that my brother would be in a incoherent frame of mind. Its not like anything will be vastly different because my dad hasn't talked with him for a while. It's unlikely reality will shift into a more pleasing form because you've buried your head in the sand for a period of hibernation. Reality would suggest that my brother likes to be in an altered mind set and it isn't likely to change because I or anybody else would desire it to be different.

Anyway, if one is to throw stones then it would be wise if one didn't do so inside a glass cocoon of self righteousness. I would've liked to have informed my dad of this ism but what is the point? Dysfunction exists for a reason and who I am to shatter the illusions of self righteousness and contempt. I only have one more week to contend with the dilemma I face with having my dad stay with me and it will be wise to keep my mouth shut. I don't particularly want to be the one throwing stones even if I have a distinct advantage of not living in a glass house. Of course my dad may stumble upon this post and he may even be a little belligerent but this is my space to rant and indulge my little secrets and in a smug sense of relief it isn't I that has some dirt that needs sweeping under the carpet whilst pointing fingers at someone else.

Shameless Self!

2007-04-16T22:28:00.000+10:00

Addictive behaviour has turned me away from techno lust into more selfish pursuits in a bid to win favour amongst you, my reader. I've committed myself to world dominion and have designs on having my rants spread like a malicious infection in a binary world already filled with virulent gossiping and marketing of penis enlargements. All I ask is to be heard amongst the rabble of distraction, porn and information. Perhaps my rants are inferior to those of professional bloggers. I'd be willing to sell myself out for a pay cheque, if that's what it takes to have a voice heard. I'd even be willing to write about Britney Spears and her latest rehab romance.

Hang on a second, just one damn second!

That is taking things too far. I'd refuse to write about such transparent self promotion. Oh my God! Britney's in rehab. So fucking what! I'd sooner rather see her committed inside the an endless treatment program in some public hospital detox (at least the television would be free to air some useful information) rather than having to see her exploits at marketing her latest hair cut. This is old news but no doubt it will infest our airwaves again with more 12 step promotion with Britney Spears as poster girl for pseudo spirituality.

Anyway I am yet to acquire the discography of Skepticism. Red Eye Records emailed me and informed me that the discs are no longer in print and their worldwide database is incorrect. I have to give them credit just for the fact that they wrote to me explaining why my order had been canceled. So much for going legitimate, I've enrolled Amazon to service a one last quest to get the the CD's and if that fails then I can safely say that I did try the road to support the artist. I'll confess that channel BT has aided my enthusiasm for this band and I would really like to show my appreciation to them by buying their albums. They are a finnish doom metal band, and my lineage is from that northern sphere, in the forests of 1000 lakes, the snow, the ice and dark winter months of frigid cold. Hopefully Amazon will pull through so I can then enjoy the macabre darkness of brooding seductiveness that are Skepticism's songs.

In a self induced shameless desire I've joined forces with Technorati to promote this little space on the web but perhaps all I am naively doing is promoting Technorati. I've even joined MySpace, initially just so I could view someone else's pics but am now musing with the idea that maybe I really need a MySpace too. More shameless self promotion to coincide with the my gregarious need to belong and be loved by the whole of humanity.

Edit: I've just canceled the MySpace thing because it is lame and I'd rather do my own website than support a Rupert Murdoch enterprise. I only wanted to view some links on someone else's myspace but it was way too much hassle to even do that.

As Darkness Falls

2007-04-15T23:30:00.000+10:00

I was sent a link from a friend today to sample his involvement in a new metal/hardcore outfit here in Sydney, As Darkness Falls. I have to say I was impressed with the demo's available on their myspace site. The vocalist Adam is a friend of mine and I wish him well in his efforts to brutalise Sydney with his harrowing growls combined with the hard hitting drumwork and breaks of the band.

Check em out http://www.myspace.com/asdarknessfallsaustralia

DRM and the ISP

2007-04-15T21:03:00.000+10:00

It was only last night I that I reflected on being branded with the mark of DRM and as I awoke this morning the headline s on ABC News Online broadcast this;

Music industry pushes ISPs for action on illegal downloads

The Australian music industry has approached Internet service providers (ISP) to penalise people who illegally download music.
Under the plan, record labels would identify Internet customers who are illegally downloading and service providers would give them three warnings before cutting off their phone and Internet connections.

The full story can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1897439.htm

This reeks of what I believe was a previous Telstra proposition to packet sniff our connections, to have a peek at what we are downloading and to then prioritise bandwidth so that P2P apps are essentially cut out of the equation. I think according to Telstra, torrents are only used to download illegal material and that we are guilty for just using a Bit Torrent client. Now the "Australian Music Industry" wants to cut our "phone and internet connections" if we are caught downloading illegal content. This no breaking news and it is already loosely done, although I don't know if anyone has ever had their internet connection terminated because of it and if they were threatened to be cut off, then it was simply a matter of churning to another ISP.

The Music Industry already tracks downloaders of illegal content. They essentially join a swarm and identify the ISP's associated with an IP address downloading and uploading particular files and then send cease and desist letters or copyright infringement notices to the ISP's who own the IP addresses, who then pass the infringement notice onto the consumer who has that IP address at the time of alleged unscrupulous activity . However, now the Music Industry is embarking upon a crusade to deploy Internet Service Providers as the conformity enforcers of a solution to what is essentially their problem and to top it off they want ISP's to act as morality police for a failure on their part to stamp out file sharing and piracy.

The ABC article states that " Ms Heindl says several smaller Internet providers have already expressed support for the plan" and I can't help but be suspicious of the motives behind targeting smaller ISP's who would be only too keen on deploying measures to protect bandwidth that is precious to their survival due to some flaw in their business model. I wouldn't put it past the big name players like Telstra and Optus to use whatever excuse to prevent bandwidth exploitation from torrents and other file sharing apps so that their bottom line can be further expanded by whatever totalitarian methods they see fit.

There is something wrong with the system if the big guns in society are reduced to litigating against some teenager downloading a few measly songs off the internet. The idea of maximising the profit margins to finance the bonuses of music industry executives is where the whole system is flawed, so that some fat cat can maintain an ever increasing quest for power and a lifestyle to match. The solution to piracy that we are being sold is to live in a police state, where the moral police are internet service providers and the thought police are tied to the courts so that some sorry arsed geek, cops a termination of his telecommunications or ends up being sued for some breach of copyright, is absurd.

The problem can be fixed without such draconian measures, we just have to think outside the square. Surely the music industry can come up some scheme where there profits can be maximised using the technology that the consumer is using. Nowhere in history has prohibition ever worked so to think that threatening an online community with dire consequences is bound to be a futile endeavour. Surely the music and movie industries have to realise that the price they are charging and the limitations of digital rights management they are imposing are the culprits in this failure to enforce copyright. Online piracy is only one part of a bigger system of piracy represented by racketeers overseas where hard copy piracy runs rampant, with little word from the industries about taking actions to police such organised disregard for executives pay cheques.

This whole anti piracy campaign will ultimately fail because technology will always be one step ahead of what the bureaucracy is capable of enforcing.

DRM of nostalgia!

2007-04-14T21:38:00.000+10:00

I've gone legitimate and DRM'd myself. I'm now in possession of not less than 5 albums which I purchased off BigPond Music and am not ripping my hair out with worry that the files will be next to useless. I was fairly surprised that I could transfer the files onto my Creative Zen Vision M without as much as a blink and in fact I used the Creative software to copy the files across. I can also burn the albums onto CD and then rip them to MP3 without grief. I of course use the worlds greatest MP3 encoder, LAME via Exact Audio Copy which I use to do the copying of all my audio CD's and I can't recommend it enough. Give Windows Media Player the flick if you want to rip your CDs, not so much as one blip or click when playing back on my MP3 player with EAC.

I can't say that my days with channel BT are over because I'm an immoral being and haven't sold out entirely to DRM and besides where else will I get my Linux ISO's from? I believe that EMI are doing away with DRM and it is a welcome move on the part of one Record Industry giant to heed the calls of the consumer. I think the Record Industry would do well to utilise the torrent culture in some way, but they seem to just want to take us music fans all the way to the bank. The price one pays for legitimate music downloads is a little hefty in my opinion, $16.50 for the average album probably represents a cost of half to that of an actual CD. It is excessive for what we are getting, when in comparison, owning a CD gives greater freedom to shift the music around. I'd like to see albums go for around 5 dollars online and also for online stores to offer a far greater array to choose from. The biggest attraction in the Bit Torrent swarm, from what I can gather, is that the selection is far superior to that of any online store and also the obvious consideration, that the music is free. (apart from AllofMP3 which has a good selection and extraordinarily inexpensive, but the legality of their offerings is somewhat dubious and suspect) In truth I haven't used the much famed Itunes because I don't want to have to install more software just to download some songs, however I'd imagine that their selection is much the same as to the plethora of music stores claiming millions of songs, but tell me if you can find Skepticism anywhere on their listings? I've had another go today at ordering their CDs, this time from Red Eye Records as JB Hi-Fi left me cold with only one of the CDs I ordered. After waiting for a couple of months, the deal fell through when their supplier couldn't get it or some other bullshit. Utopia Records didn't have any of em in stock either when I visited today, but I did get the new Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero CD, Kreator's Enemy of God and My Dying Bride's Deeper Down EP. I've gone ballistic with music this weekend but when discomfort is present, retail therapy is sometimes the only source of distraction and escapism that is viable. I guess I've been on trip in nostalgia and some of the purchases over the last couple of days are a reflection on this trip. A trip into a more innocent and endearing time of my life. When I look back it was a time of promise and perhaps fury of possibility, but as I sit here pondering, I never really took advantage of the fury in its full potential. I want to recapture some of it and redirect it into something worthwhile, but even now I am racked with the same doubts that fueled my existence back then. Some things don't change and I suppose it can if I want it to. I want some old flame to reignite the passion I once felt but it seems withered and aged and I'm afraid to take flight in case I cannot subdue it to manageable levels.

I've yet to fully listen to all this new music but the train ride to work in the sombre mornings of autumn will afford me the time to reflect on the soothing sounds of Metal to gear me for the long winter days ahead, while I slave at my workstation for the greater good of humanity.

Year Zero is a strange story in the land of Reznor, from having read the wikipedia on Year Zero and the back cover of the CD it promises insight into the moral police and what could be described as the beginning of the end. A concept album for a conceptualised world of terror and corruption of God. I really like the cover art, is it "The Hand That Feeds" coming from the heavens on the front cover?

I am almost jealous of artists, they seem to be able create something worthwhile while all I can do is create a mediocre existence and fantasise about how awesome it would be to have this thing that people could could take away with them on their travels and daily grind. I really admire musical songwriting talents. The seemingly simplicity of songs is often such an intense emotive force and the beauty of it is such that they can be tucked away in your pocket and expressed wherever you are. Anyway I haven't such talents but I can imagine and that is good enough.

Bridge to nowhere

2007-04-12T21:38:00.000+10:00

Writing about the day's events is near impossible, only because my days are so very uninteresting. Like what should I write about? Nothing interesting happens in the engineering world. We design bridges and infrastructure so that the greater community can function in the way that it does, however when one begins to examine the events behind the making of said infrastructure, there really is nothing of any interpersonal interest that can be argued or extrapolated. There is no meaningful illustration of the human condition that can be drawn. For the better part of the day I sit in front a screen connecting dots into a depiction of how to possibly build a structure like a bridge, but it is boring. The only real metaphysical insight that may be drawn from such disinterest, is something someone once jestingly said, "build a bridge and get over it!" And that's what we do, build bridges so that people can get over them.

On a technical level, bridges present themselves as interesting structures to detail but if I were at all creative, I could investigate the physical symbolism of the forces and the agents of nature working against the design, something akin to the epic struggle between good and evil. However, in the quest for balance, it is Newton's third law of motion which at the end of each day, maintains the state of equilibrium that we take for granted. Perhaps it is this law, which states that "for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction" that subdues the agents that work with such laws into a dry and uneventful environment, that is the design office. Tis true that on rare occasion this equilibrium is pushed into an erratic state, when deadlines are tight and tempers frayed and someone snaps, but surely it is a cold day in hell when such entertaining displays are revealed.

So I struggle and wrestle to make sense of this world with such limited material available to me. The resultant force of such depravity is that I'm often left feeling rather cold and numb. Perhaps this other world or alternate reality that the office represents is truly where the heart of the human condition is. We spend the better part of our lives in such enclosures and surely it resembles a zoo to the alien life which transverse through strings that criss cross our fabric of reality into the multiverse of unseen realism. Perhaps it is why we are here, for the amusement of travelers that shield themselves from our insanity.

Wishful thinking!

2007-04-11T22:52:00.000+10:00

Little by little do these days fall away to something that is called a life, however a question lies in wait. What have you done with your life? I seem to be stuck at square one. I've done this loop and it is a continuous spiral that spins in on itself and then out again. I seem to be caught in this spiral of doubt, doubting whether I have indeed moved forward or have just wound back to the position I started in.

Once again I'm left scratching my head wondering how I got stuck in this predicament. One of many existential crises that emerge in the daily battle with time. I have moved from one job into another, only to be back where I was before I left the prior. I am continually trying to understand how I can move out of the career that I just seemed to drift into and I can muse over what a colleague said, which went along the lines of "everybody does drafting by default". I have to agree with the statement, I drifted into this trade by default, without too much consideration of what I really wanted to do. Now that I have transitioned and honed my skills in this craft I find myself dissatisfied with my chosen career.

It is not an unusual dilemma and in times gone by it was considered the norm that one would stay inside a chosen field or skill or study and remain in that position for a lifetime. However it is the age of sanctified obsolescence and it is no more a virtue to remain with an employer or career path than it is to toss out last years generation Ipod.

My dilemma is compounded by lack of motivation, I know what I'd dearly love to do and it is within my power to strive in such a direction but I am discerned with total apathy. My ideals are thwarted by this uninspired apathy towards a desire I take flight with, inside the narrow vessels of synaptic vibration. I feel almost justified by accusing the machine of soul corruption for the demise of energetic enthusiasm that forms the pursuit of self actualisation. I can readily lay blame for the lack of available time to this disease of industrialised cloning of souls, to feed this beast of societal machinery that demands the attention to detail of an insect. The facade of individualised self is bought and sold with a trip to a muliplex, a cathedral of managed excess, in exchange of plastic swipes and ka chinging of registers. The whole idea is flawed and a mockery of counter culture revolt. In fact the whole basis of this society is built upon the illusion that we have a unique identity and that in essence we are free to express this individualism. In reality we are just conforming to multi national branding and express our individuality through the ring tone we put on our mobile phone. Such individualism, at best can merely be interpreted as a sign that we are chained to a corporate master and at worst, that we have contracted our souls to the devil or signed our lives over to a higher being that is telecast across the airwaves.

I can't say that I am immune to this disease because I am caught within its grip, a strangle hold of self that is miraged by the status of gadgetry. At best I can maintain some awareness that my identity is not all together defined by how many gigabytes of hard drive space my MP3 player has, or whether my mobile phone has an array of components to rival that of James Bond. I am a technology buff and enjoy the benefits that technology afford me but I would also like to keep some resemblance of the human form in my quest to achieve techno salvation. There was a time not that far away in the distance, that I could not lay claim to any of this quasi status egocentricity and it would soothe my soul to keep this fact in perspective and at the fore front of my thoughts.

A lot of humanity is suffering and I am lucky, just to be born in an age and a place where my greatest concern is pondering whether my life has amounted to anything. I can forever remain dissatisfied and it is outside of this demeanor that I can choose to find solace. If I continue to subscribe to the notion that it is not enough then I will believe that it isn't enough. I have aspirations and dreams and would like to explore areas of my creative expressionism in a more fulfilling fashion and nothing is preventing me from pursuing these dreams. I live in a country where I have the opportunity and freedom to explore my talents and if I fail to have a go then it is only I, that can accept such failure and blame. In truth I already explore my creative bent and my only regret is that I haven't more time to be more absorbed in this pursuit. At the end of the day it is about risk and if I don't have enough faith in myself to take the risk then it is my responsibility to let go of my aspirations and dreams and get on with whatever I have to get on with.

Nowhere but Nothing Face

2007-04-04T00:07:00.000+10:00

I wonder what this life has in store for me. I fear that I will never get to a place where I can feel completely content. It is where my folly lies, in the completeness that can not be. What is completeness? Can one be fully complete or rather complete. It's impossible to assume that any form of the complete can even be entertained. How can one be complete? It assumes an end, some destination that is loosely defined by a word, content. The contentedness of being in some state of perpetual happiness. Content and happy, are these two words mutually compatible or are they two entirely separate entities? Is happiness defined by being content? Some correlation can be drawn for the mutual inclusiveness of happiness insofar as being in a state of not wanting or needing anything more, of being content. However is this really the definition of happiness? It seems to me, to be some ephemeral term this contentedness, a vaguely translucent construct that appears in moments of a wish less night. How can it be anything more than just a fleeting moment when, all things being considered, are in some alignment and then with the whim of a thought it can waft away with the breeze of desire. Is it not what desire stands for, discontentment? It would seem that happiness is circular, some crazy notion that one could be complete. Happiness is the absence of discontentment and somewhere along its etymology it has become a goal, a human pursuit that is ill perceived in reality. When one says they are truly happy, what exactly do they mean? That they are lacking desire or need or want, that they are content with exactly what they have? Its conceivable that such people exist but are they for real? Are they hidden in some existential bubble that they care not for anything? Do they not feel the macabre face of suffering when they look beyond the bubble. Are they living in a utopia that mere mortals dream of?

Happiness is bought and sold to the masses as an illusion. There is no happiness only the illusion that we could be happy, if only. Happiness is not the domain of the thinker, it is the possession of the mindless individual in the sense that the mind holds the keys to heaven and hell. Reality decides which way the key turns.

Reality is the key and its substance is illusion. Reality exists in an entity that does not exist. No where can we find the key but in our mind and it is nowhere to be seen. The mind hovers in a vacuous state of nothingness and no eye can perceive of this nothingness. If heaven and hell reside within the confines of nothingness then it is a nowhere place in a void that seemingly exists but does not. The clarity of this vacuous stare can be beheld when looking into the black dials of nothingness. If one looks deep inside the mirror, to the pupils of the beholder, a flash of recognition illuminates the illusion, it becomes rigid; it solidifies as it stares back into the reality of nothingness. Can we be happy when we see that there is nothing to be happy about, because it is nothing that is happiness. Like the song goes..."Don't Worry...Be Happy" because there is nothing to worry about.

2007-04-01T21:53:00.000+10:00

Sometimes it seems as if I'm just pushing through this dark mass of matter that really shouldn't be in the way but is there nevertheless. It is a futile fight because I know that once I shovel through one great pile of shit then most assuredly another pile will amass. It just never ends and it is the way I look at things which causes me the most grief. I feel almost guilty for feeling the way I do. One of my great desires is to just to be able to be at home in the quiet and solitude without having to deal with the griefs of a long lost past that I can never reclaim or change. The problem is that this ill defined past is always in my shadow and I just cannot out run it. It clings to me like dog shit on the sole of my shoes, stinking the air that wafts around me.

I just need to hang on for just that little while longer. I just wish I knew how much longer that little while is. I can choose to define my experience as a lesson which I can grow from but it is just a load of bullshit. This experience is just one more of life's meaningless ventures. It is exactly in this existential vision that I can draw the most fixed state of being from. If I can somehow banish all meaning from the experience of living in a loveless past, I will then be in a position to strengthen a deeper understanding of the nuances of the present. The current feelings of anger and resentment are just mere fragments that I can salvage into a better day tomorrow. I have made it through this day, although I despised having to walk through the day I made it to the other side. At least when we celebrate God's death next weekend, I won't have the object of my frustration in front of my eyes so I can be thankful.

Syncing In

2007-03-29T21:59:00.000+10:00

I was surprised to see in my yahoo inbox an email from a fellow nodian or perhaps an insider :P that commented on my previous post. The wonders of technology is such that Big Brother is never too far, the Google eyes have ears as well (who would have thought), ears to hear the rants of one disgruntled end user. As suggested by the commentator I have contacted Internode and am currently doing an extended isolation test, which will hopefully shed some light on the predicament I face. I will say that the gentleman on the other end of the line was extremely helpful and I cannot find fault with the tech support from Internode :) It is one of the reasons why I decided to go with Internode in the first place, they get rave reviews on Whirlpool so I joined the band wagon and haven't had much cause for complaint until recently, but that may very well be a fault on my end rather than anything to do on the Node's end. Because I have an affinity with speed I upped my dosage to 8 Megabit and my greed seemed to be my downfall but what can I do? My attempts at satisfaction go awry unless I get instantaneous gratification for my need for speed. Ideally things in cyber space should happen in a blink of an eye but we are still a ways off from such technology. I await in anticipation for the brute force of technology to satiate my desires.

Well having plugged the modem line directly into the telephone socket it appears that my connection has stabilised. Having done this test previously to a lesser degree than what i'm doing presently, I suspect I may know what the issue might be. As I looked at the line from my modem, something which I neglected to notice in my previous trouble shooting attempts, peering ever more closely I could see the line from my modem running through the UPS surge protector. Perhaps this is causing interference of some kind and thus the drop outs. I will leave the isolation test to run overnight to see if my suspicions are correct. Problems seemingly are almost always in the most obvious places and sometimes it pays to be a little more aware.

Anyway enough free publicity for Internode, after all they are just an ISP and I'm not being paid to write some spin for them. People can look here and here if they want more info.

Syncing out

2007-03-28T22:28:00.000+10:00

Internode seems to be playing up tonight and I don't like it when my internet connection is on the blink. I rely far too heavily on this connectivity, more than what is really healthy for any one individual. Alas I could be in far worse predicaments. One eye is constantly watching the DSL light on my modem to see if the dreaded loss of sync is upon me. My world depends on that wee little light, almost as if salvation is determined with the flashing of lights. My love affair with the internet began to blossom back in the nineties and it also marked my decline in other not so wholesome areas. But this connection into my main line of thought continues to grow like an extended synaptic nerve ending reaching the far recesses of the globe where I can travel without leaving the safety of these four walls that confine me. It's pretty sad really but I am a traveler of space and I cling to the notion that I can have a life if I leave this chair and abandon my voyeurism into binary code. Sometimes it is all I have, this pulsing of energy that permits me to see, like a third eye. Some ESP kind of epiphany that keeps me glued to a liquid crystalline god. Anyway the damn DSL lights are blinking so it must mean that I am about to lose sync again. Looks like I will need to contact the node for some support because it is happening way too much lately.

Denial

2007-03-25T21:37:00.000+10:00

Well I've changed fonts to mark a change in perception that has recently embedded itself into my consciousness. I am formally going through a period of dissent that has its sneering eyes penetrating the facade of cynicism that I often hide behind. I am struggling to find some validation to the lies that have seemingly been thrust upon me as the truth or the way. Some would say that I'm in denial, like some beast that has its claws wrapped around my throat, suggesting with ill intent that I do some heinous crime against the truth that I should adopt. In fact my eyes have been opened wide and I feel as if a spell has been broken, almost as if the world has dropped from neath my feet and I'm free falling into a reality that I wish wasn't so, yet am glad that I have truly found a truth that extols all the truth that has been implanted into my feeble mind. Perhaps I am preparing for a landing which seems inevitable. I wonder at times if my legs will be able to carry the weight of awareness that has now been added into my periphery. I am sure that I can carry this weight, however it will require a strategy that will empower my defenses rather than weaken them. Perhaps I am well on my way in this regard. Of course no one here reading any of this dribble will understand what I am talking about and it is better that I hide behind the veil of evasiveness than spell out in detail. It matters not what the details are, what matters is that I map my thinking with a point of reference, for myself.

It seems that there is an unlimited supply of fixes and ample advice on what I should do but there seems little discourse on the subject of what exactly I want. In truth what I truly desire is autonomy and a self sufficiency that is laughed at by some members of my community. I have to agree that a fine line exists between such autonomy and disaster but I refuse to believe that a compromise cannot be drawn. Call me stubborn or tenacious but do not call me a fool. Sometimes I can smell the stench of manipulation a mile off and I find it disheartening that in group approval breaks down into fear and guilt mongering. A common theme in this blog is that of fear, a fear that is induced within me, a fear that I create whilst I contemplate an unknowable abyss that is the future. A fear that represents insecurity and lack of belief. I am on a quest to empower and strengthen myself against this fear, and to essentially find the voice within that is the true me, to capture a belief in myself that I have spent a lifetime running from.

Simple things

2007-03-14T22:50:00.000+11:00

I sit in this quiet flat on my own at long last. I have finally been given some respite from the long battle with companionship and am relieved and placated from this long suffering journey of butting my head against a red faced buffoon named rage. Although my head has yet to adjust to the culture shock of this silent cocoon, I am grateful for any time that I am spared from my nemesis. It is a rather exhausting expenditure of energy trying to stuff a cork into the volatile mix of anger and resentment. At last I can rest and bathe in the softness of solitude.

Neural Network

2007-03-02T23:58:00.000+11:00

Why is reality such a difficult thing to define. I am here looking at web pages reading other peoples thoughts, frantically searching for some "truth". Some thing that is absolute, ultimate, some essence or "spirit" and the search always comes up short. I sometimes have a definite feeling for a moment when a revelation is just about to surface and then it fades, almost as if nature is hiding her real face underneath a veil of teasing curiosity. What is it that I am looking for? I was thinking as I peered into the "mindscape" of neural pathways that we call the internet, that I love this concept that we are connected by this fabric of electrical circuitry, by a binary code of thoughts spread like the tentacles of truth spreading her arms far and wide. Somehow like a net of intersecting thoughts capturing what this essence is. Some have said that we are nature incarnate, that we are nature become self aware. Perhaps one could imagine a vanity that nature only desires to look at herself through the mirrors of her soul. To admire her own beauty or that we are created or evolved so that she may ponder the very same things I sit here pondering. Why do I exist?

Perhaps the explaination will never be fathomed in the sense of an ultimate or absolute. Perhaps the beauty or truth lies in the search, because if the revelation is beheld in the arms of the observer then what is left? If the theory of everything is realised then what do we do? Once the puzzled is solved, what then? Start over? Build a new one? Sit around smoking cigars patting ourselves on our backs musing over the journey we just finished. Perhaps that is where humanity is flawed. We want our cake and want to eat it as well. Perhaps the search is all vanity.

Bahh! I should just get a life instead of probing into something I will never understand. The problem is that the only real thing that excites me is the intellectual realm. At least I can make some sense out of a perceived mind than I can out of the emotional storms and the chaos within. Emotions are transient in some ebb and flow that is beyond the grasp of my imagination. As far as I know it operates like the cycle of the moon, once a month it appears to be full and then the very next moment it is empty. The intellect is at least in a linear motion, it starts at one end and finishes at another. Perhaps the problem is I place demands on one form and expect the other to follow. How I've ended up in analysis of this perceived duality is a mystery. Well it isn't really, I'm trying to build some model of the universe and how I fit into this picture and the dualism that I'm subscribing to at the moment is a part of this endeavor. Dualities exist just like the duality of endeavour versus endeavor. Two different dictionaries will spell the word differently. Absolutes are the fiction, transience is the reality.

Anyway enough musing for one night. At least I've managed to occupy my mind for a brief moment without tearing myself apart at the seams. Today is a good day. The moon is full, go ahead and look out into the night sky. It's there glowing in its pride, however tomorrow the dark side of the moon may surface and that is what I'm afraid of.

Manifestation

2007-02-26T23:07:00.000+11:00

Can one manifest a different reality by focusing energy? Positive people probably do this all the time and I wonder if such a direct focus can be maintained on a continual basis? There are schools of thought I guess that suggest this as a definite possibility. Is it a realistic goal if one has a natural tendency to lean into the darker shadows of pessimism . Anything is possible, I guess, so I am trying to maintain a more direct linear approach to my thinking process. I'm interested now in the relationship with thought and emotion. Can this relationship be nurtured and enhanced even when forces plot against this union. I think therefore I am. Once again sagely words float and drift by, reminding me of how reality takes form.

Manage your thoughts

2007-02-22T22:55:00.000+11:00

Perspiration sheens the surgeons chin and forehead as he begins his dissection. What a strange specimen he ponders as the scalpel glides along the viscous membrane of grey mutton. A jagged spot disrupts the smooth motion of the incision and startles the good doctor.
"Oh shit!"
"What is it Doctor?"
The invertebrate grey twitches as the scalpel penetrates a little deeper and cleanly dismembers the abhorrence with force,
"I believe it was an unmanageable thought and it certainly resisted the process of elimination. However, we are safe now, it appears that the lobotomy has been successful . Would you mind closing Nurse?"
"Not at all."
"Thank you Nurse"
The doctor leaves shaken by the brute force he needed to overcome the unsightly creature. Thoughts ricocheted through the night. The recurrence and possibility of the thought managing to reconnect with the subject haunted him till the early hours of the morning. The still air of a hot summer night resonating a premonition that the world was perhaps prematurely lulled with a false sense of security. Confidence level 40% was the last note the doctor wrote in his journal. Crickets chirped as sleep finally overcame the good Doctor and as the blanket of unconsciousness overwhelmed his eyes, a faint scream could be heard. Black!

The beat of Now!

2007-02-19T23:16:00.000+11:00

What reality do I wish to create? Have I been put upon this earth to be caught in an endless loop of self doubt and loathing?

I'm certainly a fallible human being, prone to make mistakes and it serves me no purpose to adopt a language whereby I punish myself for some perceived badness or immorality. What do I believe about this existence I've been given? What do I believe about the universe as a whole? Is there some being overseeing and running this cacophony of life?

Only moments ago I began ponder the universe and its seemingly indifferent progression and what significance those thoughts hold for me. Perhaps most of the universe is an empty cold place, minus 273 kelvin, nonsupporting of life or if strange life moves amongst this shadowy blackness then it can only be assumed that it is an icy, faceless creature that cares not for the endeavors that exist in the blue world. And is God this universe I wondered? Perhaps that is what God is. It makes little sense that such a creator or God would really have much interest in one tiny speck amongst the vastness of space and time. Perhaps we are the only life amongst this space that is too great to even imagine with our limited consciousness. The expanse is somehow symbolic of our minds in that we seem to have only just glanced upon, skimming its surface with singularities of insight and awe. Some mysterious inner space that is situated in our heads almost beckoning to lay in comparison with this vast sea of darkness, light and colour. A nebulae as it gives birth to creation, evolution and expanse.

Perhaps 14 billion years have passed only arrive at this point where time can stop, for a brief moment, where this eye can see and behold the enormity of limitless space. We are far too limited or rather the thoughts that barrage this beholder is far too limited. Self defeating amongst the stars that shine even as the sun lays to rest. Time can be enjoyed in such moments, where all meaning to events seem trivial and in comparison they seem to drift amongst the debris of strings and attachments that waft through the void. A moment, which can seem so limitless and free. Such a moment is now and it invites me to bask in the glow of background radiation that hums to the rhythm of silence and the beat of pulsating quarks.

Happy days

2007-02-18T22:36:00.000+11:00

Well the weekend has now come to an end and I sit here not wanting it to be over. Another week seems like an unbearable proposition yet when tomorrow comes with the savage sounds of my alarm clock, I'll drag myself out of safety and face the world again. I'm thinking of the future, it seems a recurring nightmare and in some ways it is. A nightmare of my own creation. I could be thinking of the right now and perhaps of going to bed early so I can feel human in the morning, however I think in terms of how difficult tomorrow will be. It is probably an unfounded piece of fortune telling, the truth is that it will be just another day, if there is a terror ahead it will be that of sameness and dullness. If I bring myself into the moment all that is going on is that I am typing and half watching a movie on TV. That's all that I have to fear, nothing!

In truth I brought the fear into myself as I contemplated doing a course at the local community college and I'm half tempted to sign up right now so that I can laugh in the face of fear. The voice of reason tells me that, that it's an insane proposition, the voice of reason injects me with uncertainty and self doubt and I refrain from action as if paralysed by a neuro- toxin. Well perhaps I'll trick the fear and sign up tomorrow. Shh! Don't tell her.

Resentment

2007-02-15T22:40:00.000+11:00

How much energy am I going to expend on this thing called resentment? How long will I cling to this formidable foe? There are ways in which I could deal with this problem, yet I keep myself face to face with this wicked witch of the past. I bounce from one extreme to another and finding some middle ground in the mire seems near impossible. I hope I am learning from this experience and in some not too distant future I come to an understanding or resolution because I find myself tiring from the burden of this nether land.

Hammering myself day after day for no good reason is an exceptionally self defeating position to be in. I'm just leading myself into the arms of fear and loathing.

Watching the late news while I type, I find my head drifting into the world of make believe, wondering whether these people being telecast across the globe are really for real or do they portray a reality to the world at large, which doesn't exist in their daily bump and grind. What makes these people so confident and able to express their beliefs so freely? I would like to be like them in some way even if it isn't real. Or better still I'd like to be able to portray who I really am in a more secure and self assured way.

Having said all that I am in the flux and flow of a learning process and it seems that I am only just beginning to grasp its meaning. Why I've gone into this semi confessional meandering tonight is something I probably won't understand until much later, if ever.

Will it stop?

2007-02-13T22:22:00.000+11:00

I've come to the conclusion that I whinge a lot. The sad part is I've nothing at all to complain about. I have everything I need and then some, yet somewhere along the way I've missed the point. I've missed the mark by a long shot. It's almost as if I blinked my eye and there before my vision lay the "isle of torment and woe". I have been blessed with a very fortunate existence and for some reason I've held the belief that I've been given a hard trot. Well I am wrong, what I have is indeed privileged and I really need to acknowledge this privilege daily, as a ritual. An attitude of gratitude needs to be my priority. I really need to see what I have as a gift rather than something I've toiled over and deserve. I've done very little to have the things I have in my life. About the only thing I've had to do is front up. All that has been required for me to do is show up and do what I had to do and extraordinary things have occurred.

I take things for granted and then become dissatisfied and obsessed with what I don't have, all the time believing that if only I had that next thing I'd be alright. It's self defeating and plainly an utterly arrogant position I've put myself in. What do I give back for my privilege? I make a few token gestures to ease my guilt perhaps. However is this enough to appreciate the position I am in? I donate a few dollars to a couple of charities, small change when so many have real struggles and face extraordinary difficulties. I can even imagine those very people having easily more gratitude for anything they receive than what I seem to have for all that I possess. Absolute greed on my part. I could very well give a little more than just a few token dollars. I have skills and perhaps talents that could be put to better use than by my over indulgence in self. It's really time I got off my ass and did something useful. Time to wake up and smell the coffee or lose what I have.

Slow is the path beyond

2007-02-06T23:21:00.000+11:00

The yellow brick road seems paved with a sickly viscous material, it's hard to move and my legs ache as I shuffle devoid of energy or zest for this unknown lane.

The road is slow going as a trudge along its meandering and purposeless twists and turns, which strike me as so very untoward and lame.

Dark clouds loom overhead, amongst the gods of sombre sky. I try to smile, perhaps to awaken a little sunshine amidst the swirling grey. I grit my teeth and a half hearted grimace limpers across my face, a spot breaks amongst the suffocating haze.

Could it be that a God has stirred from fitful sleep illuminating the dank sky with a wink of a golden eye? Winking a brief glimpse of colour to remind me that there still exists a day.

So I continue even when it appears that I've lost my way.

From the darker side of Fear

2007-01-29T23:39:00.000+11:00

The gnawing sensation inside the pit of my stomach tells me the Fear is present. The little annoyance reminding me that something just isn't right. I know what that something is and it is not all together tangible. It is an echo of a memory that perhaps faded long ago, however it remains; embedded in life, clinging to cellular material like a foul odour which permeates the air. A rot! Unwilling to decay into the dust of its birth place. It remains and will perhaps, always be present to worm itself into the thought process. To detract me from some connection that I may need or want. Such it is. The darkness of Fear, hiding amongst the shadows of despair. Silently weeping, spreading her "scabbed wings"; creating a shield or veil of solitude.

Its the Fear that drags me into the mire of self pity and woe. What is fear? Is there a reason to fear? One ought to be afraid of certain things so one could postulate it as a relative emotive reaction. However, daily affairs ought not induce such a response, yet the knotted insides express another perspective. Its irrational and at the same time very rational. The double edged sword. What conclusion can be found amongst the rabble of anxiety? Perhaps there is a lesson which seeks to be taught? Perhaps the persistent knot only seeks self replication. A learnt emotive response that can perhaps be morphed into a higher lesson than that of the base instinct of fear.

Some more to ponder over while the crawling subsides a little.

Silence

2007-01-21T23:36:00.000+11:00

My voice has been silenced by a furious and maddening tinkering with machines, for far too long. I have my obsessions and I won't reproach you for pointing it out to me. On the outside they seem to dominate my existence but its not like I'm doing anyone a dis-service. Besides it's in my Genes and I can hardly be blamed for my disassociation with anything warm blooded.

I'm entering a new frontier along the path to freedom. I'm beginning to entertain the notion of choice and what it means to me to have freedom thrust upon me. What choices are present once a realisation that freedom is something real and perhaps tangible becomes actualised. A process of becoming. What powers can be harnessed to achieve ones deepest desires? A new year represents a renewal of philosphies and goals. Will this year bring forth a new vision?

The silence will perhaps be awakened with new possibilities. No doubt you'll become bored with my voice but I will speak my mind nevertheless.

Seek it! Reap it!

Epidemic

2006-12-19T23:07:00.000+11:00

What's the latest epidemic that the media has latched onto?

Why isn't it the same old? What sells the polls. What sells the souls...why but what else? ...sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. SBS has somehow joined en masse to sensationalist marketing. Got the double matinée tonight, first "the attack of the happy people" and showing right now a re-run of the "meth epidemic". Perhaps there is some symbolic significance to the double whammy, Christmas is a time for partying and silliness to celebrate the festive season and the coming of a new year. And there does seem to be a trend in counter culture philosophy from happee happee "E" to the "faster faster...need for speed" One could say that in a previous incarnation I was familiar with the party culture, so perhaps it would be wise for any would be party goers to heed some of the messages in tonights viewing. If you want to play with fire be warned...if you like, take the flight of Icarus as a prophetic tale of those who fly too close to the sun...you're wings will melt eventually.

It's unlikely that any amount of media coverage of a sensationalist variety will sway the judgments of anyone who wants to experiment and indulge but I guess the mummies and daddies should have their anxieties fed with a bit of hype. I guess it could be worse, as SBS is probably a more "open" medium than say the commercial networks, therefore the message is a little more relaxed and cautionary rather than ram it down your throat force fed medicine.

Happy partying people, unfortunately my wings are all but burnt....like ashes to ashes and dust to dust they are gone so I won't be joining you. However, I now have my feet firmly planted on the ground where I can take advantage of looking up to the heavens rather than down upon it. Just a different perspective, same flight though.

Stay safe whatever you do. You know the precautions and if don't then educate yourself. IGNORANCE KILLS!!

Nothing

2006-12-12T22:43:00.000+11:00

Nothing is coming. My mind is numb with the wretchedness of a consuming abyss. The abyss of working day in day out for a vampire state. I've nought to complain about, yet I feel the toll of the life sucking toil that this extistence demands. Time seems to be of the essence. Tis true that I waste what seems to be reams of it with my tinkering about doing nothing of importance. My latest wasteful extravagance is ripping my CD collection onto a new mp3 player, which I purchased in one of my flights of capriciousness. I could be using the rare commodity of time doing something useful, however I desist with novelties that are of little substance.

One could perhaps envisage ample time in which to pursue a leisurely existence, however realities are born at a great distance to the feeble attempts of imagination. Perhaps I will never warm to the idea that the better part of a lifetime will be spent in servitude to some force that demands complete obedience. How far have we come from the days of old where Master and Slave were the accepted norm?

Am i free? Are you free? Are we enslaved to this ideal life? Have you the freedom to sleep for as long as you please. Are you ruled by the ticking of a clock, to a machine that requires your input so that the wheels of economy spin. Spin perpetually with soul sweats and the tears of toil from weary eyes, as bones creak to the six o'clock shuffle.

Perhaps I whinge and moan about the nuances of freedom yet am myself chained to the offerings of slavery. Yesterday I heard the beat of revolutions drum as protester's heralded the unfair conditions that cleaners face. I felt sympathy for their cause but I feel that their calls of revolution will go unheard. Australia is in transition to industrial relations reform and perhaps these cleaners protesting about the poor wages are at the mercy of corporate greed. Unskilled workers are amidst the hard times IR reform will bring to those less fortunate than I. It brings me back into my trivalities of complaint. Freedom is a word I have trouble with. Perhaps it is not within our experience to accept freedom so we are more at ease in slavery.

I've mused over freedom for some time now and I have no way to achieve it. I am connected to this consumerist society, it has me in its evil grasp and perhaps I am unwilling to break free from it. A part of me knows that whatever I do I will never be free from serfdom. I will always be enslaved. Perhaps the only freedom available is achievable through acceptance. A resignation to the mediocrity of being a part of the herd and where I sit in amongst the masses. Accepting that freedom from the meagre offerings of the bump and grind is probably never going to eventuate. Perhaps I can find some gratitude in the idea that my part in mediocrity is a little more comfortable than the majority of serfs in this world.

Space

2006-12-03T23:10:00.000+11:00

What is there but this vast empty space.
Space that needs filling.
Or does it?. Can it not just remain empty? If it were to be filled, then with what shall it be filled? Just a tiny little dot in space, requiring an infinite number of dots to fill it. Almost like this page. How many words would it take to fill?

Something to aspire to I guess. Here goes.................
....................................................................................
....................................................................................

Too many *sigh*

The Midnight Light

2006-11-23T00:05:00.000+11:00

Burning the Midnight candle once more.

I am caught in this spiral of tiredness that I myself am perpetuating. I can't seem to break this cycle of late nights even though I suffer for it during the Sun's rays. I could possibly strive to break the habit, perhaps by reducing the caffeine I consume, however I delight in the cover of darkness and stillness that the midnight candle exudes. As for performance levels during peak times there is something certainly lacking. I am allowed only one to delight in, at the detriment and sacrifice of the other. I choose this one namely because this time is mine and the grains that are owned by light are ruled by a different master.

Sometimes I stare out in the wide blue beyond whilst having a cigarrette in the garden courtyard, located past the foyer and lifts to the eastern side of the building where I work. I ponder freedom at such times and whether in essence I am free.
There's a rail situated right on the eastern edge of the garden, before the building drops off onto the street below. The rail bears the resemblance of a bar not too disimilar to the familiarity of criminals, well perhaps it is a bar like a handrail but at times it takes on a grimacing and hostile bar of a gaol cell. I wonder am I free or merely a slave to the established norms. I need to earn money so that I may spend and consume and stay up burning the Midnight candle to play with an over glorified typewriter. However the cost of established normalcy is perhaps too high. It would appear to the sense of normalcy that the deeper I descend into the night the more that rail reminds me of a bar in a cell.

Perhaps it is the curse I reek upon myself. The curse of wax that burns at both ends until the inevitable faint twinkling of light is extinguished and I am forever born into the night and the darkness and the stillness of no more.

Will I now drag myself into the covers of sleep? Wait just one more click and then I will retire for the night. So the candle burns and I click and tomorrow the debt collector will knock at my red swollen eyes and my bones will creak with stiffness and my feet will fall in a mush of exhaustion while I click some more.

Clean

2006-11-20T23:42:00.000+11:00

I am sitting at a nice clean desk. For that matter my flat is in a relatively clean state. Does that mean I am clean? A pure soul? Perhaps not. My soul is never clean because I never clean the place where I live. It isn't my surroundings that I can find cleanliness but rather within the feeble cells of my body. Perhaps they are filthy with decay. I have neglected the place where I really live for the sake of what? Pride? Maybe I will be in a position to give myself a overhaul in the near future but as often is the case I will continue with the path of wretchedness.

Clean. What does it mean to be clean? Free from shame? Free from guilt? Free from the dusty old jacket that sits in the closet. Will I one day be clean? Is it important to be clean of body, mind and soul? Or is a general surface clean sufficient? Perhaps cleanliness must go deeper than wiping the dust off the surface, only then will the object of filth shine.

Not Alone

2006-11-14T22:50:00.000+11:00

It is comforting to know that I am not alone in my semi despair whilst waiting for the clock to strike a tone signifying quitting time. Someone at work asked how I was going and I replied "pretty good and yourself?" And I received an answer by way of "okay...almost time to go home" It was mid afternoon, (a time for a smoko) when this little scene occured while awaiting the lifts to take us in our respective directions. Its pretty terrible that I await for the time when I can get home, when I have been at my current job for only six months, which relatively speaking, is a short time. However it seems like an eternity and every day seems to be a moment waiting in eternity.

Is it a sad state of being when most of our time is spent waiting for the clock to direct us where we should be and how we feel. Maybe I am alone in the motions of emotion dictated by the hands of a clock. It is probably not so much of a relief to be coming home anyway. I am caught within a grip of some existential tidings that I cannot simply wish away, I know this because I spend a considerable amount of time in this wishfull thinking mode and it really doesn't work.

Acceptance is probably the solution to my dilemma but it is hard to come by. Alls I am achieving is a state of frustration and rage at something that will not go away by wishing it so. Perhaps I will find this ill fated acceptance or more likely stumble across it when looking for something else.

Noise!

2006-11-09T23:22:00.000+11:00

Well the chatter and noise is relentless. My quest to find some peace amongst the inner dialogue between my self and whomever it is talking with, is a futile endeavour. What drives this noise? It hardly ever says anything particularily nice and I am perplexed as to where this voice has come. It is as if one day it decided to rest in my head. Perhaps it has taken hostage of my self, gagged it and replaced the loving self with its own mimicry or version of my self with itself. Perhaps I prefer to listen to this stranger rather than the nice guy that was my self.

Who can really say but it seems evident that this self will more than likely refuse to leave. It may need some coercive action and more than a little rough handedness to remove this imposter. Perhaps I can't even remember the self whom this poseur has usurped from its home. Well whose to say I have any right to evict this tenant, I may be the landlord however I may have inadvertently signed a lease by mistake. Perhaps there is some fine print in the contract that I am unaware of, it could have dire consequences if I were to just banish this person from where it has called home. I need to consult with my solictor, I need some clarification on where I stand with this visitor.

Do I really want this visitor to leave? Have I grown to love this self? Why is he so mean to me at times? Am I too caught up in my own insecurities to ask this companion to leave? Has my self esteem been so downtrodden that I am afraid to confront this alter ego? These questions are all probably true, however my self or rather it self is somewhat obstinate and shall we say selfish. Perhaps in the end it matters not if this guest is unwelcome because I am at loathe to let him go. I think he serves a purpose, which I have trouble finding myself. Well maybe I am slow to find it and perhaps this self in some obscure and twisted way is guiding me in my search. Who knows apart from it self. Or it self could be steering me in an entirely wrong direction. Perhaps I will find my way through the mire of haziness in good time. Today I must cope with the noise and perhaps learn to ignore it and maybe listen to a different noise, perhaps then my self will return. Once the stillness has been restored. One thing is almost certain, tomorrow will be another chance that the cross roads will be met, where the choice of direction can be made.

The Wretched

2006-11-07T23:42:00.000+11:00

Not sure if I've used this title previously but is probably apt for the present. How many in this world can be considered a part of The Wretched? Perhaps there are many and I am but a small speck upon "the isle of torment and woe" . The journey I pledged to begin last week was a fairly ambitious sentiment, which is achievable, however I feel like a piece of drift wood that invariably finds itself moving with the currents onto the shores of wretchedness. Am I so wretched as I believe? Probably not! My life is pretty much the same as any other except deep within the wells of my soul lurks a mistress that loves to pull me into the shelter of darkness.

It is a hidden love, a shameful lust that I indulge with my consciousness. If I were to avert my gaze away from her alluring and amorous eyes, would I then be free from her spell? It is foreseeable that I dote upon those spendid dark eyes, brooding and melancholic in their hypnotic and soothing familiarity. I have grown to love the way she casts me away from the here and now into an other wordly realm where the winds whisper vicious vemon to poison an enemy which lays just ahead and beyond the mountains and across the azure sea. The enemy does not exist, and if it does then it is only me.

So it is, perhaps I can own some truth when my eyes are averted, the haze of a grey thunderous sky is parted, just enough for the faint light to eclipse the wretched and lay still the horrible torment. Yet will it be enough for me to sing my farwell to the girl that lays in shadow, the temptress of sorrow? Perhaps a quickening is in place as I found myself pondering the stillness of smiling flowers and contemplative silent trees swaying amongst the storm overhead, whilst I walked briefly in the silence and became aware that the only noise amongst the choir of stillness was that of my head engaging in a lovers spell.

Trying

2006-10-31T23:46:00.000+11:00

Well my first day of this new journey I've set upon has been a little disappointing. I am well and truly caught in the snares of a ruthless, vicious and formidable opponent. One which has its roots firmly planted on the insides, indeed it is my insides that is the root of this corruption and home to the evil, terrible and dreadful curse, which has been bestowed upon my visceral lobes. She has me caught in a spell that I may be too weak to resist, although I am trying to work some magic myself to counter the attack on my soul.

Let the battle begin.

Too many days.

2006-10-30T22:59:00.000+11:00

Beginning a new journey.

I'm pretty tired of this endless loop that seems to be my mind. Fear is my current lover and I'm over her possessiveness! She mainfests in other forms, sometimes shrouded in red, sometimes covered in drowning blue sorrow and at other times she immerses herself in a dark veil, preferring to remain faceless in a void of self pity and woe. Fuck her off I say. Perhaps I fool myself into believing I can rid of her sombre, wailing song so easily but I've had enough of the whispers she lures me with. It is time to part company with my doomed lover and find another to share my time with. Hopefully my new love will share the searing light of a summer's day, laying beside me on a bed of sand wafting in salt air of the wide blue sea. Hot and shimmering with new passion.

I've wasted far too many days huddled in the comfort of fear with her luscious red lips speaking half truths and often blatant lies and I playing the sick lover all too eager to listen and dote upon my lovers words. I am a fool but no more will I hear those sick and tiresome lullabies to arouse my sympathy and fallen desire. Let it be, my new quest, to uncover a far more beautiful song to stir the dreams that sleep.

Will I succeed in this endeavour? lest I perish from the grasp of fears desire? It will be a hard road , which will require my utmost attention and vigilance. Like they say where there's a will, there's a way. Lets hope I can remain willfull and not be tempted in the security of the all too familar.

Back to its old tricks!

2006-10-25T23:26:00.000+10:00

My head is back doing its old tricks. Uncertainty and self doubt are creeping up on me. They are old foes and I'm usually pretty good at keeping them at bay, however lately they are becoming stronger, almost as if by coincidence while I struggle with my own prowess or perhaps self delusion. I'm at odds with myself, left wondering whether I'm really capable. Perhaps that isn't entirely correct. I know I am capable yet I am finding myself a mire of disillusionment and listlessness, unmotivated and generally worn out. Perhaps I am facing a burn out of sorts. In fact I'm not really into writing this blog. Work is sucking the life out of me. And I've only been at this job for around six months.

I am afraid I'm not working to the best of my ability and perhaps I could put in a little more effort. Hopefully I'll be able pull up with a little more enthusiasm and energy soon.

More Obsessing

2006-10-10T00:13:00.000+10:00

Its been awhiles since I last visited this place. No doubt it will take me some getting used to, to get back into the swing of things again. Neglect and obsession seem to be recurring themes in my ever so mundane existence. Obsession seems to be such a flattering word for the state of being I have found myself in. I seem to be overtaken by a overwhelming urge to fill myself up with technologies wonders.

I have so much computer equipment now, enough to run a damn state. Perhaps a state of confusion. The good news is that my obsession has an upside. I am volunteering some of my unused CPU clock cycles to science. Check it out if you are interested in giving your bit for the medical fraternity Folding@Home. Mind, I've only just enrolled my services so can't be too smug with my donation. Haven't even completed a work unit yet but the ball is rolling.

Can't think of too much more I want to say. Perhaps if I wasn't so busy with trying to introduce myself into the world of Linux I'd have more time to elaborate on the nuances of everyday life. There are an infinite number of obsessions that are by far more self destructive than the ones I have presently, so I can feel a little more at ease with my benign quest for knowledge.

Nightie Night!

Strange is the ride home

2006-09-14T23:05:00.000+10:00

It's funny riding on public transport.

"She's such a bitch! All she does is bitch all day. She's unhappy and all she does is make everyone around her miserable because all she does is bitch and moan. I had to stay back till 6pm last friday. I need to print all these documents and they have to go through the internet to get to the printer. And there was a problem with 3 of the documents so instead of sending the three pages again she took 30 pages; so I had to reprint all these documents and it took an hour to approve. That bitch! She could've only taken the three pages. Bitch! and then she starts screaming. She gets all emotional. She's not rational. Then she takes two hours for lunch that bitch."

It's a strange world with even stranger inhabitans. I am suddenly intrigued by the behaviours of semi intoxicated people. They do exhibit some strange behaviour when sheltered within the safe confines of dulled senses. One thing that did strike me as ironic is the hypocrisy that this girl on the train revealed. On the one hand she is condemning a colleague with a diatribe of outrage at having to stay back at work on a Friday night about some bitching Bitch when she is doing the exact same thing. We all do it I guess but it's sometimes a good thing to bear witness to such nuances from a detached standpoint.

Life would be rather boring if I didn't have these amusements whilst observing the world in which I live.

Happy training and take a moment to listen to the rabble, more shall be revealed to be sure.

Want some freedom fries with that?

2006-09-13T22:37:00.000+10:00

If only freedom could be upsized with an order from Micky Dees. We in the west are sold on this concept called "freedom" and that we ought to defend it with all our might. Some would make a connection with 9/11 and this post because it is loosely inspired by Freedom. Perhaps my thoughts have been shaped with the endless amass of media coverage of some vague event in history that really needs to be put to rest.

Time to move on I say. Sure it is a tragic event, not too dissimilar to countless others in history, only a tad smaller in comparison. Tiny perhaps. However the farcical association with attacks on freedom is more than just a little bit absurd. Defenders of freedom. Freedom warriors. One need only cast their minds back in the not so distant past where other attacks on freedom were countered. Nagasaki. Hiroshima. Two names that are associated with freedom. Lest we forget! Indeed!

One can almost smell the stench of the absurd frying up in a vat of lard. You want some freedom fries with that Sir? Yeah gimme some of those tasty morsels. Gotta have me freedom!

Can start a flame war here. Probably have ASIO knocking at my door with my cynical ranting.
But why sir?
In the name of freedom son!

We are fighting for freedom but more of our precious freedoms are being taking away from us. Not form some alien force but by the very inside we are purposively trying to protect.

Like I said I'm having a rant. I just sometimes wonder where the axes of evil really resides. A world wide war is being fought because of an event. Some foreign force is threatening us? Or is the threat coming from inside the corridors of power? Next door? Shh! Maybe we can hear em plotting away. Pfft. Don't have to...The plot is sold to us right here in our lounge rooms.

Do you want some freedom fries with that?

Freedom! What is it? Define it? Is it free trade agreements in a "global" market? Is it a wide screen TV? Is it a 6 litre tank parked in your driveway? Is it the 200 dollars worth of hydrocarbons to run it? Is it commuting day in day out to a desk with a million other like minded souls? Is it believing the unbelievable? Is it going to the multiplex and puchasing those (...insert brand name...) shoes, tops, bottoms? Is it in a sweat shop, working twelve hours a day for a dollar? Is it having the four bedroom, double story, twin garage on a quarter acre block in the suburbs dream? Is it in the fossil fuels required to fulfill the dream? Is it the 25 year debt to multinationals? Is it worth one life? Two lives? A million lives? Is it the 50 hours a week you spend at work away from family and friends? Is it.....?

IS it the millions that do not have what we have?

Do you want freedom fries with that?

How much do they cost?

Are we really free?

I am just like you. Yes I want those freedom fries. But am I deluding myself into believing those freedom fries cost only a small amount extra. Perhaps at the end of the day, all I am doing is buying an illusion.

Overclocking and happiness?

2006-08-30T22:29:00.000+10:00

Apart from overclocking time at work....(45 hour weeks are becoming old pretty fast let me tell you), overclocking this mobo is not really happening. Seems to be Gigabyte boards are not too crash hot when it comes to clocking up some extra CPU ticks. Just isn't meant to be I guess...I could use Easy Tune 5 to gain some extra performance outta this little number but in the end is it really going to be worth the extra 5 or 10 percentage points?

Its not like I am going to gain an extra 5 percentage points on the happiness stakes either. All it will give me is distraction. It seems that I am on an endless spiral of distraction...what am I distracting from? It is a good question...Not sure if I have a good answer. Answers are far and few between. Are there any answers? What is the question? Ohh yes! What is happiness? Am I happy? Is it important to pursue happiness? Why? Is it possible to live comfortably in a semi state of dissatisfaction. To continue from one day to the next in a detached, sombre resignation. that happiness is only a manufactured ideal based on myth. How is it really possible to reconcile a happy demeanor with reality? Does one need to pretend that one is happy for such an emotional pretense to manifest itself into plausible realism? The question I ought to be asking of myself is am I happy? I'd automatically respond by saying No! However is this autonmous repose an accurate or even truthful statement? If happiness is a myth perhaps the opposite is also myth. I couldn't say with a definitive unmoving assertion that I am unhappy. If that were the case then it would be highly improbable that I would be here right now, ponderous and lame, mulling over questions that an absurd muse has dragged to my feet.

So it is that I am neither happy nor unhappy. I may be unhappy with certain aspects that constitute the daily bump and grind, however it perhaps does not define or even dictate the bigger picture. So what if I am displeased and unhappy with such and such events, right now I am relatively at ease if not happy. I dislike that word happy. People throw it around as if it were a badge of honour. All it is, is a word, describing a demeanor, emotion or fleeting moment. I have moments that are happy, or that come close to happiness. I am not a "happy go lucky" person. Happiness is relative and it is perhaps a distant relation of mine, certainly not originating from my extended family.

Are you happy?

Perhaps it is in the pursuit where the myth lives and breathes.

Happy hunting for that ideal.

Downloads

2006-08-27T23:39:00.000+10:00

Waiting for a download to complete. It's going so slow, damn Quake 4 patch at some dodgy GotFrag site. They want a subscription to download a patch where the download speed isn't capped. Pff! Any way to make a buck. Isn't that the moral of the story? I guess alls fair in love and war. And we be in war over the love of money. Economies need to be sustained. Especially mine ;) Hence why I'm whinging about slow downloads because I am too tight to pay 3 bucks a month to some dodgy website to download a damn patch.

Anyways...time for bed soon.

Goodnight.

Neglect!

2006-08-21T22:50:00.000+10:00

How far can I neglect myself before something breaks? Even my blogging has even fallen by the wayside let alone any self care I may possess.

Obsessions are dragging me into a deeper mire of isolation, thitherto unseen for many a month. I am almost glad of this solitude that on the surface is not really solitude but mere wishful thinking. I am by no means alone. I have my father living with me! Arghh! I can only dream of a time when I can be alone. Totally alone! Desire is where my heart grows fonder. It is a ways off though, I am not that lucky to have solitude for extended periods. Perhaps it is a good thing, however it certainly does not feel like it is such a good thing. Time is not mine anymore. I am in servitude to the clock as it beats its incessant rhythm. Seemingly the Tick. Tick. Tick. is alerting me to some impending doom. That the tick tick tick will end. What have I accomplished? Indeed I have wasted the drum roll of time, thinking it a prelude to something more, a grand entrance to a time where I can introduce myself as something extraordinary.

Its absurd! A lie! The time is now! No grand entrances. Just this moment. Sitting here in front of you. Thinking out loud. Grasping. Faint glimpses of reality in fragemented and disjointed perspectives. Wanting. Wanting More! More of what though? I have everything. That isn't true but I'll tell you what I want. I want to know everything. I want the answers to it all. I want to know why? What I really want is to have some insight into why I am here. really! what is the purpose of me living and breathing, wasting, consuming, sitting here writing nonsense. Why are any of us here? Are we just vessels for a gene pool that will invariably become extinct? or are we here for some definitive purpose? Or am I just a superfluous entity that came into existence just because I could, in much the same way as moutaineers climb mountains, because they are there. Maybe we are just puppets to the deities above and below, servants to the lords of light and dark. Maybe we don't even exist at all. Maybe we are but a dream.

Looping again. The wheels on the bus go round and round.

Quickie before He comes.

2006-08-07T23:57:00.000+10:00

If I wasn't so disorganised and if I had my priorities firmly secured in normality; I would be safely tucked away catching some zzz's. Yet I am far from normal...I am TwistedTripper. I keep butting my head against the wall of limitation. My limitations are being pushed by my obstinate desire to banish that accursed need...such a wasteful need, that need for sleep. A need I desperately require yet so want to control. Why do I need eight hours? Why can't I function properly with just four? What if I push the boundaries a little further and aim for that elusive four hour barrier. Currently I am running at 6...Why not? Did we not have the desire to conquer the four minute mile. Is this not a comparative endeavour?

I am but a mere mortal and the 6 hour limitation seems to be just that. A limit. I haven't the fortitude to conquer it. Besides what am I trying to achieve with this endless bombardment of deprivation? Is sleeping such a bad thing that I ought to bypass this natural inevitability. What damage is done when one limits the amount of sleep one gets?

Lower immunity. Prone to accidents perhaps. Liable to make more mistakes. Lower concentration levels. Greater concentration of caffeine pumping through the veins, arteries pulsing with artificial stimulation. Stress. Increased appetite created by hormonal shifts. The list goes one. However the madness is still evident. I am still awake! Go to sleep you moron.

Alas I hear His footsteps. I can hide no more. The SandMan cometh! He has waved his magic grains and my eyes are battling against his wretched curse. It is futile to resist. I am defeated.

Goodnight!

Couldn't wait any longer

2006-08-01T22:26:00.000+10:00

Alas it is so...My inaction hs come to an end.

Heres a snap of my new rig.

If I waited a month or so more it would've been a superior incarnation, however it will suffice whilst I recoup some more finances and build another one. I will end up using this rig as a HTPC. In the meantime this little beast will serve as a gaming rig, which I find myself being drawn into, now that I have the hardware to cope with the demands of 3D graphics.

The specs are;
Gigabyte GA-K8NF9 Ultra MoBo
AMD 64 Athlon 3500+ Venice Core CPU
2 x 512Mb Hynix DDR 400 set up in Dual channel
320 G Western Digital Sata II HD
Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH GeForce 7600GT Graphics Accelerator
BenQ DW1650 DVD burner
ThermalTake Sopranao case now with a ANTEC 480W TruePower II since the 430W PSU that came with the case blew up on me a week after I had the rig up and runnin.

I've been testing out this rig with some games and it's an okay setup. No doubt there's an abyss of hardware one could aspire to get that would cane FPS games. I'm an amateur gamer, in truth I've never been that interested but the bundled software that came with the GPU has sold me on the craft. I am now contemplating Over Clocking to gain that extra inch of performance out of this rig. I've never overclocked before so it is going to be a steep learning curve. Lots of research will need to take place before I rack up the courage to tinker around with clock speeds.

Will keep you posted in the coming weeks.

More Waiting

2006-07-10T22:33:00.000+10:00

My obsession for gadgetry is looming into the realm of insanity. There is always something more that I want, the list is getting longer with each conscious moment. It's a matter of timing which prevents me from fulfilling my desire for more. Always more! It is the insanity of modern times. There seems to be a gadget for every nuance of existence. What I am waiting for is a new PC. I know I have harped on about this desire in previous posts and that in a objective sense, you lot probably couldn't give a rats arse. Needless to say, it is filiing my nights with a longing for more. I've pretty much exhausted the limitations of my current hardware and what I really want is a machine that will be able to accomodate multi tasking and encoding of video, namely for my porn collection if I am to be honest. However, the question that needs to be asked is, Do I need more?

Will I be any happier if I get that LCD flat panel television or that dual core processor? Probably not! It will only buy more time...It will fill my moments with distraction. I watched a program last week on ABC2 about hackers, I'm pretty sure it was a re-run, something that I had previous seen, not that it is important whether I had seen the show before or not but what I did find striking was one of the hackers, Electron, said that the attraction with computers and hacking was the level of control he had. The relationship with the hardware was one that He could control. Where in reality both ourselves and the hacker have little control. Perhaps it says more to me than anyone else out there, because it essentially sums up my predicament to a tee.

How much control do I have in the relationships and interactions I have outside this portal of virtuality. An isolationist like myself, who would rather potter around in cyber space than partake in anything resembling intimacy. I like the perceived notion of anonymity that I have whilst interacting with hardware. I have my little voice here where I can pretty much say what I want. In reality the level of anonymity I have here is one of fallacy. I have a false sense of security whilst I communicate with this piece of hardware. I could perhaps try and hide my identity a little more. It's not like I couldn't be tracked down without some concerted effort, however I do feel safe in this playground. I am not confronted with awkward moments when I sit here typing a rant. My insecurities aren't placed before some predatory beast. I am here alone. Safe. It is my downtime, and I am becoming more inclined to withdraw these days from sociability. Maybe I am just hiding from the world. I'm tired of the world. Tired of pretending. Of playing a role. Pretending that I have a level of interest in what happens in the lives of the others. I have an interest in a select few, a very select few. I am just totally inept in social settings. Perhaps it is a skill that one acquires. I am at a loss as to why we need to be social. Meeting new people gives me the horrors. In the end I don't really feel I have anything of great value to add. I am just an ordinary guy, with extraordinary neuroses. Does the world really need another neurotic depressive. To be a part of the whole one needs to exude positive notions and clearly it is not what drives me. What I want is a sense of some objective truth, however it is merely subjective truth that is presented. What that objective truth is, is more than likely beyond the level of consciousness that resides in this world. Unless one delves into the supernatural then one will continue to search.

Work and no play

2006-07-05T22:18:00.000+10:00

My life is set to become a perpetual cycle of getting up and going to work. I'll be working long hours for the next few months and quite possibly, for the remainder of the year. Well that's okay. I have no life to speak of anyway, so what does it really matter if I'm at work for 38 hours a week or 45? All work and no play makes for a dull TwistedTripper. And you want to know what puts the icing on the cake, I get a "field allowance" for my endeavours. Whoopee! I get a whole extra 100 dollars a week, less tax no doubt. Like I said I have no cause for complaint, I have no life!

What else is there for an old Tripper?...My fate will be not so dissimilar to the hippies of an age gone by....swallowed by the corporation. Sucked in and spat out as grumpy old men. Counting dollars to add to a nest egg that may or may not be consumed before one heads off into the deep sleep. My days of debauchery and excess are all but muted, faded by the blackness of amnesia or perhaps dementia. Although that beast of yesteryear lies in wait, hibernating and recouping its strength through winter. Waiting. Silent. Waiting for a lapse in concentration, to reawaken itself, to ignite the flames that are never really extinguishable. Alls I can do is bury it with something else, to smother its ferocity with a level of normality. Such endeavours are probably flawed to begin with, fighting fire with fire is liable to end in tears. Smothering one obsession with another, one plus one equals two? Go figure?

Anyway, I can bide my time with work. I can suffocate in the adrenaline of deadlines. All too familar, impossible deadlines, to drive the beast further into its lair. Why not...wouldn't you?

Soap Opera

2006-06-27T22:42:00.000+10:00

It dawned on me yesterday whilst I watched day time TV (I was sick..okay!) that the attraction with these melodramatic episodes, labelled entertainment by some, is one of absolutism. Everything is mapped out in nice little packages. Everything has a meaning...A root cause...All so neat and tidy..spotless! The episode of Blue Heelers I was observing in the background while I nursed my microbe infested body had some teenager on a Rampage with an M16. Of course his father is a Vietnam Vet and as it turns out, his comrade in arms, who by coincidence is a neighbour in Mt Thomas, had a hidden stash of firearms that this kid happens to dig up with a metal detector. Anyway I need not go into superfluous detail of what amounts to nothing, however it just struck me that the story was very tidy.

Unlike my life or perhaps yours; things are never so precise. One plus One doesn't necessarily add up to two in real life drama. It is my experience that there is often unseen variables that play a part in the melodrama. It could be that things do just add up. Perhaps the reason this fictional kid lost the plot was because his Father was a violent Vietnam Vet and didn't pay attention to him. I've sort of lost my logic...Because it is starting to make sense. The character plot...not my dissemblingly of thoughts.

What I am trying to convey is that I have come to understand why we like to sit in front of our favourite TV show and be lost in the drama unfolding. It gives us a taste of the absolute, which for the most part, our own lives is lacking. We are on an absurd daily routine that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into a cause and affect scenario, although if we begin to psychoanalyse we are sure to attach little pieces of causation into the messiness. TV adapts this need into a neat package that we can devour in an hour time slot between the messy odds and ends that we call a day.

Waiting

2006-06-22T22:30:00.000+10:00

Buying my time, waiting for my financial situation to escalate, so I can fulfill my desire for an updated PC. I am eager for this to happen. I am also waiting for Intel to release their "Conroe" processor. The prices for AMD will then plummet, well that's what I'm hoping for. The system I have in mind is currently going to cost me around the 2k mark. I'd rather not spend so much on a piece of hardware that will be antiquated within a couple of years. Such is the obsolescence of technology. Whatever hardware I spend my money on, it will become old pretty fast in this speed obsessed age. My bank account is burning a hole in my pocket. I have the money to buy now, but I'd rather keep what I have in my savings account than gratifying my desire for an instant fix to processing brute force.

I hardly need this right at this moment. It will do me good to wait. I've been waiting all my life for something. What I am waiting for is probably not to be found inside a computer case. One needs his obsessions, else he die from boredom. And so it is, I am desperately waiting for a new toy to fill in the successation of moments that must be filled with something. I am on the move constantly. Can I sit still for a moment? It would seem that I can't or won't. I essentially don't want to be reminded that I exist. Space and time beckon me to acknowledge that I do. If I am on the move then I haven't time to reflect on the where I am. If I sit still then the face of reality will reveal itself. I wish to hide from her cruel face.

"Can we run forever? Does nightfall shine?" Indeed questions worthy of comtemplation. I may very well want to run forever but is it possible? I have to stop at some stage. Perhaps when I do, nightfall will cease to shine. I find it tends to take on a gleam when on the move. In the depths of solitude, nightfall glazes the eyes.

Where do I go?

2006-06-19T22:14:00.000+10:00

There is nowhere I can go. I am trapped by this thing. I don't even know what this thing is, however I feel I am enslaved by it. I feel it strangling me, sapping the breath from my lungs. I want to scream, to rid myself of this burdening thing, yet I feel Its claws stifling my ability to even speak. I am alone. With this thing. Perhaps time will come to pass when I can leave this thing or that it will tire of me. Either way, I must wait. I must wait for freedom. I think the wait will be long and gruelling, a test of patience. Perhaps for the entirety of my life....I will wait...for freedom. What if I am already free? The question could be that freedom is an illusion and in an ironic twist of fate, I long for something that cannot be. I sit here before you with my arms and legs free from shackles and chains. Thus I am free; free to leave this place of rest, to never return, to wander to and fro upon the vast brown earth and across the azure sea. However will I be free? Free from this thing? From this thing, which clings, like cloth anointed with sleets of rain, awash with a sense that I cannot be free. Will I be free from this thing that they call...Me?

Days end

2006-06-18T22:45:00.000+10:00

Well the day is pretty much over. What have I achieved today? Nothing! Sweet FA! I uninstalled Zone Alarm Pro version 65.714.xxx and reinstalled the previous version with some umming and ahhing about whether I even need the damn program, considering my modem/router has an in built hardware firewall. Is another firewall really necessary? I even installed Windows defender for some unknown reason. Here I am contemplating going down the Linux road and I'm installing more MS products. I must be absolutely mad! Am I totally paranoid? Security has gone a little too far. What am I...Fucking ASIO? What is with me? Am I that bored that I need Windows Defender...Like any Microsoft product is going to be safe and secure.

Anyway I haven't much going on. Nothing much to talk about tonight. Just my paranoia. Maybe I should just go to bed. Simple solution to a not so simple day.

Style

2006-06-17T21:57:00.000+10:00

My new aim is to try and change the style in which I write. I don't think it is achieveable, even now, I announce my intention with the same voice I communicate an all too familar and sick dialogue. This wretched voice is with me, presumably at all times. The cynic. Such a comical voice, if it were but a part of a satirical play, would almost be funny, however it is the voice of me. It never sleeps, it grows a little more sicker with each passing observation. It glances at my opening remark and almost gags with its smirk, squinting its knowing, cold reptile eyes; disgusted with my vain attempt to appear a little more optimistic or dare I say "normal". Is that why I desire a change in style, to be a little more fashionable? In folly I endeavour to be savoured with the "in" crowd, as if it were a fine wine one could swirl upon the tongue with the sweet taste of belonging.

I partook in a creative writing course a couple of years ago although I never did quite finish it, due to sickness, if you could label a self induced psychosis, a sickness. Perhaps it was the same sickness that speaks to me perpetually, however that is by the way, the instructor, or teacher in that class instructed that we maintain a level of positivism in our writing. How so? with the voice of wretchedness that lurks behind and within the hall ways and 'neath the frayed rug of perception? Is it possible to convey a postive embodiment of thought with a scourge of cynicism, which seems to suffocate in its ferocity?

I know it was a silly, passing moment where I forgot that the cynic is "I", it is the me. It is not the voice of the wretched, it is the voice of me. Besides, why would I want to change this dialogue or style. So that I could entice a more liberal following? A following period? Have I a desire to perpetuate some cult that I need a following? Is my self delusion getting the better of me? I need an analysis of the motivation at play here. If I were to sell my soul in the name of positivist idelogy would I then gain acceptance, a level of self acceptance because I could possibly attract a readership of this blog? Would I then feel as if I belong? Would I feel better because my mind will be placated with the blind reassurance of optimism? Or would the self deceit of postivism that is fabricated for the benefit of seeking approval result in more anguish? Underneath it all lies a desperation, this I can see. What am I desperate for? What else is there but Love. All I really want is to be loved. It all boils down to that four letter word.

Alas, I can not purchase it with a few positive words or a change in style.

Isolation and solitude

2006-06-15T23:22:00.000+10:00

I've spent the best part of this week on my own. I am not sure why I find it so appealing to me right now, to be disconnected from the world. It probably isn't such a healthy activity considering isolation can be somewhat detrimental to my mental health. I am more than likely hiding from something, perhaps I am hiding from myself. The dilemma, which is evident from such a farcical statement is that I can't hide from myself. I can surely distract from whatever issue is driving me into the depths of solitude and too be entirely honest that is exactly what I have been doing..distracting... spending far too much time on the internet, so much so that I am depriving myself of much needed sleep. Perhaps I just want some downtime. Is a week too much downtime? I am essentially a solitary creature and I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending time by myself. I am also a selfish creature and in the world at large perhaps some friends have missed my presence, yet I believe I don't really have any importance and that I don't hold any particular need to the people I mix with.

It says more about me than it does about anyone else. What it comes down to is how much value do I place on myself? To say I don't matter is not really evidenced by any factual reality, it is merely a perception I hold. Perhaps I would like to believe I didn't matter so then my actions or behaviour, such as isolating and disconnecting could be justified. In the end I am sick of being accountable, to my friends or anyone for that matter. I desperately desire a self sufficiency that is narcissistic in nature, total spiritual abandonment. If I were to search for a deeper meaning to this desire I could extrapolate a definition, a label to identify myself with a reality that perhaps requires validation. This added meaning or hidden meaning could be pinned to how much trust do I possess or am willing to outlay. Trust is much like any transaction, one hopes to gain something in return and I don't have much faith in the idea that I will receive anything in return for one of life's treasures. I heard it spoken, that trust is an action, a verb. One must do it! Am I willing to take the risk and externalise it? If so will then I break away from this self imposed solitude I have currently sentenced myself to? What if I continue this solitude, what will happen?

Silence

2006-06-13T21:49:00.000+10:00

I've become silent and I wish not speak anymore. It has become too hard to speak. Besides what use is there in speaking when one has nothing to say. So it is, I am mute! Needless to say I am still speaking when I am quiet, perhaps the reason I want to remain silent is due to fear. I do not wish to look stupid and I fear that anything I say will appear stupid or superfluous. I write here, which amounts to silence. I do not have any friends that come by and read my aimless thoughts. I don't blame anyone for not considering the rambles of a lunatic interesting. Mainly because they aren't.

Anyway, back to silence.

WTF! The weekend is over!

2006-06-12T23:12:00.000+10:00

So much for the long weekend. Time seems to pass at an exceedingly rapid pace when one isn't working. I am of the belief that work will invariably make one live longer, at the very least it will offer the perception that life is longer, perhaps infinitely so. I spent the Queens Birthday doing domestic chores, how lame is that? I should be in bed now except I am caffeinated to an extent that sleep is not an option. Well I have nothing real to add today, So perhaps I shall I just browse the web for more information. Maybe that is not a good idea but I don't know what else to do.

I'm bored!

2006-06-07T22:50:00.000+10:00

I've resorted to the original blogger for ease of use. The Performancing tool for Firefox was a little experiment. Although I successfully published a post, it wasn't as user friendly as the blogging tool that is blogger. Essentially I was bored and wanted to play with something and it was recommeneded on the Mozilla site so I thought what the fuck, why not experiment, what do I have to lose? What would be the worst possible outcome? I'd stuff up windows again...I've become an expert at reinstalling it...So what!

Now I'm back in blogger and what do I really have to say? Nothing in particular. I'm still bored..and now with nothing to say. I downloaded some more porn for no particular reason...I'm bored.

It is getting late again and I'm still online...I ought to be in bed fast asleep. I've been punishing myself with sleep deprivation for no good reason other than the fact that I am bored! I shouldn't be bored..after all; it is only a state of mind..I could've found some constructive thing to do, however I wasted time. Time is only here to be wasted. I have no great work to do...I am Mister average Joe Blo...Perhaps an amatuer geek at best, even that is too specific for an average Joe like me, a wannabe amatuer geek seems to be more fitting, however even more specific. How about geek, period! Freak? Perhaps I have no label I can attach to myself. I am because I am. Do I need labels? Do I need to asoociate my state of being with some identifying mark? Is it necessary to find some innate word to procure meaning, to gain some insight into where I fit into the picture. I am here for no reason in particular, I am bored for no reason. Why insist on having a reason, a purpose or a goal or whatever? Right now I am typing words into a pixelated world, the information swirling around in the ether, for no apparent reason or logic. All it wants to do is exist, why it wants to exists is beyond the means of comprehension. I have to let it be and just ride the wave until the wave runs out of energy, perhaps then it will no longer exist, perhaps it will morph into something else. Such a metamorphosis may no longer require a language where labels are used to identify a meaning or purpose.

Test

2006-06-07T20:26:00.000+10:00

Just a little test. I have installed Performancing into Firefox and am trying to nut it out.

This is it. My first post using Performancing. Here goes, fingers crossed!

The End

2006-06-06T22:52:00.000+10:00

So much for 06-06-2006 aka 666. There was no rise of the evil one, no rapture and all in all it was just another day. Was I really expecting that the significance of 666 or number of the beast could be placed into a date, in a day, in a month, in a year? One would think a little more imagination is needed to paint the landscape of the apocalypse. Perhaps a more creative take on the said number can be illustrated. What if the true significance were in the idea that 666 could be the fatal number for humanity when processor speeds reached 666GHz...would then machines become aware and thus enslave humanity with barcodes tatooed on our foreheads. It is a human number and the computer processor is indeed a Man made housing for artificial intelligence. Perhaps the outcome of humanities fate lies in the evolution of the microprocessor. Will we create a sentient being made from silicon or some other carbon fibre hybrid. Will such a sentient being frown upon it's creator for giving it consciousness, for giving it a soul? Do we as conscious beings frown upon the creator that gave us a soul?

We await the end. It is coming!

Time to upgrade

2006-06-05T22:26:00.000+10:00

To mark the age of obsolescence I have upgraded my monitor (there was nothing wrong with the BenQ17in Flat Screen I had..I just wanted a LCD 19in Wide Screen, which I now have...A Viewsonic VA1912w) and I believe the time will soon come to pass when I upgrade this infernal dinosaur of a computer. I am quite fond of this machine, which sits before me and it will be a sad moment in my evolution when I pass it on to my Dad who will no doubt stuff it up more so than I. I built this machine almost four years ago and for a good three years I did not have one problem. The biggest problems began about a year ago..maybe nine months when I had my first system failure. After replacing the hard drive and purchasing a legitimate version of Windows XP I still had problems, running a windows memory diagnostic tool I discovered one of my sticks SD PC133 Ram was rooted, alas I only have 512Mb running now...A Gig previously was good. Now I have added a lot more hardware to this aging beast and my third system failure happened last week. After doing some investigative work I realised I had no fucking idea, so what is a dumb arse like me to do...rebuild! Format the fucking drive and reinstall windows. Luckily the clean install went smoothly...I've had numerous headaches trying to install windows on this machine...even from the beginning I had nothing but problems installing Windows 2000. Why am I ranting about this anyway? Suffice to say I have purchased an external hard drive to back up my files...I keep losing my files when I fuck up my installation of windows....I probably shouldn't install so much freeware...I have become semi obsessed with open source software...Why give Bill Gates anymore money...He has enough methinks.

The point of this rant is obsolesence....there is nothing inherently wrong with my PC..it is perhaps the user that is "wrong"...I want I faster machine so that I can rip movies and encode audio without waiting an eternity. I have upgraded my DSL to 1.5 Megabit and perhaps I will eventually get ADSL 2+....I am pretty happy with the connection speed I have now...the 512k connection was ok for an entry into broadband, however once one gets into torrents it just doesn't cut it. What can I say..I am greedy.

Enough! Though it never seems to be enough. Possibly it is my biggest flaw.

This will kill me

2006-05-24T23:11:00.000+10:00

I am flirting with my old foe. There was a time when I could easily conquer this formidable opponent, however as the crisp air of winter's breath flows, I am almost defeated by this nemesis of mine. I am unable, anymore, to duel with my old friend, his eyes are drawing near and it will soon be time that my own are drawn into heavy swollen slits. Who this foe is, is perhaps yours as well. It is the one they call the SandMan. He is always lurking within the depths of nights dawn, stalking and hidden amongst the shadows of the undead. He is calling my name now and perhaps I ought to heed his call. I do not want to obey his soft whispers and beckoning. I would like to stay awake for awhile but I know that if I fullfill this desire I will pay for it with His vengeance. He always collects the debts owed him and I have at least a decade of repayments in arrears before the sins of disobedience of years past will be paid.

Thus it is, I must crawl into his haven now. I must befall his spell. It is time for bed.

Goodnight!

Monday vague

2006-05-22T22:29:00.000+10:00

It's not working. Monday has usurped my capacity to think, or was it the weekend of domestic servitude that has drained me from me. Have I found peace? Ha! My head swirls in it's spin cycle of dialogue, however I am unable to clutch a fragment of it's speech. I am caught in a vacuum of thoughtless solitude. Such solitude is wasted. I recently downloaded a BBC special on Bill Burroughs and I watched some of it tonight. Perhaps I will go back to it. There was something almost human in the tortured soul of Mr Burroughs, which seemed to be captured in this documentary. A human face to the word virus.

See what awaits in the terrible, tomorrow is Tuesday.

Early Morning Haze

2006-05-21T00:32:00.000+10:00

There is a stillness that infects the air once the tick of a weary clock surpasses midnight. I find the stillness comforting, it soothes my restless soul to know that soon I will be in the safety of my bed, secretly filled with hope and relief that the SandMan will soon bless me with his grains of sand and bliss. The television in the background is soliciting me to call ladies of the night to fill my loneliness. I am umoved by the callous consummerism of late night propositions to relieve my loneliness and the promises of fullfillment that a phone call will invite. I often wonder if anyone really calls these numbers, I guess lonely fools do. If no one called then they wouldn't advertise. What really possesses someone to call these late night numbers that are sold by buxom young girls? Is it loneliness or lust? Perhaps both. Perhaps I ought to make that call one day to find out. Conduct some reverse market research. Right now my eyes are telling me to go to the warmth of my bed.

Good night and good luck if you find yourself calling one of those tacky numbers displayed on the TV screen in the haze of early morning night.

Once upon a time

2006-05-18T23:06:00.000+10:00

Once upon a time, one's entitlements would be gratified almost immediately. Long gone are those days. In today's electronic world, exchanges of monies owed can be delayed. It is the case upon leaving my old employer. I've waited almost a week finally some of my entitlemnet was paid. I believe they still owe me a week's pay but what the hey, at least I received the bulk of it. The temptation is to spend it but I have chosen to remove over half of it into somewhere I cannot touch it, at least not instantly. When instant gratification is a temptation it is better to exercise a little prudence. I payed off some debt and perhaps over the course of the next few weeks I will be able to remove the other credit card debt I have. Why am I even bothering writing about this horse shit...perhaps because I have nothing else to say. I have been studiously labouring at my new job and have neglected this blog and as a consequence my mind has become like Aeroplane jelly, wobbly and mushy.

Thus it is, I have nothing to report.

Goodnight!

Loneliness of light

2006-05-15T21:34:00.000+10:00

The preacher stands above his congregation, his flock attentive to the words that fill the hall with light. Resounding rays of prophecy echo across weathered hardwood floorboards that have aged with countless dragging of red extruded polymer chairs, stacked high, almost ascending to the heaven that the preacher is proselytising. He stands tall in his moment of exposure, exalted with conviction. The congregation remains in awe as he speaks, the silence that endures between pauses of breath is reminiscent of the existent stillness as it wafts through space. He speaks of time, time that has passed and the time that is now. They both merge into what could be and each eye which bears witness to this discourse is reminded of a similar time. A connection is made between speaker and listener, yet the preacher has a vacancy within the black pools flashing across his pupils. A madness has encircled the inner world behind those pools and it is a lonely madness. It is the loneliness of light that usurps his sanity, as God is Alone, so is this man as he preaches above the flock of his kin.

Whispers in the dark

2006-05-10T22:13:00.000+10:00

A cold crackly voice whispers it's secrets into my ears. It has nothing but obscenities and cynicism to reflect upon, yet this voice entices me enough to devote my full attention to it. For some reason I am compelled to listen. I don't want to hear it's prophecy but it is inside my head and I can't seem to detach myself from it. I am alone, without distraction, even though there are people in my presence. The sound of it's voice keeps me company in my aloneness, it sings a familarity that I find strangely comforting. The voice tells me that these people, which surround me, are out to hurt me in some way and that I ought not trust them. The more I listen to this tired husky voice, crackling as if it has performed this sililoquy for an eternity, the more I feel that what it says is true. Am siding with the devil? Is it She that lures me with dark, ripe fruits of knowledge? After listening to her voice for so long I begin to believe that it has morphed as my own. I am not sure if it is some other being that has taken me hostage anymore. Have I become this voice that harbours this secret, a secret that whispers in the dark. In the still of night I am alone with her, enbraced in her arms. It is cold outside and in her arms I feel safe. I have a sense that this voice is infact the cruel wind that blows in the hollow of night. It has somehow latched itself, spiralling in the fragments of memory that whirl around the grey haze of my soul. I am at her mercy, I have come to trust her and perhaps even love her. I am not sure of anything much anymore, I think I can't even trust her soothing husky voice anymore. Can it be that my faith has been misplaced in that voice which found a home within the corridors of grey. I wish I knew where that voice came from, I don't want to abandon her, what if she can't find her way. Perhaps I must leave her be, whilst I search for a place she can call home. There are now too many voices inside that grey, I have no more room, so it must be, farewell to my companion and friend, the voice that just could not be.

All in the mind

2006-05-08T23:00:00.000+10:00

How often are we trapped by this thing we call mind. Does this thing even exist? Could it be that the mind is just a manifestation of an electro-chemical interaction...an interlacing of cells, atomic and sub-atomic particles, coalescing with "events" that are present in our immediate surrounds? Yet the way this thing communicates with our bodies, is with a sensastion of thought, which uses a word virus to illustrate what reality is. This reality, however, is not based on what is, it is a reflection of what has been and what might or could be. To live totally in the present moment is perhaps an ideal to strive for. I am contemplating and perhaps yearning to engage in such a process, to enable some level of living through a state of being that is concerned predominately with the immediate, rather than a fantasy of what was or could be. It is hard thing to practice, with a head like mine you are apt to communicate alot of self deprecatory dialogue about what I ought to do, or what I should do or how things should be, etc. etc. etc. In essence it is a narcissistic depreciation of self. My ego is constantly drawing upon this image that the mind has created, as a form of identification with the greater world about me. More often than not, a negative sphere of reality is the by product of consultation with such an image. In reality, I am living an illusion and it could be argued that all is an illusion because of this endless dialogue.

The illusion of self. Pehaps anything attributable to self is a mere reflection of a virus that has implanted itself in our heads. A virus that wants to dominate existence, in nature there is no other predator which equals this vile creature. The mind harbours this virus and I idolise it, much to the detriment of my nature. Nature is silent, it is a vast choir of stillness. "Be still and know that I am God" is what echoes in the silence. To become familar with the presence of nature I must imitate it, so that a resonance of what is real can reveal itself, rather than the obsessive virus emulating a vision of what that reality is.

Reptile Ache

2006-05-07T21:42:00.000+10:00

Blood runs cold in the empty hollowness of a reptile ache. The slithering creature performs a seductive dance in the pit of my heart, drawing lucid memories of a past, which is long gone, yet remains obstinately alive. Smouldering beneath a blanket, the flame of long lost passion refuses to be subdued, it is the reptile that aches. Like a flaccid member throbbing and yearning to be kissed by soft, moist lips...Blood red swollen with anticipation...weeping...awaiting the touch of cold scaly skin, crawling across neurons heightened with excitement. Grief and loss wear the face of truth as the reptile hisses it's fork, inviting....tempting. My heart grows weary as I think of a time when the reptile swayed to and fro, unhindered and free. A time when moments were carefree and the future was uncertain and unseen. Alas the moment passes and the reptile fades back into the caverns of thought, which circle and swirl through darkness. The reptile cannot live again, it is gone, it's time is over, only in memory it remains.

Brutal

2006-05-07T00:31:00.000+10:00

An architect wanted a gusset plate connection on a truss to be "brutal". He wanted a brutal connection. Both the engineer and I were dumbfounded by such a remark. It caused much laughter, the jokes kept rolling in. I am recalling this moment because I just watched Wolf Creek and consider this movie to be brutal. So kiddies today's word is "brutal". It's funny how such differences in meaning can be associated with words. I'm not sure why I am even bothering with this blog tonight/morning. I am sleep deprived because of the wretched woman who lives next door and by all acounts I should be in bed now. I wanted to be brutal to her at 2:00am yesterday, the madwoman was jabbering away to herself and I just couldn't sleep with her ranting to the demons in her head. It is strangely quiet next door, I would've thought she'd be slamming the fucken doors again. Perhaps she was a good girl today and took her psyche drugs, some extra largactil in her medicine cabinet wouldn't go astray.
Some largactil for myself wouldn't be such a bad idea either. It may kerb the resentment I have for the madwoman, the wicked witch of the inner west.

I was back at the dentist again this morning or yesterday morning now. It's 12:52am Sunday morn, so technically speaking I can say yesterday. I am really only blabbering away now, perhaps I ought to leave this rant for a time when I really have something of interest to communicate.

Sweet Dreams all!

Need for speed!

2006-05-05T22:47:00.000+10:00

It would seem the faster one goes the faster one needs to go. Speed is addictive!

As the Roads and Traffic Authority so eloquently asks; "How Fast Are You Going?"

I am not necessarily speaking of the kind of speed that one jacks up, that is all together another story and perhaps an even semi-interesting one, in some vaguely, twisted sort of way.

I am referring to the pandemic of torrents, that viral infection born from common thieves, pillaging the fruits of corporate artists. One needs speed to transcend the bits and gigabytes into meaningful existence, however, it appears that speed also manifests a tolerance, in almost juxtaposition to it's street rival. The more speed one uses the more is needed to achieve the desired effect. More's Law - The more one has the more one wants. Argghh! The humanity; or rather, the lack thereof.

Whatever way you look at it, I don't believe there will ever be enough to satisfy my need.

How am I gonna cope?

2006-05-04T21:56:00.000+10:00

Once again that wretched whore of second sight has taken me hostage. When will I ever learn to keep my head in the day? I keep returning my gaze to a distant shore and it never welcomes my persistent stare with anything even remotely appeasing or dare I say beautiful. The horizon is perpetually clouded with a menacing storm front, the bleak grey rolls across the sky, occasionally thundering a roar to voice her disapproval. Perhaps it is divine justice at work, punishing me for looking at that Medusa shrouded in a veil of promise, deceiving me with an assortment of sweet lies, luring me into believing that perhaps she will announce some possible failure, which may be lurking behind each and every moment. It is sheer madness, the height of insanity.

Even if I did possess such knowledge, would it prevent me from committing error. What if divine wisdom wishes me to make such errors? It is foolish to expect that I could bargain my way out of err's destiny with incantations to the God's to unveil their own mystery. If I did know what failures lay ahead and then made choices to avoid these errors, would I be in a better position? Would I then be free from insecurity and be bestowed with an over abundance of confidence? Or would I then be filled with uncertainty that I perhaps missed something useful?

If I even reflect over the brief period that has been the last couple of weeks, have I not learnt valuable lessons in the mistakes and successes I have experienced. Surely I have! Would I be in a better position if I knew the outcome beforehand? No! Then why do I persist in giving myself grief over something I cannot know? Is this inner dialogue of self doubt giving me anything of value? No, all it accomplishes is a state of anxiety. Do I want to live my life in such a state. No. Then is it perhaps time I abandoned the whore of deceit and answered to the side of truth. Time will tell if I am able to become atuned with what is real rather than what I perceive to be real. Today is the day that I concern myself with what lies directly ahead and not in some far away land that I have no conrol over anyway.

Enough said!

Separated!

2006-05-03T22:39:00.000+10:00

Quite often I feel separated from the rest of humanity. If I were to make some rational arguments in connection with this phenomenon it wouldn't be a convincing argument. In essence we are all connected to a larger organism, a social organism. However, at the same time we also are individual cells in this larger entity and to some extent we are separated because of this. Only when individual cells find themselves at odds with the wider community does this phenomenon of separatedness become apparent. I would like to think that I am not alone when I say we are alone. Not one of you can walk within my being, you may have crossed the same path as I, yet no two of us are exactly identical, so it seems fitting that separatedness would be a common notion. Yet wherever I look it is but the opposite. The majority of people work as a cohesive units, or at the very least, they are forced into such units because they desperately want to fit into such and such a tribe or social network. Very few people want to be seen as outside the "norm" and it could be that such fears are justified. If one walks alone then he or she is considered defective, that something must be fundementally wrong with this individual. Perhaps these "loners" are crucial to the survial of the larger organism, how is a differing perspective to be fathomed when everyone is thinking alike? One can perhaps conclude that separatedness is infact a normal function insofar as evolution requires this to apply change. So when you see someone that appears to be alone, consider that they may have something, which you fail to possess. It may be in your interest to find out what it is. Through quantum mechanics we all are connected so give yourself a break and talk to that loner and be prepared for thinking outside of the square, it could change the way you think and thus your life.

Ever wanted to sell your soul?

2006-04-30T21:32:00.000+10:00

I believe I sold my soul a long time ago. Doh! If I'd only have waited, I may be in a financially more secure position. We Want Your Soul is now paying you to extract your superfluous soul by way of an evolutionary "painless and worry free" method. Check out their web site if you don't believe me. I tried to get an online quote, however it failed. It may be too late for me since my soul is already in the possession of another entity, however, you need not fall victim to soul extraction without being paid fair compensation for any loss incurred. I urge you now to cash it in before it's too late, the offer may be extended for a limited time only and believe me, you do not want to miss the oportunity while it is existent.

I came across the site last week and it intrigued me. What a fantastic meme. Probably not for the faint of heart but it certainly demands a level of curiosity, which seems to be lacking in most nooks and crannies around the world wide web. Consumeristic intrigue is a hard selling point in this market, where even your soul is for sale. Supply and demand is paramount to the development and marketing of any reputable product. There is definitely a shortage of good souls, so if you decide to sell it, then you will be in an excellent position to gain top dollar for the transaction. The time is right, for you to sell your soul.

You may be wondering if I am on the pay role of this multinational in soul extraction and I can assure you that I am not. Believe me when I say, I am thinking in terms of your peace of mind and financial security. I am only trying to be of assistance, because when I sold my soul I was duped, I received no compensation. Don't let fraudsters dupe you too, please only sell your soul to the original soul extraction experts, here is their web site We Want Your Soul

I'm Back

2006-04-28T21:58:00.000+10:00

My fellow bloggers, I know you have missed me while I have been away but I can assure you, that I am back. You may very well be wondering where I have been and perhaps I can explain. I have been away, hiding away in the fear that I have come to know so intimately over the last fortnight or so. All my fears have now come to fruition. A long arduous journey through the valley of death has cast me into a rebirth of possibility and prosperity. I have officially resigned from my present post and have accepted another position in a rival company. I am living in a brave new world where I can stare into the hideous face of my nemesis, FEAR! with the knowledge that I will not be defeated by her malicious intent.

Perhaps I am over dramatical in my discourse of what could be construed as the trivial nuances of existence. How else am I to make my claim to fame? I have invited you into the extraordinary world of ever so ordinary events. Perhaps your life is more exciting and I urge you then to make your claim, however this page is for you, my companions of pixelated space who appreciate the battle between fear and loathing. It is in this void where such battles can be of the greatest interest and intrigue.

I shall depart for now, however, I hope that you will continue to journey with me through the trials and tribulations of ordinary existence. There are so many nuances of the human condition that we can share with one another and if by chance we allow ourselves to make them appear extraordinary, then so much the better. Life is full of mundane events that can be extrapolated into enormous battles where there are victors and losers. Which are you? Can you claim victory over the mundane? Or are you willing to be deafeated by a nemesis that perhaps remains hidden inside the dark caverns of inner turmoil and procrastination. We all have a story to tell, so let us abandon our extravagant egos and speak the truth about the extraordinariness of the ordinary and mundane.

How else are we to find a semblance of meaning to the everyday, which seemingly abounds with the sublimely absurd tick, tock of consciousness.

D-Day

2006-04-23T22:32:00.000+10:00

The time is fast approaching where I need to announce a decision. I have essentially made a decision (in my head) that I will be taking up an offer, which has been delivered to me via one of the recruitment leeches on my case. I am absolutely terrified though. I am dreading this whole affair. Resigning from my current employer is going to be a tough ask. I almost feel sick and I think I am sick. I don't know what the future holds and this not knowing is driving me mad. I can't relax. I feel on edge. Why is this so hard? Anyway what started out as a half arsed quest has now almost become a reality, all I need do is say yes and it will be done. I am desperately trying to see this as a positive affirmation and it is a positive thing, however I am confronted with a looming negative. I have to stop thinking about this, to stop obsessing over something that hasn't happened yet. All my fear is surrounded by some event that hasn't even happened. It's absurd! Why am I so scared? All I'm doing is changing jobs and perhaps by doing so will, be moving to greener pastures. It's not as if I am being made redundant with a morgage and three kids to look after. I need to keep this thing in perspective. All I need do is front up and everything will be okay.

Enough! I am not going to think about this thing anymore. Tomorrow isn't here yet, so I don't need to stress myself out by thinking in loops, it isn't going to make it go away.

One down one more to go

2006-04-19T22:45:00.000+10:00

One more interview tomorrow and I will be free from the burden that these things take on my fragile old nerves. I may be inept at interviewing and all I can say is, practice makes perfect. I think I went ok today but there is always room for improvement. I don't believe I exude confidence, however, I do the best with what I have. Some people are natural born salesman and can go effortlessly through the doors that are opened to them while others are a little more afraid of what may lie beyond. I am one of those people that prefers sometimes to poke my head in through the door to take a peek before gaining the necessary confidence to stride through it.

Well I have nothing to lose in this little adventure and I have gained some insight into my own shortcomings. That in itself is reward enough. Pfff...it is not what anybody else would perceive. I will have to wait for the result of the anxiety I have placed myself through. To what end have my efforts been for? I can make analyses of shortcomings and lack of esteem but does this in itself really define anything? All I know is, is that I have a particular skill set, which is not that easy to come across. Regardless of my self deprecation I do possess some value in the high end engineering field. I am fucking good at what I do and that is to draw whatever anybody wants or has the inclination to build. This is the fact. I am not a salesman. I am a draftsperson and a damn good one.

So there :P

Rattled Nerves

2006-04-18T22:05:00.000+10:00

Man my nerves are on edge. I've had five days off from work and by no means am I even vaguely relaxed. I have a job interview tomorrow and I am so living on an influx of adrenalin, neurotransmitters seem to be doing a crazy dance, shooting left, right and centre. I really have nothing to fear but I am scared anyway. It is said that one of the biggest stresses in life is changing jobs and they ain't wrong. I am looking forward to the weekend or at least friday when I won't have any more interviews. I have another interview on Thursday so I guess I will be in a similar state tomorrow night. I have no idea of how I am going to sleep tonight. I have to keep it in the moment, all I have is this moment and if I am wandering off into tomorrow then all I can expect is fear. The unknowable is a frightening experience. I can take small consolation in the fact that six years ago I made a move from one employer to the next and it didn't kill me then, so I should be able to reconcile that experience with the one I am having now.

Things were a little different back in 2000 my head will argue, however, I am not so sure that they were really. I was dreadfully unhappy with my employment situation in that yesteryear and it took all my courage and more than a little resentment to fuel a motivation for change. In this present time I am a little unhappy and I am not so sure of where it stems from. Perhaps it is a little late for me to be analysing my motives, however, it may serve to clarify why exactly I want this change.

I am unhappy with my renumeration package.
I feel that I am being taken advantage of because I lack assertiveness.
I feel that I don't fit into the culture in some way.
I feel that I am not appreciated and that I have become in essence a part of the furniture.
I don't have any peers as such and feel isolated.
I am feeling unmotivated and lack the enthusiasm I once had.
I feel left out because I have seemingly been discarded in the mentoring system they have.
I am not feeling challenged anymore.
Upper management doesn't appear to respect the value of drafters in any significant way.
I don't believe in the company anymore, there seems to be a lot of rhetoric and little incentives to advance onself as a drafter.

I accept in large that my personality is at fault here, I need to improve areas of inclusion and be more of a self starter but for some reason feel my hands are tied to the daily bump and grind of 100% utilisation. I believe it is my demeanor and the fact that I tend to lean into a loner state, which keeps me seperated to a large degree. I don't necessarily lay blame in this regard. Perhaps a change of atmosphere and different people may intice me to be more open. I guess my major gripe is the philosophy that upper management takes with regards to the lower echelons in the hierachy. They have been good to me in a lot of ways but the significance pales when I know that I am not being paid fairly for the work I perform. If I look at my performance I do a lot for the company and even if I am a little timid I always rise up to the challenges they serve me. I have even taken some initiatives, however they never seemed to eventuate in anything concrete for me, perhaps due to my lack of assertiveness. I think it may be too late if I'm offered a counter offer, perhaps it is the height of arrogance that I should even be thinking this way but I haven't been happy for quite some time and I think it is time I looked after my interests.

I'll have to face my fears and move on, hopefully with the least amount of stress possible.

Reflecting Whore

2006-04-15T22:14:00.000+10:00

An echo of a ticking clock beats against the inside of my head. Time seems to be running out and I feel panicked. I don't know exactly why I am in such a hurry but it seems a matter of urgency that I get to some distant destination. Where this destination is, I do not know. Nothing is making sense in this haze of urgency but I need to get away. But where? There is nowhere to run and I find myself walking along a path, which appears to lead nowhere. Perhaps it is nowhere that I am being drawn to. A nowhere land where perhaps there shall be nowhere people to invite me in. I feel lost as I take each step with caution, only to find myself out of breath. Am I moving too slowly? Time is running out! I hear the beating quickening and I want to keep rhythm, "why is this so?" fleets through my mind, nevertheless I pick up my pace as I travel along the road.

Where is this urgency coming from? Have I wasted too much time as I've moved along this road. I don't remember. I am scared. My heart pounds and the pit of my stomach crawls with anticipation, I sense danger as it slides past unseen. What is that feeling? I feel confused. Have I been to this place before? Deja vu hits me, this fear I have felt before. It is the unknown that crawls beneath my skin, slithering it's way into my cells, making me sick with nausea. I know where this nowhere land is, the fear reveals itself without shame nor remorse.

It is the future. I feel powerless in the face of her blank stare. A face, which seems so featureless and absent yet somehow beckons attention. I feel compelled to gaze into those hidden eyes. My gaze is drawn to hers as she glares with vicious eyes, shining obsidian with a menacing lustre. The wide black eyes of an unknowable world. It scoffs with an inaudible laughter as it draws me close and opens a portal where I can peer through the darkness and into what might be. A world beyond, which coalesces with what could have been and what has been. A non existent world, however the lustful whore seduces me to peer into the mirror with "future" smeared across it in red lipstick. The future reflection appears real as I look into the crystal for some detail that will serve me. All I see is a past and I am mortified that the future could be so identical to what has been. There must be something wrong, perhaps with me, that the future doesn't change and all that changes is the cycle of years. The dark whore laughs at me as I fall back into the here and now. The jeering laughter mocks me with the question "What did you hope to see?"

Blogged Out

2006-04-12T22:12:00.000+10:00

I believe I'm blogged out and I hear some you thanking the sweet lord for this miracle. Now before you lot give praise to the almighty, I would like for you to keep this in mind, I am still gonna ramble even if I have nothing to say. However all is not lost, if you look in the right hand corner of your screen you may have noticed a little button that says "next blog", click that button and fuck off if you don't want to read my blogged out nothingness.

Now that I have done some house keeping, clearing the path from what we could describe as the less desirables or bloggophobes, I am free to discuss the important issues. Me! and how I relate to this mystery called life. Although I have a great affinity with nothingness I doubt others will appreciate a blog, which depicts this affinity with a mere visual analogies. I could essentially just have a black background with nothing else on it, to perhaps give some vague insight into the nothingness of my being and what this bloggisphere is about. However, here lies the problem, black is still something so it doesn't quite connect to what this blog is about, which is about nothing. I have decided to elucidate nothingness with text. Text which surely defines nothingness. As plainly as the eye can see, I have said absolutely nothing of importance or indeed value, all that appears are empty words streaming across a black background of empty pixelated space. Words seem truer to the statement "Nothing is true" which I've lifted from William S Burroughs who claims to be quoting from one Hassan I Sabbah..."Nothing is true. Everything is permitted". Who this Hassan dude is I have no idea. I suspect it is a fictional character created by Mr Burroughs, although I'd like to keep an open mind that such an "old man of the mountain" existed, however, when a brief online search informs me that he was the founder of hashishism, I am left with a little skepticism.

I digress from nothing. I am demeaning the importance of the immortal words "nothing is true". I have come across perfection in these three words. It is truely magical! A beautiful set of words, regardless of the add on "everything is permitted", which Dostoevsky debated over a hundred years ago without any great resolution in my opinion. Now back to nothing, imagine, if nothing is true then the statement can be said to be false because nothing is true, therefore one can conclude that nothing is indeed true because it is false. I can further conclude that this blog is true as it is about nothing.

Hopefully I have confused you because I am left confused myself.

Cranked with rage!

2006-04-10T22:20:00.000+10:00

Do you ever get the feeling that every tendon at the back of your head is like a post tensioned cable....waiting to spring and catapult your head into a thousand little fragments...barrelling across the floor in shreds of crystalline shards? No? Well it must be only me, although I do have the feeling that the lady who lives next door to me could perhaps relate. Often I hear this madness echoing from the confines of her isolation. A jeering madness, a wretched semi laughter and insane jibbering, that is a mixture of indian and english.Then the door slams. Once! Twice! Three times! Bang! Bang! Bang! like shots of ice in hardened, scar tissued arteries, constricted and collapsing under a heavy, burdened load of transluscent crystals, hammering away inside caverns of thought. It begins in the stillness of night, the banging, the anger...the rage. Voices whispering, telling her the world is evil, an inhospitable cacophony of mistrust. "Look at those people"..."They want to spy on you"..."they want to invade your world". "Look at that fucker hanging out his washing". "That car that pulled up out front." "They want to KILL you!" Slam! the door smashes against the jamb...the scream of silent suffering can be gagged, muffled for only a brief moment. The bang of relief, stomping in the darkness of endless night...Confusion and hatred. Inner hatred! Just shut the fuck up! Bang! Bang! Bang!

I awake to the sound of this confusion. The rage is contagious. I want to kill her. To free her from the demons that stalk through black pools of a vacant stare. I want to slit her throat and hear the garbled end to those voices, which torment with sermons of hate. Bang! One more shot in the still night. Oh yes, I will await her, stalk her, slip into her world and see through her eyes, as blood pools on the floor. Her eyes dilated and perhaps a faint smile will curve upon those dry, wicked lips. My eyes will perhaps bear witness to this lascivious creature of night as it leaves its prison of ripened flesh. Will I then be able to look away before it enters mine?

Feeling Anxious

2006-04-09T22:20:00.000+10:00

I am feeling a little anxious at the moment. I don't exactly know why I am. It is probably based on some irrational thought process. What exactly this irrational thought is, eludes my consciousness. Deep down I know what it is, the thing that is causing this anxiety, so I am going to do something about it.

The answer has come to me. However this isn't the forum for me to divulge.

Till the next time.

Pathetic!

2006-04-08T23:39:00.000+10:00

I am absolutely pathetic. It's Saturday night and here I am in my PJ's writing in this damn blog. Only moments before, I was investigating and perhaps entertaining the notion of getting private health cover, It's insane! Firstly; to be thinking about it on a Saturday night and secondly because it is almost Sunday morning. I am mad!

What am I to do? I'm lucky here in Oz because unlike the US I don't need private health insurance. I'm still procrastinating over whether to get health insurance, I'm sort of on the borderline where not getting it is cheaper than getting it. We pay a medicare levy of 1.5 percent of our taxable income plus an extra one percent extra if our income exceeds 50k and we aren't in a private health fund. I earn above the said amount, yet I am not so much above it that it will benefit me paying a premium of 24 dollars a fortnight for health insurance.

I'm thinking about this absurdness because I went to the dentist today. I don't believe in health insurance and am not going to take out health cover just yet. It is a matter of principle. I believe the medical and the health care system ought to be funded entirely by the tax payer and should be free for all so to speak. If I had a health insurance policy then I probably wouldn't have had to fork out 200 dollars for the dentist, however I still would've had to pay something I think, even if I did have health cover.

Anyways it's late and I just couldn't be fucked thinking about this anymore.

Happy Sunday

Almost Friday!

2006-04-06T23:20:00.000+10:00

One more day left in the mire. I can almost feel grateful that the current project I've been labouring over for the last few months has finally come to an end. Let me tell you that I abhor reinforcing steel. And this bridge widening that I've been working on is filled with it. Brrrr! Gives me the *shivers*. I'm set to start another bridge, this time a new rail bridge, I don't have to deal with an existing structure. I'm also glad that the interview I was supposed to have tomorrow morning at half seven has been cancelled. I feel free from burden, light and in good shape for the weekend.

Routine

2006-04-05T22:24:00.000+10:00

Routine seems endless. The days are empty and I am struggling to maintain some level of focus. Sometimes I wish all this will come to an end, and it will eventually. Everything comes to an end. The process of ending is quite often a painful one, it is the process, which I truly hate. It perhaps needn't be a woeful exercise but I find the daily grind so monotonous that I want to throw my hands in the air and say Fuck it. I was driving home from work tonight, the traffic was crawling and I felt that this mindless journey to and fro is just simply pointless. I have no spark. It has been extinguished. I can really understand why people go mad living in this claustrophic atmosphere, absurdity is boundless. I am toing and froing, participating in a meaningless daily venture and am aware that I simply don't fit in this charade. I have all the pretense of playing some role but I am reeling on the inside, screaming for it to end. Often I simply would like for my life to end. I am confronted by my need to perform in this daily ritual, pretending that I'm interested in what I'm doing, except my head is usually a million miles away. Maybe all that is going on is that I am just going through a change right now, a metamorphosis of decline. I have no function really, no purpose. I have a job, which I do okay at for the most part and I have a handful of friends. That should be enough right? Except I still have a void within. It is this void, which seems insatiable, that is consuming me. Perhaps I expect too much from this world, this reality I find myself in. How do others bear the routine? I think I am just a spoilt brat, a whining, ego driven brat and perhaps I am.

I'm only wasting time complaining. I could be making myself useful in some way but I am choosing to whine about something, which is in my power to change. I whinge about it, instead of doing, taking some action to change the situation. I disgust myself with my pettiness. So I will just shut up!

Woo Hoo! Thirty posts.

2006-04-04T21:39:00.000+10:00

This will be my thirtief post on blogger. I think it cause for celebration, don't you? I don't really feel like celebrating though. I need this post for my sanity's sake. My head is still reeling with the idea that my search for a new job is not the right thing for me. I keep going on about this same thing and I am still none the wiser...the answer to my concerns is elusive. Perhaps there is no answer. I have an interview Friday morning and after looking at their website I couldn't say I was instilled with a tremendous sense of confidence. I am not at all impressed by their website, some of their links don't even work and I am left wondering if they have the same attitude towards their work culture. I can't see myself being employed there. Will I just be wasting their time and mine by going through with this interview? Am I just fearful of attending the interview and am I thus finding excuses not to go? I am half inclined to just withdraw my half hearted attempt at finding the perfect job. If I am totally serious about finding employment elsewhere then why don't I just resign from my present position? I lack faith.

Will making a move elsewhere provide me the satisfaction I crave? Will I be betraying the people I work with, by packing up and leaving? Fucking recruitment agents just don't listen. Why am I gonna go through with this interview when I am 90 percent sure already that I don't want to work for this mob? Questions! Questions! Questions! No answers.

I guess just because I am going to an interview doesn't mean I have to automatically accept the job if offered to me. I am only testing the waters. So what if I waste their time. Is it a crime to waste time. Is it immoral? Am I a moralist (sometimes I like to think so...LOL) What if they want to pay me the extra fifteen grand I will be asking for? None of these questions are really worth the stress I am going through. It is Tuesday. Friday is three days away. I need to focus on today, not some time from now.

Can't wait till 6 months is up

2006-04-03T22:59:00.000+10:00

My internet connection is so slow...so much for 512/128k ADSL and veridas resellers. Perhaps I want something that is unattainable. I have an early termination fee of $99 if I change Internet Service Providers before six months of joining. When one pays for a advertised service one would expect to receive that service most of the time. I am getting for the most part 23KB/s to 32KB/s on downloads. If I could consistently get above 40 then I would be in a better position not to complain. I could probably complain to my ISP but will it serve any purpose? 6 months will be up next month and I'm gonna churn to another provider. Optus now has ADSL 2 and am considering trying them out since my land line is with them already. I probably won't get the advertised 20 megabit connection since I am a couple of kilometres away from the exchange, but the extra five dollars more a month than I already pay will surely amount to an increase in speed. It is the age of instant gratification and why shouldn't I join the band wagon. Besides I am used to receiving instant gratification and I don't see why I shouldn't apply this methodology to internet speed. I long for the day when technology exceeds humanity. Where a machine can out think my feeble mind. Where, in a nano second, I can get the file I want without the delay of synthetic neurons lumbering under hardened ateries of archaic copper.

What exciting times we live in, perhaps generation Xer's will see nano technology implemented and grey goo oozing at the sides of manufacturing, science and medicine. Perhaps Man will create sentient beings from hardware collected from the far reaches of space, Mars Rover extracting the super conductors, which will begin phising the intellect of mere humanity. When we become obsolete, shall hardware replace our fragile biology? Perhaps future generations will free themselves of the corruption of this world as it flees to escape the toxic slime we create now, into the nether reaches of hubblean worlds, to mine and feast upon the riches extracted from dark matter and nebulous placenta. I will perhaps see this coming age...it is not too far away.

I think our searching of outer space is not to seek answers that will serve mankind to understand the great meaning of it all but to indeed find a new home. Just as bacteria sends it's feelers out to search for new hosts to feed upon, so too does humanity reach out with it's feelers, to seek out new nourishment as it scavenges and depletes the finite resources of it's current host. We are created in the image of the greatest replicator....the virus. Can we not be compared to a parasite. Have a look around....are we not feeding off the back of Gaia? like an insect gnawing away at the tree of life? Perhaps my world view is too dark and cynical, but the environment is giving us it's retribution nonetheless...Some argue that it is God that is punishing the world for it's sin, with hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunami's. I think it is just nature redeeming herself from the selfish acts of people like myself and perhaps you? for degrading her name with our wanton acts of selfish abandon. We struggle to accept that we are not the keepers of Her garden but merely guests in Her vegetable patch, in much the same way as caterpillar is. However we seem unable transform into the butterfly, we only perpetuate as a fat slug, unsatisfied untill all that is left is the brown decay that we have excreted as payment for Her generosity.

Alas, when we do mutate into a creature with wings, will we fly off into the distance, only to find ourselves returning into our larvae state? to recommence our insatiable hunger? I hope we will learn the lessons being taught us in this present time, that lesson being that we need to re think instant gratification and try our hardest to maintain the vegetable patch we have been given. Perhaps we ought to slow down and find an adequate hibernation, so that we will then be able to metamorph into the colourful butterfly and truly loft above the vegetable patch, to see the outside garden with fresh eyes and perhaps gain the insight of a new world beyond.

Are Sundays depressing or is it just me?

2006-04-02T20:06:00.000+10:00

I've decided to postpone my examination of Addiction and Exile for the moment, stay tuned for the continuing saga. I need to collate my thoughts so that they don't appear to be so much a wish wash of rambling. Perhaps so I can look good...who knows exactly why I feel the need to explore such a pointless endeavour but the need is there never the less.

Tonight I am asking the question, Why do Sundays always seem to be such a sombre day? I can reflect that it is a transient sort of day, where freedom is transforming into the realization that my time will soon have to be handed over to the corporate machine. Mondays mark the rule of the clock, as the pendulum sways with an incessant....Tick!....Tock!...Tick!...Tock!...like a drum of slavery. A friend once shared his view of Sundays with his euphemism "suicide sundays", it is perhaps a extreme view, however there is some element of truth to it. Perhaps my perception of this is all wrong. I perhaps ought to be filled with joy and cheer that I will be part of a machine that perpetuates the life of capitalism...where my actions count to the rise of more infrastructure, which in turn allows even greater wealth to be accumulated by the rush hour of commuters heading in droves to sit at workstations and busy themselves, under the hypnotic sound of Tick and Tock.

It is an absurd reflection really. I have been feeling anxiety all weekend because I may have an interview this coming week. Absurd because the interview is with another engineering firm that essentially has the same function as the one I am with. Engineers create infrastructure and I draft the engineer's vision, so I am contradicting myself on a ethical ground already. I have alot of cynism with the corporate machine yet I am part of this machine. I help create the concrete jungle we find ourselves in. The environment eroding with each and every beam and column erected. I make my living out of this decay, which has the guise of economic growth. Absurd also because I am feeling anxious about perhaps selling myself to another employer for more of this wealth, which I seemingly despise and am enslaved to, yet I still desire more. My drug of choice is "More". More money! More variety! More satisfaction! More challenges!

Anxious because I am questioning why I feel the need to make more money and if I am truly unhappy with my current employer or am I just unhappy with my life in general? I feel that in some way I am being taken advantage of and deserve more than what is being dished out to me. What I truly want is no responsibilty. All care taken but no responsibilty is the catch cry of this rant.

I am absurd. And how hard am I on myself? That is another question. Am I living in a utopian world here? Reality check please? Is any of this neg rave doing anything to abate the anxiety I feel. In truth it is in some way. I am expressing some of the conflict that is present within...even if there are contradictions and absurdities I am venting these in a healthy way.

Enough venting for one day....I am ranted out.

Goodnight ^_^

Addiction and Exile Part 2

2006-04-01T21:52:00.000+11:00

A choice of enslavement.

As I stated yesterday I am not fond of the idea that addiction is a disease, however I also find the "moral failing" definition awkward. Too many behaviours are seemingly becoming medicalized and only yesterday did I come across the latest medicalized condition;

Couch potatoes are sick, need drugs

Extreme laziness is a medical condition called motivational deficiency disorder (MoDeD), say Australian researchers.

It is a sign of the times and I believe the diseasing of behaviour and the human condition is becoming more of a problem than the actual behaviour. I am no medical expert but the idea of laziness being a symptom of disease seems preposterous. Are we forgetting that we possess freewill or have we also placed that as a symptom of disease? Perhaps life is a medical condition, which needs treatment.

I am being drawn off on a tangent, however there is some relevance to the discussion at hand. If addiction is choice, which I believe it is and why I specifically chose to describe it as choosing enslavement, then we are compelled to ask why someone would choose such enslavement. It is here that the notion of exile may lead us in understanding enslavement as a choice. Lets presuppose that the person prior to addiction is already in a state of exile. It may be due to some dysfunction in personality for instance or dysfunction in a belief system the person possesses. There are possibly instances where the individual has come from a happy family environment, having been reared by loving and caring parents, however some degree of exile is still present I suggest. I am merely creating some form of assumption and perhaps illustrating a set of circumstances to help myself, primarily understand and paint the picture of exile. I find it difficult to perceive in what context exile is present in such a person who has come from a loving and caring environment, however, I can possibly muse in saying that exile exists, not from a family context but perhaps from the view of a peer group. One could even ponder if it is merely an inward exile, a detachment of self if you will. One could make an analysis of every conceivable scenario yet it is enough that we assume exile exists prior to addiction.

I haven't got very far tonight with this analysis and fear I have indeed strayed too far afield with my meanderings. Perhaps it is best I revisit this in the morning when I have a clearer head. Part 3, tomorrow will perhaps finish my long suffering intellecualization of Addiction and Exile, let's hope so.

Addiction and Exile Part 1

2006-03-31T22:22:00.000+11:00

I believe I will be continuing with my current theme of addiction in this post and perhaps in more to come. I think I will be a little more serious with it than when I first ventured the subject in Addiction and the AAA . I was fooling around with a flirtatious meandering and perhaps ridicule of what could be a serious condition, Internet Addiction. However this bloggologue will be truer to the subject at hand...Addiction in it's traditional form, that is, addiction to drugs and or alcohol, having said that, it also could pertain to any other addiction, whether it be gambling, sex, food, internet etc. etc. More specifically I will examine exile as it relates to addiction. In truth I am interested in addiction as a stand alone topic but tonight I have been inspired to explore exile in juxtaposition to addiction. I started reading Albert Camus's, Exile and the Kingdom and it has inspired me to elaborate something which is close to me.

Exile is the existential state which the addict is more or less placed, whether one believes this is self imposed or if it is a consequence beyond the control of the person in addiction, is essentially irrelevant. It is my feeling that the state of exile is a pre existing condition and that it is further compounded by the addiction and by the addict feeling marginalized and stigmatized by a society, which perhaps views addiction as a moral failing. Perhaps there is some justification in this stance. When one tries to impose one's own experience into something that is foreign, it is difficult to view a differing angle, after all, no one forced these people to consume the substance in the first instance. It is easy to believe that one has control over one's choices and who can argue with such simplicity. Perhaps one could also imagine feeling isolated where there seems to be no avenue or discourse to relate. It is easy to assume that everyone has equal opportunity and the necessary skills to effectively communicate and thus have some connection to a whole, yet what if an individual felt disempowered in some way and felt unable to communicate. Perhaps this individual was abused in some way or that he or she felt in a profound way disconnected and didn't belong. An outsider perhaps or a loner or just different. Exiled?

I am not advocating an excuse for addiction in any shape or form. Addiction is embedded into our society and I am interested in how the addictive process comes into being. I believe the scenario of exile can offer an explanation of how addiction can develop. Some consider addiction a disease and perhaps there is some merit in this argument. I am not convinced that such a disease exists, however I am not aiming to persuade anyone otherwise if they do accept the disease theory. I am concerned with the concept of exile and if this in some way contributes to a person choosing to become enslaved by addiction. I mentioned earlier that perhaps a general consensus in societal terms suggests a moral failing on part of the addict, which in turn assumes a choice. So I am running with such thinking, although I have a problem with morality in the sense that to assume morality one must think in terms of right and wrong. I want to lay aside right and wrong as these are subjective. If I can define "moral failing" as merely choice then I need not extrapolate needless interpretation of good versus bad, or right and wrong, neither of which are necessary when one is given choice.

A choice of enslavement perhaps sounds irrational. How can one choose enslavement when all of our democratic values are based on freedom? Perhaps this seems absurd and perhaps you are now vexed at having been deceived in some way because at the outset I stated that I was going to be a "liitle more serious". It does appear that the argument is beginning to take the AAA (Absolute Apathetic Absurdism) stance. Let me assure you that is not. I will not say that a level of absurdism isn't about to unfold, however I will say it is not of an apathetic view point.

It is late now and I will continue this saga at a later juncture.

Goodnight!

Positivity versus Creativity

2006-03-30T21:39:00.000+11:00

Is it at all possible to have a level of positivity whilst maintaining a level of creativity? For me the creative daemon seems to dwell in a miserable place. Perhaps the very idea of creativity is in essence the positive drive, which stems from the chaotic whirl wind of a troubled, brooding mind. Perhaps creativity is being in touch with a spiritual centre and by allowing oneself to express the creative daemon in whatever form, it frees the negativity, which can overwhelm and in it's worst capacity, destroy. For me the outlet for erradicating the free radicals of negativity is the writing process. I have moved from writing in a private journal into this open ended medium for a little change in atmosphere. I really haven't considered who my audience is, I am writing for myself in essence so it probably matters not who is reading this apart from me. It allows me to focus on an internal struggle and then combine the conflict and perhaps resolution into words, freeing me from the wallowing feeling.

If I were to intellectualize this process in a semi scientific/spiritual sense, I am using two hemispheres of the brain. The left and right sides are in a duality of sorts and what comes from this crossing is the words which appear in front of you. While I search for answers in my meditative state I am consulting the inner world of emotion to perhaps reach some understanding of the ebb and flow that thoughts and feelings create. At the same time I am detatched from the intensity of feeling, perhaps because one hemisphere is dominant, I believe for me it is the left side, hence my psuedo intellectualizations and rationalizations. I added the /spiritual because it is the way I relate spiritualism, in a scientific imagining and reductionism. If spirituality can be defined as uplifting then writing allows me a sense of the spiritual. Prior to me beginning this bloggologue I was feeling somewhat down and bluesy...I am not feeling so much of it now, now that I have been focussed on the higher consciousness that is required to write. That is how I view this process...it is a creative process, even if the subject matter isn't embedded as a creative story as such. I do hope that I will continue this hobby into that part of writing though. I have a few ideas and have even started, yet for some reason I haven't continued with it for a long time. A recurring thought is that if I wrote but one page every day it would amount to 365 in a year, enough for a novel. It is one thing to hope, and another thing for a reality to eventuate, wishful thinking isn't going to make anything happen though.

Addiction and the AAA

2006-03-29T21:21:00.000+11:00

Could it be that my latest addiction is an obsession with being online. I must confess, a day doesn't pass by, where I am not online. I find something vaguely comforting in the act of searching for information, posting self obsessed rambles on online forums and generally living in a an artificial world where connectivity is but a mere click away. I will also confess that I have no social life. Alas it is my tale of woe...it is also my tale of finding solace in the emptiness of the universe. At least in this semi reality I can have some hope of reaching somebody, where as, out in the "real" world I am a nameless face in a heavily populated forest of faceless names. I pretend I don't exist when I walk amongst the mire of people that are so eager to get to some destination or another. Sydney is a fast city I believe....no one has time to greet anyone on the street....we have to be somewhere and with the queer look of, I'm running late to perhaps facilitate some sense of worth or greater importance. It can be a lonely city. I lie when I say I have no social life...I do...but it is not the type of social setting which most people experience....suffice to say, I have a place to go when I am feeling lonely.

Having somewhere to go is a blessing when I really ponder the idea...So many people in this world feel and are isolated. When I used to catch the train to work, I would walk past the homeless. The down trodden and less fortunate. I too ignore these people and am no saint when it comes to helping my brothers and sisters. I am far too self absorbed in my desire not to exist to really be absorbed in the helplessness of those very people in the street. Henry Lawson wrote a great poem called Faces in The Street , it really sings a wailing, sordid sadness, when I read it, as it did the first time I read it. It brings forth those very faces I used to walk by, desperate and yearning. I think it is why so many of us just walk by, fuelled by ego and self delusion, thinking our life is so important. Whilst in our peripheral vision we a get a glimpse...a reflection, a mirror staring at us, the "faces in the street" peering at us, pleading and at the same time demanding that we acknowledge their existence. It is the same desperate yearning we all have if we look deep within....we all want to belong...we become frightened by the fragility of this yearning and desire to belong. In some profound sense, we begin to understand how easy it is for any one of us to lose our sense of belonging when we look at those "faces in the street".

It is easy for me to apostatize ego and drive when sitting here behind this faceless machine, theorizing and moralizing, yet a couple of lines from Henry Lawson's piece can hammer home my own shortcomings.

"I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor?"

I am sitting here, behind apathy, pondering my own fallibility. I am probably worse than those wealthy men...I have a moral conscience but do nothing with it. That is absurd. Absolute Apathetic Absurdism (AAA).

Perhaps I ought to get back to my addiction....it seems less absurd.

What makes us tick?

2006-03-27T22:35:00.000+11:00

Do you know what makes you tick? I often look to other people and get the sense that they have a handle on something I don't. They appear to be so self assured, confident and have a grasp of reality which eludes me for the most part. I wonder if these people suffer from insecurities like the rest of us mere mortals. I think that I quite possibly judge my insides by other peoples outsides too often. It could be one of my biggest flaws. I am always performing some comparative analysis on a conscious and sub conscious level. What is a shy, introverted, sensitive guy to do? How do these people get to be so confident and self assured? Do they ignore that voice, which seems to deride. Do they even have such a voice? I'm thinking out loud. Perhaps my thoughts are too loud and that is perhaps why I am not one of those "together" people. I sometimes cover my insecurities with a level of arrogance but I can never seem to pull off what I want to achieve with this arrogance. It merely hinders me in some way.

I read somewhere that self esteem is merely a rating system founded on irrational logic (my interpretation). I can say I have low self esteem but what good does such a rating do? What good does a high self esteem rating do? This same piece of literature suggested self acceptance to be the key to some kind of happiness rather than self esteem/rating. Other literature based on spiritual concepts also suggest self acceptance as a goal to aspire to. This is something which I need to work on...self acceptance rather than self deprecation. Derision is the path of least resistance in my psyche...it is time I took the path of greatest resistance so that I am able to accept who I am based not on what my perceived achievements are, or by some sociability index (that in essense I am not in the best position to judge), but by the values I hold and the person I am, based on these values.

Food for thought...albeit weary thoughts.

I don't feel like it!

2006-03-24T22:38:00.000+11:00

Often this little phrase enters my head...I just don't feel like it...right now I don't feel like writing but I know that sometimes it is the only thing in my life that can fill the void...this great big @#cking hole that opens up and wants to swallow me...I want to fall into it...to be lost within the dark mass and not ever venture out from it's comforting chill. I have been teetering around the edges of this swarming mass and if I move just that much closer to it's edge, to peer down, I know I will slip or the edge will crumble and I will be lunged into the crawling mire of filth and decay. A part of me wants to fall...to give into the temptation...to be cradled in the arms of narcissistic black. Where I can admire the filth of self obsession and not be concerned with outside trivialities. I want to be lost in Self, indeed that is where I am most of the time. Except I am expected to participate in the outside world, to be accountable to something other than myself.

Right now I want to hide from everyone and everything so I can just breathe and not feel any pressure, to perhaps just rest and be with me. Is that selfish?

Confronting fear!

2006-03-21T22:06:00.000+11:00

A friend of mine often used to joke around when we'd sit in a cafe in cosmopolitan Newtown, by performing a caricature of a scene in some movie (I think it was a movie) where the character would be talking into a microphone giving himself narratives or audio notes with a line "there is nothing to fear except fear itself". I don't know if it actually comes from a movie or if this friend was pulling my leg but the words seem to resonate a long, drawn out chord within....fear is actually the only thing that I ought fear, although it defies logic, the quasi aphorism does have a nonsensical ring of truth to it...I have nothing to fear, however the feeling of fear is never completely absent from my being. I am probably giving too much of myself away, by letting you in, on this little secret but it is true. I am seemingly, in constant battle with some unknown fear. It begins to nag at the insides of my stomach..churning...swirling...spiralling in the pit of my soul, where it remains, feeding like a parasite. Fermenting a little. It never reaches a panic state but the anxiety seems to stew when I am facing an unknown. I am infatuated with the absolute, perhaps this infatuation is the root cause of my fears. Reality gently nudges, suggesting with it's eyes, a truth, that nothing in life is absolute, there is no black and white, so I am drawn into a state of anxiety because my desired or perceived state of absolutism can never be achieved. It is totally irrational and in some ways I am aware of this, however my intellectual instinct allows me nothing when I am at the mercy of emotional despotism.

Once again I am floundering away from what really is nagging at me. Although I have been experiencing discomfort due to fear...the cause of this fear is the idea of facing interviews and possibly shifting my comfort zone. I don't really have to look any deeper than at the mere, superficial events that are happening in my life. A recruiter has sent my resume off to a prospective employer and I feel fear over it. Thus the inspiration for this bloggolgue. I am prone to use colourful language to avoid confronting the issue, which in this case is fear. Pure and simple...FEAR! A couple of acronyms for FEAR are:
False Evidence Appearing Real or
Future Events Appearing Real

I can apply both scenarios to my obsessive thinking patterns, however neither are really worth the effort. That is the short answer and the rational antidote to my FEAR!

Other more sinister scenarios are lurking within the caverns of my mind, however, they are not meant for this blog. Yet I also believe they can, in some sense be defined by this blog. So I will speak in colourful language for a moment, so I have a reference, a mental note of sorts. I have been confronted with darker demons than those of fear. These other demons are lascivious in nature. They stir temptation and desire control. Control of feeling. They slither like a reptile and promise dominion in pleasure beyond earthly attainment. In a way they are pure as hatred...black....cold. They whisper sweetness and offer a world, which is utopian and free from pain. They are liars. In essense, they only seek destruction and when the morning breaks, whilst the morning light is awakening the rest of the world, the seduced are left lying in bed, shivering and empty, like abandoned shells washed on a vast shoreline, weeping in despair.

Seasonal Shift

2006-03-19T22:46:00.000+11:00

At this time year I can feel the season shifting into a sombre tone. Summer is swaying with the autumn breeze and likewise my mood is being drawn downwards by a faint whirlpool of suction. Shorter days and longer nights smear the world with a wash of grey that seems to waft through the air. I think I am experiencing the first course of what looks set to be a five course meal, tonight I am having an entree of grey, tasteless and heavy.

Possibly tomorrow I will feel better about who I am...tonight I am not so sure if I'm ok...I am feeling a little less than adequate, it is one of those nights where I am better off being in bed early, so I don't have to endure too much consciousness.

Goodnight!

Existence

2006-03-17T22:36:00.000+11:00

I am essentially free writing in this blogisphere. I never really know what will eventuate in my ramble. It is pretty much a stream of consciousness, which seems to develop an existence of it's own. Perhaps it is how the universe was formed. Out of nothing. A thought. An idea..but of whose creation....a creator? What if the creator is the nothingness behind each and every thought. Are thoughts driven by an external force? Do thoughts have any significance in the world outside that of the creator or artist? In fact what is thought? Questions stream through my mind at increasing speed...it is only when I stop before a keyboard or a blank page with pen in hand do I ever hope to capture, any single one or collection of them. To perhaps keep it hostage for a moment before it disperses into the mindscape or in this case cyber space. At one stage I meditated on Descartes often thought of one liner...."I think therefore I am"...I lost my writing on the topic due to hard drive failure, the idea is still lurking within the nether regions of inner space...I didn't have anything original to add, however I was a little suprised that the question I was pondering over had been thought of by others, without ever having come across it anywhere prior to the thought revealing itself...I essentially wondered whether the meaning of "I think therefore I am" came down to thinking something and thus believing it to be true. For example if one says "I can't do that" does that thought then dictate the outcome? "I think therefore I am"...I haven't read Descartes, so I haven't the authority to lay claim to understanding what his intention was when postulating this little statement. I assumed it had an existential foundation...yet when one examines the sentence in isolation, away from any other context, it does appear to take form as a statement on belief systems.

Like I said at the start of this bloggologue....writing seems to have a life of it's own. Thinking has a life of it's own...I am yet to come to a resolution though...I can deconstruct this process a little....The first thing that I encountered when I peered into the whiteness of this page was the question of what do I write...then from nowhere a title loomed above in my peripheral vision...Existence....So I wrote that down...Then I began this blog...without any preconceived ideas or at least conscious ones that I had planned to write, the words come from nowhere is my best guess (during the process I do go back and edit what I have written). Having said all that I have in a way come full circle...What is thought? Where does it come from? Is existence defined by it, as one can easily interperet from Descartes. Or is there more to Descartes statement than can be construed from first glances?

I am a amateur thinker at best, so am possibly out of my depth. Perhaps the real question is...Can I believe what I think? And if not then what can I believe? It is a continuing pursuit..perpetual in essence...I am definitely pursuing something...searching for something....I think I have stumbled across it...A belief system that is true! Absolute! Perfect? I think it has become clear, what it is I am searching for....perfection. The only thing that is said to be perfect is God. It would appear that I am at a cross roads. I am searching for perfection yet I can not accept it exists. It is the paradox of perfection, I want something I can not have.

Enough thinking for one night me thinks.

Why is blogging such a fad?

2006-03-15T21:40:00.000+11:00

I think it interesting that blogging seems to be such a fad at the moment. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame (or is it "I" that wants just fifteen more minutes of time...your time)...or could it be that memes are the culprits aspiring to fame? Is it feasible to entertain the notion, that blogging evolved from memes taking flight in a fit of virulence...the internet incubating the seeds, so as to enable the flight of mind and global dominance of the virus that is the mind...the synaptic endings of IP addresses emerging as a womb to the expansion of consciousness. Mutational strains of virus endeavouring to hold on to an existence, which may or may not have a half life of seconds or millennia?

(reality check) For me the past time of blogging, seems a natural extension to the journaling I've been doing over the last three years, offline...I think I questioned in one of my first posts whether I yearned for some sort of validation...for a sense of validation to my existence....I can't recall if I actually wrote it or thought it....I'm lazy so couldn't be bothered scouring through my previous posts to find out if I did indeed write it. What does it really matter anyway...I haven't received any validation one way or another, I am content just to enjoy the process of writing, regardless of any fame it may or may not provide. I confess, the idea that perhaps someone else may be reading something I have to say is appealing to my starved sense of worth. My ego wants to be heard. Alas, I have to concede that there are no echoes in this blogisphere, only quiet musings of a lonely man.

That is perhaps a lie...I am not so lonely, however when the quiet of night is resounding my heart beat I often wonder whether I am lonely and if this blog thing is mere distraction from feeling. I have learnt to feel the things I need to feel...That I can no longer run from feeling, as I used to do in a previous incarnation. Yet I am confronted in this dead sea of night whether I have found a new way to avoid feeling. To be honest this reflection is saddening...perhaps I have hit a nerve in my weary central nervous system. I often ponder the question of how personal should I endeavour to go in this public domain of information and thought. I guess the answer is solely up to me...Do I necessarily want to redeem the whole of my soul to public scrutiny and possible ridicule. Perhaps it matters not...I haven't a clue if anyone is even interested in the psuedo intellectualizations of an ordinary man doing ever so ordinary things. Perhaps there lies something of interest...some honesty at my own shortcomings. I am not really divulging any secrets...I am merely reflecting on thought and not giving anything too emotionally revealing...in essence only intellectualizing.

Besides I have other avenues where I can explore emotional tribulations, in a safer environment. Perhaps in time I may give more of myself but for now I will continue with diatribes of nothingness.

Market position

2006-03-14T22:13:00.000+11:00

I have officially been placed into the job market! Dare I say that I am gonna go for gold. The interview I had with the recruitment leech this morning went remarkably well...at least I thought it went well. Whether I can maintain some form when the time comes is another story. I am finding it hard to really pin point what I am worth in today's market. I am convinced that I am worth more than what my current employer is offering. I believe I've always sold myself short and I think it high time I change this humble approach...I am almost excited by the prospect of playing a game. My life is so boring that I need something to enhance my range of feeling. Why not see what I can achieve? Why shouldn't I sell myself to the highest bidder? Am I oblidged to forsake a perceived, better life style, to a vague sense of loyalty. Is loyalty even considered virtuous anymore? Are we not programmed to upgrade and update...to discard the old for new...are we not set to believe that the new virtue for our time is obsolesence?

We live in an age of consumerism where the ultimate product is the buyer..the consumer...you and me!
William S Burroughs spoke of junk as being the “....ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client.” and so it is with the time we occupy now....the merchant is selling the consumer to the product where the merchant is the product and we are the consumer. In effect, we are not improving and simplifying merchandise, we are degrading and simplifying ourselves, with obsolescent thinking. Constantly being bamboozled with the perfect life...just around the corner....we can pick up a can of flowery spray and in an instant be transformed into Eros...a God of lust and irresistable charm...The ABC's Four Corners had a great special How The Kids Took Over the other night. I think it illustrated perfectly how we are fast becoming the product. Although the program depicted marketers as devising (perhaps devious) schemes on how to "imprint" consumers to a product or brand at a stage when they are yet to be considered consumerable...I see the Burroughs pyramid of junk being bought and sold as it were. As an extension of this theme I am postulating that we are the product and the merchant...one and the same. Perhaps when all is said and done....the end product is the end. We ultimately become the obsolescence.

I don't think I'm really making much sense with my dis-jointed point of view...however I am compelled to believe that I must in some sense view myself as the junk and also of the merchant when it comes to pitching the product to a prospective employer. I need to create the scenario where I sell the consumer to the product. To somehow degrade and simplify the client into thinking the perfect life is just around the corner... with the next fix...or in this case, the next project.

Interview with a leech

2006-03-13T23:15:00.000+11:00

I wonder whether recruiter's are in fact leeches? Perhaps I won't win any favours in the HR department with such contempt. However it does beg the question...whatever happened to the good old days when you applied for a job in the local paper? Where did all these vultures come from? What has the world come to? Am I being overly critical and cynical? Tomorrow I have an interview with a leech. I hope he doesn't read this ramble. I don't think I have much to fear...I don't think anyone reads my ramblings. That's ok...I haven't anything of importance to say...only ramblings about nothing in particular...whining and moaning is probably the best description. Everyone needs an outlet I guess...and for me it is these pages.

Let us ponder human leeches and their slimy trails.

Goodnight !

Change and decisions

2006-03-08T23:10:00.000+11:00

I don't know about you lot but the idea of change is scary business. For me, I find the prospect of being in unfamilar territory a little disconcerting....even if it means I have to put up with discomfort and difficulty, the thought of something new is somewhat frightening. As I said yesterday I placed my CV online at a recruitment site, as a searchable document...low and behold...I received a response this morning. Now I am confronted by the question of what do I want. Do I want to swap employers? Do I want to face the overwhelming nature of change? I am in a pretty fortunate position...I can afford to be pickie...to choose the right job and to see what the market is offering. Considering there is a skills shortage at the moment, the market is ideal for me to move shop and ask for top dollar while I do it. The possibilties are there....but the question is still unclear...What do I want? I haven't a clue...I want to enjoy the experience of work...I don't want to feel it as a prison sentence , which it is comparable to at the moment. The first thing I need to do is create a formal CV...the one online is fairly basic. When that is done perhaps the options will be a little more open.

Until then I can only speculate...Alls I know is that there are Decisions...Decisions....Decisions to be made.

Sickness

2006-03-07T21:25:00.000+11:00

I am sick! Perhaps sick and tired. I left work early this morning due to sickness. It was a tremendous struggle leaving, somehow I was minimizing the way I felt, trying to pass it off as a figment of my imagination. Maybe it was in some sense, perhaps I created the sickness by staying up late....not getting enough sleep, some of it due to my obsession with being online and some of it due to insomnia....eventuating in immune deficiency. Perhaps I needed a day off to recoup some energy....the Sandman collecting his debt! I felt guilty by going home early...for some reason I suffer from martyrdom....that I need to suffer without complaint. I don't know why I'm rambling about this....I haven't had a day off sick for probably six months so it isn't like I take advantage of the sick leave privilege...I try and be a good boy....I feel guilty even when I am at work...I am always pulling out the whip and berating myself for not performing to the best of my ability, especially when I am sort of bludging....when I know I could be working at greater speed....I sometimes think I ought to be far more mechanistic...robotic...it's the way I feel...that I am a machine. A machine with feelings....I forget that I am human and can only do what I can do. I don't know where this work ethic has been derived...there was a time when I didn't think twice about having a day off sick even when I wasn't sick. Perhaps I've matured (hmmm!)...or I've become a part of the machine and my loyalties have been manipulated to the betterment of society (hmmm...even more doubtful!)

I want to be beyond the human condition...I don't want to feel for the most part. I want to be a machine...to not get muddled with emotion, which seems so futile considering it is what defines humanity...emotion. To be entirely honest I am unhappy with my current employment situation (I seem to be like a broken record...I apologize), which adds to the sense that I am not performing to a level which has essentially been set by my inner critic (therefore is it reasonable?), because I find the work boring thus creating a meandering of focus so to speak. It isn't like I'm not getting the work done (although today is an exception)....it is rather that it is getting done at a slower pace than what I can muster at this present juncture. It becomes apparent then that feeling gets in the way. Because I feel unhappy...or bored...attention and focus begins to waver thus the pace slows. I'm not doing myself any favours by being so self deprecating however there is some truth in my analysis. What I hope to achieve by such a critical approach is yet to be seen...except to possibly make myself more sick.

Anyways alls I can do is take one day as it comes...I have updated my CV and placed it on an employment site....perhaps the thing I need, to be re-acquainted with some new enthusiasm, is to change my environment. Have to wait and see. As they say...patience is a virtue!

Friday Malaise

2006-03-03T22:39:00.000+11:00

Fridays...you know I have always had this pecuilar sense that the word Friday is wrong, that somehow it just doesn't look right. I guess it can be attributed to a bizarre off tap de-ja-vu sensation, if that makes sense. Perhaps it is my malaise. A maladjusted vision. An inability to see the things others take for granted. I am making absolutely no sense....I can see it...clearly! When someone says clearly, then it is a certainty that things are not clear. Same goes for certainty. Thus one can safely assume that nothing is certain or clear. It all comes back to that word...Friday.....Why it bothers me so is unclear. Is it the sound? Or is it the spelling? Perhaps it is language in general. Linguistics is a strange thing. How did language evolve? Why are things attached to a sound...is language a mathematical symbol? Why do we place such importance to a word? Why am I even asking these questions? Silence can be sacred. Perhaps I ought to aspire to that sacred state now. I can meditate over the word Friday and perhaps the meaning behind my vacant vexation will become apparent.

Let me know if you have any theories about why Friday seems to be so evasive to my comprehension. Even if that means I must admit I am stupid. Stupid I can live with. Like they say....keep it simple stupid..(KISS)

Kickin against the (insert)

2006-03-01T22:45:00.000+11:00

I'm essentially going against the grain when I ought to be going with the flow. My performance appraisal has yet to occur, which has left me to ponder whether I really should be playing the "company man" when it is fairly evident that I am not at all important when it comes to priorties. Are people not the greatest asset, or is that just stupid ideology? My heart is telling me to rebel in all areas of my life and not just in the work environment. I'd be lying if I said I was happy....it is more than just general neurosis, which I am prone to, I need to take flight. I am becoming more convinced as time advances that my calling in life isn't to be seated at a chair nutting out the intricacies of reinforcing steel in slabs of concrete. I am fed up with the shite...day in...day out.....the sameness of the grey. I now have a clearer understanding of what my piece of prose entitled The Grey is about. I have come to realize that it is indeed about concrete....that grey material which is sending me to despair, causing me to recoil in disgust at the enslavement I feel I am chained to.

Is there a way out of the grey?