I'm a "sort of" member of an "intentional community" currently finding its way in Second Life. I am not really a full member as such as I deliberately stay on the side-lines, preferring not to get just "too" involved.
The community is experimenting in creating a virtual "tribe" of people who 1) want to live sustainably 2) want to build lasting commitments to people they love 3) want to practice 'Love, Conversation & Community'. I've been a full member of a very Intentional Community all my life... that being the Christian Church! Yes! That "silly old fashioned bunch of crackpots" called The Church IS an IC! A common purpose and a REASON to be together far beyond ourselves. The IC in Second Life has too many ideas, more rules than most churches and a lot of really different purposes for existing.
The Second Life IC a bit of a Utopian idea really and I admit to be more than a little sceptical as to its success. People tend to gather for strange reasons and this community is attracting diverse cultures from all corners of the globe, stretching the boundaries of such prosaic things as meeting times and authoritarian concepts. It's muddy, murky, silly, strange and kinda beautiful when you watch from slightly afar. I love the people...well most of 'em, but I shake my head and smile to myself a lot. I guess that makes me more arrogant than most of them put together. I must amend this haughty air I know!
Whilst I personally believe the IC, I'm toe-dipping into, is deeply flawed and will most likely fail in its purpose and goals... I watched an episode of "The Long Way Down" tonight on SBS Television.
Watching the 8 blokes all attempting to get along through some rather tricky goals was quite enlightening. This WAS an Intentional Community albeit not a permanent one! Eight very different men (and some girls behind the scenes too mind you), one vision, a unified team!
I've been musing this evening quietly in the back of my mind as I attend to other duties, wondering what it is about this IC that is so different from the one being attempted in SL.
I'm still at a bit of a loss but my hunch is that it's to do with Shared Purpose. There are no hidden agenda's, no personal ego's getting in the way, no misunderstanding each other and so on. Just one clear, unequivocal REASON for them to be together, learning how to get along to make a collective vision happen.
It's quite, quite different to the Second Life IC I'm currently watching from the edges. There is no real purpose to the group...not a definitive one that everyone clearly understands anyway. There is too much shoving and jockeying for authority among certain members and a LOT of general misunderstanding of the platform of SL itself as in its social dynamics and the reason people use it.
Now of course, a lot of this is my personal observations and it may well be that the SL/IC will be a rip roaring success despite its early birthing hurdles and I'll have to eat my arrogant hat for saying all this stuff. Honestly? I don't see a lot of success in the IC wind for this puppy. It will be nice to be wrong about that!
'The Long way down' is different I think. Very different in that this collective bunch of blokes that rarely have anything much to do with each other for the most part, who all come from different corners of the globe, who are all intrinsically different temperaments, they all seem to share a singular vision that is, well...pretty much identical for all of them.
The vision is to get Ewan and Charley to ride their motorbikes from the top of Scotland all the way down to Johannesburg in South Africa. That's it! That is THE purpose. It's clear. It's precise. It's do'able (they hope). It requires leadership but no actual defined "Boss" so there is no jockeying for a position. Everyone has a specific purpose on the team aligned with their specific skill set. Yes! All the various ego's are sometimes in conflict but they get over it and keep going and get along. They have a reason to BE together and because of that reason, they're learning to care about each other a very, very, very great deal!
SBS TV is televising the Long Way Down series on Wednesday evenings Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time at 20:30. You can watch entire episodes on the web each week after the show has aired on TV here. Just click the tab that says "Watch Full Episodes"
I highly recommend it. They squeeze an awful lot into each epi...and it can seem a little bit light on occasionally I'll admit. Still, tonight's episode (no. 3), really highlighted the commitment and camaraderie of this particular 'Intentional Community' very clearly for me.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 1
Pain seared the spot between her eyes where no one could see. It was as hot and as sharp as if a poker had stoked her brain instead of fire. She longed to be able to weep for in the weeping, it might be cooled. She could not.
Ariadne reached into her bag and scrimmaged about for the small bottle of tears she kept with her at all times. In the autopilot of long habit, she twisted off the cap, holding it between thumb and palm while tipping back her head and dropping two small drops of liquid into each eye. The cold shocked her dry eyeballs, bringing the familiar sting as the salty solution cleansed and moistened them. To cry would be a much better option and this was as good as it was ever going to get for the girl.
She looked across the table where she and a small band of other mutants sat in silence considering each mouthful of the meal they'd been given. Ariadne looked almost normal in comparison to the array of slightly misaligned human test cases. She considered them more human than most. For all their mutantcy they had the familiar idiosyncratic tendencies of most human beings - the desire for unconditional love, connection, happiness, prosperity and power. None of them was any less normal in that regard than those who considered themselves more human.
They had no parents, these kids. They'd been grown in petri dishes and test tubes. They were a new kind of genetic modification organism, bred to specifically help normal humans - who obviously weren't mutants - live forever. Ariadne had been bred in such a way that her gene for the ability to cry had been turned off. She could not shed tears in enough quantity to weep. The barest amount of fluid escaped what tear ducts she possessed and because she was pretty and apparently physically normal in all other respects, and because she was quite good at intuiting what other people were thinking, they'd given her the eye drops to keep her eyes moistened instead of "re-integrating" her cells into yet another crop of Ariadne's who couldn't cry.
…to be continued. (I hope)
Ariadne reached into her bag and scrimmaged about for the small bottle of tears she kept with her at all times. In the autopilot of long habit, she twisted off the cap, holding it between thumb and palm while tipping back her head and dropping two small drops of liquid into each eye. The cold shocked her dry eyeballs, bringing the familiar sting as the salty solution cleansed and moistened them. To cry would be a much better option and this was as good as it was ever going to get for the girl.
She looked across the table where she and a small band of other mutants sat in silence considering each mouthful of the meal they'd been given. Ariadne looked almost normal in comparison to the array of slightly misaligned human test cases. She considered them more human than most. For all their mutantcy they had the familiar idiosyncratic tendencies of most human beings - the desire for unconditional love, connection, happiness, prosperity and power. None of them was any less normal in that regard than those who considered themselves more human.
They had no parents, these kids. They'd been grown in petri dishes and test tubes. They were a new kind of genetic modification organism, bred to specifically help normal humans - who obviously weren't mutants - live forever. Ariadne had been bred in such a way that her gene for the ability to cry had been turned off. She could not shed tears in enough quantity to weep. The barest amount of fluid escaped what tear ducts she possessed and because she was pretty and apparently physically normal in all other respects, and because she was quite good at intuiting what other people were thinking, they'd given her the eye drops to keep her eyes moistened instead of "re-integrating" her cells into yet another crop of Ariadne's who couldn't cry.
…to be continued. (I hope)
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Dreams et al
What are your dreams?
You know? The disembodied visions sequestered inside your cortex responsible for imagination and emotion? I don't mean the dreams of your subconcious as you sleep as such, but the imaginative aspirations you place far beyond capability and possibility in your life. The kind of imagination that builds a story about what you'd love to do with your life and which makes you feel a certain way. Do you feel wistful about that story? Do you feel uncertain? Sceptical? Content? Energised?
My own dreams are wafty, uncertain musings I tend to compartmentalise into the "Never-gonna-happen" bin from the file "No Way THAT's possible!" What I dream about makes me feel a complimentary mix of wistful bliss and baleful regret that it could "never" be reality.
We are told to take hold of our dreams and make them come true; that the aspect of true success is the fruit of our proactive creating the life we want and the living out of our dreams. If we aspire to write that glorious novel, the one that changes "everything" for the next 100 years of human history; the Classic that stands the test of time long after we're gone etc. Or, the dream of travelling the world and filling our life's plate with a taste of the colours, cultures, sounds and smells vastly different to our experience thus far. Or, the dream of meeting the one person who truly "gets" you and with whom you do not need to be anything other than entirely your truest self. Or, the dream of opening a restaurant, a business, a bank, creating a really nifty gadget that doesn't yet exist... we should simply begin to do so.
The list of dreams is as endless as the sea of humanity.
There are some people in the world who know exactly what they want, why they are here and where they're going and what they want to leave behind. They do not quibble - as I do in this blog far too often - about the vicissitudes of establishing their dreams in reality, they merely begin the first step and with jaw set and chin pointed forward, they march straight towards their North. They fall down, they get up again and they do not meander even when life forces them to. They categorically refuse to be denied the evidence of their dreams, made physically manifest through the genius of perspiration and the kicker bit of inspiration they started with.
What do I want?
For this past year, I've asked myself this question over and over and over again until my whole body wants to burst with the frustration of having to answer it.
I still do not know! Other than wealth in abundance so I don't have to think about budgets and being financially scrooge'ish towards others, I really don't know what I want to do that I CAN do as easily as breathing without over thinking it and with utter pleasure in the process rather than fear of never achieving the final result.
This isn't supposed to be a struggle, it's supposed to be incredibly simple. Those people I mentioned before simply dream and do, they don't vacillate and moan about the improbabilities of achievement or of not succeeding in their hopeful aspirations. I do though.
My natural inclination is to do what I want to do. If I want something I generally make an effort to achieve it so long as I don't try and turn it into a fantasy inside my head! However there is a very strong genetic restraint I inherited from my mother (and to some extent my father too), which says that I CANNOT achieve what I would like to achieve in living out my fantastical dreams, simply because if I happen to succeed at it...I'll have to work harder, longer, better and more frentically to keep up the pace. It's a law of perfection that effectively stops you producing a dream to reality in the very first moment of your dreaming. It says that fail or succeed...you cannot really hope to match this perfect illusion you have inside your head. Yes! I know it makes your heart tick with pleasure but remember you're "only" human and you are sooooo NOT that clever and this will be incredibly difficult work and if you happen to be good at it...it will turn out to be very bad for you in the long run.
Since the age of about 17 when I first read "Out of the Silence" by Earle Cox, I have wanted to turn it into a rollicking 'Hollywood Blockbuster' screenplay. That has probably been the longest held dream I have to date.
To this day I often think wistfully on this dream and sigh ruefully that I "can never" actually write this old Sci-fi story into a "fabulous" screenplay. I don't have the balls! As soon as I think about transferring this dream across to actual gritty reality with the determination to make it come true - the beautiful sheen on that dream becomes a mere fantasy and an impossibility.
It's not that I can't write it...I probably could, probably really badly - it is however that I can't write it because I fear I will lose the ability to keep the dream alive. Once outside of me, it is not a dream anymore, it becomes a duty, an obligation I must fulfill and I am so lazy it's just "not possible" to do it justice. When I get bored with going uphill on anything, I lose focus and simply let the ambition die. If it stays a dream I am the only one who will regret never bringing it to fruition, no one else needs to be disappointed in me!
For the past few years I've harboured ambitions to be my area's first Professional Organiser. Helping people get their stuff and their lives decluttered, sorted, stored properly and their spaces opened up so their minds are free to finally play instead of feeling guilty and trapped by their crap. I have wanted to help people be free of the junk (and recognise what IS junk too), and liberate them to orderly and functional, organised lives. I've dabbled a little bit at seeing if this dream could even remotely be viable. I still don't really know. Some would suggest I dump it as "No one in this town will pay for that kind of service!". Others, like my mother would, in the gentlest possible, non-direct way, openly disparage the idea as a mere fantasy and that I could never hope to achieve such a glorified position in life! I kick myself for aspiring to this notion when I see the clutter that follows my own family's wake!
Dreams "Cannot Happen" is my psychological wiring. Logically, I realise that I have the power within to change this attitude and response to dreams. Practically, I do not have the skills - at least not right now.
I don't know what I truly want enough that not doing it would make me unhappier than the process of actually doing it.
When I figure that out, a lot of this current angst should dissipate into the ether. I hope.
You know? The disembodied visions sequestered inside your cortex responsible for imagination and emotion? I don't mean the dreams of your subconcious as you sleep as such, but the imaginative aspirations you place far beyond capability and possibility in your life. The kind of imagination that builds a story about what you'd love to do with your life and which makes you feel a certain way. Do you feel wistful about that story? Do you feel uncertain? Sceptical? Content? Energised?
My own dreams are wafty, uncertain musings I tend to compartmentalise into the "Never-gonna-happen" bin from the file "No Way THAT's possible!" What I dream about makes me feel a complimentary mix of wistful bliss and baleful regret that it could "never" be reality.
We are told to take hold of our dreams and make them come true; that the aspect of true success is the fruit of our proactive creating the life we want and the living out of our dreams. If we aspire to write that glorious novel, the one that changes "everything" for the next 100 years of human history; the Classic that stands the test of time long after we're gone etc. Or, the dream of travelling the world and filling our life's plate with a taste of the colours, cultures, sounds and smells vastly different to our experience thus far. Or, the dream of meeting the one person who truly "gets" you and with whom you do not need to be anything other than entirely your truest self. Or, the dream of opening a restaurant, a business, a bank, creating a really nifty gadget that doesn't yet exist... we should simply begin to do so.
The list of dreams is as endless as the sea of humanity.
There are some people in the world who know exactly what they want, why they are here and where they're going and what they want to leave behind. They do not quibble - as I do in this blog far too often - about the vicissitudes of establishing their dreams in reality, they merely begin the first step and with jaw set and chin pointed forward, they march straight towards their North. They fall down, they get up again and they do not meander even when life forces them to. They categorically refuse to be denied the evidence of their dreams, made physically manifest through the genius of perspiration and the kicker bit of inspiration they started with.
What do I want?
For this past year, I've asked myself this question over and over and over again until my whole body wants to burst with the frustration of having to answer it.
I still do not know! Other than wealth in abundance so I don't have to think about budgets and being financially scrooge'ish towards others, I really don't know what I want to do that I CAN do as easily as breathing without over thinking it and with utter pleasure in the process rather than fear of never achieving the final result.
This isn't supposed to be a struggle, it's supposed to be incredibly simple. Those people I mentioned before simply dream and do, they don't vacillate and moan about the improbabilities of achievement or of not succeeding in their hopeful aspirations. I do though.
My natural inclination is to do what I want to do. If I want something I generally make an effort to achieve it so long as I don't try and turn it into a fantasy inside my head! However there is a very strong genetic restraint I inherited from my mother (and to some extent my father too), which says that I CANNOT achieve what I would like to achieve in living out my fantastical dreams, simply because if I happen to succeed at it...I'll have to work harder, longer, better and more frentically to keep up the pace. It's a law of perfection that effectively stops you producing a dream to reality in the very first moment of your dreaming. It says that fail or succeed...you cannot really hope to match this perfect illusion you have inside your head. Yes! I know it makes your heart tick with pleasure but remember you're "only" human and you are sooooo NOT that clever and this will be incredibly difficult work and if you happen to be good at it...it will turn out to be very bad for you in the long run.
Since the age of about 17 when I first read "Out of the Silence" by Earle Cox, I have wanted to turn it into a rollicking 'Hollywood Blockbuster' screenplay. That has probably been the longest held dream I have to date.
To this day I often think wistfully on this dream and sigh ruefully that I "can never" actually write this old Sci-fi story into a "fabulous" screenplay. I don't have the balls! As soon as I think about transferring this dream across to actual gritty reality with the determination to make it come true - the beautiful sheen on that dream becomes a mere fantasy and an impossibility.
It's not that I can't write it...I probably could, probably really badly - it is however that I can't write it because I fear I will lose the ability to keep the dream alive. Once outside of me, it is not a dream anymore, it becomes a duty, an obligation I must fulfill and I am so lazy it's just "not possible" to do it justice. When I get bored with going uphill on anything, I lose focus and simply let the ambition die. If it stays a dream I am the only one who will regret never bringing it to fruition, no one else needs to be disappointed in me!
For the past few years I've harboured ambitions to be my area's first Professional Organiser. Helping people get their stuff and their lives decluttered, sorted, stored properly and their spaces opened up so their minds are free to finally play instead of feeling guilty and trapped by their crap. I have wanted to help people be free of the junk (and recognise what IS junk too), and liberate them to orderly and functional, organised lives. I've dabbled a little bit at seeing if this dream could even remotely be viable. I still don't really know. Some would suggest I dump it as "No one in this town will pay for that kind of service!". Others, like my mother would, in the gentlest possible, non-direct way, openly disparage the idea as a mere fantasy and that I could never hope to achieve such a glorified position in life! I kick myself for aspiring to this notion when I see the clutter that follows my own family's wake!
Dreams "Cannot Happen" is my psychological wiring. Logically, I realise that I have the power within to change this attitude and response to dreams. Practically, I do not have the skills - at least not right now.
I don't know what I truly want enough that not doing it would make me unhappier than the process of actually doing it.
When I figure that out, a lot of this current angst should dissipate into the ether. I hope.
Friday, December 12, 2008
The Long View of Moving it
The Long Now has this wee little post there this morning that on first glance doesn't appear to be "much".
It's a simple post asking us to consider updating the storage of our digital data as regularly as every 5 years to new storage formats.
It's a valid point.
In this age of instant access to everything, information is becoming as transitory and as ephemeral as mists across mountains. Nothing we think we are keeping for prosperity is likely to last as much as we hope it would and expect it will.
Since I was a little girl, I've always had a very long term view about my writing. Even when I was little I can remember the strong will and urge deep within to write "something" that could perhaps be seen by those that came long after me. When I was in my late teens, I began keeping "Mood Journals" which in hindsight were an early version of paper blogging. My Journals were not standard "I did this and this today" diaries as were usually kept by girls my age. They were flexible, mutable documents of my moods, feelings, aspirations, creative writings and memories. Very much like this blog I write now.
The paper books I wrote my angst and thoughts into back then have survived over 25+ years! I can still access them and read them at leisure. I haven't lost my poems of that time, or the stories. It's all still there, readable and accessible.
When I lost my hard-drive in this lap top earlier this year and could not retrieve the data I had accumulated in the year prior to that, I lost a very large number of photo's, writings, ideas half formulated and documentation I cannot replace and never will. It's gone.
My sister and brother-in-law recently had to spend a very large sum of money on having thousands of family photo's from when their children were very little, retrieved when their computer "died".
The human response to tech is that it is "permanent", that the new inventions, which promise so much, will remain long after ourselves. It's an assumption that these digital space-age devices which seem so inherently simple and usable to us, will be the same for many to come after us. Not so!
As people change, so does the tech they use. What we think is about as good as it gets, changes in about 5 to 15 years to something "better" or "worse". It's change and change is here to stay.
History is important to the human psyche. We long to know where we have been, how far we've come, what our forebears thought and did. We long to be surprised by the ingenuity of our ancestors - that "Gee Whiz" component of amazement that they could survive and flourish in such "primitive" circumstances! It gives us hope of our own survival and ability to progress forward to what may come. History anchors us and helps us learn - well, hopefully it does.
Much of our social history will be lost within as little as 50 years if we assume we can keep it on the data storage devices we use now indefinitely. We can't and we won't. The Long Now post I linked to in the title is an important reminder that if we wish to keep the NOW we are living alive for the THEN of our children' children - we need to be proactive about moving our images, stories, writings, thinking, ideas and accounts of our events into the new storage devices to come.
Remember this so that those who come after us remember us.
It's a simple post asking us to consider updating the storage of our digital data as regularly as every 5 years to new storage formats.
It's a valid point.
In this age of instant access to everything, information is becoming as transitory and as ephemeral as mists across mountains. Nothing we think we are keeping for prosperity is likely to last as much as we hope it would and expect it will.
Since I was a little girl, I've always had a very long term view about my writing. Even when I was little I can remember the strong will and urge deep within to write "something" that could perhaps be seen by those that came long after me. When I was in my late teens, I began keeping "Mood Journals" which in hindsight were an early version of paper blogging. My Journals were not standard "I did this and this today" diaries as were usually kept by girls my age. They were flexible, mutable documents of my moods, feelings, aspirations, creative writings and memories. Very much like this blog I write now.
The paper books I wrote my angst and thoughts into back then have survived over 25+ years! I can still access them and read them at leisure. I haven't lost my poems of that time, or the stories. It's all still there, readable and accessible.
When I lost my hard-drive in this lap top earlier this year and could not retrieve the data I had accumulated in the year prior to that, I lost a very large number of photo's, writings, ideas half formulated and documentation I cannot replace and never will. It's gone.
My sister and brother-in-law recently had to spend a very large sum of money on having thousands of family photo's from when their children were very little, retrieved when their computer "died".
The human response to tech is that it is "permanent", that the new inventions, which promise so much, will remain long after ourselves. It's an assumption that these digital space-age devices which seem so inherently simple and usable to us, will be the same for many to come after us. Not so!
As people change, so does the tech they use. What we think is about as good as it gets, changes in about 5 to 15 years to something "better" or "worse". It's change and change is here to stay.
History is important to the human psyche. We long to know where we have been, how far we've come, what our forebears thought and did. We long to be surprised by the ingenuity of our ancestors - that "Gee Whiz" component of amazement that they could survive and flourish in such "primitive" circumstances! It gives us hope of our own survival and ability to progress forward to what may come. History anchors us and helps us learn - well, hopefully it does.
Much of our social history will be lost within as little as 50 years if we assume we can keep it on the data storage devices we use now indefinitely. We can't and we won't. The Long Now post I linked to in the title is an important reminder that if we wish to keep the NOW we are living alive for the THEN of our children' children - we need to be proactive about moving our images, stories, writings, thinking, ideas and accounts of our events into the new storage devices to come.
Remember this so that those who come after us remember us.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Creating something that lasts
Steve has written one of his usual counter-culture blog posts on the nature of work and how we can approach it - or not.
I read this post this morning after I'd posted my own deeply disturbed (and perhaps disturbing) feelings today on being long-term unemployed. I strive after paid work because it's what I know and understand. Steve's approach is so alien to my thinking and style it leaves me gasping!
Of course, the way he writes it makes it sound so easy! "Just" create something of value and deliver it!
I shake my head in abject confusion.
I STILL don't know what it is I'm actually good at! I still don't really know what my passion, and what I truly love to do, is, apart from writing here in this rather pitiful forum. I am at a complete loss as to what I really want to do with this life I've been given.
Create something of value huh? What the hell would that be perchance?
My head has been spinning with this conundrum all afternoon. Maybe I'm over thinking it perhaps. There is definitely something amiss in how I am approaching all this career stuff of late.
I shall find my way... my machete is hacking away at this forest of confusion and lack of direction to make a path of some kind. Thing is...I think I currently can't think far enough outside of this jungle to make sense of trying things I've never tried before let alone thought about!
If only there was a clear sign I could see ahead that I can cross-reference against a map! Do I even have the map up the right way though? Today it seems like it's in a foreign language.
Create and Deliver Value!
Who am I? What am I here for? Where am I going? Why? And who for? Do they even care? Do I?
It's supposed to be easier than this yeah Steve? "Just" do what I love and let the money come? Right! Right!
I read this post this morning after I'd posted my own deeply disturbed (and perhaps disturbing) feelings today on being long-term unemployed. I strive after paid work because it's what I know and understand. Steve's approach is so alien to my thinking and style it leaves me gasping!
Of course, the way he writes it makes it sound so easy! "Just" create something of value and deliver it!
I shake my head in abject confusion.
I STILL don't know what it is I'm actually good at! I still don't really know what my passion, and what I truly love to do, is, apart from writing here in this rather pitiful forum. I am at a complete loss as to what I really want to do with this life I've been given.
Create something of value huh? What the hell would that be perchance?
My head has been spinning with this conundrum all afternoon. Maybe I'm over thinking it perhaps. There is definitely something amiss in how I am approaching all this career stuff of late.
I shall find my way... my machete is hacking away at this forest of confusion and lack of direction to make a path of some kind. Thing is...I think I currently can't think far enough outside of this jungle to make sense of trying things I've never tried before let alone thought about!
If only there was a clear sign I could see ahead that I can cross-reference against a map! Do I even have the map up the right way though? Today it seems like it's in a foreign language.
Create and Deliver Value!
Who am I? What am I here for? Where am I going? Why? And who for? Do they even care? Do I?
It's supposed to be easier than this yeah Steve? "Just" do what I love and let the money come? Right! Right!
Control and the removal of rugs
Five weeks almost. Five weeks of being in a state of limbo so deflating and dehumanising, I am losing the urge to create the momentum to keep going.
The motel where I was working casually as a cleaner has all but given up calling me for work. It seems I was too much of a cost liability. Because I was open and honest with them about my desire for full time stable work and because my Government welfare payments demand that I apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs a fortnight, the motel reasoned - fairly - that it would be pointless to train me to any standard as a casual cleaner because I would be likely to leave as soon as I had full time work!
It is a fair assessment of my situation. I quite liked the work at the motel on the whole although I seem to find it very difficult to fit in with already well established teams of females! That would be my problem though, not theirs. I tend to feel the undercurrents of mistrust and caution in others so acutely it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was slowly getting better and covering the minute details of the work, noticing marks on mirrors missed and the errant hair on the floor etc.
But all this is moot now. They had promised to train me for the office but I still have not been called in for training even though I have rung them to ask.
This past five weeks of needing to do a minimum of 30 hours work a fortnight - and not being able to - and apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs as well (at least I have been able to do that) to justify my government payments so I can house and feed my children, is getting me down now.
I woke up late this morning. Not long ago, I was an early riser and proud of it. I used to regularly rise between 0500 and 0630 in my mornings and get things done before the day really kicked into gear. This past three weeks at least, I find myself drifting in the behavioural patterns of those who have given up caring! I got up at 0900 this morning! Which I deem abhorrent in my personal scale of responsibility and ethical control of ones person!
The will to keep positive and upbeat, to be proactive and determined about my life at the moment is drowning under an emotional ocean of Blue. I feel unwanted, unemployable, unattractive and unneeded. It is even difficult to find enough voluntary work that will be acceptable for justifying my payments.
Right now, it feels like I'm in this hole and I cannot see the rope or how to climb out. All I want to do is sit down in the bottom here and focus on the computer screen and write. The ironic twist in this sordid self-pity is that my creative output seems to be double the usual for me. The need to express things in words is bordering on volcanic. My brain is spewing forth words in convoluted ways as if in desperation to string something of worth together when all else is falling apart.
Long term unemployment feels like losing ones religion. The hope you aspired to so valiantly and confidently is needled apart until the knots at the edges of your soul tapestry undo and the image of your most treasured beliefs and dreams frays. The more you try to redo the knots - the more the canvas repels your efforts. You simply give up and live with the fraying edges of life because it feels like it doesn't matter anyway.
I used to be a proactive, organised woman. I kept lists and I got things done efficiently and there was not much that crossed my desk that did not get processed and filtered through its required steps. I've lost much of that drive this past year. The energy and the will to create order in my life is so very muted. Today it feels like it is in its death throes. I feel burdened by the guilt of not being able to achieve something useful. I have been rejected by all of the jobs I deeply believed I wanted. I don't know why.
Monday I begin cleaning a house. Perhaps that will lead to other houses to clean. I can barely clean my own right now. I am so worried about not working right now and I am deeply frustrated I can't fulfill my obligations for my payments - I will probably have to pay back this past months income for not following through on my agreements.
My soul is ambiguous about it. I wanted so much to be something "more" than a mere cleaner. There is a deeply rooted prejudice in me that cleaners are people who are not intelligent enough to work in offices. This belief is in error but I hold it nonetheless. For me...cleaning is a menial job of the dumb! I wanted a grand office job! I had visions of being neatly attired and efficiently typing documentation and forwarding important phonecalls to important people in next door office rooms. I could see myself happily filing papers in vast walls of filing cabinets and taking down the disjointed notes of some hapless VIP on the Dictaphone, making sense of them for him and creating worthy important papers that in some small way made a difference.
Now I clean houses like a servant. I understand logically that my thinking is flawed in this. It does not negate the impact to my spirit. The core of what I believed about myself is being shaken and the various rugs I wanted to control are being removed from under my prejudiced feet.
Maybe this is will be my lesson.
The motel where I was working casually as a cleaner has all but given up calling me for work. It seems I was too much of a cost liability. Because I was open and honest with them about my desire for full time stable work and because my Government welfare payments demand that I apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs a fortnight, the motel reasoned - fairly - that it would be pointless to train me to any standard as a casual cleaner because I would be likely to leave as soon as I had full time work!
It is a fair assessment of my situation. I quite liked the work at the motel on the whole although I seem to find it very difficult to fit in with already well established teams of females! That would be my problem though, not theirs. I tend to feel the undercurrents of mistrust and caution in others so acutely it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was slowly getting better and covering the minute details of the work, noticing marks on mirrors missed and the errant hair on the floor etc.
But all this is moot now. They had promised to train me for the office but I still have not been called in for training even though I have rung them to ask.
This past five weeks of needing to do a minimum of 30 hours work a fortnight - and not being able to - and apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs as well (at least I have been able to do that) to justify my government payments so I can house and feed my children, is getting me down now.
I woke up late this morning. Not long ago, I was an early riser and proud of it. I used to regularly rise between 0500 and 0630 in my mornings and get things done before the day really kicked into gear. This past three weeks at least, I find myself drifting in the behavioural patterns of those who have given up caring! I got up at 0900 this morning! Which I deem abhorrent in my personal scale of responsibility and ethical control of ones person!
The will to keep positive and upbeat, to be proactive and determined about my life at the moment is drowning under an emotional ocean of Blue. I feel unwanted, unemployable, unattractive and unneeded. It is even difficult to find enough voluntary work that will be acceptable for justifying my payments.
Right now, it feels like I'm in this hole and I cannot see the rope or how to climb out. All I want to do is sit down in the bottom here and focus on the computer screen and write. The ironic twist in this sordid self-pity is that my creative output seems to be double the usual for me. The need to express things in words is bordering on volcanic. My brain is spewing forth words in convoluted ways as if in desperation to string something of worth together when all else is falling apart.
Long term unemployment feels like losing ones religion. The hope you aspired to so valiantly and confidently is needled apart until the knots at the edges of your soul tapestry undo and the image of your most treasured beliefs and dreams frays. The more you try to redo the knots - the more the canvas repels your efforts. You simply give up and live with the fraying edges of life because it feels like it doesn't matter anyway.
I used to be a proactive, organised woman. I kept lists and I got things done efficiently and there was not much that crossed my desk that did not get processed and filtered through its required steps. I've lost much of that drive this past year. The energy and the will to create order in my life is so very muted. Today it feels like it is in its death throes. I feel burdened by the guilt of not being able to achieve something useful. I have been rejected by all of the jobs I deeply believed I wanted. I don't know why.
Monday I begin cleaning a house. Perhaps that will lead to other houses to clean. I can barely clean my own right now. I am so worried about not working right now and I am deeply frustrated I can't fulfill my obligations for my payments - I will probably have to pay back this past months income for not following through on my agreements.
My soul is ambiguous about it. I wanted so much to be something "more" than a mere cleaner. There is a deeply rooted prejudice in me that cleaners are people who are not intelligent enough to work in offices. This belief is in error but I hold it nonetheless. For me...cleaning is a menial job of the dumb! I wanted a grand office job! I had visions of being neatly attired and efficiently typing documentation and forwarding important phonecalls to important people in next door office rooms. I could see myself happily filing papers in vast walls of filing cabinets and taking down the disjointed notes of some hapless VIP on the Dictaphone, making sense of them for him and creating worthy important papers that in some small way made a difference.
Now I clean houses like a servant. I understand logically that my thinking is flawed in this. It does not negate the impact to my spirit. The core of what I believed about myself is being shaken and the various rugs I wanted to control are being removed from under my prejudiced feet.
Maybe this is will be my lesson.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Walk
I go to my wardrobe and extricate my Asics with the expensive orthotic inserts that re-align my feet to the approved bio-metric stance for optimum performance and health. I tie the laces perfunctorily not really noticing as already, my mind is in escape mode...musing on the possibilities it will heretofore cogitate on during the journey I am about to commence.
I go to the drawer and take out the pedometer and open its face and check the time and reset the step counter. I look at the ipod and consider if I desire music for this walk. My mind says "No!" it wants to muse. I leave the ipod in the drawer and it seems to be pleading with me, casting a sort of emotional blackmail pall - of some significance - as it peers up at me with its blank square eye. I am strong. I ignore the ipods plea for attention and close the drawer. "Maybe next time" I promise valiantly, knowing full well that my mind is stronger and its need for the drug of fantasy more persistent.
I decide on the weather and the appropriate apparel. This is always the most difficult decision to make before a walk. Is the weather going to play tricksy with me, appearing to be calm and mild, only to have me sweating and overheated after an hours walking? Will the weather seem quite warm, only to have a blisteringly cold southerly whip up across what water there is left in the river to chill my skin and raise the hairs on my body so I appear to be wearing the lumped skin of a plucked chicken? Layers are usually the answer. A light jacket I can remove with arms long enough to tie around my waist if needs be.
I snib the front door behind me as I leave. My daughter has commandeered the laptop and is on Myspace uploading photos, chatting in MSN and listening to endless repetitions of "Black and Gold", she doesn't hear me when I yell down the passage,"Would you do the dishes and feed Sevvie while I'm gone!" I know that when I come home, the kitten will still be unfed and the kitchen still in disarray. I never learn this about my daughter. She never understands my frustration about the house being "tidy".
I step out of the front door and close it quickly behind me before the kitten has a chance to experience the wide open spaces beyond the home she has been growing to know these past four weeks. I have decided that this cat will be a permanently indoor cat. It's my token gesture to being environmentally friendly to the delightful and colourful native bird population that visit my back yard.
I walk the few steps to the edge of the cement portico and then down the single step to the driveway of our home. I walk to the white letterbox with its flip top lid and check inside for mail. There are letters. I return up the driveway, cursing that I really should have checked the mail earlier in my day instead of now when my mind is eager to indulge the blissful fantasies and possibilities of the Unreal. I shove the mail under the front door mat so I don't forget to notice it when I arrive back home, turn on my heel and re-establish my direction.
My feet know this route now, they tread it purposefully and decisively. My mind eagerly grinds its gears into position for thought. It takes time for my mind to work itself into the grooves of fantastical thought. When my feet walk through the suburban streets it feels as if I am in "neutral", in a purgatory-like space entitled 'Between'.
Once I cross the road that follows the river, now drying again to its sandy floor, my mind begins to slowly form the thoughts it wishes to muse upon for the duration of my walk.
Today my thoughts lead me into the realms of my current unemployment. Career! My mind wishes to muse upon career. What do I want to work in? Where do I want to work? Bring me the work that is right for me! My mind stretches its formidable power of concentration over this topic.
And in that moment I am split in two. The half of me that sees everything I pass by on this walk. I hear and smell, touch, taste, notice, understand, grieve, find pleasure in the physical construct of the natural world on my right and the man-made constructed world on my left. At exactly the same time as I note the angle of branches, the synchronous ducking of pelicans in the remaining river shallows, the smooth cruise of brown ducks leaving little wakes in the deeper waters behind them - at the same time I notice the path, I am musing on the possibilities and fantasies of Career.
I traverse the road with the red soil that bends and twists alongside the bend in the river. The water is slightly deeper here, the river narrower and the other side less distant. I notice the regular landmarks of the journey - the large chopped tree stump that stands precariously on poles of its own roots, like a filigree series of little stilts that seem to defy gravity. Sometimes buried under water, sometimes exposed and accessible on foot the stump is like a mysterious harbinger of a Fantasy Story waiting to be told. I promise myself to bring the digicam next time and take photo's of this naturally occurring thing with no context or description that can do it justice.
I choose to either walk the road or the foot/bike track that is directly alongside the west edge of the river. The road is not sealed. It is a either a white Koliche-like clay material, or orange and softly yielding like margarine or a burnt red and very dry. The road changes at every step. It's wide enough but it is preferred you take it slow. Water makes the different soils all soggy and slippery and the wheel ruts of vehicles melt into the surface to dry there and remain long after evidence of water from the sky is remembered. The track along the river is narrow and highlighted white or pale grey. It bends and twists and wiggles along the side of the river bank and is the preferred route for cycler's who whir their wheels along it at a furious - and potentially injurious - pace. It is best to walk the track with no music in your ears for you may not hear the cyclist behind you coming at the speed of light. I am grateful I left the ipod at home this day.
My mind is happy to muse on black thoughts. My mood and emotions reflect the purposeful striving of my thinking. My thinking responds and reacts to my moods and emotions. There is an interwoven tangle of logic and emotion, fantasy and the struggle to identify with Truth and Reality in the NOW that if drawn would appear to be like the river gums that stand as sentinels along the rivers edge. Their branches are twisted and knotted together in perverse structural sculptures only nature could have devised. There is no Celtic order or perfection to the surreal tangle of branches overhead, it is merely a conglomeration of branch, each one defying another, each one interweaving, delaying, supporting, avoiding, reaching toward another - just like my emotions and thoughts do inside my corporeal self.
The slopes of the river banks on either side become steeper. The river is at its deepest here. The water takes on the hue of the river I remember when I was much younger. The water is a muddied khaki-green, grey. It is like a camouflage suit. It is not a bright, pretty little river - never was - never will be. This river flows inland towards the heart of the country. It is dying. I can hear its death moan each time I walk beside it. It is not going out with a bang or a roar, it can barely mumble now and in its feeble hold on existence it still keeps trying to give to the land as if somehow it believes it can fulfill that purpose beyond its very life. I yearn to own such a resilient purpose.
I follow the track and note the photographs that I "could" take if I were able. I promise myself to bring the camera one more time as I stand and observe the classical white-grey of a dead eucalypt on the other side of the river bank. It lives on in death as a statue of stone, its branches stretching and weaving into the sky like the stiffened snakes on Medusa's crown. It is beautiful beyond belief - even in death.
My mind calls me back to its established purpose. I need a job! Not just "any" job. A job that has meaning, that I am good at, that I have natural affinity for. I pray for a career that is right for me with all my talents, abilities, skills, needs, goals and desires appended. It is a fantasy ask. I want to believe "my" job is there waiting for me but the cynical critique that wars endlessly with my good intentions has determined that no such thing can exist in my town and it enumerates the reasons.
The bench chair set in concrete overlooking a particularly lovely part of the river comes into view. I immediately walk to the chair and sit and I imagine my friend sitting alongside of me acting as a kind of anchor to my thinking. They play devils advocate and give voice to the parts of me that refuse to accept possibilities as being...possible! I want so much to believe in the stuff that could be possible but the seed of doubt is a trickster seed and feeds me with illusion rather than truth.
The seat has a label, a brass plate engraved with love and cherished memories. "In memory of Barry Petrie. At one with nature" and it is signed by a dear friend I know in this town. I remember Barry although I never knew him personally. He used to write natural science stories in our local paper. He was a naturalist and a raconteur. He had passion for nature and was intensely interested in protecting the river. It would break his heart to see it now. It is like the river died along with him nearly 12 years ago. I love this seat. I love this spot in front of the big river gum with its mass of tangled branch reaching out over what is left of the water. The ducks are peacefully at home here. A small black bush wallaby hops along the opposite bank and I am surprised to see it so close to town. Water is a magnet for the thirsty...body soul and spirit.
I disentangle my thoughts and get up. My legs feel stiff from sitting for this past half an hour talking with my imaginary half and trying to get clarity and coherence in this now time of life. I always find it so difficult to be in the now. My head prefers the known of past and the potential of then - it rarely perceives and identifies the now. I know I need practice in accepting Now.
I re-engage my steps homeward. I decide to take the wider road further out. It still follows the river but my concentration won't be assaulted by the forms of the river. My imaginary friend walks beside me for as far as the gravel is white, orange and when it hits red...they fade and are no more but a memory.
My mind spins convoluted hopes and dreams on top of abject despair and disappointments. I struggle to KNOW what is ahead for me. I want so much...I fear I do not deserve any of it. I am replete with thought and imagination, sensory appreciation and fantasy. I am distraught and unsettled that I cannot compose a concrete plan for my future that gives me security and is a foundation I can build on.
My steps waft back towards home arbitrarily. The light of the sun is waning and the sky is becoming a pale grey, the light diffusing into unshaded sameness. I wander across the road, turning my back against the wide part of the river that is almost waterless except for out in the middle where the pelicans roost on the central island. I feel my mind shutting down slowly. The act of walking along the footpaths of my suburban street dulls imagination and fantasy and I am left feeling like the wheels of my mind are slowing, steadily, to Stop.
I turn into the driveway at my white letterbox. I can feel the pull of exertion in my upper thighs. They've been walking, they are tired now but satisfied. I pick up the mail I left under the mat and I open the door. The cat has not been fed and the kitchen is in disarray, the same as how I left it one and half hours before. I smile. I expected this. What I expect to go "wrong" usually does occur.
What I hope to go right, I need to forget so it can surprise me... maybe.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
If nothing could stop me...I would
...
yeah? What would I do if nothing could stop me from doing it? Not the weather, other people, financial constraints, emotional issues like fear of failure or fear of success, location, children, obligations to groups and society...nothing at all?
What WOULD I really WANT to do if nothing in all creation could ever stop me from doing those things?
Asking this question generates this vast cavernous space in my being as if I just opened a door from a closed room and outside the door is the vastness and wonder of space itself with colourful nebula's spinning in the expanse of the light of a zillion stars! It's a vista of incomparable wonder and deafeningly way too awesome to comprehend in a moments viewing. I need to contemplate and sit and view and wonder and muse on it.
I need to make it all make sense first. Categorize everything under the headings. Box everything into understandable functions and subjects that can be quickly referenced as required. Encyclopedic sorting of the information is necessary to my sense of coherence. I can cross-reference the stuff in the boxes easily - no problemo! It's getting the stuff into those boxes in the first place that takes up my entire minds work in the interim.
Asking this question is like sorting out the garage. You open the door and immediately trip over the flotsam of family life; bikes, the BBQ, tool boxes, boxes of home-brewed beer bottles waiting to be filled from the still on the bench. There is rubbish, debris from past projects never finished, painted bonnets on cars your son was into air-brushing for hours three weeks ago, ropes, discarded tarps from the garage party your daughter organised three months ago...the list of piled up plans and projects dumped inside the door of the garage goes on.
You take a deep breath and you narrow the focus. You bear down on the overwhelming urge to turn and close the door again. You simply start and pick up the first thing available and take it outside. My usual strategy for "cleaning up" a mess like this is to remove EVERYTHING OUT of the space and then clean and sort what goes back into the space in a lovely orderly fashion. Once inside this process I find it enormously cathartic and good fun too - especially if I can play my music loud on the stereo as I work :)
But if NOTHING could stop me from doing what I deep down genuinely really wanted to do?
I can barely find what that is among the junk behind the door! I can barely begin to grasp the amazing and mind-blowing expanse of beautiful lit space outside that door!
Overwhelmed by this question, I want to dump this post and come back another day. Let me go sort it out... think about it... muse on it...catergorize... encapsulate....cohere...corner....box...toss...sift...sweep....label...
cross-reference...
You know what?
That's probably what I would do!
If nothing could stop me.
yeah? What would I do if nothing could stop me from doing it? Not the weather, other people, financial constraints, emotional issues like fear of failure or fear of success, location, children, obligations to groups and society...nothing at all?
What WOULD I really WANT to do if nothing in all creation could ever stop me from doing those things?
Asking this question generates this vast cavernous space in my being as if I just opened a door from a closed room and outside the door is the vastness and wonder of space itself with colourful nebula's spinning in the expanse of the light of a zillion stars! It's a vista of incomparable wonder and deafeningly way too awesome to comprehend in a moments viewing. I need to contemplate and sit and view and wonder and muse on it.
I need to make it all make sense first. Categorize everything under the headings. Box everything into understandable functions and subjects that can be quickly referenced as required. Encyclopedic sorting of the information is necessary to my sense of coherence. I can cross-reference the stuff in the boxes easily - no problemo! It's getting the stuff into those boxes in the first place that takes up my entire minds work in the interim.
Asking this question is like sorting out the garage. You open the door and immediately trip over the flotsam of family life; bikes, the BBQ, tool boxes, boxes of home-brewed beer bottles waiting to be filled from the still on the bench. There is rubbish, debris from past projects never finished, painted bonnets on cars your son was into air-brushing for hours three weeks ago, ropes, discarded tarps from the garage party your daughter organised three months ago...the list of piled up plans and projects dumped inside the door of the garage goes on.
You take a deep breath and you narrow the focus. You bear down on the overwhelming urge to turn and close the door again. You simply start and pick up the first thing available and take it outside. My usual strategy for "cleaning up" a mess like this is to remove EVERYTHING OUT of the space and then clean and sort what goes back into the space in a lovely orderly fashion. Once inside this process I find it enormously cathartic and good fun too - especially if I can play my music loud on the stereo as I work :)
But if NOTHING could stop me from doing what I deep down genuinely really wanted to do?
I can barely find what that is among the junk behind the door! I can barely begin to grasp the amazing and mind-blowing expanse of beautiful lit space outside that door!
Overwhelmed by this question, I want to dump this post and come back another day. Let me go sort it out... think about it... muse on it...catergorize... encapsulate....cohere...corner....box...toss...sift...sweep....label...
cross-reference...
You know what?
That's probably what I would do!
If nothing could stop me.
Friday, December 05, 2008
My future self wears a beige dress suit
This post will probably guarantee that my friends and family, who read this missal, will certify me completely deranged and in dire need of psychological assistance ;)
It's okay guys...I realise this is purely imagination and I promise I won't take it literally to the point of believing it to be an actual outcome.
However, in the interests of trying to figure out exactly what on earth I'm doing in this place right now, I do think it is a valuable exercise even so. We barely do enough dreaming and imagery work these days in our practical, success-like-NOW, physically centred lives anyway. The really ancient spiritual practise of simply imagining can lead to very cool insights and is as valuable a technique as any logical goal-setting and future planning activity.
I did this because I want to explore what I MIGHT be like in 10 years time. Where am I at? How do I come across? What sorts of things do I say? What is my demeanour? How to I appear to be positioned in life?
All that.
The exercise is to slow down and stop and simply meditate with the specific task of visiting with your future self. You imagine knocking on a door and being invited in by yourself. You see yourself, slightly (or very much more) older than you are now with evidence of a whole bunch of life experience you know you have to go through before you get into her shoes. She sees you and smiles remembering all the stuff you've got to go through before you get to be in her shoes.
You know each other very well, but you're also somewhat strangers for that reason of Time being shifted between you both. It's like catching up with an older, wiser, more experienced and very close sibling in a way.
So anyway, I did this trippy thing this morning. Sat on the bed, closed my eyes and allowed my mind to wander into this territory.
I knocked on a door. A woman answered it and smiled this big smile of genuine joy to see me. She seems warm, open, kind and also very happy in herself. She comes over and gives me this big generous bear hug and kisses the side of my head and strokes my hair as if she were my parent rather than my own older self and she smiles at me very warmly and with a great deal of love in her expression.
I start to weep a little at her forthright open-ness. And this is what she says:
"Oh it's okay honey! No need to cry but yeah...I still do that too! Can't help it so I just accept it now. It's who I am and I don't fight it anymore. I'm simply weird in that I cry when things get a bit emo!" And she wipes away a tear in her own eye as she laughs about it and moves on.
She is not much thinner or fatter than I am currently. I have these grand hopes of being so very much thinner so I'm a little disappointed but she seems quite content in her skin really so I ask that very rude question about whether she ever did "go raw" in her diet and this is what she says to me:
"Oh yeah! Failed dismally! (laughs a big joyous belly laugh that comes from somewhere deep inside of her) I learned to just accept I like food and that the secret to me being healthy is to simply move as much as possible every day. Find stuff to do that makes you move mi! Nowadays, I walk whenever and wherever I can...even to work. I dance, I run a little, I learned to do what bat does and I pace when I'm talking on the phone! Great strategy for keeping the weight stable" and she smiles.
I express some surprise she is wearing a beige - almost cream coloured - dress suit. I hardly wear anything of the kind, spending the greater portion of my adult years in trousers, slacks, track pants and shorts. This is what she says to me:
"Yeah! Took me ages to get my legs to a point where they didn't chafe between the thighs (leans and and whispers conspiratorially) but there's some fantastic creams out now that really help...I suggest you go looking honey" and she winks at me like she's just given me this huge very important secret tip that will change my life forever.
I ask her about her life so far and this is some of what she says to me:
"Well, I have a pretty good life actually. I write a lot and I make money from writing but it's not my job...more my passion and hobby. The kids are doing great....(some words of encouragement about my/our children's future...they'll be fine :))...I live in a lovely house and I get to travel regularly every other year or so".
It turns out she designed the house herself in consultation with a draftsman and its very "green" efficient with a reed bed water filtration system in the back yard. She hires a gardener to tend the garden and the vege patch. She earns enough to be able to do this.
I ask her about the chain around her neck and this is what she says to me:
"Yeah! I designed it myself!" and she smiles looking down at it with obvious pride and pleasure. It's a triskele in silver on a long silver chain. I ask her about the Faith, Hope and Love chain I designed nearly 13 years ago and this is what she says to me:
"Ah yes! Well I wore that thing for so long you almost can't read the words engraved on the disks now... that thing should go into the family "Smithsonian" vault (laughs), I loved it but a few years ago I wanted to design another symbol of my Faith System and this is what I came up with (fondles the chain around her neck happily). It represents much of what I hold to be dear to me across a number of different areas of my life including my Spiritual Life and be damned anyone who tells me I should think otherwise!" she hints at some possible dissensions in some of this and I can see the fiery steel of determination underneath her warm persona to be exactly what she chooses to be including what she believes. This woman doesn't modify her beliefs and behaviours by what she perceives 'the group' wants anymore...she does her own thing and is fiercely determined to be exactly herself and not another!
I ask her about love and this is what she says to me:
"I have a couple partners yes!" she smirks with evident pleasure and the joy inside of her literally glows more warmly "I don't live with them though but we are very intimate and close. I found out that I very much prefer living by myself for the most part. But, I also have lots of house guests (I look askance at her..and she laughs and says "not like THAT!" and takes some time to regain her composure at my misunderstanding of her meaning, laughing uproariously for a few moments)...they simply stay at my house...in the spare rooms...and its something like a mini international bed and breakfast really. I make them comfortable and welcome and show them around the Wimmera and stuff. Oh! And...I ended up continuing those German Lessons you started and they've proven very handy" she smiles very deliberately at me and I can tell she is making a strong hint to make sure I keep an eye out for doing more "German Lessons" in my future! I take note.
"You will be surprised to learn though that I have chosen to be...poly..but please don't make that just too public...not many people actually "get it"...even now" she sighs deeply and I blink in utter and absolute surprise! A very private conversation between us ensues and I won't elaborate on it here. Safe to say that I am astonished by this admission. Part of me rebels against it but she seems so utterly free and open and content with her arrangement...I'm still blinking!
The woman before me is utterly unselfconscious. She has this warmth and open hearted generosity of spirit that is so appealing...if a little disconcerting. She seems to have accepted a lot of her flaws and is content to simply be in the moment. I ask her what the most important things are that she has learned since being in my position and this is what she says to me:
"Always have a really good financial planner mi! What you are learning now about financial management is going to set you in very good stead in the coming years but you will need a good financial planner and a good accountant to help you through."
I immediately ask if she is wealthy. She laughs, leans in close to me, looks me square in the eye and says very cryptically "Oh..I'm extremely wealthy!" and then she laughs uproariously again at my obvious struggle to understand what she exactly means. "There are many kinds of wealth mi, as you will learn...but yeah... in your current definition..which I gather is financially, I'm pretty well off now and am planning on getting that apartment you always wanted in the Melbourne CBD" and she smiles with obvious pleasure.
I ask her what else there is I should know and this is what she says to me:
"I've learned to be a lot more content with myself mi. To let go of the struggle to be something I'm not, the struggle to make sense of a future I can never guess and to let go of the past I can never mend. I'm only responsible to myself and my kids and the man I'm in partnership with right now. I have learned to accept that what you think about is generally what you will notice in the world so I stopped noticing what I didn't want and began noticing what was already there and things got very much better for me after that"
There were other things we discussed that are too private to blog about.
An exercise in imagining that has uplifted me and even if its crazy and a little bit too "out there" for those of you who know me and read my stuff... keep it in the back of your mind and perhaps when I'm 10 years on from now, you can tell me if what you read here ever turned out to be sorta true or sorta not true.
Time will tell.
It's okay guys...I realise this is purely imagination and I promise I won't take it literally to the point of believing it to be an actual outcome.
However, in the interests of trying to figure out exactly what on earth I'm doing in this place right now, I do think it is a valuable exercise even so. We barely do enough dreaming and imagery work these days in our practical, success-like-NOW, physically centred lives anyway. The really ancient spiritual practise of simply imagining can lead to very cool insights and is as valuable a technique as any logical goal-setting and future planning activity.
I did this because I want to explore what I MIGHT be like in 10 years time. Where am I at? How do I come across? What sorts of things do I say? What is my demeanour? How to I appear to be positioned in life?
All that.
The exercise is to slow down and stop and simply meditate with the specific task of visiting with your future self. You imagine knocking on a door and being invited in by yourself. You see yourself, slightly (or very much more) older than you are now with evidence of a whole bunch of life experience you know you have to go through before you get into her shoes. She sees you and smiles remembering all the stuff you've got to go through before you get to be in her shoes.
You know each other very well, but you're also somewhat strangers for that reason of Time being shifted between you both. It's like catching up with an older, wiser, more experienced and very close sibling in a way.
So anyway, I did this trippy thing this morning. Sat on the bed, closed my eyes and allowed my mind to wander into this territory.
I knocked on a door. A woman answered it and smiled this big smile of genuine joy to see me. She seems warm, open, kind and also very happy in herself. She comes over and gives me this big generous bear hug and kisses the side of my head and strokes my hair as if she were my parent rather than my own older self and she smiles at me very warmly and with a great deal of love in her expression.
I start to weep a little at her forthright open-ness. And this is what she says:
"Oh it's okay honey! No need to cry but yeah...I still do that too! Can't help it so I just accept it now. It's who I am and I don't fight it anymore. I'm simply weird in that I cry when things get a bit emo!" And she wipes away a tear in her own eye as she laughs about it and moves on.
She is not much thinner or fatter than I am currently. I have these grand hopes of being so very much thinner so I'm a little disappointed but she seems quite content in her skin really so I ask that very rude question about whether she ever did "go raw" in her diet and this is what she says to me:
"Oh yeah! Failed dismally! (laughs a big joyous belly laugh that comes from somewhere deep inside of her) I learned to just accept I like food and that the secret to me being healthy is to simply move as much as possible every day. Find stuff to do that makes you move mi! Nowadays, I walk whenever and wherever I can...even to work. I dance, I run a little, I learned to do what bat does and I pace when I'm talking on the phone! Great strategy for keeping the weight stable" and she smiles.
I express some surprise she is wearing a beige - almost cream coloured - dress suit. I hardly wear anything of the kind, spending the greater portion of my adult years in trousers, slacks, track pants and shorts. This is what she says to me:
"Yeah! Took me ages to get my legs to a point where they didn't chafe between the thighs (leans and and whispers conspiratorially) but there's some fantastic creams out now that really help...I suggest you go looking honey" and she winks at me like she's just given me this huge very important secret tip that will change my life forever.
I ask her about her life so far and this is some of what she says to me:
"Well, I have a pretty good life actually. I write a lot and I make money from writing but it's not my job...more my passion and hobby. The kids are doing great....(some words of encouragement about my/our children's future...they'll be fine :))...I live in a lovely house and I get to travel regularly every other year or so".
It turns out she designed the house herself in consultation with a draftsman and its very "green" efficient with a reed bed water filtration system in the back yard. She hires a gardener to tend the garden and the vege patch. She earns enough to be able to do this.
I ask her about the chain around her neck and this is what she says to me:
"Yeah! I designed it myself!" and she smiles looking down at it with obvious pride and pleasure. It's a triskele in silver on a long silver chain. I ask her about the Faith, Hope and Love chain I designed nearly 13 years ago and this is what she says to me:
"Ah yes! Well I wore that thing for so long you almost can't read the words engraved on the disks now... that thing should go into the family "Smithsonian" vault (laughs), I loved it but a few years ago I wanted to design another symbol of my Faith System and this is what I came up with (fondles the chain around her neck happily). It represents much of what I hold to be dear to me across a number of different areas of my life including my Spiritual Life and be damned anyone who tells me I should think otherwise!" she hints at some possible dissensions in some of this and I can see the fiery steel of determination underneath her warm persona to be exactly what she chooses to be including what she believes. This woman doesn't modify her beliefs and behaviours by what she perceives 'the group' wants anymore...she does her own thing and is fiercely determined to be exactly herself and not another!
I ask her about love and this is what she says to me:
"I have a couple partners yes!" she smirks with evident pleasure and the joy inside of her literally glows more warmly "I don't live with them though but we are very intimate and close. I found out that I very much prefer living by myself for the most part. But, I also have lots of house guests (I look askance at her..and she laughs and says "not like THAT!" and takes some time to regain her composure at my misunderstanding of her meaning, laughing uproariously for a few moments)...they simply stay at my house...in the spare rooms...and its something like a mini international bed and breakfast really. I make them comfortable and welcome and show them around the Wimmera and stuff. Oh! And...I ended up continuing those German Lessons you started and they've proven very handy" she smiles very deliberately at me and I can tell she is making a strong hint to make sure I keep an eye out for doing more "German Lessons" in my future! I take note.
"You will be surprised to learn though that I have chosen to be...poly..but please don't make that just too public...not many people actually "get it"...even now" she sighs deeply and I blink in utter and absolute surprise! A very private conversation between us ensues and I won't elaborate on it here. Safe to say that I am astonished by this admission. Part of me rebels against it but she seems so utterly free and open and content with her arrangement...I'm still blinking!
The woman before me is utterly unselfconscious. She has this warmth and open hearted generosity of spirit that is so appealing...if a little disconcerting. She seems to have accepted a lot of her flaws and is content to simply be in the moment. I ask her what the most important things are that she has learned since being in my position and this is what she says to me:
"Always have a really good financial planner mi! What you are learning now about financial management is going to set you in very good stead in the coming years but you will need a good financial planner and a good accountant to help you through."
I immediately ask if she is wealthy. She laughs, leans in close to me, looks me square in the eye and says very cryptically "Oh..I'm extremely wealthy!" and then she laughs uproariously again at my obvious struggle to understand what she exactly means. "There are many kinds of wealth mi, as you will learn...but yeah... in your current definition..which I gather is financially, I'm pretty well off now and am planning on getting that apartment you always wanted in the Melbourne CBD" and she smiles with obvious pleasure.
I ask her what else there is I should know and this is what she says to me:
"I've learned to be a lot more content with myself mi. To let go of the struggle to be something I'm not, the struggle to make sense of a future I can never guess and to let go of the past I can never mend. I'm only responsible to myself and my kids and the man I'm in partnership with right now. I have learned to accept that what you think about is generally what you will notice in the world so I stopped noticing what I didn't want and began noticing what was already there and things got very much better for me after that"
There were other things we discussed that are too private to blog about.
An exercise in imagining that has uplifted me and even if its crazy and a little bit too "out there" for those of you who know me and read my stuff... keep it in the back of your mind and perhaps when I'm 10 years on from now, you can tell me if what you read here ever turned out to be sorta true or sorta not true.
Time will tell.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Beliefs
According to some, I only ever choose to believe what I decide to believe.
I don't know if I do or not. Belief might be something as intransigent and fixed in a person as is the colour of their eyes or the shape of their feet! Belief is like a limb except its invisible to the eye until that person behaves, speaks, listens or does something to express that belief. Then it shows its stripes briefly.
Others translate the belief through the lens of their own beliefs.
It's a mixed up, convoluted soup of misconceptions most of the time. A thing of wondrous simpatico, when in tune with others albeit rarely.
I don't want beliefs. I want faith and understanding but not fixed beliefs. I want to find growing things on beliefs that beget new beliefs as new knowledge and understanding come into being in me. I want movement not cement shoes.
Each of us is made of beliefs, some from our past, some from what we think we're seeing now and some we project into what we think may become. Refusal to believe is as much belief as is blind obedience to a fixed belief with no room for the new.
What I intend doesn't always match with what I believe. What I believe isn't always obvious to that part of me that intends.
Nothing is ever how we think it is or wish it to be and that might be a belief or not. It depends.
I don't know if I do or not. Belief might be something as intransigent and fixed in a person as is the colour of their eyes or the shape of their feet! Belief is like a limb except its invisible to the eye until that person behaves, speaks, listens or does something to express that belief. Then it shows its stripes briefly.
Others translate the belief through the lens of their own beliefs.
It's a mixed up, convoluted soup of misconceptions most of the time. A thing of wondrous simpatico, when in tune with others albeit rarely.
I don't want beliefs. I want faith and understanding but not fixed beliefs. I want to find growing things on beliefs that beget new beliefs as new knowledge and understanding come into being in me. I want movement not cement shoes.
Each of us is made of beliefs, some from our past, some from what we think we're seeing now and some we project into what we think may become. Refusal to believe is as much belief as is blind obedience to a fixed belief with no room for the new.
What I intend doesn't always match with what I believe. What I believe isn't always obvious to that part of me that intends.
Nothing is ever how we think it is or wish it to be and that might be a belief or not. It depends.
Friday, November 21, 2008
safe zone
Ibede sat on his little three-legged chair and was spinning the paper strips around his skewer deftly and precisely. As he spun the paper into a tight little roll, the edges of which were fanned on each end, he mused on his dilemma.
Only that morning Manakte had reminded him of his innumerable character flaws, his propensity for gloomy cynicism about the future being the highlighted flaw of that morning.
"Honestly," Manakte had said with a belligerent and patronising tone in her voice "The trouble with you Ibede, is that you are too.... Fussy!" She'd rattled off the last word as if it had popped into her head at that moment and had surprised her by its accuracy.
Ibede had only muttered about pots and kettles being black as each other under his breath. Taking Manakte on in one of her tirades would engender even more spleen thrown at him. It was as if she believed her whole world was finely balanced on his brain circuitry operating within her specifically stated parameters and when he didn't perform adequately, it was not her fault the parameters had shifted! He should have known!
Ibede picked up another strip of magazine and began twirling his particular skillful magic on it. The little buds of paper he spun around skewers became beautifully designed artworks. The embedded inks in the disused papers matched and sorted by his astute artistic eye were to be woven into door hangings, which from a distance appeared to be scenes....ephemeral and indistinct but captivating and delightful.
He hated his work. It paid the few meagre bills he had. A few denaso's for old magazines from the local agency and the rest to cover his food and the upkeep of his beloved box.
Not even Manakte knew about the box. No one knew about the box. Ibede would weave through the city streets on his morning off from twirling paper beads, so that no one he knew personally could track him on his route to the box. Not that anyone would have wanted to find him given the boxes location. It was practically in the centre of the city dump. The piles of rotting refuse rising high around him like giant mountains only stinking, filthy and fetid. Ibede refused to acknowledge the smell of these mountians, for once inside the box he felt so wondrously at peace both within and without, he hardly cared for other smells in the immediate vicinity. Inside this amazing thing, he found solace from the world where he could just "be" what he thought himself to be.
No one was there to denigrate him for his character flaws. No one was there to make him work harder or faster on twirling endless pieces of coloured paper on skewers, or thread the finished paper beads into shimmering and essentially useless artifacts for greedy tourists. In the box, Ibede was safe, ensconced within a world unto his own creation. Nothing could impede his world within the pinewood scent of the place.
The box was essentially a large packing crate. It appeared to have been purpose built as the planks on each side were all firmly slotted together to the point of being nearly weatherproof. Only the narrow entrance in one corner, which Ibede had managed to cover with the cleanest piece of hessian he could rummage from the dump, allowed the weather in. Inside the box it was semi-dark and this lent a kind of ethereal element when entering it. After awhile, sitting there, his eyes adjusted to the soft diffuse sunlight coming in through the hessian cover in the corner.
In the corner he'd supplied himself with a small wad off incense and a burner. It could have been a very dangerous idea to light such a thing inside a pinewood box, but for Ibede it as a part of the pleasure of existing here. For him, it was the twixt place between heaven and earth...that moment of transitory danger between Nirvana and Hell where you didn't know what you deserved. This soft piece of danger, regarding the box, made it even more extraordinary for him.
The box was very large, probably the size of a sea freight container. In fact, Ibede could well have housed his family in the box if he'd chosen to tell Manakte about it. She would have added the box to their home requirements in no time flat, making Ibede disassemble it and rebuild it next to the rough corrugated construction they presently called "Home". This is why Ibede kept the box a secret. He little knew anything of wood and woodworking tools and he knew he could never have reassembled the box to such exquisite exactness like it was now. That it had survived its unceremonious dumping in the centre of the city refuse heap...for whatever reason...was testament in his mind to its longevity. He saw it as a device to think with.
Ibede did very little inside the box except feel especially safe. Here he could unleash his imaginative capacity for thinking about the possibilities of a long distant future where people didn't need to live under corrugated iron or have to spin paper to make a living. Inside this box, Ibede just thought. Imagined. Explored his own self and put the pieces of things together to make it all make sense. Then he assimilated what insights he found inside his box and returned to again live among the mountains of fetid human activity, wiser and more serene than he had dared hope for.
The box soothed his soul. It became like Mother and Father, Spiritual Guide and Mentor to Ibede. His work, which he hated so much but was so assiduously good at, was less burdensome when he could spend the time in the box musing on countless artistic possibilities for paper beads, before he had the tools to work those possibilities into realities. His craft became exceptional. Others noticed. Others became suspicious.
Manakte heard on the city grapevine that her husband "was up to something" the day she had spent a few denaso's extra above housekeeping on a new "door" for their abode. It was a heavy piece of canvas, smelling of oil and fish and weather but she had immediately grasped that such a thing would do an even better job of keeping out the weather than the current flap of material serving as their door. She had scrounged every deni she could to acquire this great prize. In passing, the store owner had mentioned seeing Ibede ambling past that morning. Manakte had never really taken much interest in her husbands doings on his morning off from the bead factory, but for some reason on this day, something else piqued her interest. Apparently, she learned, Ibede had been grinning!
Ibede never grinned! Manakte suddenly saw in a moment that Ibede had some sort of secret which he kept from her. Why was he grinning? Where did he actually go on those mornings? What did he really do?
It was not just "Secret Men's Business" anymore, his usual grumpily said reason for his absences from home - there was something else going on here. No one Manakte knew in their circle of associates had ever once mentioned seeing Ibede grin, let alone smiling. He maybe curled up the corner of his lips on the rare occasion but generally he was either merely irritable or morose. She knew he hated his work.
It was then she suddenly realised that about the only time Ibede was really "charming" and sociable was after he'd arrived home from one of his mornings out. Her curiosity was in overdrive. Nothing would stop her now in finding out where her husband went. Cleverly, Manakte, walked the market stalls and garnered little snippets of information about Ibede's movements through the town. It transpired he was somewhat well-known among all the marketeers, dipping his brow at some acknowledging them in silence as he passed by.
Manakte became more assertive and concocted a story that she needed to find Ibede immediately as there was an emergency at home. This of course, led even more marketeers to give her directions and possible threads on where to find him.
When she came to the large gate that led into the city dump, she was appalled. "What could my husband be doing in this place?" she thought to herself in aghast horror. Although Ibede and Manakte were not untouchables, the thought of stepping through the gates made Manakte shudder as if she had become tainted with the blood of being untouchable herself.
She stopped in front of a particularly enormous pile of rubbish and pondered her next strategy. She figured it would be almost impossible to simply stumble on Ibede amongst the oversized piles and her nose would not have stood it for very long anyway. She resolved to come here quickly the next morning Ibede had off to follow him from the gates herself.
The air inside their corrugated home bristled over the next two weeks as Ibede felt Manakte was up to something and Manakte did her best to hide her impatience and curiosity about Ibede's alternative hobby. They each knew the other knew something was going on but being as out of love as two married partners could be they never mentioned it.
It was for this reason that Ibede took an especially long and winding path through the city streets to the box on the next, overcast, morning off work. Manakte had carefully disguised herself as best as she had been able and had gone straight to the dump, waiting with barely contained impatience for her slow husband to arrive. When she saw him, she quickly turned into the wall so he would mistake her for one of the untouchable women that usually haunted the dumpsite. It worked, Ibede was so intent on his goal he never took notice of Manakte watching him from behind the long veil in front of her eyes. Her mind lurched when she saw him grinning a huge smile that dropped a good 20 years off his face! Astonished would hardly begin to describe her state at that point. It revved up the curiosity count within her by a factor of ten.
She carefully followed Ibede into the dump. When she saw him disappear inside a big, rather useful looking packing crate, she was assuming he was going to meet someone there. She waited for the full four hours as the sky blackened and the storm clouds harkened. When Ibede came out of the box finally, she watched him as he straightened himself, stretched a good deal and then stand there looking into the sky and smiling the most unearthly smile she'd ever seen on his face. He looked positively angelic standing there as if he was in some kind of drug induced crazy zone of bliss! Was her husband doing drugs? How was he able to afford it. No one else emerged from the box.
With a great deal of will power, Manakte managed to stand and continue to rag-pick from the vile pile in front of her. Her nose had become somewhat accustomed to the smell by now, but the heavy humidity in the air and the weighty stillness seemed to be slowly sucking the oxygen from her lungs, only replacing it with the sulphuric gases of the dump itself. Her lungs and eyes were burning but she refused to move. She wanted to investigate the box for herself once Ibede had left.
Ibede seemed to glow and then slowly, from his feet up, he took on a different persona. It was as if he was putting on clothes. Gradually he reverted into the man she thought she knew well, the true Ibede, her husband. He sloped, gloomily away through the piles back towards his real life in the heart of the city. Manakte fleetingly thought she probably should go home immediately or he will wonder why she was not there. However, the lure of the box was too much for her and she needed to know just what compelled her husband to stay inside it so long.
She carefully lifted the piece of hessian aside and peered in. The box was black.
"Hello?" she asked timidly, half expecting to hear breathing or a voice from the inky black come back to her in answer.
Nothing. She stepped inside and allowed her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The box was practically empty. There was a large sitting cushion on the floor and a box of incense in the corner. She'd wondered where that had gone! The Devil! Other than that, the box was completely empty. This confused Manakte so much she didn't quite know where to begin on this mystery. What possessed a man to deprive himself of human company and enter a foul-smelling dump to sit inside a discarded packing crate on his own for hour upon hour with nothing but incense for company?
Manakte didn't get it at all. Ibede became a complete and utter mystery to her in that moment. She realised she never did know the man she married. She merely used him for the convenience of being a suitably married woman. Ibede had hardly any say in the matters of home and family, she ruled and that was how she liked it. Without him though, she literally would become one of the untouchable women she was currently pretending to be. Not a happy existence to say the least, for either of them.
Or was it? What had Ibede found that made his life have these moments of bliss? What spiritual entity was he in communion with that gave him that glowing energy of beautiful repose she'd witnessed in him before? What was her husband on?
Not quite knowing how to resolve such questions, Manakte threw off the slovenly and dirty veils she was wearing and pursing her lips, walked home in strident and determined steps. She would succeed in getting the truth from Ibede come hell or high water. The rain fell at that moment.
Manakte arrived at her shanty like a half drowned cat, bedraggled and miserable. The water from the sky didn't just rain, it plummeted down in torrents. The streets became almost impassable with traffic and people trying to escape the downpour. Gutters on plausible houses broke away and water rushed off the gaping wounds like rivers. Children were soon crying when they had shortly before, been laughing in the rain. The heavens opened and still the rain fell. Her home appeared and she went inside hoping to find some relief from the battering she was receiving outside. But, the sound inside her home was beyond deafening. It was so horrible in there she had to escape outside again. Calling for her family, she realised no one was home. Obviously they had escaped the deafening cacophony on the walls and roof as well.
But where were they? Ibede should have arrived home by now? Was he at his work already? Surely not?
An idea struck Manakte. It was a long shot but she thought she had nothing else to lose by following her hunch. She turned tail and began to run back the direction she had just come. Weaving in and out of bogged carts and frightened livestock, lost children and beleaguered adults, all trying to escape the sheer fortitude of the water coming from above. Never had Manakte seen rain like it. It cowed you, bowed you over with the force of it. It was like standing under the bottom of an angry waterfall. The streets were filling fast. There was no way her home would survive the flood sure to engulf the city before long.
When she arrived back at the gates to the city dump, she realised with a start, that she had in fact been travelling up a very gentle incline. The dump was actually higher than most of the rest of the city and was not flooding quite so quickly. She went among the sodden piles of flotsam, all seething and releasing vile smoke into the atmosphere as if it was thumbing its nose at the very rain.
Through the torrent, she saw the box and rushing for it she flew inside. Part of her expected to not see Ibede there, another part of her was hoping he wouldn't be. This box made her feel safe. The water outside was a muted thudding on the wood. The box, she realised was so well made, it barely leaked despite the deluge outside.
"Manakte?" Ibede's voice loomed from the gloomy depths.
"Ibede!" She stepped forward unable to clearly see her way. A pair of hands pulled her down onto the cushion. A few mewing sobs from the bodies of her children were heard nearby.
"Ibede! How...?"
"I claimed it! It's mine. No untouchable lives in it and they guard it for me too. I pay them to." said Ibede reading her thoughts. "It's my safe place Manakte. I come here to feel safe and to escape this life in my mind. This box free's me to be myself."
Manakte broke into sobs. Deep rattling sobs that seemed to be trying to match the emotional depth of the rain outside. "I want a safe zone too!" she screamed against Ibede's chest. It was then that Ibede learned how frightened Manakte really was under all her cruel beligerance. His heart softened and he let her spirit in a little and he smiled down at her kindly.
"I brought our children here to be safe." he said pragmatically. The children on hearing this cuddled around their unhappy parents and they all held each other on the sitting cushion until the torrential rain had subsided.
When it was quiet. They carefully ventured outside the box. The sun was setting opposite the darkest grey storm clouds Ibede had ever seen marching into the east. Around them, the piles of garbage steamed and farted foul smelling scents into the air. But astonishingly, they were not knee deep in water. The dump appeared as a small island rising from a gross and unsightly sea of unimaginable disaster.
The box had kept them safe. As the waters receded, they discovered they were some of the very few who had survived unscathed by the deluge. Friends, family, associates, the marketeers, many had suffered losses of incomparable quantity and quality. Eyes looked at Ibede and Manakte and their children as they stepped gingerly through the city back to their home to recover what they could from it.
"Ibede?" said Manakte quietly.
"Yes, wife" he replied as quietly.
"Please keep your safe zone a secret." she said simply.
Ibede looked at her, slightly astonished. This was not usual Manakte speaking. Normally, he would have been harangued and castigated for keeping such a thing so secret. The box would have been made to be rebuilt as a part of their makeshift home. This however, was a new Manakte speaking. He realised what she already had surmised, that if the box had been translocated, they would have drowned, trapped inside of it.
Where it was, embedded in a large pile of junk and human refuse on the crest of a gentle rise in the topography of the city, the box was more than a safe haven, it was an inspiration. Ibede smiled. It was a warm, open genuine smile and his face dropped 20 years.
Manakte finally loved him. Ibede finally felt safe outside of the box.
Only that morning Manakte had reminded him of his innumerable character flaws, his propensity for gloomy cynicism about the future being the highlighted flaw of that morning.
"Honestly," Manakte had said with a belligerent and patronising tone in her voice "The trouble with you Ibede, is that you are too.... Fussy!" She'd rattled off the last word as if it had popped into her head at that moment and had surprised her by its accuracy.
Ibede had only muttered about pots and kettles being black as each other under his breath. Taking Manakte on in one of her tirades would engender even more spleen thrown at him. It was as if she believed her whole world was finely balanced on his brain circuitry operating within her specifically stated parameters and when he didn't perform adequately, it was not her fault the parameters had shifted! He should have known!
Ibede picked up another strip of magazine and began twirling his particular skillful magic on it. The little buds of paper he spun around skewers became beautifully designed artworks. The embedded inks in the disused papers matched and sorted by his astute artistic eye were to be woven into door hangings, which from a distance appeared to be scenes....ephemeral and indistinct but captivating and delightful.
He hated his work. It paid the few meagre bills he had. A few denaso's for old magazines from the local agency and the rest to cover his food and the upkeep of his beloved box.
Not even Manakte knew about the box. No one knew about the box. Ibede would weave through the city streets on his morning off from twirling paper beads, so that no one he knew personally could track him on his route to the box. Not that anyone would have wanted to find him given the boxes location. It was practically in the centre of the city dump. The piles of rotting refuse rising high around him like giant mountains only stinking, filthy and fetid. Ibede refused to acknowledge the smell of these mountians, for once inside the box he felt so wondrously at peace both within and without, he hardly cared for other smells in the immediate vicinity. Inside this amazing thing, he found solace from the world where he could just "be" what he thought himself to be.
No one was there to denigrate him for his character flaws. No one was there to make him work harder or faster on twirling endless pieces of coloured paper on skewers, or thread the finished paper beads into shimmering and essentially useless artifacts for greedy tourists. In the box, Ibede was safe, ensconced within a world unto his own creation. Nothing could impede his world within the pinewood scent of the place.
The box was essentially a large packing crate. It appeared to have been purpose built as the planks on each side were all firmly slotted together to the point of being nearly weatherproof. Only the narrow entrance in one corner, which Ibede had managed to cover with the cleanest piece of hessian he could rummage from the dump, allowed the weather in. Inside the box it was semi-dark and this lent a kind of ethereal element when entering it. After awhile, sitting there, his eyes adjusted to the soft diffuse sunlight coming in through the hessian cover in the corner.
In the corner he'd supplied himself with a small wad off incense and a burner. It could have been a very dangerous idea to light such a thing inside a pinewood box, but for Ibede it as a part of the pleasure of existing here. For him, it was the twixt place between heaven and earth...that moment of transitory danger between Nirvana and Hell where you didn't know what you deserved. This soft piece of danger, regarding the box, made it even more extraordinary for him.
The box was very large, probably the size of a sea freight container. In fact, Ibede could well have housed his family in the box if he'd chosen to tell Manakte about it. She would have added the box to their home requirements in no time flat, making Ibede disassemble it and rebuild it next to the rough corrugated construction they presently called "Home". This is why Ibede kept the box a secret. He little knew anything of wood and woodworking tools and he knew he could never have reassembled the box to such exquisite exactness like it was now. That it had survived its unceremonious dumping in the centre of the city refuse heap...for whatever reason...was testament in his mind to its longevity. He saw it as a device to think with.
Ibede did very little inside the box except feel especially safe. Here he could unleash his imaginative capacity for thinking about the possibilities of a long distant future where people didn't need to live under corrugated iron or have to spin paper to make a living. Inside this box, Ibede just thought. Imagined. Explored his own self and put the pieces of things together to make it all make sense. Then he assimilated what insights he found inside his box and returned to again live among the mountains of fetid human activity, wiser and more serene than he had dared hope for.
The box soothed his soul. It became like Mother and Father, Spiritual Guide and Mentor to Ibede. His work, which he hated so much but was so assiduously good at, was less burdensome when he could spend the time in the box musing on countless artistic possibilities for paper beads, before he had the tools to work those possibilities into realities. His craft became exceptional. Others noticed. Others became suspicious.
Manakte heard on the city grapevine that her husband "was up to something" the day she had spent a few denaso's extra above housekeeping on a new "door" for their abode. It was a heavy piece of canvas, smelling of oil and fish and weather but she had immediately grasped that such a thing would do an even better job of keeping out the weather than the current flap of material serving as their door. She had scrounged every deni she could to acquire this great prize. In passing, the store owner had mentioned seeing Ibede ambling past that morning. Manakte had never really taken much interest in her husbands doings on his morning off from the bead factory, but for some reason on this day, something else piqued her interest. Apparently, she learned, Ibede had been grinning!
Ibede never grinned! Manakte suddenly saw in a moment that Ibede had some sort of secret which he kept from her. Why was he grinning? Where did he actually go on those mornings? What did he really do?
It was not just "Secret Men's Business" anymore, his usual grumpily said reason for his absences from home - there was something else going on here. No one Manakte knew in their circle of associates had ever once mentioned seeing Ibede grin, let alone smiling. He maybe curled up the corner of his lips on the rare occasion but generally he was either merely irritable or morose. She knew he hated his work.
It was then she suddenly realised that about the only time Ibede was really "charming" and sociable was after he'd arrived home from one of his mornings out. Her curiosity was in overdrive. Nothing would stop her now in finding out where her husband went. Cleverly, Manakte, walked the market stalls and garnered little snippets of information about Ibede's movements through the town. It transpired he was somewhat well-known among all the marketeers, dipping his brow at some acknowledging them in silence as he passed by.
Manakte became more assertive and concocted a story that she needed to find Ibede immediately as there was an emergency at home. This of course, led even more marketeers to give her directions and possible threads on where to find him.
When she came to the large gate that led into the city dump, she was appalled. "What could my husband be doing in this place?" she thought to herself in aghast horror. Although Ibede and Manakte were not untouchables, the thought of stepping through the gates made Manakte shudder as if she had become tainted with the blood of being untouchable herself.
She stopped in front of a particularly enormous pile of rubbish and pondered her next strategy. She figured it would be almost impossible to simply stumble on Ibede amongst the oversized piles and her nose would not have stood it for very long anyway. She resolved to come here quickly the next morning Ibede had off to follow him from the gates herself.
The air inside their corrugated home bristled over the next two weeks as Ibede felt Manakte was up to something and Manakte did her best to hide her impatience and curiosity about Ibede's alternative hobby. They each knew the other knew something was going on but being as out of love as two married partners could be they never mentioned it.
It was for this reason that Ibede took an especially long and winding path through the city streets to the box on the next, overcast, morning off work. Manakte had carefully disguised herself as best as she had been able and had gone straight to the dump, waiting with barely contained impatience for her slow husband to arrive. When she saw him, she quickly turned into the wall so he would mistake her for one of the untouchable women that usually haunted the dumpsite. It worked, Ibede was so intent on his goal he never took notice of Manakte watching him from behind the long veil in front of her eyes. Her mind lurched when she saw him grinning a huge smile that dropped a good 20 years off his face! Astonished would hardly begin to describe her state at that point. It revved up the curiosity count within her by a factor of ten.
She carefully followed Ibede into the dump. When she saw him disappear inside a big, rather useful looking packing crate, she was assuming he was going to meet someone there. She waited for the full four hours as the sky blackened and the storm clouds harkened. When Ibede came out of the box finally, she watched him as he straightened himself, stretched a good deal and then stand there looking into the sky and smiling the most unearthly smile she'd ever seen on his face. He looked positively angelic standing there as if he was in some kind of drug induced crazy zone of bliss! Was her husband doing drugs? How was he able to afford it. No one else emerged from the box.
With a great deal of will power, Manakte managed to stand and continue to rag-pick from the vile pile in front of her. Her nose had become somewhat accustomed to the smell by now, but the heavy humidity in the air and the weighty stillness seemed to be slowly sucking the oxygen from her lungs, only replacing it with the sulphuric gases of the dump itself. Her lungs and eyes were burning but she refused to move. She wanted to investigate the box for herself once Ibede had left.
Ibede seemed to glow and then slowly, from his feet up, he took on a different persona. It was as if he was putting on clothes. Gradually he reverted into the man she thought she knew well, the true Ibede, her husband. He sloped, gloomily away through the piles back towards his real life in the heart of the city. Manakte fleetingly thought she probably should go home immediately or he will wonder why she was not there. However, the lure of the box was too much for her and she needed to know just what compelled her husband to stay inside it so long.
She carefully lifted the piece of hessian aside and peered in. The box was black.
"Hello?" she asked timidly, half expecting to hear breathing or a voice from the inky black come back to her in answer.
Nothing. She stepped inside and allowed her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The box was practically empty. There was a large sitting cushion on the floor and a box of incense in the corner. She'd wondered where that had gone! The Devil! Other than that, the box was completely empty. This confused Manakte so much she didn't quite know where to begin on this mystery. What possessed a man to deprive himself of human company and enter a foul-smelling dump to sit inside a discarded packing crate on his own for hour upon hour with nothing but incense for company?
Manakte didn't get it at all. Ibede became a complete and utter mystery to her in that moment. She realised she never did know the man she married. She merely used him for the convenience of being a suitably married woman. Ibede had hardly any say in the matters of home and family, she ruled and that was how she liked it. Without him though, she literally would become one of the untouchable women she was currently pretending to be. Not a happy existence to say the least, for either of them.
Or was it? What had Ibede found that made his life have these moments of bliss? What spiritual entity was he in communion with that gave him that glowing energy of beautiful repose she'd witnessed in him before? What was her husband on?
Not quite knowing how to resolve such questions, Manakte threw off the slovenly and dirty veils she was wearing and pursing her lips, walked home in strident and determined steps. She would succeed in getting the truth from Ibede come hell or high water. The rain fell at that moment.
Manakte arrived at her shanty like a half drowned cat, bedraggled and miserable. The water from the sky didn't just rain, it plummeted down in torrents. The streets became almost impassable with traffic and people trying to escape the downpour. Gutters on plausible houses broke away and water rushed off the gaping wounds like rivers. Children were soon crying when they had shortly before, been laughing in the rain. The heavens opened and still the rain fell. Her home appeared and she went inside hoping to find some relief from the battering she was receiving outside. But, the sound inside her home was beyond deafening. It was so horrible in there she had to escape outside again. Calling for her family, she realised no one was home. Obviously they had escaped the deafening cacophony on the walls and roof as well.
But where were they? Ibede should have arrived home by now? Was he at his work already? Surely not?
An idea struck Manakte. It was a long shot but she thought she had nothing else to lose by following her hunch. She turned tail and began to run back the direction she had just come. Weaving in and out of bogged carts and frightened livestock, lost children and beleaguered adults, all trying to escape the sheer fortitude of the water coming from above. Never had Manakte seen rain like it. It cowed you, bowed you over with the force of it. It was like standing under the bottom of an angry waterfall. The streets were filling fast. There was no way her home would survive the flood sure to engulf the city before long.
When she arrived back at the gates to the city dump, she realised with a start, that she had in fact been travelling up a very gentle incline. The dump was actually higher than most of the rest of the city and was not flooding quite so quickly. She went among the sodden piles of flotsam, all seething and releasing vile smoke into the atmosphere as if it was thumbing its nose at the very rain.
Through the torrent, she saw the box and rushing for it she flew inside. Part of her expected to not see Ibede there, another part of her was hoping he wouldn't be. This box made her feel safe. The water outside was a muted thudding on the wood. The box, she realised was so well made, it barely leaked despite the deluge outside.
"Manakte?" Ibede's voice loomed from the gloomy depths.
"Ibede!" She stepped forward unable to clearly see her way. A pair of hands pulled her down onto the cushion. A few mewing sobs from the bodies of her children were heard nearby.
"Ibede! How...?"
"I claimed it! It's mine. No untouchable lives in it and they guard it for me too. I pay them to." said Ibede reading her thoughts. "It's my safe place Manakte. I come here to feel safe and to escape this life in my mind. This box free's me to be myself."
Manakte broke into sobs. Deep rattling sobs that seemed to be trying to match the emotional depth of the rain outside. "I want a safe zone too!" she screamed against Ibede's chest. It was then that Ibede learned how frightened Manakte really was under all her cruel beligerance. His heart softened and he let her spirit in a little and he smiled down at her kindly.
"I brought our children here to be safe." he said pragmatically. The children on hearing this cuddled around their unhappy parents and they all held each other on the sitting cushion until the torrential rain had subsided.
When it was quiet. They carefully ventured outside the box. The sun was setting opposite the darkest grey storm clouds Ibede had ever seen marching into the east. Around them, the piles of garbage steamed and farted foul smelling scents into the air. But astonishingly, they were not knee deep in water. The dump appeared as a small island rising from a gross and unsightly sea of unimaginable disaster.
The box had kept them safe. As the waters receded, they discovered they were some of the very few who had survived unscathed by the deluge. Friends, family, associates, the marketeers, many had suffered losses of incomparable quantity and quality. Eyes looked at Ibede and Manakte and their children as they stepped gingerly through the city back to their home to recover what they could from it.
"Ibede?" said Manakte quietly.
"Yes, wife" he replied as quietly.
"Please keep your safe zone a secret." she said simply.
Ibede looked at her, slightly astonished. This was not usual Manakte speaking. Normally, he would have been harangued and castigated for keeping such a thing so secret. The box would have been made to be rebuilt as a part of their makeshift home. This however, was a new Manakte speaking. He realised what she already had surmised, that if the box had been translocated, they would have drowned, trapped inside of it.
Where it was, embedded in a large pile of junk and human refuse on the crest of a gentle rise in the topography of the city, the box was more than a safe haven, it was an inspiration. Ibede smiled. It was a warm, open genuine smile and his face dropped 20 years.
Manakte finally loved him. Ibede finally felt safe outside of the box.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Does the White House have a Bat Phone?
I am aghast!
The article that the title of this blog links to is implying that President-Elect, Barak Obama, will have to do without most forms of personal electronic communications with family and friends during his term/s in office.
I find it incredibly strange, bordering on Luddite insanity, in fact, to have such a thing happen in this day and age.
Forgive me if I'm being a little too naive but having a human being - a formidable leader among nations notwithstanding - be denied access to the same kinds of technologies available to every other citizen under his watch seems impossibly ludicrous!
I know there are certain conventions where the role of a President of the United States should be seen to be reasonably transparent in his dealings with people, but we all know that is a pipe-dream fantasy which does not happen in practice. Still, I argue that a President who cannot email or text his own wife and children, close relatives and dearest friends for fear of those very emails/messages being subpoenaed in a court seems to be the very height of Breach of Privacy.
If a public office denies these very rights to someone who is there to protect those same rights for everyone else...well that is just hypocritical in the extreme.
Let the President keep his Blackberry (unless of course some 007 out there has implanted - or will be implanting - a tracking device in it or something) and leave the poor guy alone to run the country while still having the right to an electronic life like the rest of us!
I didn't REALLY want to know about Bill Clinton's exploits in the Oval Office with Ms Lewinsky btw... impeachment or otherwise, all that was just sloppy, slutty media encroachment on a personal choice in Bill and Monica's (and Hilary's by proxy) private lives.
How many people's lives do we seriously wish to ruin in the course of "Investigative Journalism"?
Watergate was one thing; serious breaches of personal power and political manipulation etc. However, there is still a reasonably wide scope for the PERSONAL life of a person - be they powerful and in the public eye - to have a life that is private and unfettered by qualms of persistent and invasive scrutiny by that same public eye!
Yes! I am an impossible idealist on this matter. I'd be the first to be shocked if a President of the USA meddled in the affairs of others for Machiavellian purposes, using his "Right to Privacy" as a cover for such things! Integrity of the Highest Order is a prerequisite of the role...I would have thought!
Still, it just seems outrageously unfair on Obama and his family to deny them the same opportunities to communicate in a way that the rest of us presently enjoy, just because he has the top job!
The article that the title of this blog links to is implying that President-Elect, Barak Obama, will have to do without most forms of personal electronic communications with family and friends during his term/s in office.
I find it incredibly strange, bordering on Luddite insanity, in fact, to have such a thing happen in this day and age.
Forgive me if I'm being a little too naive but having a human being - a formidable leader among nations notwithstanding - be denied access to the same kinds of technologies available to every other citizen under his watch seems impossibly ludicrous!
I know there are certain conventions where the role of a President of the United States should be seen to be reasonably transparent in his dealings with people, but we all know that is a pipe-dream fantasy which does not happen in practice. Still, I argue that a President who cannot email or text his own wife and children, close relatives and dearest friends for fear of those very emails/messages being subpoenaed in a court seems to be the very height of Breach of Privacy.
If a public office denies these very rights to someone who is there to protect those same rights for everyone else...well that is just hypocritical in the extreme.
Let the President keep his Blackberry (unless of course some 007 out there has implanted - or will be implanting - a tracking device in it or something) and leave the poor guy alone to run the country while still having the right to an electronic life like the rest of us!
I didn't REALLY want to know about Bill Clinton's exploits in the Oval Office with Ms Lewinsky btw... impeachment or otherwise, all that was just sloppy, slutty media encroachment on a personal choice in Bill and Monica's (and Hilary's by proxy) private lives.
How many people's lives do we seriously wish to ruin in the course of "Investigative Journalism"?
Watergate was one thing; serious breaches of personal power and political manipulation etc. However, there is still a reasonably wide scope for the PERSONAL life of a person - be they powerful and in the public eye - to have a life that is private and unfettered by qualms of persistent and invasive scrutiny by that same public eye!
Yes! I am an impossible idealist on this matter. I'd be the first to be shocked if a President of the USA meddled in the affairs of others for Machiavellian purposes, using his "Right to Privacy" as a cover for such things! Integrity of the Highest Order is a prerequisite of the role...I would have thought!
Still, it just seems outrageously unfair on Obama and his family to deny them the same opportunities to communicate in a way that the rest of us presently enjoy, just because he has the top job!
sci fi alive
Please, please, please find a way to spend just 23 minutes watching Stewart Brand detail the ideas of The Long Now crew in finding a home for an "impossible" clock. (Apologies to those who have daggy broadband though and won't be able to view this TED talk properly).
What a fantastic story of human ingenuity.
Perhaps it is pointless given the ills of the world! The world though, has always had ills and always will.
The artistry of being a human is that, instead of being bowed and cowed by ills, we can instead, invest in creating monumental mythology! A striking and breath-taking thing which encompasses, science, art, architecture, nature, sound, design in one singular artifact such as a 10,000 year clock.
That which transcends but does not try to usurp the universal laws of life is, in my book... very, very cool. I get really excited by projects like this. They seem to tap into a very deep core of my psyche and resonate almost as beautifully as the bell chimes in the clock itself!
I'd not heard of The Long Now Foundation until today. Now, having been introduced in this small way, I'm completely and utterly energised with a strange kind of excitement.
Why? I could hardly have conceived of something so esoteric as this and yet it seems so right to me that it exists!
Normally, I'd be cynical and wondering of the costs that "should" be going to support the poor and oppressed. Maybe that modus operandi of mine will still kick in with time. However, there is a palpable essence of triumphing over that which would bring us down in this Long Now project that I find exceptional and inspirational.
The IDEA of thinking long term beyond the instantaneous gratification of this moment seems to be essentially a correct and proper approach to all things. If we want to indeed help the poor and oppressed then we need to be looking from the vantage point of what is possible for these peoples long into the future. I suspect much of why we ignore the plight of those in the South is because we are uncomfortable with the possibility that they may be our equals or "shock, horror" our superiors in the distant future, so we oppress now to keep our own immediate sense of rightness in our place in time and history for as long as possible.
I shall endeavour to discover more about The Long Now Foundation now and muse on what it is about this clock project that resonates so deeply within me.
If only I had had the brains to have been a scientist of some kind! *muses wistfully*
What a fantastic story of human ingenuity.
Perhaps it is pointless given the ills of the world! The world though, has always had ills and always will.
The artistry of being a human is that, instead of being bowed and cowed by ills, we can instead, invest in creating monumental mythology! A striking and breath-taking thing which encompasses, science, art, architecture, nature, sound, design in one singular artifact such as a 10,000 year clock.
That which transcends but does not try to usurp the universal laws of life is, in my book... very, very cool. I get really excited by projects like this. They seem to tap into a very deep core of my psyche and resonate almost as beautifully as the bell chimes in the clock itself!
I'd not heard of The Long Now Foundation until today. Now, having been introduced in this small way, I'm completely and utterly energised with a strange kind of excitement.
Why? I could hardly have conceived of something so esoteric as this and yet it seems so right to me that it exists!
Normally, I'd be cynical and wondering of the costs that "should" be going to support the poor and oppressed. Maybe that modus operandi of mine will still kick in with time. However, there is a palpable essence of triumphing over that which would bring us down in this Long Now project that I find exceptional and inspirational.
The IDEA of thinking long term beyond the instantaneous gratification of this moment seems to be essentially a correct and proper approach to all things. If we want to indeed help the poor and oppressed then we need to be looking from the vantage point of what is possible for these peoples long into the future. I suspect much of why we ignore the plight of those in the South is because we are uncomfortable with the possibility that they may be our equals or "shock, horror" our superiors in the distant future, so we oppress now to keep our own immediate sense of rightness in our place in time and history for as long as possible.
I shall endeavour to discover more about The Long Now Foundation now and muse on what it is about this clock project that resonates so deeply within me.
If only I had had the brains to have been a scientist of some kind! *muses wistfully*
Monday, November 17, 2008
Feedback
I've had a few complimentary comments about my "Strangers still" post I made the other day. Not posted to the comments but via email and in person.
It's always gratifying receiving supportive comment for one's writing.
Thing is that piece of writing needs a lot of work in order for it to be "publishable" outside of this blog. It might be worth doing perhaps if I thought it merited such work. I'm not entirely sure it does. It was a "quick" story I dashed out in about an hour. That's how I write. It just comes from somewhere in me and I put it out. I rarely expect much else from it.
Thank you to those who are willing to pat me on the back for writing such things. It's a wonderful thing that the stuff inside my weird head can appeal to some people some of the time :)
It's always gratifying receiving supportive comment for one's writing.
Thing is that piece of writing needs a lot of work in order for it to be "publishable" outside of this blog. It might be worth doing perhaps if I thought it merited such work. I'm not entirely sure it does. It was a "quick" story I dashed out in about an hour. That's how I write. It just comes from somewhere in me and I put it out. I rarely expect much else from it.
Thank you to those who are willing to pat me on the back for writing such things. It's a wonderful thing that the stuff inside my weird head can appeal to some people some of the time :)
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Strangers still
They'd known each other for a few years but had only ever met once. She lived on the planet called XQ12, he lived on the planet on the other side of the vortex rim. She knew his people called it Ke, but for her people, it had always been XQ23.
Falling in love with him had, for Shenana, a rather easy thing. She had followed his posts on the grid for some time, noting his easy and gentle manner under the words, his affectations and mannerisms of text-speak and identifying with them far too much really.
Eventually, Shenana and Kill crossed from text-speak over to the Access ports on the grid super-bypass. Shenana had had to upgrade all her in home systems to do it but she was determined to put the magnetic deflector dishes in so as to get Kill into her life on a more personal level. She was a determined woman anyway. No one ever told Shenana what couldn't be done unless she decided it so. Kill found her inexorably sweet and never once doubted her steely will under the cloying, sometimes annoying, cloak of self-deprecation.
The day of their first voice meeting was a sloppy, tangled affair of shouting "Are you there's?" in staccato on virgin microwaves. Like ungainly puppies pawing a new toy, the two grid lovers shyly progressed into innuendo's that only lovers tolerate. Shenana oggled and played with Kill's mind, teasing and turning him on with her witty repoirtee. Kill in turn, minced and wriggled his way out of any manipulations on Shenana's part, whether she intended them or not, refusing to commit to anything beyond gridflirt. They got to know each other. Or, so Shenana thought. Kill appeared to know Shenana very well having imbibed her style of text-speak and voice patterns to the point where he knew exactly how to press the buttons that would calm or stew her.
It was Midturn when Shenana got it into her head some 19 sectors after their first introductions on the grid, to buy herself a ticket to travel the rim to see Kill in person. They discussed in detail the expectations of their first meeting, eventually coming to the mutual conclusion it would be best to "just see" what happened with no expectations or forced outcomes either way. Shenana was so in love she believed only the very best thing was possible anyway and Kill was more than ambivalent, preferring to see how things would pan out. He was always the pragmatic one. Shenana climbed aboard her shuttle and felt the gentle pang of exhilaration in the freedom of being able to travel for the entire 38 Sixtes to the man she believed to be the love of her life... to that point.
The void was a beautiful thing to watch as she was whisked around its rim. One day everything would eventually eke one six too much and the void would obliterate the lot in one giant gulp. Many's the shuttle that had disappeared into that unknown space before. She trusted these pilots to keep her shuttle on the rim for her emphatic will could not allow otherwise. She would visit Kill or die, physically or metaphorically.
When they finally did meet face to face, they were pleasantly surprised by sizes and shapes and colours and movements. She was smaller than he'd pictured in his mind. He was thinner than she imagined possible in a male. She was more gangly and ungraceful in her mannerisms than he'd imagined. He was more deliberative and stoic than she had come to believe. Their voices and words had spun webs of intriguing mystery and unintentional lies. They were so very much in love.
Shenana welcomed Kill into her body and soul. She made a nest for him deep in her heart and believed him to be the essence of her other self she had lost in time before the void. Her logical self constantly debated the merits of this love. They were so different, she and Kill. Both of them were so obviously opposites, their planetary position on the Rim notwithstanding.
Kill was sweet, kind, more or less attentive. But, they knew each other so well, it was like being with the other slipper and no extra parsecs were taken in order to create early romantic impressions. Both of them were pretty much exactly as they believed they were supposed to be after knowing someone for more than 24 sectors. Shenana had been trying to learn the language of Ke with only vague success. She travelled a little in the immediate vicinity of Kills residence but never really wanted to venture too far from him. She felt safe, secure and deeply and impossibly right at his home. It was as if she had once lived there before and memory was being jogged back into life again after a long sub-sleep.
One sector later, and the lovely Shenana, glowing with the fullness of love in her body and soul caught her shuttle home. Kill waved her off at the platform without so much as a tear. He merely smiled and waved. The deep cave of loneliness in Shenana's heart grew as weighty as the void itself the closer she got to her own home.
Reconnecting with Kill over the grid seemed both normal and now cruel. It was like she was with a different man. There was knowledge where imagination had once fueled the gaps. The language was different. The modes of reaction and action seemed charged and strained with some unknown energy. A shift in the fabric of their affair grew seismic. Shenana caved. Her emotional state became erratic and disabled. They fought now, mostly in text, voice seemed to full of something wrong.
For Shenana, the more distance she felt between her and her lover, the more she fought to retain whatever shreds of connection remained. She was determined to never ever allow this love to die. The love she bore in her every cell for this man on another planet became engorged with even more love. In a frightening way, even unto herself, Shenana became increasingly desperate to own him, to have him to be with him. No other man could match Kill in her mind and she determined that no one would. It was Kill or no one.
For Kill, he'd fallen in love but for now, it wasn't going to work. He moved on. He dated other women, some lovely, some very not so lovely. Shenana was special, but she was on another planet. She wasn't his. He did not want to own her even as much as she wanted to be owned by him. He refused. He tolerated her outbursts and dramatic tirades in text-speak until they wore him down. He preferred peaceful women really. As sweet and as wonderful as Shenana was, she wasn't really his type in the end. Pragmatically, Kill sort of kept Shenana as a back-up plan just in case the woman he really wanted never showed.
Eventually, Kill distanced himself more and more from Shenana. They were communicating regularly but gradually the sixes became longer in between talks, and they were curter, more refrained. Much was not being said. Much was being kept hidden and yet known it was available if any one of them had been game enough to call it for what it was.
Shenana would cry in the evenings on her side of the Rim wanting Kill beside her so badly she would have screamed for the pain of his loss. She never knew how Kill felt about her because he would not say. He remained firmly non-committal and inclined to just wait and see.
Shenana died and kept on living on her side of the Rim doing what she was expected to do. She rarely heard from Kill for the next 24 sectors. They remained strangers even when they knew each other so well.
Falling in love with him had, for Shenana, a rather easy thing. She had followed his posts on the grid for some time, noting his easy and gentle manner under the words, his affectations and mannerisms of text-speak and identifying with them far too much really.
Eventually, Shenana and Kill crossed from text-speak over to the Access ports on the grid super-bypass. Shenana had had to upgrade all her in home systems to do it but she was determined to put the magnetic deflector dishes in so as to get Kill into her life on a more personal level. She was a determined woman anyway. No one ever told Shenana what couldn't be done unless she decided it so. Kill found her inexorably sweet and never once doubted her steely will under the cloying, sometimes annoying, cloak of self-deprecation.
The day of their first voice meeting was a sloppy, tangled affair of shouting "Are you there's?" in staccato on virgin microwaves. Like ungainly puppies pawing a new toy, the two grid lovers shyly progressed into innuendo's that only lovers tolerate. Shenana oggled and played with Kill's mind, teasing and turning him on with her witty repoirtee. Kill in turn, minced and wriggled his way out of any manipulations on Shenana's part, whether she intended them or not, refusing to commit to anything beyond gridflirt. They got to know each other. Or, so Shenana thought. Kill appeared to know Shenana very well having imbibed her style of text-speak and voice patterns to the point where he knew exactly how to press the buttons that would calm or stew her.
It was Midturn when Shenana got it into her head some 19 sectors after their first introductions on the grid, to buy herself a ticket to travel the rim to see Kill in person. They discussed in detail the expectations of their first meeting, eventually coming to the mutual conclusion it would be best to "just see" what happened with no expectations or forced outcomes either way. Shenana was so in love she believed only the very best thing was possible anyway and Kill was more than ambivalent, preferring to see how things would pan out. He was always the pragmatic one. Shenana climbed aboard her shuttle and felt the gentle pang of exhilaration in the freedom of being able to travel for the entire 38 Sixtes to the man she believed to be the love of her life... to that point.
The void was a beautiful thing to watch as she was whisked around its rim. One day everything would eventually eke one six too much and the void would obliterate the lot in one giant gulp. Many's the shuttle that had disappeared into that unknown space before. She trusted these pilots to keep her shuttle on the rim for her emphatic will could not allow otherwise. She would visit Kill or die, physically or metaphorically.
When they finally did meet face to face, they were pleasantly surprised by sizes and shapes and colours and movements. She was smaller than he'd pictured in his mind. He was thinner than she imagined possible in a male. She was more gangly and ungraceful in her mannerisms than he'd imagined. He was more deliberative and stoic than she had come to believe. Their voices and words had spun webs of intriguing mystery and unintentional lies. They were so very much in love.
Shenana welcomed Kill into her body and soul. She made a nest for him deep in her heart and believed him to be the essence of her other self she had lost in time before the void. Her logical self constantly debated the merits of this love. They were so different, she and Kill. Both of them were so obviously opposites, their planetary position on the Rim notwithstanding.
Kill was sweet, kind, more or less attentive. But, they knew each other so well, it was like being with the other slipper and no extra parsecs were taken in order to create early romantic impressions. Both of them were pretty much exactly as they believed they were supposed to be after knowing someone for more than 24 sectors. Shenana had been trying to learn the language of Ke with only vague success. She travelled a little in the immediate vicinity of Kills residence but never really wanted to venture too far from him. She felt safe, secure and deeply and impossibly right at his home. It was as if she had once lived there before and memory was being jogged back into life again after a long sub-sleep.
One sector later, and the lovely Shenana, glowing with the fullness of love in her body and soul caught her shuttle home. Kill waved her off at the platform without so much as a tear. He merely smiled and waved. The deep cave of loneliness in Shenana's heart grew as weighty as the void itself the closer she got to her own home.
Reconnecting with Kill over the grid seemed both normal and now cruel. It was like she was with a different man. There was knowledge where imagination had once fueled the gaps. The language was different. The modes of reaction and action seemed charged and strained with some unknown energy. A shift in the fabric of their affair grew seismic. Shenana caved. Her emotional state became erratic and disabled. They fought now, mostly in text, voice seemed to full of something wrong.
For Shenana, the more distance she felt between her and her lover, the more she fought to retain whatever shreds of connection remained. She was determined to never ever allow this love to die. The love she bore in her every cell for this man on another planet became engorged with even more love. In a frightening way, even unto herself, Shenana became increasingly desperate to own him, to have him to be with him. No other man could match Kill in her mind and she determined that no one would. It was Kill or no one.
For Kill, he'd fallen in love but for now, it wasn't going to work. He moved on. He dated other women, some lovely, some very not so lovely. Shenana was special, but she was on another planet. She wasn't his. He did not want to own her even as much as she wanted to be owned by him. He refused. He tolerated her outbursts and dramatic tirades in text-speak until they wore him down. He preferred peaceful women really. As sweet and as wonderful as Shenana was, she wasn't really his type in the end. Pragmatically, Kill sort of kept Shenana as a back-up plan just in case the woman he really wanted never showed.
Eventually, Kill distanced himself more and more from Shenana. They were communicating regularly but gradually the sixes became longer in between talks, and they were curter, more refrained. Much was not being said. Much was being kept hidden and yet known it was available if any one of them had been game enough to call it for what it was.
Shenana would cry in the evenings on her side of the Rim wanting Kill beside her so badly she would have screamed for the pain of his loss. She never knew how Kill felt about her because he would not say. He remained firmly non-committal and inclined to just wait and see.
Shenana died and kept on living on her side of the Rim doing what she was expected to do. She rarely heard from Kill for the next 24 sectors. They remained strangers even when they knew each other so well.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Time is such a waste
Incorrigible and nasty is the Demon named "Time".
Mathematical ingenuity notwithstanding, Time is a Quixotic but devoted servant of Chance and Change.
For sure it moves at the consistent pace of precise constancy. Yet it shimmers and moves and stutters and frobbles about with our senses of it. It plays with our heads and messes with our hearts. It forces us to succumb to our own inevitable need for impatience.
Is Time immutable? Of course it would smirk and imply it most certainly was, is, will be.
But our shifting cellular inclinations for the possible, perceived and potential morph Time into more chaotic measures.
Inessential and unavailable, Time's rule is an over-rated media - like long winding Presidential Elections and Security Council deliberations on Congolese shenanigans.
I would not have Time if I did not want it. I would be perfectly poised within this centre never wavering from instantaneous bliss of the here and now.
And even in there, Time still plays its merry brand of necessity to language and desire. There is no "here and now" without it. There is not any centre of the self without the direction Time moves us to.
Ubiquitous and evil, the demon Time destroys pragmatic hope and enlivens useless fantasy, numbs pleasure of the essence of being and builds desire toward possible promises for what may come. And never does.
Do not march to the beat of Time. You cannot compete with its cloying intransigence. Regulated flow is best when forgotten.
Mathematical ingenuity notwithstanding, Time is a Quixotic but devoted servant of Chance and Change.
For sure it moves at the consistent pace of precise constancy. Yet it shimmers and moves and stutters and frobbles about with our senses of it. It plays with our heads and messes with our hearts. It forces us to succumb to our own inevitable need for impatience.
Is Time immutable? Of course it would smirk and imply it most certainly was, is, will be.
But our shifting cellular inclinations for the possible, perceived and potential morph Time into more chaotic measures.
Inessential and unavailable, Time's rule is an over-rated media - like long winding Presidential Elections and Security Council deliberations on Congolese shenanigans.
I would not have Time if I did not want it. I would be perfectly poised within this centre never wavering from instantaneous bliss of the here and now.
And even in there, Time still plays its merry brand of necessity to language and desire. There is no "here and now" without it. There is not any centre of the self without the direction Time moves us to.
Ubiquitous and evil, the demon Time destroys pragmatic hope and enlivens useless fantasy, numbs pleasure of the essence of being and builds desire toward possible promises for what may come. And never does.
Do not march to the beat of Time. You cannot compete with its cloying intransigence. Regulated flow is best when forgotten.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
what's your motif?
In an attempt to isolate that which fuels me from within and lights me up, I happened upon Curt Rosengren's ebook "The Occupational Adventure Guide".
Even though I am a total whine about not having any money, on this occasion, my gut told me that this was a worthwhile investment in my navel-gazing search for betterment.
In the book, Curt discusses isolating the WHY you feel excited and energised when engaged in a particular activity. It's like trying to figure out what makes your heart go "tick tick" to the beat of a sound bigger than your heart itself.
This process of digging down deep to actually isolate the things that make my eyes sparkle and a smile dance across my mouth instinctively and unintentionally will prove interesting I'm sure.
I've already isolated a few words/phrases that resonate with me at a very core level.
To muse
Outcomes
Making Interconnections between seemingly disparate concepts
Text/Words in print
Process
Discussing theories and concepts
Curiosity
Discovery
Future
The "motif" in all of this is surely the words "To Muse". I am not a muse myself, I rely heavily on others to fulfill that role. But what I need to do almost as much as I need to breathe is to be able to think things out. I do that in printed text best of all.
When I speak and "go all philosophical" as my dear First World friends call it, it's hardly coherent and manageable information. In print however, I feel a certain natural calmness and energy to my musing that feels "right".
How all this will translate to finding "The Job That's Right For Me" is anyone's guess right now. Safe to say, that no matter how it turns out, if I learn some small thing that stops me from being so terribly angst-ridden and irritable about my current circumstances...well, that has got to be a good thing. Yeah?
I keep banging on about how I believe my purpose is "to write". That's all well and good and I do intend to write as much as I possibly can. I've yet to discover what kind of writing I'm meant to do though. What kind of writing is going to energise me and feed my family at the same time? Is this blog really "it"? I doubt it! This blog is the most feeble excuse for writing that ever existed! This is where I merely muse in the play of words, not make a living musing! To do both would be astounding and electrifying indeed. I don't even know if such jobs exist. Perhaps that particular box hasn't yet been breached there in my mind.
So now I encourage you dear reader to find your own Passion Core. What turns you on? What AND WHY do certain things light you up inside, deeply, at your very centre? What journey of discovery would you be willing to take if it meant you could find the truth of who you really are?
Even though I am a total whine about not having any money, on this occasion, my gut told me that this was a worthwhile investment in my navel-gazing search for betterment.
In the book, Curt discusses isolating the WHY you feel excited and energised when engaged in a particular activity. It's like trying to figure out what makes your heart go "tick tick" to the beat of a sound bigger than your heart itself.
This process of digging down deep to actually isolate the things that make my eyes sparkle and a smile dance across my mouth instinctively and unintentionally will prove interesting I'm sure.
I've already isolated a few words/phrases that resonate with me at a very core level.
To muse
Outcomes
Making Interconnections between seemingly disparate concepts
Text/Words in print
Process
Discussing theories and concepts
Curiosity
Discovery
Future
The "motif" in all of this is surely the words "To Muse". I am not a muse myself, I rely heavily on others to fulfill that role. But what I need to do almost as much as I need to breathe is to be able to think things out. I do that in printed text best of all.
When I speak and "go all philosophical" as my dear First World friends call it, it's hardly coherent and manageable information. In print however, I feel a certain natural calmness and energy to my musing that feels "right".
How all this will translate to finding "The Job That's Right For Me" is anyone's guess right now. Safe to say, that no matter how it turns out, if I learn some small thing that stops me from being so terribly angst-ridden and irritable about my current circumstances...well, that has got to be a good thing. Yeah?
I keep banging on about how I believe my purpose is "to write". That's all well and good and I do intend to write as much as I possibly can. I've yet to discover what kind of writing I'm meant to do though. What kind of writing is going to energise me and feed my family at the same time? Is this blog really "it"? I doubt it! This blog is the most feeble excuse for writing that ever existed! This is where I merely muse in the play of words, not make a living musing! To do both would be astounding and electrifying indeed. I don't even know if such jobs exist. Perhaps that particular box hasn't yet been breached there in my mind.
So now I encourage you dear reader to find your own Passion Core. What turns you on? What AND WHY do certain things light you up inside, deeply, at your very centre? What journey of discovery would you be willing to take if it meant you could find the truth of who you really are?
Sunday, November 09, 2008
intending nothing
I've hit a wall of frustration and inertia within my spirit.
There are three things I want to change about myself but feel powerless to do so, even though I "know" that I am very much responsible for creating the changes within myself. There are no magic wands, or fairies to do these changes for me. No "Law" of anything to fulfil the necessary impetus to change. It's technically me deciding to change and then "just doing it".
Resistance meets with emotional melancholy and I can change nothing, no matter how much I "decide" to.
There is a dichotomy between the decision in the brain, the desire in the heart and the impetus of will to move forward. It's like I have shackles on, preventing me from doing that which I say I want to do.
Three things in my current state I wish to change. Three things I desire with forceful passion and want. Three things I know will greatly enhance my ability to make a difference in this world.
Perhaps they're too selfish! Maybe God is putting on the brakes and I am the goat, kidding myself it's all possible "if only".
Three things: Financial freedom. A healthier body through diet. A closer connection to Spirit.
Those three life areas not only affect me but my children and those I love. Those three iconic desires forge both a strong sense of duty and purpose in me and at the very same time, complete and utter dismay that I won't and can't reach them quickly and effectively.
This is the long haul truck drive through the frozen wastes of time...perhaps with more than a few flat tyres!
None of the three things I've chosen are easy. Hence my inertia. I'm not looking forward to the fact of the hard work involved in achieving them.
So I stew and foam and loathe myself for my inability to create the right impetus to "just do it". Wishes converting into manifestation.
No "Law of Attraction" here! Just plain old human "I want this. Give it to me now!", while I sit back and take the credit for this Grace I did not earn.
Financial freedom: A healthier body: Spiritual ascendence:
I intend these things with my cerebral intelligence. Desire with the mind is an easy thing. I am not able to, right now, achieve my intentions with spiritual acuity. What is required is intent at the cellular level. Where literally the fibres of my very being are in synchronous tumult as they shout "YES!" along with my mental frame of mind. That is a spiritual thing. It's where God and matter meet to create thoughts into being.
I want these things. I want them badly. I want them for free! Ergo, I cannot intend them at all.
There are three things I want to change about myself but feel powerless to do so, even though I "know" that I am very much responsible for creating the changes within myself. There are no magic wands, or fairies to do these changes for me. No "Law" of anything to fulfil the necessary impetus to change. It's technically me deciding to change and then "just doing it".
Resistance meets with emotional melancholy and I can change nothing, no matter how much I "decide" to.
There is a dichotomy between the decision in the brain, the desire in the heart and the impetus of will to move forward. It's like I have shackles on, preventing me from doing that which I say I want to do.
Three things in my current state I wish to change. Three things I desire with forceful passion and want. Three things I know will greatly enhance my ability to make a difference in this world.
Perhaps they're too selfish! Maybe God is putting on the brakes and I am the goat, kidding myself it's all possible "if only".
Three things: Financial freedom. A healthier body through diet. A closer connection to Spirit.
Those three life areas not only affect me but my children and those I love. Those three iconic desires forge both a strong sense of duty and purpose in me and at the very same time, complete and utter dismay that I won't and can't reach them quickly and effectively.
This is the long haul truck drive through the frozen wastes of time...perhaps with more than a few flat tyres!
None of the three things I've chosen are easy. Hence my inertia. I'm not looking forward to the fact of the hard work involved in achieving them.
So I stew and foam and loathe myself for my inability to create the right impetus to "just do it". Wishes converting into manifestation.
No "Law of Attraction" here! Just plain old human "I want this. Give it to me now!", while I sit back and take the credit for this Grace I did not earn.
Financial freedom: A healthier body: Spiritual ascendence:
I intend these things with my cerebral intelligence. Desire with the mind is an easy thing. I am not able to, right now, achieve my intentions with spiritual acuity. What is required is intent at the cellular level. Where literally the fibres of my very being are in synchronous tumult as they shout "YES!" along with my mental frame of mind. That is a spiritual thing. It's where God and matter meet to create thoughts into being.
I want these things. I want them badly. I want them for free! Ergo, I cannot intend them at all.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
We are killing Africa
I know it is incredibly dangerous to base an opinion on one article. It is dangerous and I do not care!
In this instance it's important not to equivocate and prevaricate about the political bush. It is time we as a collective society, regardless of race, nationality or creed say something, do something, make something happen that is beautiful for the millions (no exaggeration unfortunately), of people suffering the most god-awful hour upon hour of their lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The conflict on the eastern border between the DRC and Rwanda has been on and off since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The United Nations currently has one of its largest peace-keeping forces ever established in a post-war region. 17,000+ blue helmets are ostensibly there to protect the people, regardless of their tribal affiliations. It's clearly not working.
The backstory is complex and requires some understanding of tribal culture within African society. Hutu's and Tutsi's aside, there is a massive grab by various militia warlords for territorial wealth in securing the DRC's rich deposits of natural ores and minerals.
The collateral damage that stems from this greedy avarice is a convoluted and astonishing abrogation by Rwandan and DRC Governments in Human rights for their citizens. It doesn't matter which side is which, the fact is the UN is pretty much handcuffed by the Charter of the United Nations established just after the Second World War. In Article 2 of the charter, there is the unequivocal statement that states will not interfere in another states affairs except in instances of self-defence. Period. That's it! No coming to whip the bad boys over the knuckles even if they're raping and pillaging their own peoples!
In the time since Rwanda, much has been discussed about the use of force by the international community to secure ordinary citizens against human rights abuses.
The wealthy 'North' are twiddling their holier-than-thou thumbs over notions of propriety in regards to words written nearly 70 years ago, while the African people die of starvation, thirst, rape and rampant violence.
When does a genocide not become a genocide anymore?
And how are we implicated in this astonishing spectacle of dysfunctional humanity?
When we buy ourselves a new mobile phone or rave over new technologies invented to assist in the pursuit of our happiness and ease, we are blithely unaware that the very minerals used in the manufacture of these devices come from the ground currently being bathed in African blood.
We are guilty of innocence perhaps; we can remain guilty no longer. As the article I cited at the beginning says, it is time collective humanity demanded that companies which exploit human life in the pursuit of profit are brought to an end.
It may be almost impossible to purchase any new device with the demand that it is made with materials sourced from places that showed the best of humanitarian intentions. Impossible right now but it should no longer be impossible! We demand to know what is in the food we eat. We are even beginning to become more aware of Fair trade foods where employees are paid a decent wage and have working conditions well above that of mere slavery. If human devastation such as we are seeing in the DRC, is to be prevented, then we can expect no less from our hardware as we do our food. I want to know that my next mobile phone has...genuinely... not been made from product provided through the genocidal influence of warlords (no matter if they're a political leader of a country or not), wielding weapons with glee against his countryman all for the promise of incredible wealth.
Now, I realise that all this is a simplistic and naive view on the tangled web of machiavellian intrigue that makes up African culture and politics, but this is not about politics anymore. This is also about whether we are beholden to our neighbours when they're in trouble. This is about if we are our brothers keeper or not.
If the boot was on the other foot and it was us being raped and made to flee a refugee camp as it was burned to the ground by rebel forces (a complete breach of International law I might add), would we want someone to come to our aid and thump the bullies for six over the back fence?
I'm not preaching a war. Heaven forbid we seek another war. It is a very fine line though. What does it take to protect people from an out of control bunch of stupid idiots who care nothing for human lives except their own? When does it behoove us to say "War is, in this instance, a just war!"? How many innocent can we afford to lose before we finally say enough is enough?
Tough questions, which I am sure are right now being debated, hotly, in the back rooms of the United Nations itself. Pussy-footing about just because its Africa and not a wealthy "North" country makes us all as guilty as the Nkunda's of the world. Africa may be suspicious of the "North" given our arrogant colonialism of the continent in times past, but aren't we just as guilty if we stand back and leave them to it?
I ask again, when does a Genocide not become a genocide anymore?
This week, I had a job interview for a mobile phone company to sell mobile phones. That was before I saw read the above article and learned more of the backstory to the crisis in the DRC. I've not heard if I have the job. A part of me is at war now. I "need" the income this position would provide. It is a "good" job; stable, interesting, and would suit my strengths and abilities very well. Now, however, I'm bombarded with concerns as to the ethics of selling these products enmasse, very nearly all of which are manufactured in China, the world's largest consumer of Congolese coltan.
How did I become implicated in the current crisis in that region? I am already very implicated as I use a mobile phone. No longer can I remain apathetic to the plight of strangers in a foreign land for I am living my kind of life on the back of their contribution. If I'm to make that a Fair trade, then I will need to seriously question how I can ethically sell large numbers of mobile phones, should I get the job. It may mean saying "No" to selling them despite being broke and unemployed. I've yet to think it through further and find ethical counter-balances to the concept. Right now, I cannot in good conscience, be hard-nosed and so pragmatic as to ignore the plight of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children currently being savaged to the death, all over a mineral their piece of the planet harbours and which I am the end-user thereof.
When do we care enough to stop our planet from imploding with greed?
In this instance it's important not to equivocate and prevaricate about the political bush. It is time we as a collective society, regardless of race, nationality or creed say something, do something, make something happen that is beautiful for the millions (no exaggeration unfortunately), of people suffering the most god-awful hour upon hour of their lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The conflict on the eastern border between the DRC and Rwanda has been on and off since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The United Nations currently has one of its largest peace-keeping forces ever established in a post-war region. 17,000+ blue helmets are ostensibly there to protect the people, regardless of their tribal affiliations. It's clearly not working.
The backstory is complex and requires some understanding of tribal culture within African society. Hutu's and Tutsi's aside, there is a massive grab by various militia warlords for territorial wealth in securing the DRC's rich deposits of natural ores and minerals.
The collateral damage that stems from this greedy avarice is a convoluted and astonishing abrogation by Rwandan and DRC Governments in Human rights for their citizens. It doesn't matter which side is which, the fact is the UN is pretty much handcuffed by the Charter of the United Nations established just after the Second World War. In Article 2 of the charter, there is the unequivocal statement that states will not interfere in another states affairs except in instances of self-defence. Period. That's it! No coming to whip the bad boys over the knuckles even if they're raping and pillaging their own peoples!
In the time since Rwanda, much has been discussed about the use of force by the international community to secure ordinary citizens against human rights abuses.
The wealthy 'North' are twiddling their holier-than-thou thumbs over notions of propriety in regards to words written nearly 70 years ago, while the African people die of starvation, thirst, rape and rampant violence.
When does a genocide not become a genocide anymore?
And how are we implicated in this astonishing spectacle of dysfunctional humanity?
When we buy ourselves a new mobile phone or rave over new technologies invented to assist in the pursuit of our happiness and ease, we are blithely unaware that the very minerals used in the manufacture of these devices come from the ground currently being bathed in African blood.
We are guilty of innocence perhaps; we can remain guilty no longer. As the article I cited at the beginning says, it is time collective humanity demanded that companies which exploit human life in the pursuit of profit are brought to an end.
It may be almost impossible to purchase any new device with the demand that it is made with materials sourced from places that showed the best of humanitarian intentions. Impossible right now but it should no longer be impossible! We demand to know what is in the food we eat. We are even beginning to become more aware of Fair trade foods where employees are paid a decent wage and have working conditions well above that of mere slavery. If human devastation such as we are seeing in the DRC, is to be prevented, then we can expect no less from our hardware as we do our food. I want to know that my next mobile phone has...genuinely... not been made from product provided through the genocidal influence of warlords (no matter if they're a political leader of a country or not), wielding weapons with glee against his countryman all for the promise of incredible wealth.
Now, I realise that all this is a simplistic and naive view on the tangled web of machiavellian intrigue that makes up African culture and politics, but this is not about politics anymore. This is also about whether we are beholden to our neighbours when they're in trouble. This is about if we are our brothers keeper or not.
If the boot was on the other foot and it was us being raped and made to flee a refugee camp as it was burned to the ground by rebel forces (a complete breach of International law I might add), would we want someone to come to our aid and thump the bullies for six over the back fence?
I'm not preaching a war. Heaven forbid we seek another war. It is a very fine line though. What does it take to protect people from an out of control bunch of stupid idiots who care nothing for human lives except their own? When does it behoove us to say "War is, in this instance, a just war!"? How many innocent can we afford to lose before we finally say enough is enough?
Tough questions, which I am sure are right now being debated, hotly, in the back rooms of the United Nations itself. Pussy-footing about just because its Africa and not a wealthy "North" country makes us all as guilty as the Nkunda's of the world. Africa may be suspicious of the "North" given our arrogant colonialism of the continent in times past, but aren't we just as guilty if we stand back and leave them to it?
I ask again, when does a Genocide not become a genocide anymore?
This week, I had a job interview for a mobile phone company to sell mobile phones. That was before I saw read the above article and learned more of the backstory to the crisis in the DRC. I've not heard if I have the job. A part of me is at war now. I "need" the income this position would provide. It is a "good" job; stable, interesting, and would suit my strengths and abilities very well. Now, however, I'm bombarded with concerns as to the ethics of selling these products enmasse, very nearly all of which are manufactured in China, the world's largest consumer of Congolese coltan.
How did I become implicated in the current crisis in that region? I am already very implicated as I use a mobile phone. No longer can I remain apathetic to the plight of strangers in a foreign land for I am living my kind of life on the back of their contribution. If I'm to make that a Fair trade, then I will need to seriously question how I can ethically sell large numbers of mobile phones, should I get the job. It may mean saying "No" to selling them despite being broke and unemployed. I've yet to think it through further and find ethical counter-balances to the concept. Right now, I cannot in good conscience, be hard-nosed and so pragmatic as to ignore the plight of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children currently being savaged to the death, all over a mineral their piece of the planet harbours and which I am the end-user thereof.
When do we care enough to stop our planet from imploding with greed?
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