Living @ the speed of life... |
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Monday, August 26, 2002
BTW, sorry about the unavailability of the commenting service at the moment but the young man who provides it, does so for no charge. I'm hoping that service will resume tonight or tomorrow at the latest...  FREEDOM™ is for sale! It costs you your LIFE™. There are no guarantees or warranty or any written agreement, for legal purposes, just a nod and a wink and a handshake...if you're LUCKY™.
We give our lives away so cheaply. $£€¥10, or whatever, per hour and for what?... The remotest of remote chances you might win the lotto or patent something desirable or find a cure for cancer (who's going to find one, if there is one? Some pharmaceutical corporation who will promptly patent it and sell it back to you if you can afford LIFE™) or suck up to the RICH™©® and live vicariously, fooling yourself that it will all turn out right in the long run..... The Free West... FREEDOM™ by whose definition? What is the number one reason people want to be rich..... IT BUYS THEIR FREEDOM!!!!! If you want FREEDOM™ define your own version patent it and live it. Otherwise go back to Work tomorrow and bend over, 'cause you are getting FUCKED™!!! Sunday, August 25, 2002
***This is something I came across quite recently but had known and lived by for many years. I am not Buddhist, nor do I subscribe to any theistic cult...
An extract from the Kalama Sutra: The Buddha said Do not believe in anything Simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions Simply because they have been handed down For many generations. Do not believe in anything Simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything Simply because it is found written in your Religious books. Do not believe in anything Merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But when after observation and analysis you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, Then accept it and live up to it.*** Saturday, August 24, 2002
***This one is for The Happy Tutor VeganErotica.com manufactures hand-crafted vegan bondage gear, whips, belts, harnesses, and other vegan leather (a.k.a. "pleather") items. We also sell vegan condoms and other sex products. I jest you not...*** Friday, August 23, 2002
***These are the sort of market pressures we are up against...The Onion | Dad Defends Purchase Of Bargain-Brand Cereal***
***"And it's Monkey High
and Monkey Low, And 'round and 'round we go, Falling from limbs, And chasing our shadows." This from Ray Sweatman just reminded me. Two young Mormons called to my door the other day. We had a long discussion. I asked if they believed in evolution. The more vociferous of the two said he found it offensive to think that we evolved from monkeys. I don't want to make fun of these boys, but it was several million years ago. The arrogance of Man never ceases to amaze me...***
***In You LIve Your Life As If It's Real, Ray Sweatman says "And later, I go over Waiting for Godot line by line. And most of them just can't go there. It's just too much of a test of their own faith. It's too real. It takes too much thought. Too much searching, just trying to figure out the author's perspective. And, of course, it doesn't advance their careers at all."
I think that it is easier to make a Leap of Faith, to wear those blinkers, than face the stark but beautiful Truth... As Lucky says "Given the existence...of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of dvine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell..." Shall I go on?***
Anyway, as I was saying, you try to put your belief in this shiny little pill and your disbelief on the back-burner. You are suspicious but you want to get better. Best not to ask too many questions. There's relief in the diagnosis itself, you thought you were just going crazy. Now you have an explanation for how you've been feeling and acting these last few months. Slowly fading away. Slowly withdrawing from life, from interaction. The sudden rages and inconsolable guilt for lashing out at the ones you love. The deadening of the senses. The atrophy. No future. No past. A life in stasis. Wednesday, August 21, 2002
***The frightening thing about The Osbournes is that Ozzy seems to be the sane one... It's all pap fed to us intravenously, piped or beamed, in any flavour, anything to keep us docile...
Television, the drug of a Nation; I suggest the Rock'n'Roll Solution... (as would Michael Franti and Ozzy, presumably)***
***Has the UN become a toothless, old lion..."The summit bureaucrats have even invented some new jargon to describe these partnerships: "Type II outcomes." At the US's insistence, the un has essentially given up on Type I outcomes, which are traditional, multilateral, negotiated agreements between governments. Type II partnerships are purely voluntary, piecemeal agreements aimed at getting private-sector money into un-friendly projects. They also put major corporations close to the heart of international governance." See what you think.*** Monday, August 19, 2002
Sunday, August 18, 2002
You are fairly shaken up but you live. And after some time for your body to heal, you try to get on with things. It's not easy but life is like that. You work through the pain. But you are not happy. In fact you are deeply unhappy and you don't even realise until, eventually, a couple of months later, you snap. You are in the darkest, loneliest, most desolate place you have ever been. You are on the edge of the abyss. The only thing that saves you is a thought, no, an instinct from somewhere deep inside you to survive this and to provide for and protect your young family...
The Doctor says "depression...take these for three months and you should be fine.." so you do as you are told, like any good Consumer would. You're too sick to ask any questions you're too deep in the system and you want to believe. There's the tiniest nagging doubt at the back of your mind. Is that it? Is it really that simple? A little pill to cure your ill? After suffering for so long... (My new Doctor is The Happy Tutor) Saturday, August 17, 2002
Yeah, you are your own Boss. You can even keep the wolf from the door and have a little left over. You put in the hours. The hours turn to days. The days disappear...Time is slipping away. And you're still in the loop, still jumping through hoops... When you drive a cab you see humanity. And sometimes you don't like what you see. Night shift is worst. You can only make polite small talk with drunks so many times in one night after that you fall silent. You switch off and start longing for the shift to be over. You start to hate people. And you hate yourself for being in the situation in the first place. But you drive and you drive and you drive... And you're driving nails into your own coffin. Something's got to give... something's got to blow...
Bang. Rear ended by a drunk at a red...3am...the beginning of the end. Friday, August 16, 2002
***Check out one of my favourite pass-times at Wealth Bondage. They trade Hell for leather over there...***
Monday, August 12, 2002
***Sorry to interrupt the story but I think this is a subject which affects us all. Ten years on from the first World Summit on Sustainable Development and we have actually regressed... The second World Summit will take place in Johannesburg later this month. The facts are stark and the article by Kevin Watkins called "Greed is Good" on the Znet Global Economy channel (top article in "Newest") lays them bare...***
So there you are, trapped but getting on with it. You try to make things better for yourself, to improve things for you and your family. But you don't have any qualifications so the only jobs available are soul destroying, working your ass off to line someone else's pocket while you can barely afford to keep your head above water. Qualifications cost money, education doesn't come cheap. Eventually you hit upon the idea of applying for a licence to drive a cab. It costs money, of course, to set yourself up and theres the small matter of an exam. You talk to the bank and yes they will give you a loan. More debt, what the hell, it will all be worth it in the end. A short course of night classes (yet more money) and a lot of study-time do the trick. You pass the test and you navigate the red tape and you're all set. You start to believe in yourself again that you can be a man. You can be a provider for your family. You start to believe that things might actually turn out okay. You have your own business, you are your own boss...
Did you ever feel like you're being set up for a fall? Sunday, August 11, 2002
The Truth has always been a fascination of mine. I'm not just talking about telling the truth, though that is a part of it, but universal truths about our existence on this little blue and green planet of ours. OK, I know what you're thinking, Big topic, Long History, and yes a lot of great minds have struggled with these truths down through the ages. And who am I to stick my oar in. But I have always felt driven to find my own truth or my own place in things. I felt that it was an important journey that must be undertaken. Of course sometimes you loose sight of the things you believe are important and sometimes the sheer weight and clutter of life and survival get in the way. So you reach a point, ten, maybe fifteen years down the line when you decide that selling off your life for 10$ per hour is not your own particular truth or at least not the one which you would have chosen. But you have No choice. What you do have are a lot of responsibilities, bills to pay, mouths to feed etc. etc. Good. Responsibilities are good, they give context and purpose. What you don't have is Choice. Does this sound familiar? Does this ring any bells?
So, you know that this is not what you want. And you know that you have no choice. Trapped... Or so it seemed... Friday, August 09, 2002
Linux and open source software in general will change the face of the software industry. This is a good thing... Use Linux and tell your friends... You will benefit... You will be doing a good thing...
Corporate monopolies will be eradicated... Corporate greed will wither and die and be a thing of the past... Wake up to the corporate monster who stalks you while you sleep... Know your enemy... And know that what you do, matters... Wednesday, August 07, 2002
If you have a passion, a furnace that propels you forward in life, nurture it, feed it, give it space and time and tend to it regularly...But use it to make a positive difference to your life and the lives of others. Share it.
If you've lost that fire somewhere in the noise and clutter and speed of life, given space and time, it will return. Probably somewhere and some time unexpected... Tuesday, August 06, 2002
Spent some time alone with my son today. Just the two of us, like the song. He's seven. It doesn't happen that often. My wife and two daughters were out of the house for an hour or two. I made his lunch and we chatted. Then we sat quietly and ate lunch, enjoying each others company. He said "Daddy, we should do this more often" and I agreed. After lunch we went to my office, the front room of our house. I gave him some crayons and some scraps of paper and he sat and drew some pictures for me while I worked on the computer. After a couple of minutes he showed me his work and we discussed the colours and his writing (and how much it's improving). We got to the last piece and he smiled as he showed it to me. It said
"I, heart(big, bright and orange), U". Just then his friends came calling and off he went out to play. And I thought yes, we must do this again. This is, after all, what life is all about.
Submitted this site to a few search engines today. Try out the links to the left when you're finished reading the posts. Will add some contact details at some stage soon so you can let me know what you think of all this. Monday, August 05, 2002
Have you ever felt an uneasiness, an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach, a kind of underlying dissatisfaction, theres something not quite right but you can't quite put your finger on it, in fact something downright stinks but your life is so full of shit that you just shrug it off and try and get on with the task in hand, you bury yourself in that task, you loose yourself in it for a couple of hours or you light another cigarette or you put on a cd, something loud and kickin' to drown out the noise, or you have a beer just to try and shake it off and you have another beer and you start to feel like things might be ok so you have another and another and...and you make it through the night, you don't sleep, you're unconscious but even still that feeling persists and you get up and you try to get on with all the shit and eventually you think its alright, that you can cope, you can keep it under control?...but you can't keep it down for ever...'cause eventually it comes back but this time its harder to shrug off, it's more intense but you do the same old tricks to try and fool yourself you're ok, you can handle this, but you can't and you wake up one day and everything has ground to a halt and you're standing in an empty house feeling numb and tears are streaming down and down and you feel them on your cheeks and you wonder what the hell is happening to you but you're out of control you can't do anything to stop the tears and you still don't know where they're coming from or when they will stop and you feel like a fool, you feel guilty for feeling so helpless...Did you ever feel like that?...
Sunday, August 04, 2002
Why are some non vegetarians so aggressive and hostile towards vegetarians? Is it because in choosing not to conform to what society dictates is the norm they have chosen to single themselves out and so are deemed a legitimate target? Is it because vegetarians by their very nature are an easy target? Or is there something more going on here than meets the eye?
Yes vegetarians have chosen to stand out from the crowd. They have chosen to be led by their own morals and not follow the herd. (Morals is a very unfashionable word these days, probably the fault of religious institutions and religiously driven moralists trying to impose their own, ill-founded, moral code on a society which was growing up.) They have chosen what is not, in the eyes of society, the normal way and so they can be victimised with justification (a "sit down, you're rocking the boat" mentality). Historically this has always been the case for non-conformists and so it is no surprise. Vegetarians are, in general terms and from my own experience, sensitive (to a personal code of morals), non-violent, caring individuals. Which of course leaves them wide open to bullying because in a society where personal gain is still held in much higher esteem than social awareness, the above characteristics are seen as weaknesses to be ridiculed. Or is it that the aggressors feel the need to defend their weaker moral standing by attacking vegetarianism which is an easy target (see above) but which is, in my opinion, obviously the more ethical choice of lifestyle? Saturday, August 03, 2002
Journals are important because when we write our true thoughts for posterity we get to know ourselves a little better every time. For a long time they have been a way for people to be truthful with themselves. A very personal honesty. At the beginning of this new millennium technology and perhaps human evolution are taking this to its next stage; a very public honesty.
A web log is a public act and should not be undertaken lightly. Not for fear of what people might think of the author but because any action has consequences. Therefore I am starting this blog, with some apprehension, as an experiment in public honesty. Hopefully I will learn something through the process and (though attracting a readership is not my purpose) hopefully people will want to read it . |
