Change and Sacrifice

Everything changes. Whether a change is through physical forces or a shift in perspective, nothing can resist change. Analysis of change is our primary thought process. All processes, models, and systems that humans have constructed are used to track, manage, increase, or halt change. We track change because our survival depends on it, as we track the changing seasons to know when crops are ready to harvest.

While there are countless ways something can change, we pray for things to change for the better. In theory, conservative politicians advocate that they have already established the best sociopolitical framework. Supporters of conservatism consider modern society to be surfing the wave of human possibilities. This is their utopia, here and today. The most important books have already been written and must simply be followed. The methods we have in place are the best suited to deal with undesirable changes. For a conservative, change outside of expected parameters is synonymous with revolution. Bizarrely, conservatives project repressed personal change into the environment. The conservative does not change, but they force the surrounding environment to buckle and change at an opposing rate. To maintain an affluent individualistic model, all life on earth is compromised and undergoes intense destruction and development. Meanwhile, under their model, any change that occurs outside their framework is resisted. Conservatism does not stop change, as one might assume from the definition, it restricts it to certain ideological parameters. Change is always occurring, incredibly rapidly, under the rule of conservatives.

All people fear radical change, imagining that it will decrease their access to a life with security. And yet, only those that are happy with the conditions of their life will openly resist change. Socially we work together to ensure the stability of each other’s habits. While we may recognize that change is normal for anyone, we still resist it. We might see that a baby changes into an adult and accept that it happens. And yet, there are many who resist even this basic tenet of individual growth. Change, on an individual and social level, is something we must coax each other to take part in. We must coax each other into change because our current perception of how human life and change are interwoven is limited. We absorb our expectations of life from storytelling, not plainly through observation. Most of our commonly told stories characterise only a small representation of what change can be.

One of the most popular modern forms of storytelling is the ‘hero’s journey’. Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon has pushed this template through his self described ‘story circle’. The story circle is:

1. A character is in a zone of comfort,
2. But they want something.
3. They enter an unfamiliar situation,
4. Adapt to it,
5. Get what they wanted,
6. Pay a heavy price for it,
7. Then return to their familiar situation,
8. Having changed.

We can only wish that change only comes to us as an interim in our existing comforts. That the change itself does not deny us all that we already possess. If we can have it all, and also the brutal validation of a ‘change’ event, with no long-lasting consequences for our possessions then we can be happy. We can be happy because we get what we want, our craving of change, without true sacrifice. It is to have 100% of our life accounted for and then to seek a higher, temporary plateau. It is desirable to experience change as a well-controlled temporary state.

Some people, who are forced into change, never fully recover. A part of them does not accept that their life is different. Whether by nostalgia or rigidness, they attach to the absence of what they lose or no longer fits into their self or environment. Change is inevitable and to survive a person must adapt. Being unable to adapt, the individual falls out of rhythm with life and their ideas become neurotic. A person made redundant from technological change can either upskill or find themselves constantly searching from a shrinking pool of opportunity. Where this person might enjoy a new life, fresh and difficult, they instead choose the difficulty of becoming irrelevant.

Whether a society or an individual, change is most effective in absence. There must be a lacking or the perception of absence. An individual may be surrounded by all the comforts of their life and not be able to shake the itch that all things are not in the right place. Frustration, developed through an awareness of absence, motivates change, for it inspires great discomfort in the individual. Once we desire change, we must then pay the price for it.

All change comes at a price. The price is always a sacrifice. It is to cut ties with something that we attach to. The greater the attachment, the greater the change. A father may love his family and still leave them behind. Change is not always positive, and yet the father ceases to be all the ideas of a father and becomes something different. The father is now someone who abandoned people who need them. The father is stigmatised, and no longer afforded the societal benefit of fatherhood. He is an absent parent and can no longer lean on the love of children. His life moving forward becomes open to their own decisions and choices. Every opportunity, except that of returning, is there. They make this very sacrifice for the opportunity of something new.

A sacrifice is a form of fertiliser. It breaks down obligation, comfort, love, hate, attachment etc. and offers a space for something new to grow. Some sacrifices occur over a lifetime. A ripe example is the career of an ambition individual. The moment that they tear away space for themselves to succeed, surpassing, and displacing other individuals they doom themselves to one day destroy their own creation. They must one day, either by force or choice, step aside for the next generation. Impermanence is a fundamental tenet of conscious change. Nothing lasts forever, and thus what is created must one day be sacrificed for something new to occur. One always has the option to sacrifice, rather than to be forced to the pyre by others.

We must change or die. We can do both and yet we mostly do one or the other. We can even stave off death by changing, we can renew our metaphysical garden by pruning, clearing, and planting new ideas. But, regardless of our efforts, change will inevitably overcome all personal efforts. The individual is both the ocean and the moon. Affected by and affecting the world around. And as an individual, we can move with the rhythms of personal change and still feel isolated or bombarded by external forces. Change manifesting as both a concept and a force is deeply pervasive and unstoppable.

Change is natural, constant, and reliable. When discussing reliability the most common example is that the sun will rise and set each day and yet, that all things change is a stronger example. On an individual level, a person enjoys great benefits from acknowledging change as a pervasive and fundamental element of life. This person is more willing to personal sacrifices and more forgiving of the world. Only ideas and stories can protect us from the brutality of change. In the tangible world, we are constantly being pulled into a dance with change, leading and following its movements. If we are to have any hope of mastering this dance, we must first accept that it takes two to tango. We accept that change happens to us, and in turn, we become change.

The Invisibles and Old Wounds

In Grant Morrison’s ‘The Invisibles’, Jack Frost is a teenager on a warpath. He seeks the absolute and mindless, destruction of authority. After torching his school with Molotov cocktails, he escapes imprisonment and finds himself on the streets of London. It is here that he connects with a ‘father figure’ in an old, homeless shaman. From previous scenes, it is known that Jack Frost’s father was absent his entire life. The relationship between Jack and the homeless man, Tom, reach a pivotal moment when Tom reveals Jack’s deepest psychic wound. Jack, gushed in brutal tears, screams out–

“Don’t go away! Don’t take the bag! Don’t Dad!”.

Finally, through Tom, Jack allows himself to open up the pestilent, repressed memories that have enforced a strict emotional protective mechanism over him. It is only after being wrenched open by a stranger, that Jack allows himself to feel emotion again. The condition of Jack is the condition of most humans. Through varying degrees and categories of trauma, a psychic/physical wound is carved into our bodies. A person is wounded when they are abandoned by a parent, abused by a trusted individual, rejected by a friendship circle or attacked by another being. The wound does not automatically fester and scar but requires specific circumstances to enter into a psychological stasis. Calling to the analogy of a person that must undergo major surgery, each human is likely destined to be psychologically worked upon. Yet, the skill and health of their surgeon, the cleanliness of the tools, the quality of the nurses, and the sanitation of the recovery ward will decide whether the wound heals, scars, or becomes infected. In such the same way, the delivery of trauma, the time held for recovery and the people surrounding the damage will affect the depth, reach and infectious nature of the wound.

The whole body works as one. Trauma is not just the present hurt, but the culmination of the workings of the body and soul. The psychology of a human will attempt to protect the individual from future circumstances that it associates with the context of the initial wounding. A similarity in sensation, images, smells, touch, and sound will trigger repulsion and the array of associated repulsing behaviors. When Jack Frost’s history teacher speaks words of encouragement, Jack’s response is to kick him to the ground and leave him for death to claim. Jack is triggered to protect himself from a father that abandoned him – this teacher who acts as a father is just a reminder of the risk of abandonment. This is a shared condition. No human actively seeks to be reminded of their true suffering.

The development of the human spirit occurs, not as we age, but as we come to understand the psycho-physical barriers we place between our body and the universe. Humans are not merely destined to continuously layer scarred tissues upon our cancerous fears. A person may never move deeper than their protective mechanisms, they may stay swirled in the belief that they can avoid more suffering. They intentionally forget that the pain they avoid is pulsating deep within. Their actions are orchestrated by associations between the core pain and each subsequent connected habit. Put simply, when one believes an action has been successful in protecting them from re-experiencing trauma, a link is strengthened between action and suffering. Energy courses freely from the pain into the nervous system and imagination. Both real and fictional, the wound is encouraged to act as a psychic puppeteer. The puppeteer pulls facial muscles, draws people together, tears them apart and sucks nutrients from food. The imagery painted is grotesque.

Many people are aware that much of their energy is wasted. However, the psychic puppeteer is not insidious but an old friend. Under the request of their owner, they diligently stand guard. In most cases, they fight valiantly until the wound can heal. Jack Frost protected himself from a teacher who represented an institution and not a genuine connection with the knowledge and energy he secretly craved. It was not until he met Tom that he was of the age and experience for those walls to be flattened. A psychic puppeteer will not disarm defense unless all of the terms are met or it is forced.

These terms are usually described by the mind of a child, as the deepest wounds are struck on the most vulnerable. An adult who is revisiting the conditions of their protection may find themselves using the tools of logic against the might of the child’s raw emotion. If one is reaching beyond soothing the symptoms of their suffering and has moved towards healing old wounds, then they must develop complex internal communication skills. They must learn to hear and truly listen to their guardians. Most people fail to listen to another person, let alone to an extremely obscure psychological echo. Thus, individuals seek the language that best suits their needs. Whether they find this in spiritual terminology or from a medical professional – the education of the self is labyrinthine in nature.

Exhausted, an individual may finally disarm the guardian of their trauma. And for what result? The person must now reopen the wound, dig out the pus and give it the conditions to heal completely. Not many would wish this upon their loved ones. Those that suspect the raw pain of recovery tend to prefer the subtle and constant suffering of old infected wounds. If one has space and support to heal their wound, then they are able to recover some of their energy.

With old wounds healed, the physical pathways that were interrupted are now open. The increase in possible connections within our nervous system runs both ways. A person can express more feelings and, in turn, feel more from others. In no way does this necessitate a happier life, it only operates that one can come closer to feeling to their full potential.  Let it be clear that the people that strive to achieve the healing of old wounds are not those that seek happiness. Those that seek happiness shall find it more easily abundant from trivialities and humor. The few that persevere down the long pathway are driven by curiosity and fueled by true wealth. Curiosity and abundance are the prerequisites. This runs in parallel with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Those that reach an abundance of resources are able to step to self-actualisation. Yet, they must be curious enough to expend their abundance for such an esoteric cause.

Curiosity is a double agent. It is neither good nor evil and never aligns itself with morality. It matters not that you butt your head against an inability to connect with a loved one or the completion of your greatest ambitions, curiosity drives you to where you do not naturally step. A person, with curiosity, that finds themselves cut off from something possible to others will be inclined to find their own way of tasting this experience.

A curious person, without knowledge, will seek their absent sensations anywhere they can find it. They will test it through groups of people, drugs, adventures, sport etc. Had traumatised Jack Frost not been so inclined towards violence, he may have sought a father figure in his teacher or, later in life, in a mentor. His lack of abundance, equating to his lack of knowledge, would have reduced him to a leech feeding off the characterisations of another individual. The world would owe Jack Frost a ‘father figure experience’ and he would draw it from someone seeking to help. The individual who knows that their loss will never be replaced by another person’s good intentions has the opportunity avoid this honeypot. This highlights the prerequisite of genuine wealth.

Genuine wealth is not only defined by income. Genuine wealth is marked by Maslow’s pyramid blocks – the fulfillment of these needs: Psychological, safety, belonging, and esteem.

To have these included in human life, the individual must learn hard lessons and engage with their world. It is not as simple as coming from monetary wealth, one must have this and also fight for their place in society. Through securing these abundances, the individual gains knowledge. Knowledge is not the side effect, but the true goal of living. A homeless man like Tom can have no real assurances of these needs, yet he has experienced them at one stage of his life. The sum result is an individual who holds the knowledge of a full existence. Tom’s life experience transforms to fertiliser for Jack Frost, facilitating him to cast aside his deficiencies and bath in the stories of a different life.

The healing journey of Jack Frost is not exponential. After moving through a stage of healing and belonging, he is once again traumatised through killing a soldier in self-defense. Returning to his habitual protective mechanisms, he runs from his group and hides in vagrancy. The journey of healing is not a straight run for the finish line. A person who opens their heart opens it to the full force of reality. With each opening up a person gains the opportunity to smash through to new experiences. An individual who never leaves the comfort of their protective mechanism is closed to the subtle calls of the real world.

The world is full of those crippled by fearful habits. Zombies who walk the street, come home to families and set their day aside for work. A constant thrum of cyclical thoughts swirls in the mind of a zombie. There is a battle between change and assurances of the consequences which no side will concede. This psychosis has them sleepwalk in the daytime. They may be open to help from others, but the older they grow the more protected they become to any iteration of verbal argument. The life of this person can be grand or minimal, they can be a world-famous actor or work at the check-out. Fear controls all those that trust in its protection.

The alternative is not a real alternative, thus ending with a paradox. A person who heals their old wounds does not change the fundamentals of physical reality. They simply become more open to what is within and without. They disarm shields that protect them from hate and love equally. With openness, every tangible sense is heightened. Thrown out of old-wound psychosis, one might smell fresh bread for the first time since childhood and become entranced with the miracle of memory, taste, and expectation. It can be as simple as this. No one is saved from the world but comes closer to consciously living as a part of it.

The fate of our lives in that we must experience trauma, the pace of our world is that it will scar, and the choice of a fulfilled individual is to tear this open to feel the full impact of life. Jack Frost is only one literary case study in deep-seated trauma, where author Grant Morrison directs our imagination to see his awakening to the world. It is Grant Morrison’s wish that his reader too will open their heart, no matter the consequence.

 

Framework

Determinism dictates that choice is illusory and our next action is always dictated from the calculations of our collective past.

This is problematic when we realise that our identity is founded in the choices we make. We are always making choices and then identifying or distancing ourselves from those choices. However, choice is the result – not the process. It is the process that leads to decisions that should be of more importance.

Behind our choices lies a metaphysical framework that is constantly overlapping with our perceivable reality. The framework can be thought of as a series of cues for the situations and decisions that we interact with. It is not sturdy or concrete, but a basic conceptual structure. Once triggered – the framework acts as a habitual train track that is hard to derail. We regularly find ourselves having the same fights, the same excitement and the same desire rotating over and over. This is because stimuli react with our framework and then our subsequent responses fall along our habitual pathways – usually in disregard of the context of the interaction.

Take the graylag goose for example. If the goose sees an egg roll out of its nest – it will stretch out its neck and drag the rolling egg back into safety. However, if you remove the egg once the goose stretches out its neck, the goose will complete the movement of the neck extension and retraction. Even if you replace the egg with a ball or an egg that would be too large – the goose begins and completes the action regardless. The stimuli (egg) triggers a set behavior (egg-retrieval) and this behavior is so valuable to survival that no environmental changes will alter it once it begins. This is part of the graylag goose’s framework – it is not simply an interaction with the environment but a set of assumptions on how to react to the environment.

Without our framework, we would be unable or unwilling to interact with the world. It would be as if all things that occur would pass right through us. The framework is the part of us that distinguishes when to pay attention, when to give and when to take.

The more complex an organism, the more interactions it is capable of performing. To ensure reasonable chances of expressing life functions – a reliable and equally complex framework is necessary. A human baby cannot think its way into cellular respiration, the creation of bile or even the intake of  breath. Yet, they survive (with assistance) as well as any other aged human. The genius of the body and framework cues from parental units ensure that the baby can continue to express life.

Some say we learn our basic structure of our framework in the first years of life. Our mind works with predatory ferocity to stitch together a fabric of unconscious and conscious habits. Mirroring our parents, whether they are efficient or not, is one of the greatest shortcuts. Our first lessons are learning to eat, learning to go to the toilet and learning what is appropriate for our senses. So we watch, and if we are lucky, these lessons keep us alive. They enable us to express life.

Unfortunately, we don’t just inherit efficient cues. Our parents and teachers pay attention and react to so many things. There is such a cacophony of stimuli, it becomes hard to distinguish what aids or inhibits our expression of life. Our parents can’t teach us every edible/inedible material. Some things, like the sweet taste of glue, we must discover for ourselves.

Some people, with great or efficient family groups, can stick to the same framework for 80+ years. Life just works well for them. The disturbing product of our frameworks is that we only see the results – not the process. The more a habit ensures a reaction believed to be related to the expression of life, the more powerful it becomes.

A framework channels important/not important units of reality into habitual patterns. Regardless of whether it helps us survive or not, we are set up to involuntarily react and be blind to aspects of our world.

We are all paying attention to different parts of reality. A study published in the journal of Psychological Science revealed evidence that people who considered themselves of a higher social class paid significantly less attention to other people in social interactions. Rich people’s framework do not overlap onto the faces of lower class persons. It’s as if the poor person’s face, even though they are present on every street, just flow through the upper class consciousness. This seemingly perverse condition, is simply an act of the unconscious. It’s like putting a vape in front of a centipede, there is no developed response and no pressure to respond. The centipede will, at the very least, climb over the vape and move along.

If we draw our attention further, we notice that each of us has blind spots.

Our blind spots are rarely transparent in the moment we are in – however they are noticeable looking back on how we got there. Consider the freeze response that people have when in emergency situations. While horror unfolds, the individual becomes numb or paralysed to reaction. They don’t move towards emergency exits and witness reports state that in many circumstances they could have survived. If life was simply our ability to choose our outcomes – why are these people unable to choose.

It it hypothesised that the people who react best in survival situations have some degree of emergency training. Conversely, it is because of a lack of prepared cognitive reactions to choose from that causes people to freeze. The ‘freezers’ have no framework to react quickly and make choices. Emergency situations are their blind spots. When we undertake emergency training – it prepares a habit of reaction.

The same goes for our personal relationships.

We may be somewhat aware of the quality of our relationships in any given moment, yet those qualifying moments are born from a series of habits. If at home or school you were ignored by a teacher, sibling or parent – the consequences could be catastrophic for your survival. Your framework may direct your behavior to captivate the carers attention. Being loud, quiet, restless etc. are all behaviors to beckon a reaction of giving. As adults, we might scoff that these behaviors are counter-intuitive. Regardless, if these behaviors garnered a response they were strengthened and cemented into our framework.

We can also be on the receiving end of framework habits. We have all been pulled deeply into the mood of another. A sad face – maybe we haven’t done anything to cause it. A bad day – maybe we haven’t been a part of it. But those eyes and sunken shoulders draw us in. All of a sudden we are dancing back and forth while another person uses us to complete their processes.

The people that captivate our attention – are those that best infiltrate our framework. Perhaps they offer us the completion of a habit – a way to fully engage an turbulent emotion or thought. Once completed, we are most likely be oscillate back and forth with them through a series of engaging and disengaging the habits. The results, which might be kisses, yelling, comforting, supporting – are merely the goals of a much greater and more powerful framework. The framework is, in many ways, indifferent to the end point.

Subsequently, there are many people that are invisible to us. It is not the individuals that we wish to ignore, but the people that we do not even recognise. We are also rarely aware of the complex interactions that stimulate our desire to transform an invisible person into someone we wish to spend more time with.

Thus, in conclusion, we are lead to the importance of our framework. Without it, we may be paralysed. With it, we are constantly reacting. We have become embroiled in the finished products of our frameworks – unable to see how these products were distributed from our history. The very essence of our lives is not choosing these products – but the habits that form them. The choice has – by the most part – already been made for us.

 

 

 

 

Choice, Choicier, Choiciest.

As we grow, we are faced with more and more choice. At a young age, most decisions are made on our behalf. As we grow older, we begin to emancipate ourselves and take reign over our interactions.

When we were young, it was an obvious choice between weet-bix and froot loops. Now that we are old, who the hell even knows what to eat for breakfast. In fact, these decisions are now far less important to us.

Thus, as adults we try and concern ourselves with ‘more important’ choices. In an attempt to fully reveal our autonomy, we tend to categorise choices. In this way, we can distinguish our power to make genuine decisions.

For the sake of this article, here are three levels of choice:

1. A choice.

2. A ‘choicier’ choice.

3. And the ‘choiciest’ choices.

Distinguishing is important. We can’t allow the decision between chocolate bars at the supermarket to be allocated the same power as a choice between ideologies.

The first level of choice, represented by ‘choice’, is categorised as decisions that most healthy adults can make quickly and easily.

The second level of choice, represented by ‘choicier’,  is categorised as decisions that are fewer and far between and generally have multiple long-term consequences for the individual.

The third level, represented by ‘choiciest’, is categorised as decisions that are usually only made a few times in adult life and not by every single healthy adult. Typically, they require huge amounts of resources.

To grant examples, in ascending order: which chocolate to buy, who to love and what society to fight for.

The very reputable HERALD SUN paper says that the average shopper takes 45 seconds to select confectionery. It doesn’t get much simpler or shorter than this. The average male lives 37,843,200 total minutes in his lifetime (according to our good friend google). If any good life was reduced to this kind of choice, you could make millions of tasty decisions.

Next: My father often said “falling in love is easy, making someone fall in love with you is hard and having those two things happen simultaneously is rare”. Romantic love is a commodity to most. It is something that they need to have in their life. Even if, for the average human, it is uncommon to fall in love – it does happen.

How often does it happen? According to the equally credible HUFFINGTON POST and a website called THEFACTSPEAK, people fall in love (simultaneously) about 2 times in their lifetime, while they might end up in 7 serious relationships before those 2 opportunities. If we run by the average, then we only get to make this choice about 10 times in our life. We are, of course, removing the fictitious times we thought we had the choice of love with some sort of fantasy person.

Finally: the society we live in is rarely the society we want to live in. We all fight for it to change in some way. Perhaps we work extra hard, to encourage others. Others host book clubs or philosophy meet ups. The basic idea is that we can influence the course of history. How often do people take personal responsibility for shifting the course of society? It very much depends on the scale, but if media is anything to go by, it is one of the most uncommon mantles that is rewarded.

You have your Gandhis, Presleys, Fords, Teslas, Carsons, Teresas and so on. These are examples of people that we unequivocally claim, as a society, to have shaped the present or future. It is obviously a contentious issue, but nevertheless it is something that we strive to emulate. People often fantasize about their potential ability to sway the collective conscience in a certain direction.

Yet, we are rarely a politician, a leader or a CEO. Google didn’t service my need to know just how many people are in meaningful leadership positions on the planet, let’s just imagine that it’s not many. Furthermore, most leaders are constricted by external forces. It might be the ‘people’s will’ or corporate lobbyists that drain the true ‘choiciest’ potential. If we strive to shape society, our opportunity to do so might be limited to only 1 or 2 lucid moments.

So there we have it. Three different levels of choice. The choices we can make are limitless, the ‘choicer’ choices are limited and the ‘choiciest’ are inconceivably rare. By the standards of time and opportunity, to even be eligible for higher range choices, a huge amount of energy is required.

To change the direction of society, environmentalist Rachel Carson spent her last cancer riddled moments fighting against government goon scientists. A person choosing Snickers over Mars puts 45 seconds of neural energy in and a person choosing to turn the tide of society works for a lifetime.

The entire premise of this argument relies on reducing choice to the power of an individual. If we take full responsibility for the energy input behind our choices, then we can easily differentiate them. A paragon of ‘choiciest’ choices may look down upon the scummy low level ‘choice’ makers. From their perspective, those at the lower levels are doing nothing but minimising their energy output, while maximising their intake.

However, the premise falls apart when you expand perspective to the processes that shorten a chocolate bar decision to 45 seconds. The history of chocolate bar choice expands across the entire life and culture of the individual. Firstly, let’s place the individual in front of the supermarket confectionery shelves. These shelves have been developed by supermarket and candy bar marketeers. Countless hours of human labour and hundreds of millions of dollars have been sunk into market research and exploitative psychological sciences to ensure that you salivate, or at the very least guiltily consider whether this shop will include a ‘treat’ for yourself.

The placement of candy bars is an elaborate performance. Have you ever wondered why the candy bars are at the checkout exits? This is a scientifically proven method to ensure the maximum amount of chocolate purchases. Coupled with word of mouth, advertising and the addictive dance of sugar and dopamine, you really don’t have much of a choice. That is because hundreds of years of human hours have been plundered to reduce what could be a very meaningful and lengthy decision down to 45 seconds.

The tide of human energy is behind the first level choices. Farming, processing, packaging, delivery, presentation, history and marketing come together to choose a chocolate bar.

The choiciest choice runs against the tide. The choice to construct a new element in society will naturally go against the current paradigm. If you want to introduce a new style of music, then you are working against an entire industry and fan base that is deeply protective of what they have already created. You’ll need to use an extremely efficient and targeted energy strategy. Guerrilla tactics, timing and open-minded inner circles will assist success of the ‘choiciest’ choices.

If we consider the energy system of the earth as being constant, then what humans wield goes mostly to the easiest processes. Those processes are made easier through millions more working to make them easier. With some level of cynicism, we must recognise that the people along the production chain rarely have it as easy as the person in the supermarket.

While the masses might interpret choice as an active decision, they unwittingly flow towards the easiest choices.

Thus the system in which we occupy, thrives on making collective choices easier. Even if this is at the expense of change. Certain choices (choicier) will always be restricted by resource availability. We can consider finding love or the right job as ‘choicier’. Whereas the choiciest choices are those that require a rearrangement of the existing energetic systems to redirect the flow of energy for the masses.

There is always a desire among the intellectual class to make ‘choiciest’ choices.

To enter into the next gear of change, the collections of ‘choiciest’ seekers must inhibit their individual glory and await the moment to strike together. It will be absolutely irrelevant to try and make multiple ‘choiciest’ decisions within the space of a few days or weeks.

As modern scholar and philosopher Eminem asked us:

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?

He reminds us that absolute focus and timing is our only ally in our greatest decisions. If you treat the ‘choiciest’ as the ‘choice’, then you will end up as the proverbial window shopper. Only browsing the windows of change.

 

 

 

No End, No Beginning

In high school science, toasting bread is a common example of a chemical change which, in general, cannot be reversed. Once toasted, the toast cannot be un-toasted.

The subtle (and perhaps unintended) message for many students is that some things have an end point. The toast will never be bread again, just as an adult will never become a child. The accuracy of this belief is very reliant on dividing reality into separate entities.

For example, the toast may eventually break down into crumbs and return to the soil as mulch. That mulch has the potential to be used to fertilize a new wheat plant. The wheat could then be processed into bread again. On a micro-scale, these are two separate breads in two separate timelines. On a macro-scale they are a continuous flow of inorganic and organic compounds.

Since it formed, the Earth, barring extraterrestrial impacts, has continuously transformed matter in a similar way.

While it may be convenient for us to say that there are clear dividing points of existence, these statements are just like the lines that we draw on our maps. They are created for convenience and do not function as mirrors of existence.

For any process, it is language that defines the end point, not reality. To assume an ending, we must divide and subtract the ecological web of reality into a series of discrete words. Our main method of interpretation for our existence is as a series of events that begin, end and begin again.

This blog post may have a first and last word, but it did not spontaneously burst into existence when you loaded the page. In fact, the history of the first word can be drawn back uninterrupted for thousands of years at the very least. This writer did not create the feelings, forms and words that make this post identifiable. No creation exists in its own space-time vacuum.

The last word will never signify an ending. It will affect anyone who reads it. By the very virtue of reading, the information is absorbed. If it is not read, then it remains as mathematical data, adding value to some part of the universe. The very process of its existence is the transference of energy. The words and thoughts are formed through diverting biological energy into electrical and potential energy. The process of energy is constantly transferring, never being created or destroyed.

In our culture, but not in all cultures, we are obsessive over endings. We want to know the point where suffering ends, or perhaps the point where adolescence ends.

Nothing ever ends. Consider any relationship that you have had. If we view every impact that it has had on us, we would be foolish to say that it could ever leave us. Whether that person remains as a memory, a mannerism or an idea, they continue to exist perpetually. If you remember, or have forgotten your first kiss, each subsequent kiss takes some form of inspiration from that point. If it was bad, then you move your lips in rebellion, if it was spectacular then you emulate it. That first kiss lives as a thesis or antithesis, every time your lips embrace another again.

Even if we are to shed any ownership that a partner once had over our ideas, the birth of new and subsequent behaviors has grown in their fertilizer.

We are mere transit points for grand and nightmarish realities. It would be of paramount arrogance to assume that we are the flowering bud of history, more likely we are another absurd growth of a timeless organism.

The timeless organism is constantly cycling through matter and consciousness on this spinning rock spaceship. Crawling along points of history like a vast tree of roots and branches. This ‘tree of life’ transfers energy continuously across the generations. If we look for the discrete points, we might notice extinctions or deaths (another one of our favorite end points). But if we step back and look at the tree of life as a living organism in of itself, then at these supposed ends we also see beginnings too. On a macro scale, it becomes more and more difficult to see discrete separation of biological life.

The macro-scale continuous flow of life does not just apply to dinosaurs and ferns, it also applies to our lives. Yet, it is wholly dismissed. It is dismissed because it is convenient for our culture to separate our lives into discrete individuals. This benefits greed, suffering and loneliness. It draws an invisible line between each of us, where there the impacts of our behavior are seen as individual and not collective.

It is difficult to summarize what is essentially billions of interactions that build on and feed off our individual development. However, let us consider an award ceremony. Someone stands up and thanks the team that brought them to this point, their parents and their loved ones. Even the greatest of personal struggles are supported by our external environment. There is the person who delivers your food to the supermarket, the person that’s causing you pain and the person that believes in your idea.

Put simply by a friend last night, to view ones life as a nucleus with everyone else spinning around you as complimentary electrons is completely invalid. These people are not spinning around your greater force, but are a continuous wave of energy that is as equal and as important as you in constructing reality. You do not begin at birth and end at your outer layer of skin. You are a struggle of nature and will return to nature.

It must be said that even if we are intellectually aware of the constant flow of reality, we are currently confined to a mentality of separation. One may know, but not experience a connection to each and every part of the planet. Perhaps it could be likened to meeting a biological parent who left you at birth. There is a connection there, but you haven’t felt it and therefore deny it.

Those who experience lifelong PTSD and deep seated trauma can attest that relationships to events, locations or people continue to exist far from their conception. If we can comprehend that a single horrific act can continue to exist as an emotion or memory, then we have partly recognised the artificiality of an end point.

There are undoubted practical benefits of defining an end point. A milestone gives people something to look forward to. It is also a great comfort to believe that some things will never happen again. There are also many that believe breaking up challenging and lengthy activities, such as a university degree, into smaller portions makes it more emotionally manageable. Whilst these might work for many, it is still only the application of language that defines these end points.

The supposed ‘end’ has come many times in history. Many empires, relationships and structures have fallen into memory. Yet to us, we mostly feel that we are at the beginning of something. Ending remains completely and utterly subjective. We might feel that life has just begun, or that it is coming to an end. However, the end of one is the beginning of another and so on and so on. Ends and beginnings exist only in the realm of language.

In this particular moment, if you made it this far, the end of these words are the beginning of something else. A transference of energy worming its way into your mind. Thus a continuous line of energy seeds itself again.  To even comprehend this transference, a small lifetime of knowledge and experience is necessary.

When we stop justifying separation, we open our mind to the possibility and reality that we are indeed “a part of something”. We are not at the beginning or ending, but gliding along the continuum.

 

 

The World is Waiting

The greatest thing you can experience is achieving your greatest dream.

Not because you become happier. Not because there is constant applause. Not because everyone admires you.

The greatness of achieving a dream is having it crumble like dirt in your hands. All dreams will crumble, because they never reflect the depth of reality. In such a way, achieving a dream wakes us up with a shock.

Beyond these dreams, the world is waiting.

To dream is to discriminate and dissect reality into a single point.  In this context, a dream is defined as the involvement of oneself in the emotion and imagery of a fantasy, whilst concurrently desiring it over reality (dream and fantasy will be used interchangeably). This imagery is subconsciously composed to draw our attention, like a dangling carrot.

Dreams arise from the deepest levels of our consciousness, where we might lack something important or are plagued by toxins. Much like those that are iron deficient, who suck and chew on pieces of ice, the fantasy is inherently indirect. Chasing dreams is symptomatic, not curative.

No one teaches us this distinguishing feature. Dreams feel right, because they fill our minds with beautiful imagery. Most of the time, they are only images and the reality is starkly richer. Consider that the majority of people seek their dream job without any fathom of the reality of that lifestyle.

The reality of most jobs is richer than the original dream. Richer in emotions, energetic output, suffering etc. It is not by any means necessarily abundant in what enticed you towards it.

The individual, whether seeking fame or the scrubs of a doctor, has been seduced by a psychological element associated with the ‘lifestyle’. That particular psychological element, if it even exists, is only one side of a multi-dimensional existence.

No one would deny that there is more to life than what is supposed in writing, the media and rhetoric. Yet, people are less likely to accept that dreams are equally unrepresentative of life. It is acceptable to most that achieving our dreams is a happy ever-after. For example, achieving recognition of brilliance will never last each and every single moment that you live. It may fill little gaps in time, but it won’t stretch over into your sickness, your time in isolation or into those that have known you your whole life.

If those little moments, these little carrots are what you seek, then your mind and your body will narrow their attention towards it. You will be like a truffle pig, trained to notice the softest whiff of your dream. A truffle farm does not only contain the air of truffles, but that of every other single scent. Life does not only contain what you want, but everything else that you don’t.

Thus the day-dreamer wanders through life ignoring all that does not conform to their desires. And what shall become of all that they ignore? It shall remain invisible, unhelpful and perhaps even hated. Not for any particular reason, but simply because the individual has no use for this part of existence.

Consider a new student. They seek knowledge to expand their understanding of a specific area. That knowledge, be it cacti botany or midwifery, has always been a part of the world. For the first time in their own life, they access and comprehend that there was much more to cacti and childbirth than they ever imagined. While this information was always available, it hadn’t until this point been of value to the individual to seek it.

The world is always waiting to be experienced. Yet, the dreamer dares not explore it. The risk of uncovering that all their energy thus far has gone towards an imaginary carrot is too great.

Fame and fortune are lies. That is an objective truth. Yet in study after study, the youth of the world rate these as their greatest goals in life. They cannot be blamed for seeking something that appears entirely pleasurable and self-serving. The alternative is experiencing and living in the world.

The world is both the worst nightmare and the greatest dream. It alternates rapidly and chaotically between these states. It discriminates, tortures, tricks, decapitates, poisons, dissolves and desecrates all. It is not simply an ecstatic orgy of loving flesh, but also a cannibalism of the weak.

It seems unlikely that one would not prefer to be jet-setting between cocktails by tropical sunsets and indoor swimming pools. The tropical sunset may be stained with colonialism and the cocktail poured by mental health’s dark secret, but your dream need not include this.

Your dreams are an escape, not just from horror, but also from everything else. As long as every other element of the world remains undesired, they will be exploited. The people that are not wanted will be exploited, the land that is not treasured will be exploited and the earth will fade away.

Each day the entire world calls out. It may echo in the voice of a human, animal or machine. The world is waiting to be explored and accepted.

 

 

 

 

 

The Limitations of a Canine

If you have ever interacted with a dog, you have judged the personality of it. Between the play and love, there is a deep seated analysis of the reactions of the dog to certain stimuli. Does the dog come to you quickly or does it resist you and then, with time, open up?

Determining these behaviors allows you to understand how you should be interacting. If it is a good boy then you can open the flood gates and spill all of your love. If it is sharp, barking and intimidating then you can prepare yourself for the worst. Bad dog, bad dog.

Of course, a dog has as many versions of itself as a human. Within the same Siberian husky is a family member, a wild dog, an impounded pooch, a killer and a protector. These defined personalities are not simply labels, but complex blueprints of behavior.

Bizarre that we acknowledge that we don’t fully comprehend another being until we have spent a lifetime analysing them. Yet, we find comfort reacting to these judgements. One must admit that they are occasionally surprised by an interaction with another living thing. After the surprise, we can’t help but change our behavior.

Within our society, a personality reduces an individual to a collection of very specific, historical reactions. Personality has become the most sacred experience. That with great personality, trumps all others. Subsequently, having a great personality becomes the greatest gift.

People will go to such bizarre lengths to protect their personality. They may hold onto certain behaviors, afraid that without it they are no one. A good drunk may fear the loss of alcohol, just like the musician fears losing fingers. What would happen to them if they couldn’t react in the same way as before? Such thoughts hold one back from risk and change.

It is not only others that are restricted by personalities. We too sit within the cage.

A traumatized, impounded dog is only seen as the sum result of history, not as the loved family member that it becomes. The difference between the scared, fragile dog and the open, loving friend is only different stimuli to react to over a period of time. That potential is not available within the confines of personality.

The dog, only knowing one set of behaviors, has no idea of their own possibilities. It does not know that human touch can also be healing, kind and supportive. It has never felt this, it can not comprehend the impact.

A person might become trapped in their memories of themselves. Perhaps, in their whole life, they have never experienced love, true fear or loss. If this has not been experienced, they cannot comprehend how much it can change them.

Many people restrict their rehabilitation by seeing themselves as unchangeable. Either their context or their resistances inhibit the development of new interactions. The possibilities, for them, are limited. No person I’ve met could change how they see themselves without experiencing that particular change.

They might feel more beautiful, after being recognised as beautiful. But so few become more beautiful through changing their own reactions to themselves. It is far more physically rewarding to find this from another, than to slowly and consciously begin to do it yourself. This is an ultimate challenge.

It is a challenge because we do not fully understand something until we experience it. An intellectual is not known for their habits, but for their results and reactions. These results and reactions being a complex mixture of context and history. It has taken an intellectual 25 or more years to get to that stage. Thus we place an imaginary barrier up to the idea that we could be the same.

We can not live another life. All of our reactions are deeply rooted through lifelong repetition. One must not be blamed for thinking that a lifelong habit is too tough to break. Regardless, this assumption is most likely wrong.

If your life has begun to rotate through a series of similar contexts and interactions, change will evade you. An existing and experienced context allows you to rely upon your comfortable and entrenched habits. Without some sort of inspiration or discomfort, you have no reason to change. We all rely on our context to stimulate us.

The person that creates their own stimulation, can change beyond the limitations of their context. That person is their own source of inspiration, when all external inspiration has become dull.

Most search for love from others. But for this person, it is not the love of another that they rely upon. Their desire turns within. What they find they can do, is a surprise. That is because, love for oneself performs endlessly. It does not rely upon the context or will of another.

A dog will forever be submissive to its reality. But the human can work from the inside out. They may defy and work hard on producing change. Thus emancipated themselves from history.

History may define the bulk of a person’s interaction, but it no longer defines the possible boundaries. A constant state of change and growth no longer relies upon constant travel, companionship or drug use. All that these factors do is produce a stimuli that allows us to react in a way that strengthens our personality. It completes us by offering what we could not produce in that moment for ourselves.

Thus we remain in ignorance of what we are possible of creating for ourselves.

Why I’d Choose Poison over Marshmallows

As a child I used to explore my family garden. Upon turning 2 years old, if my memory serves me well, my consciousness started to emerge. I begun creating memories and experiencing more lucidity.

One of the most important moments in my development was stimulated by an Arum italicum plant. I would stand and stare at the orange and red fruits of the small speckled lily. It was like watching television, I was completely entranced by the colours. Thoughts of sweet delicious fruity curiosity swelled and ebbed. I would debate whether or not to taste it.

Days passed by and the desire grew stronger and stronger. One day, and it could have been any of the many times I spent in front of the plant, I took my first steps towards the fruits.

I woke up in my mother’s arms, screaming in pain. Inside and out, my body was stinging. It was like being prickled by a million barbs. I couldn’t move and every thing that I touched was the sensation of being stabbed. I could hear my Mum on the phone to the poison hotline. The hotline suggested drinking a bottle of milk, which eventually soothed my pain.

---

 

In the late 60s and early 70s, there was a series of famous experiments on delaying gratification. The most famous of which was named the Stanford marshmallow experiment. In the experiment, several children were given a choice between eating a single marshmallow immediately, or waiting 15 minutes for a second reward marshmallow. This experiment would uncover which children were able to delay gratification of a single treat, for the reward of two treats.

Both the children that ate the first marshmallow and the children who waited for the second marshmallow, were followed up later in life. Those that delayed gratification tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores,^[2] educational attainment,^[3] body mass index (BMI),^[4] and other life measures.

The Stanford marshmallow experiment has been discussed endlessly in media, usually revolving around the importance of delaying gratification. Delaying gratification is not a new concept. The idea is pounded relentlessly into the minds of each and every human, Barring those that are spoiled, we are asked to eat a healthy dinner to obtain desert, study hard for a certificate and invest our money for retirement. The benefit of this method is obvious. If you wait, you will be rewarded.

How frustrating to those that are unable to wait. Studies have shown that childhood trauma reduces the ability to delay gratification. Among many other similarly debilitating factors, it may be out of the control of the individual to turn to their innate physical ability to delay gratification. The outcome? Those that suffer young, suffer through life.

The way out of this particular feedback loop is not defined by the results of the study. Neither is the mechanism of delaying satisfaction. It is clear that all humans benefit from delaying satisfaction, but the process is deeply subconscious. To any casual observer, the way forward is limited to acting in open resistance to temptation. You must resist the desire you have to eat the marshmallow.

This is not an easy technique. It isn’t even a technique. It’s just escalating from one unbearable emotion to another. It is a request akin to being asked to carry all the sand from the beach. Carry, how? All the sand, why? There is no clarity, no end in sight. Even if you can resist 1000 times, at some point you will question why. By that point in the struggle, the answer will be so clear. Through this method alone, you are almost always bound to fail.

Now let’s pivot from marshmallows to poison berries. The marshmallow represents the reward to those that are able to delay gratification. The poison berry appears to be an obvious mistake by an uneducated or perhaps criminally under-supervised child (the jury is out, Mum). However, the two scenarios are complimentary exercises.

Comparing the poison berry to the marshmallow, both represent a reward for delaying gratification. In one scenario you receive positive sensations and the other you avoid negative sensations. When I was staring at the poison berry, believing it to be a potentially delicious treat, I was entranced by my imagination. My thoughts were that the berry had a rich cherry flavour. This representation was constructed through my personal association of red colour with cherry flavor. In the end, I chose to follow my thought and eat the berry.

Therein lies an important lesson. In the emergence of my consciousness my thoughts dictated my actions. The more enticing a thought, the more likely that I would follow it. If this continued uninhibited, and the berry tasted like sweet cherry, it would have strengthened the habit of acting on my enticing thoughts. However, the moment I poisoned myself, I interrupted that developing habit. The physical trauma spawned a strong memory note that some of my thoughts are bad and that the berry was inedible.

All our imaginations entice us to take action towards sources of pleasure. This is what occurred within the children that ate the first marshmallow. Their experiences could not comprehend the reality of that particular marshmallow. The reality, according to the study, is that succumbing to the first marshmallow will result in a lifetime of unnecessary suffering.

The children that wait for the second marshmallow paint the same mental picture. But, for whatever reason, they are not completely hypnotised by their imagination. The ability to disconnect from a thought is an important skill. The evidence is there, those that can do it live better lives. It isn’t about marshmallows or poison berries, it’s about detaching from hypnotising imagery. Resisting is one method, and the resistance requires physical energy.

This is why healthy, protected children are able to pass the first test, they simply have more energy. Traumatised children expend more precious neural energy dealing with stress and complex problem solving, there is simply less left over to resist enticing images. However, instead of nourishment, punishment may teach that following through with every thought will result in suffering.

Unfortunately, most punishment is cruel and chaotic. There is no logical reasoning or habit to be formed, all that can form is fear and hatred. The punishment, similar to mine, must be within the control of the child. The consequence and reward must both be acquired through the child’s actions alone.

Resistance alone, is a method that is bound to fail. As we age, we must develop energy efficient methods to avoid the lure of our own thoughts. The first step will always be engaging in activities that encourage observation over reaction. This can develop through use of rewards, punishments, sweets, poisons, drugs, abstinence and conscious resistance. Of course, at all times we are observing on some level, but the difference here is the length and directed energy.

For example, on one level I was observing the colours of the berry. However, that was the end of my observation. Had I waited and observed longer, what would I have learned? Firstly and most comically, I would have not starved without the berry (making it unnecessary to eat in the first place). Secondly, that no other human was eating it. Thirdly, perhaps my mother would tell me that it didn’t taste like cherry, it tasted like a million needles. If after all these observation, I decided to eat the berry then at least I did so knowing the consequences. Timing is key here.

The early bird may catch the worm, but the observant fish avoids the bait. The same goes for any and all thoughts. Acting on all thoughts may not poison you instantly. But just remember, even though the first marshmallow is sweet, it eventually leads to a diminished quality of life. The only way to know which marshmallow to eat, is to wait and see.

 

 

Interview with a Monkey: Part 3

Do you hate Mondays?  

No.

 

Do you know your Chinese astrology?

Yeah, I think it’s actually my year now. I think I was born in the year of the Rooster.

 

Do you believe in astrology?

No.

 

A local independent paper does an investigative article on the last time you went out partying. What is the title?

23-Year-old Found Where He Was Meant to Be, Smoking Weed with His Friends.

 

One of your parents is hugging you, which one comes to mind first?

My Mother.

 

What product would you happily sell door to door?

I could sell a piano tuning service, door to door. I know nothing about it, but it sounds like a great job. I’ve been playing a little bit of piano, reading a bit about tuning and looking up tools on eBay. It just sounds like fun. Tuning a guitar is fun, so it should be just as fun.

 

Do you think that the Pope truly believes in god?

Yeah, I think so.

 

Is there a question you would never answer on national television?

Something very personal. “What’s your love life?”, or something like that.

 

Who knows you the best?

I think my friend and old roommate. Even though we don’t know each other that well, we’ve spent so much time together and agree on so much stuff.

 

Do they know you well enough?

How much is enough? There are still things we can know about each other. Enough? That could be anything.  I dunno.

 

If there was a town with a population consisting entirely of clones of yourself, what sculpture/statue would you commission for the centerpiece of town?

A kind of enormous pipe organ that is somehow powered by solar or hydro-power so people or my clones can just come up and play. Some kind of interactive instrument, a big one.

 

If each of your regrets weighed a kilogram making up your total body weight, describe your body shape?

I think I would be tall and thin and not quite falling over. I think I’ve balanced my regrets with things that I’m proud of.

 

Did you have a childhood fear?

I didn’t have a singular fear of one thing in particular. But, I grew up in a country where there was an ever present fear of a home invasion, robbery or carjacking. This was something your parents had to be aware of, because that’s what that country is like. Some of it trickled down to me. I mean, I was involved in a scenario like that. Me, my Dad and little sister went to a hardware store and these guys came in with guns and held everyone up. So, it’s not just one thing like spiders, planes or whatever. It was just a nervousness, that I think I carried over into Australia. I only just realised that, after getting back from travelling, how much it had impacted me.

 

Would you be able to console your childhood self of what he/she was most afraid of?

The funny thing is, I didn’t even realise I had that kind of thing. It just seemed normal. I was a pretty introverted kid. I didn’t really have any deep conversations about it, even up to a year ago. I realise now, that my experience was great. I had food on the table and my parents drove me to school and stuff like that. I know now that with those things that I experienced — can at least be talked about. Which I have done and that has helped.

 

How do you feel about the idea of experiencing giving birth to yourself?

It sounds painful. It sounds kind of interesting, kind of sci-fi. It raises a lot of questions and I’m sure if anyone found out in the scientific community they’d be over me like flies on ice-cream. It sounds promising.

 

Have any of your wishes ever come true?

Not yet.

 

Do you trust your memory?

Yes I do. I think I have a pretty good memory. Particularly for short term memory — holding a bunch of numbers in my head — and then long term remembering conversations.

 

Was there a better period of history to be you?

I’d like to think that any time between 1890 and 1980 I would do well in. But it’s impossible to say. When I was travelling, I dreamed about being an Ancient Greek or an Ancient Roman. I think I would do well in the British Invasion in America or in London. If I had the same interest in music, then I’m sure I’d find something cool to do.

 

Which piece of technology would you ban?

Things like mass surveillance. This ability to record and keep phone calls and emails, Facebook logs, all that stuff. If you can consider that a technology. It’s funny that I worried about it as a kid. When I read 1984 and I imagined having to do what Winston had to do. Having to be incredibly secretive about what he did and his diary. I imagined going through the motions of living in a surveillance state and now, in Australia, we’re not exactly like that. But there’s nothing to stop them making it like that.

 

Would you make your parents lives more successful and fulfilling at the risk that they may never met each other?

Yeah, I think realistically they could have met other people who they would have fallen in love with and had families. That would of course vanish me from existence. I mean they’re both very happy people and I don’t think there is much I could change for them.

 

Do you want the best that life can give you?

I want the best that I can give myself in life. I don’t think that I’m going to receive anything just because I’m alive. I want to get the best out of my experience, whatever that entails. I’m not quite sure yet, but I have a few ideas.

 

Do you know what your body is capable of?

Roughly. I think it’s easy to underestimate one’s physical or mental abilities. I’ve always looked up to people who have managed to accrue something through an amazing amount of practice.

 

Do you love someone else?

Yes.

 

Do you love yourself?

Yes.

 

How would you handle a diagnosis of clinical depression if you found out today?

I would be surprised to start with. How would I handle it? I’d probably seek some help of some sort. Ideally, I’d get things in order so that if things did get bad, I’d have some sort of support network. I’d probably handle it pretty badly. I’d feel as if I was burdened with an enormous weight all of a sudden.

 

Is there somebody (dead or alive) that could convince you to destroy every physical thing you own?

I get that impulse from a lot of people, from authors, people I meet and just situations I am in. Herman Hesse did a pretty good job in Siddhartha. It’s a pretty short book and I read it more than a year ago, but it’s one of the books I think about more than other books I read. I don’t think I’m just going to fade off into the wilderness and carry a bowl around and ask for food. I realised that I have this tension within me between wanting to have a really simple material existence and having lots of technology to just take apart. I love accruing tools and stuff to work on. So, I’m at this stage where I’m moving back into my room after returning from overseas and I’m looking around at all of my stuff and wondering if I really need it. I’m questioning whether these things are beautiful or useful.

 

Every object has a texture that is distinguishable, if you could describe the texture of the inside of your body, how would you describe it?

Slimy, a little bit viscous and warm.

 

Do you respect nature?

Yes.

 

How important has nature been to the successes in your life?

I don’t think it’s directly attributable to any successes I’ve had so far. But appreciating the natural world is something that has brought a lot of peace to my life. I’ve had so many moments in nature. Out in the bush you kind of forget about your worries. I can’t say from the outstanding qualities of nature that I’ve been good at this or successful at this, but it’s helped partly in becoming the person I am.

 

Have you ever planted a tree?

No.

 

Have you ever eaten something you grew?

I’ve eaten some herbs I grew.

 

Have you ever seen a landfill site, a mine, a water treatment plant, a factory floor in person?

No. From a plane. Yeah, from far away. Yeah.

 

If the government legally changed your name into a number how would you react?

I’d be pretty pissed off and surprised that it happened so soon. I’d give us at least another fifty years before that happens.

 

If you had to kill an emotion you experience, which emotion?

Greed or coveting material things. I think it’s something that I do too much and something that I fight against.

 

Do you think you are the more jealous of your friends or that one of your friends is more jealous of you than you are of anyone else?

I think probably the first one. But, maybe both. I don’t like sitting on the fence but they’re both true in some sense. I mean, I’m very jealous of some of my friends. I might want their patience or determination. But obviously someone you know will also want one of your good traits or attributes.

 

You’re in a house, it scares you, there is a particular room with a closed door that gives you the heebie jeebies. What do you do?

I would leave the house and walk, well depending on how scared I was, jog or run away from the scene. Maybe try and meet a friend at a bar or something.

 

Someone attacks you? What do you do?

I’d try and fend them off.

 

Are you afraid of death? Why? Why not?

Not right now. I met someone once who told me that it was something that consumed his life. It kind of struck me as this pointless thing, that it’s not necessary. It’s something that’s just going to happen when it happens. Although, maybe when I’m 80 and old and rickety I’ll feel different. But I don’t do stupid shit like ride a motorbike really fast in the rain or do that kind of thing. I guess it’s something that I just don’t worry about. Maybe, as a kid I probably was. It’s not something you see in the street but where I grew up death is a bit more on your mind. In Sydney, it’s held from us for the better. When 80% of your country is living below or on the poverty line it’s something you see every day, whether you accept it or not.

 

Before you enter into a potentially life threatening surgery you are given an option if in the worst case scenario, you never wake up. 1. A musician or band will play music for you 2. A poet will read you poems 3. A storyteller will tell you a story 4. Ambient sounds of nature 5. A fatherly and motherly figure will speak to you. These will all happen in the last minutes before you die. Which will you choose?

I would choose a band. I would probably ask for this group in England who does, as I hear, very faithful reproductions of Renaissance era vocal harmonies.

 

Which movie, book, piece of music would you add to early childhood curriculum?

Maybe Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ because it’s a very simple piece of music. Some scholars say people overestimate the importance of it. But it’s so simple and I think that’s what makes it so powerful. If a little kid can hear that and dig it, then maybe there’s some hope for that kid.

 

An old mage offers you one of three amulets, the first will protect your brain against insanity, the second will protect your spine and nervous system against permanent damage and the third will keep any relationship you are in continuing until you take it off. Which do you choose?

The first one. I mean I am scared of losing a limb or breaking a finger. So much of my life is centered around the physical aspect of playing a guitar or playing the piano. But I think my mind would have to come first. Every finger could work, but if there is no mind behind that then what’s the point. I know it’d be hard to not be able to use my fingers, but I think I’d prefer my mind.

 

Have you ever hated yourself more than the person you’ve hated the most?

I don’t think so. I know I have a tendency to think I’m right, a lot. Sometimes, I am. I don’t tend to fixate on the hatred of people that I know. I’ve always taken a path of least resistance to that kind of thing. I might hate Donald Trump’s guts but if I go and post that on Facebook, I know nothing will come of that. Just taking the simpler route of not saying anything about it.

 

Do you ever question whether everything you experience is even real?

Not exactly. I have had that question before. I remember reading about solipsism as a younger me. Which is this philosophical stance that all you prove for sure is that your mind exists and that’s just about it. I operate on the assumptions that everything is real enough for me. I haven’t noticed any gaping holes in reality yet, maybe I’ll reassess if that happens.

 

If part of your requirement for payment from work was to stand on a crate in the CBD and give a 30 min sermon. What would the subject be?

Probably some anti-capitalist tripe like “you’re funding cruel corporations and your car is ruining the planet”. I think that would go down a treat.

 

What stops you from being political?

Sometimes it’s apathy. Sometimes it’s a feeling that I can’t really make an impact. For example, I made a political decision to stop eating meat because I felt these enormous meat farms get a huge amount of help from the government and then release all these toxic gases into the atmosphere. I believe that everything that people do is political. I realised recently you can have a political space in your life and I thought that if I made this decision to stop eating meat and it even made the smallest fraction of an impact, then it is worth doing. But, so many people want to eat red meat, buy a V8 Holden and Plasma TV from China. I can’t ask everyone to stop doing something, when it isn’t going to work out for people in general. I think I can, at best, exude some kind of personal culture of restraint. So yeah, I’m going to allow myself a really nice organic steak every 6 months or something because I think it tastes nice and that’s fine. But I still want to act on what I believe in. It’s hard to say what stops me being political. Am I really going to have an impact? If I skip meat at this restaurant, then who is really going to notice? The person who I’m with probably already knows and if they also believe in it then they’re probably doing it as well. If they don’t I probably won’t be able to change their mind. I’ve never wanted to seem too preachy.

 

Do you feel that people listen to you?

Yeah, I think they do. But I feel like I’m a bit of a control freak, like when I said I feel I’m right most of the time. Maybe I feel there is something that I’m saying that people don’t hear.

 

Do you plan on being remembered by history?

Ideally, yes. I have delusions of grandeur of course. I think if a musician is under 25 and they don’t feel even somewhat like that, then they’re probably deceiving themselves. With musicians, that expectation (even if it’s not remotely feasible) is something that you’re expected to have. Musicians are always tiptoeing around it. Thinking that they’re going to be rock star! When I was 16 and learning to play the guitar I definitely wanted to be rock star. I mean, I still sort of feel that way now. Because you go around the world and people pay you just to have fun and who the hell wouldn’t do that. If you do that then you’re at least going to go down as some little note in the bands that played in this little pub in London that one time. So, ideally yes.

 

How many people would have to attend your funeral for you to feel valued?

2 or 3.

 

Has an inspirational video ever made you do something?

Yes, but not the kind of inspirational video that comes to mind when you say that. I’m inspired by this maker movement online. I mean it’s a big thing in Europe and America. People like Adam Savage from Mythbusters are kind of doing this really cool DIY. It feels like a renaissance. With the kind of technology available now, they’ll make a customised house central control unit. I’ve watched videos with welding and creating stuff that has inspired me to give it a go. I probably have spent more hours watching those videos then doing the stuff in them. But I don’t know why I’m so into it. I like watching factories make the coke can and factories spitting out stuff and that kind of thing. But seeing people make stuff, even if it’s crappy but just doing it themselves. I always loved making stuff with my hands, so those videos are quite inspirational for me.

 

A part of your body decides to leave you after years of pain and suffering. Which part is it?

Probably my knees. I was blessed with a lot of things, but I was born with pretty bad feet. There’s a specialist I can go to, but I neglect to do that every time. Sometimes, after working for a full day my knees really hurt. So, there probably pretty sick of it by now.

 

Out of the three which connects you back to who you are, a diary, a mirror, a memory?

A mirror.

 

What day of the year still makes you feel like you did as a child?

It’s never really a day of the year for me. I don’t get that feeling at Christmas. I don’t know if there is one. I get that kind of feeling in moments of glee and joy. I can’t really give you an exact though. It doesn’t happen often, but that’s enough for me.

 

Homogeneous

With the tide of mental health awareness campaigns, a wave of sobering statistics has fallen upon the shore. Beyond Blue has stated that “one in four young Australians currently has a mental health condition”. One should question the aim of collecting these statistics. Is their intention to inspire the healthy to act for mental health, or to lend a hand of support for the afflicted.

The individual experience is arguably isolating, while facts appear connecting. The result is that the most enduring force of humanity, the experience of self, and the ultimate quest of humanity, objective knowledge — are oil to water. If we consider the human experience as per raw data reflection, then being an individual has remained very similar for thousands of years. If we consider the human experience as per subjective, egoist recollection then you and I are insurmountable distances apart.

The fields of history, genetics, ecology, development studies, physics etc. have highlighted connective strings between individuals. In the quest for objective truth, we have decanted hints of a deeper underlying reality of togetherness. Yet, the arts and humanities have thrown leagues of experiential difference between age/sex/profession/culture etc. It would be foolish to argue that each discipline did not represent both sides, that of separation and that of togetherness. However, there seems to be a terrifying tension that exists between the individual and the collective. The metropolitan state of mind wishes to deny any connection to society. In this paradigm, to state that, in general, we all experience humanity differently is politically safe.

How can we reconcile a shared reality? If only to comfort those that are increasingly sidelined. There is evidence of direct correlation between how connected a person feels to others and their physical and mental health according to a range of studies. The consequences range from psychological to sociological — inclusion is a factor that must be addressed on all levels. Perhaps, it is naive to attempt to unite all humans under one inclusive banner. But where do we start otherwise, do we attempt to carve out hundreds of millions of niches while maintaining peace between them? It is unwise to ignore that we are connected, even if it means associating with undesirable people.

The greatest divide occurs between what we experience and what we are told that we experience. I am more likely to accept my own version of reality, even if it is 100% inaccurate. If I am told that I am interconnected with bacteria, fungi, plants, insects and other animals, I might accept that as something that is true to a 2-D human, but not accept it as true to who I am. Consequently, if I hear that 180,000 people are going through the exact same emotions as me, I might accept that as a number but not as comfort that there are people who will understand me.

The universality of objective facts is also limited by our experience of cognitive dissonance. Even if the information could be of use to us, we might resist it on the basis that it is in opposition to our inner voice.

Neil deGrasse Tyson famously stated that:

“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

But, most people will only accept an objective observation under the condition that they can experience it visually or emotionally. To hear that one in four young Australians has mental health conditions directly conflicts with what we observe — a world of people healthier and happier than us. For whatever reasons, we are unable, or unwilling to perceive evidence for facts — it appears we have no genuine interest in bridging the ideological gap between our isolated self and the outside world.

There is a faint hope, that somebody or something will act as the conduit or diplomat between our subjective experience and the collective experience. It is painful enough to be imprisoned within our own experience, but the severity is greater when we hear of the party outside. The premise of such a conduit is that there is a collective experience to tap into. The belief that we are the outlier, deranged and incompatible with the system — emerges within chaos and defeat.

If there is an internal block to information, we will be unable to experience the source of the information. The movement of information is such that it originates, is absorbed and then directs attention to the source itself. Most of us do not move to the final stage. An internal resistance, whether related or not, distracts us from returning to the point of the information. Take for example that I ask you to pay attention to how you treat the environment, that information can meet any matter of block:

1. a) Who is he to tell me to pay attention to the environment.
2. b) Why should I care about the environment I’m just a ‘xx’.
3. c) Oh gee, Stacey hasn’t replied to my message yet.
4. d) The environment is an illusion and all that exists is I.

The way the information stops is irrelevant, it is only important to note that the desired outcome of the message ends up exploding within the subjective experience of the receiver. The information has created tension, rather than attention.

Marketers, at their most devious, will find a way past the gate master. The information will pass right by your resistance and effortlessly draw your attention to the source. For anybody that wishes to be heard, the techniques of marketing are the holy grail. For the most part, if objective facts are to be included in the subjective experience then they must pass by the internal gates of the individual.

The magic of stealth manipulation, delivering information without the individual realising, is the crack high. It develops individuals who seek information, people and pleasure which avoids their discomfort and removes any responsibility of the person to change. There is no incentive to remove blocks and change behaviour, the only incentive is to become an explorer. To constantly sift through information for that which most easily passes by barriers and evokes emotion. The world we live in is the world where we can still have everything we want, and also have the changes we want.

But the reality will eventually dawn on the explorer, they will one day have to return to themselves. Information will enter, only to be habitually compared and thrown out. The objective experience of reality will thrust the individual into their internal chaos. They will be unable to connect with their external realm because each conversation will herald a block developed from their adventures. Such is the reality for most individuals without realising it. Rather than acknowledge the collective experience of reality, we may only see our own subjective experience.

For us, a piece of information connecting back to the world is only a piece of information on which to contemplate. Contemplation serves only to distract us from that which needs attention.

As such, to learn that one in four young Australians experiences mental health conditions has not drawn attention to the problem, or to the shared experience of so many. The humanity in the information is now solely information for the individual. The homogeneous experience of reality, is everyone asking themselves whether it really is worthwhile to look around.