The sanity machine

Here's the object of my affections - The (mighty) Green Fetus. My friend believes that one should not get emotionally involved with any objects. As far as combating current materialism goes, I agree with him. However there are two objects that I just couldn't live without: My bike and my computer, Sonicfetus. I should probably add my legs to that list, but they go without saying, yah?


I was rather pleased at being able to tow 1/3 of my belongings 20km in peak hour. Rather pleased to be alive, to be precise.

The pure centre

Ever noticed how preoccupied a lot of people are about finding the centre of something? The heart of the city, the centre of controversy, the golden age of....whatever.

I think it's the same sort of thinking that leads to the false search for purity. What drives my mother to be obsessively clean. What drives Buddhists to achieve enlightenment. I once overheard a couple of backpackers commenting on a rainforest walk at Cape Tribulation: "the forest, it's just so pure...". Okay, so I shouldn't demolish an aesthetic reason to love the bush, but purity and the bush doesn't sit right with me. The bush is the most dirty cauldron I can think of. Particularly rainforests, with their massive biodiversity.

Later, after returning to Melbourne, I heard this: "I wouldn't worry about the bushfires, it just cleans up the bush...". I only thought of a good retort later, as is always the case with good retorts. "That's like saying world war II was good for cleaning humanity." Depends on your point of view, I guess, but at least those of us who care know that two major fire events in 3 years is not healthy.

Oh well, at least those humans attracted to the idea get their fix of bush purity. Not that they'll visit it of course, it's far easier to pontificate from afar.

I'm not sure where this drive comes from -- perhaps part of the origin question, perhaps natural reductionism. My head doesn't spit out a clear trend on this one...

My people

Once again New Year's was spent in the outdoors. A pretty hard hike, complete with water shortage in the northern wilson's promontory area. Getting scratched to pieces by gnarly, tough coastal lowland scrub.

It's traditional to reflect on something at this time of year -- and the thing most on my mind are my happy contradictions.

1. I always find my people in places of few people. You never meet retards or bogans in real wilderness. It seems to relax and bond everybody who dareth enter. It's like a giant distributed dinner party, where you are all friends to begin with instead of on 'cunt filter' in the city.

Speaking of which, I should probably relax my cunt filter a bit now that I'm back in Melbourne. It's getting a bit worrying that I have somewhat forgotten how to do the usual charm tap-dance, and don't get driven to leave the house and meet people. My only pangs consist of meeting random thinking persons and listening to some interesting spoken word audio files I have on my computer, but this is still in extreme nerd range. Maybe next millennium...

2. Techo self vs. Primal self. I still identify as a physicist, and as such love my gadgets, technology, information -- but this does not reconcile well with my back-to-nature impulses. Podcasts in the outdoors are heaven. But these frontiers are irreconcilable, at least in this paradigm of civilisation. It confuses me, but I live with it. That's why I'm moving to mighty Tasmania.

3. Morality. For all my moralizing, I end up in ruts. I righteously sit at home on my computer, and tell myself that it's because the world isn't quite ready for me yet. I simultaneously envy and despise people able to just talk shit. Is shit-talking some form of advanced philosophy -- to just let everything go and not worry about the bigger picture? I envy people who are stupid enough not to know the limits of their ability, get tied up in knots failing, but gain a good anecdote afterward. My somewhat overactive brain only does things like that virtually, dismissing the stupid idea for whatever reason, but I get no anecdote!

The key to happiness? Here it is folks...
Convincing yourself that everyone else isn't always having a better time than you. Oh, and hugging trees.

Wishing considered happiness your way just for this year.