Since I Gave Up Hope (I Feel A Lot Better)

I can't take credit for the today's blog title. It's from the the 1987 Christian pop album, I Predict 1990, by Steve Taylor.

Taylor had a way of summing up the post modern world we live in a sarcastic, albeit humorous way. His lyrics often left you thinking, can a real Christian say that? One of his better known songs, I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good, was about killing abortionists.

I guess what he taught me was that healthy cynicism is good. That looking critically at a situation often allows an opposing viewpoint, 'thinking outside the box' if you will. I hate that phrase, it's back in the 80s with lateral thinking and brainstorming. However the point is relevant, open mindedness is the new philosophy.

Think of Obama supporting Gay marriage, a black president supporting a fundamental human right 25 years ago was unimaginable.  It takes a long time for a society to open up to new ideas, but if we are to successfully transform into a more equitable and ultimately more liveable world, we will need to.

The Sweetest Thing

Happy Valentines Day.

Premonition

It's a fascinating time to be alive in the world at the moment. The politics, the weather, the geology; its all shaping for a most awesome Apocalypse next year.

Not even Nostradamus in his wildest dreams could imaging a world like we're living in now. Maybe through some obscure quatrain could he predict a future of so much and yet so little. The suffering and the ecstasy they all all contribute to a human condition that will be recorded forever and yet like all history miss-told and again repeated.

I find my refuge in reading, it's like watching a painter putting the finishing touches on a canvas, the finer details explained and left to the observers interpretation. It compartmentalises my thoughts, helps me expel my misconceptions and biases. Reading also gives me the ability to see other worlds, other realms where people exist and offer their realities to me. This is a gift from God, not in a dust old biblical sense, but it allows me to more enlightened while leaving my baggage at the door of at the proverbial cover of the book, which up until that stage I have judged the contents.

I am not a sponge soaking up my environment regardless of the emotion. I am a still, filtering the contents.

Another Martini anyone?

Guilt is a Useless Emotion.

It's a warm in day Auckland, at least 16 deg. I've just got back from checking the letterbox after washing millions of spiders webs off my car and I can safely say it's almost tropical.

I like the transition of the seasons. Spring is great. It reminds me of my youth. Hanging out at Oriental Bay, watching the world go by. Listening to music as loud as my ears could handle from my Walkman. It's a reminder of the past and a promise of the future. Something that wasn't that assured as teenager. I do long for those days though, life was much simpler. My responsibility was limited to myself and even then that was more of an obsession than any duty of care. The air smelled sweeter, music felt like it lived in my bones and friends were always at arms length.

Now I rinse cobwebs off my car after checking my own letterbox for bills and other unreasonable demands. Life is more cluttered, friends are more fickle; worried too about externalities that demand more immediate attention.

I'm conscious too that life is passing me by, what I want and need are now gulfs apart. I want security, freedom from my fears. Belonging is no longer as important as position. My life moves at the speed of sound and I'm glimpsing back at what it was. Depressing.

Self help and pop-psychology manuals tell me to make a plan. Create a routine and life will fall into place, is that any different from being young again?

Come Together

Struck down by a cold, more blogging soon. I promise. Thanks Rob for the link.