Sometimes I hear something that just rings true.

Alan Watts on nothingness by dreaming in the void blog

I think that this sits very nicely with what I’ve mentioned previously about Illusions by Richard Bach

I may well not be here but for Steve and Apple

Yes, that may sound like a big statement that Apple and in particular the personality of Steve Jobs and the way that it was embedded into the very DNA of Apple could have that much of an affect on me but I think it’s correct.

Just some of the Apple products that brought me here

I first became aware of personal computers in about 1980, then missed an opportunity to us a Fairlight CMI in 1983 only to eventually buy an IBM clone 286 in 1992. All of them, as enticing as they were, couldn’t capture me. It was really simple! I’m not a geek and all the things that geeks love, (you know the beauty of code and getting under the hood of the computers), never appealed to me. I just wanted something that did the things that I wanted it to do. Unfortunately up until the advent of podcasting I hadn’t found that “thing”, that enamored me.

Once I found podcasting the next thing was to engage with it and learn. If it hadn’t been for Apple products guided by Steve and the knock on innovations of their computers that they brought to all of us I don’t think I would have been able to get over the initial steep learning curve and understand the technology enough to be able to become a podcaster.

 I’m an Apple FanBoy

Yes, it’s that big! If the devices for using digital technologies had continued to evolve as it was in the early ’80′s, I don’t think I would have been able to eventually overcome the challenge in my late 40′s, when I decided to get on board.

The elegance of design and intuitive interface of Apple products, enabled this tradesman, to come and play in this new exciting digital world, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

Thanks Steve, travel well

Preparing for the flood – 12 January 2011

It’s been a huge few days since we first started to realise that it looked like Brisbane would be hit by another of the cyclical floods that happen every 30 to 40 years.

Brisbane is at the end of the Brisbane River, a long, slow moving, meandering brown waterway that drains much of the country from the Great Dividing Range to the west and into the north. As noted by John Oxley as the first explorer in 1823 when he sailed upstream to where Brisbane now sits, the river has no watershed to keep the flow constant but relies on rainfall from it’s catchment. This inevitability leads to periods of low flow where the river becomes a tidal stream washing upstream on the high tide and downstream on the low tide, much like we’ve had for the last 20 years of drought. He noted from the rotting vegetation high on Spring Hill and Kangaroo Point that this natural choke between these high points must cause massive floods during high rainfall.

Water Creeping Up My Street

John Oxley is basically correct and it seem that the cycle of this flood is based on the La Nina oceanic temperature phenomena where the water temperature warms causing greater precipitation, including cyclones which can impact on Brisbane as happened in the 1974 flood. This cycle has lead to minor and more occasional major floods in 1865, 1893, 1931, 1974 and now 2011.

I remember well, as a 14 year old in Toowoomba, watching the black and white television images of the massive destruction and flooding that was the Brisbane flood of 1974, wondering what it would be like to experience that event, and yes even wondering of how exciting it might be to be involved – Now I know.

On Monday the 10 January 2011 a slow moving trough had settled over the catchment of the Brisbane River dumping rain on the already soaked area that had seen an unusually high rainfall. The long ten year drought had well and truly broken and now the dams were fall and spilling, a vast change from when there was but 25% in them just a few years ago. How good was it to now not to be on water restrictions and able to use water freely but this was getting ridiculous now, with rain soaked ground causing each new drop to run off filling the flood mitigation percentages of the dams and swelling the streams.

Then the unthinkable happened, something that no one has ever heard or seen before. My home town of Toowoomba high on the range at 340m above sea level, sat in a place where the dense moist air rose, chilled and dumped it’s contents on the escarpment and on Toowoomba itself. It was as if God had emptied a bucket on the town, filling the creeks, flash flooding the shops, sweeping away everything in it’s path including cars, shipping containers and people. Sadly two people died when they were trapped in their vehicles by this surging wall of water. This is what they had to deal with in the Toowoomba Flood

Then it got worse…

The water that was dumped on Toowoomba flows west to the Darling Downs causing flooding in many smaller towns, some for the second time in a fortnight but what happened to the east was of biblical proportions of horror.

As the cool air rose up the range it precipitation out and dumped onto the escarpment creating a high speed wall of water that instantly roared through the Lockyer Valley wiping out low lying areas around the towns of Withcott, Grantham, Gatton, Laidley. The first of these towns copped the full force of the physics of throwing water down a slope. A deluge of high speed water wiping clean everything it it’s path, livestock, cars, houses and people.

Just imagine sitting down to lunch like on any normal day then hearing a freight train coming and have to run for your life with no more than two minutes to get to safe ground leaving everything behind. How would you feel? I can’t comprehend how difficult that would be to deal with and how quickly it would be necessary to think and comprehend the enormity of the situation.

That was the worst of it but as the flow moved downstream swelling creeks and rivers, rapidly flooding downstream communities the rain also continued to descend filling all the catchments particularly the giant Wyvenhoe Dam to 190% of it’s total 225%. The dam could no longer keep all the water back with the huge inflows coming into it and had to release a controlled amount to balance it’s inflow with the impact downstream where it would be joining with the Tsunami coming down the Lockyer Valley swelling the Bremer River and flooding Ipswich.

Once these two flows meet they then combine to impact on all areas downstream swelling that slow moving meandering waterway that is the Brisbane River into the tumultuous maelstrom that becomes the great flood of 2011.

Brisbane is lucky.

Unlike Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley where the folk had minutes to evacuate, or a few dozen hours for Ipswich, Brisbane has had a couple of days to prepare.

On Monday night I thought “this might be it”, but I slept well in my bed wondering what tomorrow would bring. The next morning I decided to help a friend move some things as she might get a little water through her place but on the way to her place I heard that my street in West End was told to prepare for flood waters in the next couple of hours.

Time to ramp up!

I’ve emotionally prepared for this event for as long as I’ve owned my unit as I knew it was in the area prone to this flooding so I had considered all options and like all triage I had my priorities. Considering the options of, if I only had a few hours, to having a few days. In order of importance they are:

1. All electronic technology – computers, hard drive, recorders etc.
2. Personal papers and memorabilia
3. Clothes
4. Secondary clothes and personal effects
5. Furniture
6. Everything else I would rather not get wet

I raced home and started with the priorities loading precious item into my car while glancing down the road to see if the impending flood was approaching – it wasn’t. So I kept working with the help of friends and my daughter to load things. Once I had the priorities I went to take my daughter to her Mums but couldn’t get through due to road blocks so I took her to stay at a friends.

How wonderful people can be in times of stress.

Without hesitation my daughter’s friend’s parents were happy to accommodate her and for me to unload my car into their home. They then offer me storage and transport for the mattresses and fridge that I was prepared to sacrifice to the flood waters along with anything else that I wanted to get out. How good was that. I could now save more things and move further down the list of items to keep from getting wet

It’s now been three weeks – 7 February 2011

As I pick up the keyboard I’m now sitting high and dry with the flood now three weeks behind me. I wrote the above section during the weird period of waiting for inundation. I had completed all the preparation, rescued all that I could and it was just time to wait and see what would happen while staying with friends high and dry in comfort away from the mayhem only a few kilometres away.

After three days the word came through that the flood could potentially be 2 metres above the 1974 flood level. With that I decided to finally strip some of the fixtures from my unit but as it turned out their estimates were incorrect and the water came to the neighbours property right up to my boundary – I dodged a bullet. Another half metre and it would have been over my floor and everything would have been different but I was fine and untouched.

What have I been doing these three weeks?

As I had move out I decided to take advantage of the situation. After I had helped clean up a friends home who had a small amount or water over her tiled floor and help her move back in I decided to repaint and renovate my unit. To turn an unexpected annoyance into a positive outcome for myself. Now I have a freshly painted and I’m in the process of redecorating it as I can afford, to create a new environment more conjusive to the work that I’m now doing from home.

I’ve come from this whole event in a better condition than I went into it. I have a renovated home, I’ve had an adventure protecting myself and helping others, I have some interesting stories to share and I’ve only been inconvenienced and lost three weeks production. I’ve been so lucky.

There are people in my community who are in a similar situation like myself where they have been only inconvenienced, then there are people who have lost everything, home, furnishings and even lives. Here are aerial images of the scale of the flood.

The people in the Lockyer Valley have been devastated by what happened to them with 21 dead and still 9 missing. What I went through was nothing compared to being an elderly person and having every possession swept away by the flood waters – How do you recover from that?

After the flood.

As the flood waters subsided the one stunningly, wonderful thing that came from it was the way the unaffected areas of Brisbane and the greater South East rallied to support and help. Tens of thousands of volunteers came out of the woodwork to help clean up the stinking, slimy muck that had covered roads and seeped into every crevice of people homes and lives. People rallied and formed teams to sweep, hose and wash down lives so they could dry out and start again. There were so many volunteers that some people had to be turned away.

Independent crews of people organised themselves to set up bar-b-cues to make food, deliver coffee and water to clean up gangs all at their own expense and on their own initiative. The community spirit and good will to help those less fortunate was stunning to witness and gives me hope that people still care for each other and it’s not just about the almighty dollar after all.

In just ten days from the flood waters subsiding 90% of Brisbane that was affected seems to be back up and operation. Sure there are some aspects that will take years to rebuild like the ferry services and many business will fail because of the floods of 2011 but in just a couple of weeks this city is operating again and getting on with it. It amazes me how quickly things have recovered.

Today I’m back on deck looking forward to getting back into production of my shows and picking up where I was before I was distracted by other events. It’s been one of those huge experiences of life, full of stories shared with my community. A community spirit that has heartened and encouraged me and a moment in time that we can all talk about into the future.

50 Years I’ve been here now.

First Birthday

50 years, 18,250 days, the same number of mornings and evenings the same number of nights asleep bar a dozen or so all-nighters. 5o years of experiences good and tough.

Yes, I would say tough but I wouldn’t say bad, although there have been some challanging times. Like when I was out of sync in my last year at school because I couldn’t do my precious wood work. That was the time to leave, just before and fortunatly as I got my apprenticeship. Or the frustration of dealing with the end of my marriage and the subsequent crash and burn that came from that. These times were tough but I wouldn’t say bad, not real bad, like some people have, some people don’t have tough lives, they have real bad lives. My life has been just challenging, requiring me to, well, suck it up and get on with it. And sometimes I’ve had the help of some wonderful people to help me through. To all of you… thanks.

So far it’s been a good life anyway I look at it. I have very good health both mental and physical and I’ve managed to do some interesting, even wonderful things. The highlights would have to be doing my apprenticeship, skydiving, building a house, my marriage to Gail,  my daughter Sabina, the many wonderful relationships that I have had, the skills that I’ve gained, working on the Matrix 2&3 films, my podcast and associated travels and learnings and in recent years, the joy of tango.

If you asked me to reflect on the tough times, I’m genuinelly, mentally challenged to remember. I can remember the events but there is no emotion connected to them. I don’t feel as distressed from them that I felt at the time. It must just be my psychology but I seem to remember the good, with a joy that is hard to express and the bad times seem to fade away like a dream in the morning.

My gorgeous Mum and I

It’s strange to reflect on the last 50 years not because it’s the half way mark, I think that is behind me, I may but it’s not likely I’ll make it to 100. The reason for the reflection is because of something I heard 15 years ago. A man in his 80′s said to a friend that he can look in the mirror and the face he sees looking back, looks old and he wonders who’s face it is, as if in astonishment, that this is not his face, as it’s not as he feels inside. Inside he still feels like the 18 year old.

This is what I find interesting. I don’t exactly feel 18 but maybe more like 30 or 35? I’ve seen grown men in their 40′s behave like 14 year old boys because a woman comes into the workshop and they don’t know how to deal with girls. I’ve seen 50 year old women throw a tantrum like an 8 year old brat. Occasionally I’ve meet a child that says something profound and in shock I realise that they have a wisdom far beyond their years (my daughter has done this on occasions). I know that maturity doesn’t come with age.

To be forty when I was a child was old and fifty was… well near incomprehensible. So here I am at the end of my 50th year, marking it with my birthday and I feel more like a child looking on in disbelief, than the 50 year old that I know I am. Sure I have over the years bought into what I should be like by 30, 40, 50 and what I should have to show for it by now but when I’m true to myself and really happy and content  I have a laisse faire attitude to the things that society says are important. Money and the ego based trappings are examples. I have generally a playful attitude towards most things I do. Like the kid that I was, knocking together an old push mower and pram wheels in the back yard to build a billy cart, I’m still bashing my life together, seeing what may come of it. I have a general idea sometimes where I may be going, but it’s only a vague direction, somewhere over there, as I wave my arm aimlessly towards the horizon. I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing or where I will be going. Every time I have attempted to be definite, it’s evolved in ways I would never have imagined and turned out in ways that have surprised me. So now I’m just going in that vague direction, one step at a time and I’ll see what happens and where it may take me.

One of the great things that have come about in recent years and something that I couldn’t do when I was younger and hyperactive, is now I’m happy not to do anything. Well more to the point I’m happy to do no-thing. Occasionally and it seems to be happening more often these days, is that as I worry less and embrace my natural playfull attitude, I have times when for the moment all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed there is simply nothing to do. When that happens I’ve learned to do just that, in contradiction to what society says we should do, I simply do nothing… no-thing. Just sit and be present. It’s really quite beautiful and sublime.

So as I sit here reflecting on all those fifty years and it seems hard to imagine that there have been that many, I can honestly say that I have no regrets, not one! Sure with hindsight I might change a few things here and there. Maybe get out of a few embarrassing situations,(like that Harry Hi-pants photo at my sisters 21st) and not say the occasional inappropriate statement but all in all I have never intentionally harmed anyone. Any harm I have done was done with innocence as I have always attempted to mitigate any difficulties by thinking and acting with care before saying things that can harm. When harm is accidentally done I have always attempted to ameliorate the situation. This is my way of taking my responsibility, for the situations with others that I have found myself in during these past 50 years. I find I have less of such issues today simple because I pay more attention on what I’m doing before I act, to consider all aspects of the event than I would have in the past. These days I have less repair to do. I ask no forgiveness, nor offer any to anyone else, as we all do the best, that we could at the time, with what we had.

3 years old at Scarborough

Some people have their lives plotted and planned. They know where they are going, each step of the way. As I look forward I realise that I have no idea where I’m going, just the general direction, pointing into the distance and hand waving again but that’s good. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning and something to start the day with but as so often happens, events evolve from what I couldn’t have expected. If you had have asked me to consider at 30 where I would be today I would never have guessed Here, so how would I be able to predict where I will be in 10, 20 or 30 years. All I know is that at the end, I’ll be dead and what I do from now till then is my life. What I do with it is my choice. There is no right or wrong and no one else really cares but I, so I’ll just keep doing it, this thing called my life and see where the journey takes me.

Life is a Game

A Game to be Played

You can Never Lose

You can only Win

As long as You Play

Most people don’t think of funerals as being pleasant but on Saturday I had the good fortune to go to a great memorial service for a cousin. Malcolm Kath, just four years my senior passed away from cancer about 10 days earlier and we were under strict instructions not to not wear any suits but loud shirts, roll at least one bowl down the green at the Canungra Bowls Club and have a drink, his shout.

Mal was one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to know. He was kind and wanted little from others but his simple life reminded me that sometimes it’s the quite ones that have an impact far wider than the people who make all the noise. A bachelor until 50, he finally married his childhood sweetheart Marcia in 2006. At the service I saw school photos of the eight year old Mal and Marcia in the same class at school.

I remember catching up with Mal a couple of years ago and in his style he was holding his right hand out in a claw, complaining that there was something wrong with it. I asked what was the problem, to which he replied “I don’t have a beer in it”.  A simple dry wit was his style but sadly his desire for beer was a life long issue and the addiction to it eventually lead him, in the last few years to loose his short term memory to the alcohol abuse condition of Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. This had the side benefit in his last days, which although full of pain and with difficult palliative care, he was unable to remember any of it, so he was constantly discovering how dire his circumstances were inso only living in each new moment.

I suppose this is the point of this post and what I learnt from Mal on Saturday. Things are not always as they may seem.

He was content with his life fully aware that he made the decisions that lead to all events. He lived in his moment to moment life and he accepted the consequences of those decisions and he earned great respect from his community for that and the decent person that he was.

Marcia Receiving Mals Service Award

At the service there would have been 250 people to see him off, including seven police officers past and present. Marcia received a 20 year service award for Mal signed by the Commissioner of Police, presented by the Managing Officer of the Local Police District for his service. For being a cleaner and gardener.

Now I knew Mal, he was family but for a top heavy bureaucratic government organisation like the police service to take the time to show their regard to a humble cleaner says a great deal for the character of one of the unsung mainstays of our society. One of the many that we take for granted but rely on and when they are gone they will be missed.

Mal, like most of us, will not even be a footnote in history but not too many of us will have earned the respect that I saw shown for him on Saturday. We can all learn more from the quiet, humble people who make no waves but help to keep us afloat.

Just now I was reflecting on how Eckhart Tolle mentions about how his ego doesn’t interfere with his daily events as they would cause identification with the events around him. This identification would interfere with him doing things in the moment and cause stress and anxiety. This reminded me of the numerous times when I’ve been in fear before an event and how when I’m in the flow it always works without fear. How this stress is always ego related and how without the expectations of a new beginning I do well and if I allow my ego to get involved I always seem to screw it up.

Does this mean that if I am fearful or anxious I’m identifying with the event with my ego? I think so.

I’ve always said that I have “Beginners Luck”. The number of times that I’ve done something for the first time and done it initially with ease is staggering. I remember when I started skydiving at 17 years of age. I went to the drop zone the first weekend and did my training and the following weekend I went to do my first jumps. That weekend I did four static line jumps, each and every one was copy book perfect. Everyone praised me, paying complements as to my natural abilities. Then the following week end I returned to continue and failed monumentally, moving onto free fall and tumbling out of control eventually returning to static line descendants and doing 13 instead of the usual five until I eventually moved onto free-fall again. It was even recommended that I should give it away. Ultimately I amassed 2000 skydives and became an instructor at 19. By then I was humbled by by initiation into the sport.

For a short time when I was about 30 I had a sales job using a style of sales similar to encyclopaedia selling where I had to present to people in their homes from a script and eventually close the deal. After the initial training I went out on my first day to present, not expecting any results as I was such a raw recruit and managed to sell four out of five presentations blowing everyones expectations, including mine, out of the water. The following six weeks were harrowing as I slowly started to stress and didn’t sell one programme until eventually I decided to give it away and on my last presentation I sold two unexpectedly to the client and her friend who just happened to be sitting in. I’m sure I sold on the last day because I no longer had an attachment to the outcome, the stress of achieving was removed and my ego was now out of the picture.

This has happened in all the fields that I have ventured into where the first time I do something, I do well as I have no expectations, my ego is subdued as I’m only starting and I don’t expect any results. Because I’m completely with the experience and not at all in my ego I allow anything to happen and it resolves in ways far better than I would have expected. It’s even happened with the first time I played lotto and won $35 because there is no chance to win on my first attempt and I’ve never won anything since.

The problem is that once I have the initial success, I then buy into others and my own expectations based on the past experience and extrapolate it out into the future, then naturally expect the evolvement of the good fortune into something grand. Then when it doesn’t materialise I become demoralised, think of it as a failure and it all falls apart. If I do keep at it in the long term and persevere through the negative period as I did with skydiving and my trade skill I notice that I eventually return to the level of success that I originally had but now I’ve been humbled by the experience of doing so poorly during the intervening period. I then don’t think of what I do as being anything special but think of it as something that anyone can do, as is really the case. If I can do something anyone can and often times anyone has, so why should I think that I’m anything special. This is what I find so interesting.

I seem to be blessed with some innate natural talents which enable me to do well initially but if I allow my ego to rise up even at the most basic level I come unstuck then my ego feels blighted by the failure and stress develops and a downward cycle begins. What if I don’t allow my ego into the picture? What if I simply say “this person which is me is doing this thing and it will be as it will be”? If the goal of the day is achieved or not is irrelevant. It’s only important to do the task as seems appropriate with no judgement of whether it is good or bad, which is a judgement in itself. Just let it be and not to identify with the event in anyway as being something personal.

That’s the take home, “not to identify with the event in anyway as being something personal” which has to exclude any form of ego.

Picking up from yesterdays post about 2009 and how good a year I had, I thought that it was also appropriate to consider what is ahead for 2010.

Last year I sat down with some serious consideration to goal setting and planning out my year ahead.What I hoped to have for my podcast, income, home and social life. Then as the year wore on I realised that despite my good intentions many other things were being thrown up in my path creating situations that prevented or changed the direction of things that I had set out to achieve. Some improvements some challengers but things that changed where I thought I was travelling, thereby creating a feeling in me that I didn’t have control on my life and frustration that I wasn’t able to make the goals realised as I was told would be achieved if I followed the rules of goal setting. Basically what I’m saying is that the classic western goal setting model doesn’t seem to work for this little black duck.

So as I mentioned in the last post, as I started on this exercise in May to just opt out of what is expected and make my decisions based on what is appropriate in each moment and the relative ease at which my life now seems to be evolving I’ve decided on some new goals for this new year.

• Goal 1 – I intend to be fully engaged with every activity and make any decisions that need to be taken in that moment.
• Goal 2 – Any time I fall into emotional considerations of the future or reminiscences of the past I’ll concentrate on Goal 1.

If you haven’t realised goal 2 is actually a variation on goal 1. It’s just that I’m still not brilliant at this and I sometimes have to remind myself to go to Goal 1.

Oh! and just in case you think this is not, or is a real goal, I don’t mind what happens anyway.

I’m just here Now.

Life is a Game
A Game to be Played
You can never Lose
You can only Win
So long as You Play. ’91

Another year wraps up and I’ve been reflecting on it lately.

Back when I came up with the idea and started Your Story I commented on how the years were all the same and the disappointment that there wasn’t any real change from year to year, of my desire to shake that up. Now it’s now been nearly 3 years.

I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing when I started on this path those few years ago but I knew that I needed to start and see where it would go. The first 15 years of my adult life were wonderful years with a great marriage, adventure and achievements but after that it was particularly tough. Now I can say that of the last 15 years since my marriage went south these last 3 years have been the best, most rewarding and enlightening years.

When my daughter was little I used to say that I was running a one off, 18 year experiment in parenting and I’d get back with the results on whether I achieved anything when she is 18. Now that she is I think that experiment has been very successful but that is another story. Just the same as parenting, this last year I’ve been running another experiment in not planning, not goal setting but

Ian in Buenos AIres

simply going where the moment takes me. It started way back in May when I decided, just for one week to have a Societyfast. What could go wrong for one week of not buying into all the stuff of society?

As it turns out after that week I decided not to reconnect with the system and that’s the way it’s been all year since then. Now I’ve always done things somewhat my own way but this was really ramping it up. I have for the majority of the year slept, worked, danced and travelled as it’s seemed right in the moment. I’ve done my best not to project into the future and reminisce on the past. I have at times been far from perfect from achieving this and I have sometimes bought into fear and sentimentality but generally I’ve been able to reconnect after a time and just enjoy the moment. And what wonderful moments I’ve had.

In the last year I’ve only worked about 10 weeks which has caused me to live very lean but my life is wonderful and rich with friends old and new. I have a wonderful social life thanks to my dancing and all that Tango has given me. I’ve travelled yet again, this time to Buenos Aires. I’ve worked for a time with an artist and on Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where I made some wonderful things. The podcast is evolving and I’ve managed to meet and get a whole new level of guests to come onto the show. My skills have continued to improve both with audio and video while some people, though only a few, seem to like what I’m producing and keep coming back.

But most importantly I’ve discovered that if I take the time, to take no time, to just be in the moment and make decisions on what needs to be done now and follow that quiet feeling inside me that says that I should do … right now it all seems to work out. Leave my petty ego out of it and be content with whatever happens whether it’s others or my doing doesn’t matter. Instead of worrying I’m starting to have an attitude that something will happen, it’s just that I don’t know what it is. This is creating a new state of wonder, where I don’t know what is going to happen but like watching a film I’m curious and wonder what will evolve. Amazingly it’s working out different and much better than I could imagine.

Yes, what will come of the New Year. I wonder because I have no idea.

Lets find out…

I’ve finished work a while back on the Narnia movie again. I was initially on for a month, which is where I wrote the previous post, then off for a month, then back on for 2.5 weeks and now yet again I’ve not worked for a few weeks. Since I finished up I’ve been thinking about

Book Stands for the Movie

this crazy life of mine and how it flies in the face of the Western method of work, whether it’s valid or irresponsible of me, if I’m burning my bridges for my future or if maybe I may actually have something here.

When I finished I knew I had to do the whole readjust again back into the mental head-space of just hanging out doing my thing again. It’s very easy to plug into work, as once I’m on a Job there is a first morning where I get up and head off to another first day and from then on it’s routine. The longer I work in that one place the more ingrained the routine becomes and the more comfortable it all is. That is until the routine becomes boredom. Then another type of stress starts where I question my existence and waste of life in that environment and yet again I have to leave to find myself.

That is very much the way it is for most of the permanent work that I’ve done and the great advantage of working contract is that normally I can stick it out long enough until the project is complete which hopefully isn’t too long and then I get the change that I need. So film work often suits me well in this regard.

Finishing and readjusting to no work is not as easy as compared to starting as I don’t have the distractions that work gives me from what I call the “Void” or “Nothing”. However there are two ways to approach this.

1. Get another Job is what everyone asks and expects. In a lot of ways that is the easiest option. But for me after all these years of doing the variations on this lifestyle I know that it will go the way that I’ve outlined above. Normally six months and I’m a spent force, bored and ready to move on. It even tends to manifest in physical disturbances in my body brought on by the low but permanent levels of stress.
2. Embrace the Void. Now it’s not exactly Nothing. It’s not as though I wake up sit down and do nothing until I go back to sleep that night as I have my personal projects and day to day order to keep functioning so there is a whole range of activities and a constant supply of new and interesting opportunities turning up daily to keep me active. However compared to the 40 hour week, 48 week year work model it appears to be a void that requires filling.

The challenges with embracing the Void is that there is no order projected onto the future, no planning and no surety. It’s very much living in the moment and taking the opportunities as they arrive on a moment by moment time frame. That flies in the face of the Western model of how to get things done. I’m supposed to have lists, goals, plans for what I want to achieve and a step by step approach to achieving them. I’ve read the books on goal setting and that’s the way they say to achieve what your after. Sure that’s the model and if you have a specific goal that is what you do to achieve it, I get that.

But what if you haven’t the goal at the moment?

For the last couple of years my podcast Your Story has been a goal, a huge goal, to get the knowledge and have a production model in place but I never knew what I was going to do with it beyond getting it up and running and hoping that some opportunities may come of it. So I’ve been working at learning everything I needed to get it going but now that’s been achieved it’s bubbling along and I don’t have the next step.

Welcome to the Void, Ian.

The easy fix as mentioned above and the one recommended by all is to go get a job and for two reasons.

Money and activity.

The number of people who say it must be good to have this free lifestyle or it must be good to have money, as they say they would like to not have to work but they need to, as they need the income, they need the money to maintain the lifestyle.

• Let’s look at the obvious side of this first – Money.

Are we addicted to the money and income from our work?

I think most people would agree that the answers is yes. Most don’t realise that the addiction is based on having an income to support a lifestyle that is far in excess of what is necessary. They scream that they want the “stuff”. You know the “stuff”… It’s all that consumer stuff that we surround ourselves with, from the house and car to the holidays and widgets. It includes everything beyond our base needs. Everything that the advertisers throw at us but more insidiously it’s the subtle daily reminders that to be a person of respect in our society (and just look at the business and social pages in the paper to understand this) you need to have a style and attitude the requires all the “stuff”. These are the things that identify you to the rest of society and you need to surround yourself with them at any cost and the cost is debt and/or work very hard to generate the income.

This is not to say live in a cave with only the basics to have a good life but do you really need all of that “stuff”? Do you constantly have to upgrade as soon as the next version of it comes out? If the answers is yes then you need to fund the never ending need for those consumables and there is always more “stuff” coming on the market to necessitate the increase in your income – consume, consume, consume. It never ends.

I know that many would say that they are only just getting by on the minimum of what they can afford with no luxuries and that is valid. They are trapped by this system of the things that they must have or are expected to have. The biggest of these for the average family but far from not the only, is the cost of housing. Once a mortgage is activated you are indentured to the system to work as a wage slave for the duration of this debt with rent being no different. However by todays standards we need far more than in the minimum. Our grand parents were happy with far less.

A few years ago I went against the grain and didn’t get myself into huge debt to purchase another property as I realised that I would have to flog myself just to maintain the mortgage by being in this exact situation. Instead I still live in my humble two bedroom unit and I have a small investment unit in the same block. When I say humble I mean very humble, these units are 49 square metres but in the wonderful suburb of West End in Brisbane. I have an old car that is cheap to maintain and run but with most things local I use it minimally. I have a simple frugal life with little that I need additional to my current situation. I have a small income from the investment unit that pays for itself and a little left over towards my other bills so in effect I need just a few hundred dollars a week to live my life. With a cash injection as I’ve just had from the film work I can often survive for several weeks before I start to run lean on funds.

The stuff that I have in my life above the basics of life are by the standards of our society few. I don’t need a large income to maintain it. This enables me to have this life where I’m not always chasing the almighty dollar and can spend time on more important things instead of work, like Life.

• This brings me to the second of the two reasons for having work – Activity.

Everyone complains about work and how good it would be to not have to do it but

Go for a Walk

the reality is that once you do unplug from the workforce there is a desire, almost a need to stay active. Sure sitting on a beach for a few weeks may sound fine but once you’ve done that it starts getting boring. If you have been spending half of you waking life working, with the rest doing the functional support things, once work is removed there is a huge void that requires filling. In not too many weeks most people find the desire to return to work in order to have activity. Work here I include as self employment, study as well as working for others but also hobbies and recreations that keep a person active. Also our society demands that we are working to play our part to support the system, if we’re not we’re said to be sponging off the system.

What Do You Do?

The number one question asked when people meet and start a conversation is “What do you do?”

This is where work is your identifier. It could be a way of pegging you in someones memory when they meet you but then the question could just as easily be “Where did you go for your last holiday?”

The reason the work question is so good is it places you in the pecking order of society, where your value as a member of it. Work defines you by what you do and how you do it not to mention how much money/stuff you have and if you wish to be a valued member of that society you’ll feel the need to play the game according to the rules as laid out above. Notoriety, affluence and stuff. We use the work standard for as a quick measure of that and we feel the pressure to strive towards meeting those requirements.

Nothing.

What about if you have nothing to do for a period of time. You have enough basics to keep going for a time, there are no goals to achieve and there are no desires for stuff. What then?

What about the idea of doing nothing unless something, i.e. desires or needs, comes along? Just wait until then.

Our society says that we can’t do that, we can’t do nothing, we have to do something… anything!

After all we have all these things to worry about in the future that we have to prepare for/against. So even if you don’t want to, go and do anything, it’s necessary to stash away more “stuff” for the future. Actually, while your at it get a bigger, better, faster “thing”and before long you trapped into the cycle where you have to work to keep the cycle going.

What about winding the cycle in the opposite direction. As you acquire the things you need to support the basics of life wind back the effort that you need to get anything that isn’t necessary. Sure get the house, but one that is adequate, no more than is required and once you have it, there is less of a need to work as much creating space in you life. Have a modest vehicle. Go on good value holidays but the whole time only as much as you need. Eventually there is a point reached where there is no  need to be working as much with more time available and there is nothing to do. You have it all, no need to buy more and it’s time to stop.

A lot of the activity that we do is like the things we buy, it’s “stuff”. It’s just the noise that we generate so that we have something to do. Could there be an alternative? How about doing Nothing… Yes actually doing Nothing as an activity. What I mean here is if there is nothing to do, not creating noise by creating an activity of stuff but just being quiet and doing Nothing! Sit, stand or lie and wait in the void doing No Thing.

Nothing

Doing nothing to such an extent that there is not even a desire to do anything just to create some noise, to not do Any-Thing but to do No-Thing. Just simply being in the moment allowing the constant stream of time to wash over.

Then at some stage there is an urge to do something, not out of a reason to create a distraction from the void but additional to the void, so do it. It could be anything as simple as changing physical position to starting a project that lasts a life time.

The difference to the Western model of work is that it is not out of a need to generate the income to get the stuff and it’s not in order to create a busy mind through activity. It’s the thing that needs to be done now, because it feels like the correct thing to do. So it’s done now.

In July I travelled to Buenos Aires for 3.5 weeks with some friends to soak up the Argentine culture, to experience the city where tango originates from and still resonates around the world.

I’ve been learning tango for 2.5 years now with Ross and Sandra, my teachers from Friends of Tango Each year  they return to Buenos Aires to learn from their teachers and share with those interested, the feel and culture that is this European city in South America. I thought this year I would take the chance to see what all the fuss was about.

I’ve already created quite a bit more information with some interesting observations from both my fellow travellers and locals over at my other podcast site Your Story. There is even a podcast you can freely subscribe to.

Additional to the audio that I produced I’ve spent the last couple of months off and on editing this video. I’ve attempted to make it as interesting as possible for everyone, knowing that we all get bored with the home video/slide shows or friends travels. It’s up to others to decide if I’ve achieved that goal.

I’d appreciate any feedback either here or over on the viddler site where this video is embedded from. Hope you enjoy