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

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

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.

I recently finished on another film. This one was actually a television series called Terra Nova . The first four episodes are approved to go ahead and if successful they’ll continue to produce an entire series. It’s a sci-fi about a dystopian future that is dangerous to live in so they transport (time travel) some people to the past. Basically it’s cars, guns and dinosaurs. Plenty of action but no real substance and I think it’ll probably be a success for many reasons. One of them is the production that I saw happening and what I’ve continued to realise from my previous post about the addiction of work.

As usual the standard of work that we were all doing was outstanding. I mean everyone, all the technicians on the ground and what they were managing to achieve says a great deal about the professionalism and expertise of the person on the shop floor who puts all the stuff together for the shoot crew to work with. It’s the reason that the work is of such a high standard that I find it interesting that dispute the difficulties, the job still gets done and the production gets what it wants.

Different to as it appears

Now my caveat – I only know my one little section in the art department and I don’t have the big picture so this is just from one of the grunts in the trenches. The reason such great things are done is:

• Excellent high base skills
• Dedication and pride to producing quality
• Love of working in a creative industry
• Desire to be called onto the next project
• Camaraderie and working as a team
• Relatively high income and matching standard of living

At first glance these all seem motivating and good attributes but there is a dark side.

I’m still not sure which way to feel about this and it seems that it may be becoming the standard these days within the industry as the Australian dollar strengthens and production moves away from our shores to cheaper countries but either production companies are incompetent or shrewd, in the way they manage their workforce.

Instead of planning an appropriate timeline and budget, the standard seems to be to have no time, no money but expect outstanding work as would normally be expected with proper preparation, planning and funding.

What has happened of late is we have a third of the prep time and no money to set up workshops or buy materials but production wants all the whiz-bangery that they can think of – So… “Go and make it happen, Oh, and if you have any gear at home you want to bring in feel free as you’ll need it to do your job but we won’t reimburse you as it’s what you need, thanks very much.”

The workshops are makeshift without the proper infrastructure to work efficiently and safely and no preparation or stocking of the most basic materials to create things from. Often the sheds are poorly ventilated, lit and without the necessary equipment but it’s still expected that the work is performed by the deadlines. On this production I saw some of the worst working connotations that I’ve ever seen in all my time in the industry with people performing tasks that will shorten their lives due to dust and chemicals, maybe not today or even this year but it’s accumulative and these technicians were working 12 and 16 hour days for weeks at a time. Reports of people falling asleep driving home were mentioned to me. Production wouldn’t care if someone died (and in productions overseas they have), it would just be that’s a tragic accident but the show must go on, now back to work and keep cracking the whip. The whole project is driven by the accountants with no regard for the greater cost.

The real question is “Why do the workers in the film industry put up with it?”

It’s the same list as above but instead of looking at those points as positive attributes they are actually the shackles that bind people to the production company as wage slaves.

I heard it said around the workshops, “Suck it up and just do your job.” but why? – Because they have no power, they are sold into servitude because of the above list.

They care about their craft and want to do great work out of personal pride. They care so much they will put up with all the difficulties because they are all pulling together to create something bigger than themselves. Something that will show their skills and stay after they are gone. Yea fine, those are some of the idealistic points but it’s more pragmatic also.

They have grown accustomed to the income that can be earnt when you work stupid long hours, often away from home without a break for months and sometimes years at a time. Complete breakdown in a social life with anyone outside of the industry creating a monocultural lifestyle. With that income, their families develop a dependence on a certain lifestyle, mortgage, cars, education… those sorts of things. But the cost is absence from the family and many dysfunctional relationships. Like many industries with similar traits, the film industry is littered with affairs and broken relationships, often due to absence in my view.

There is always a certain desperation in everyone that we have to make good on this production despite any difficulties, not to make waves and show that we are a good little worker bee so that we can milk this production for as much as we can because it won’t last long, they never do and always have a finish date looming and if we are good we’ll get invited back onto the next production. If their is a gap of work between productions (which is the norm) and some lean times this makes things only more desperate. When there is a whisper of a job everyone looks after themselves first, not letting too much be known about it until their position is secure. Then they may help others to be seen as a good guy but really the work is so scarce and desperately needed, due to the commitments that they have created that no real favours are done and it’s every man for himself.

So what we end up with is this cycle of earning good money due to the huge hours, family pressures to maintain that lifestyle, while the family often learns to live without you. When there is no film work, you could be an inconvenience at home because family aren’t used to you being around and as you have no other social life or career prospects the worry of when the next job is going to turn up creates stress. Then when the next production starts there is relief that at least for a time, income is secure and home life goes back to the norm. But it’s necessary to work hard, don’t complain and keep your head down to stay on this production as long as possible and get invited onto the next. The income rolls in the money is spent the lifestyle maintained and the cycle recommences. Desperation and relief, around and around time and again.

So how does production use this to their benefit?

Is production being shrewd or incompetent?

I don’t know if they have no idea what they are doing and we’re picking up the pieces using dedication and skill and they never need to learn how to manage better because they still manage to get the job done on the backs of the technicians but I’ve seen it so many times I’m now thinking it’s an actual strategy by the production. I’m talking about at the very highest levels here not at the level where I could actually ever meet a real, living, breathing person on the ground.

If they (the producers) say we have no money and a ridiculous timeline there is always someone out there who will compromise themselves for “just this one job” and take it on. This goes all the way down to the bottom of the crew. There is always someone who wants to get in the door and bust an arse. Those in the industry see the job start and as I’ve mentioned they’re in this lifestyle/income cycle and have to compromise and take the job, so dispite the lack of time and resources to produce, they collectively suck it up and get to work using their own personal life energy to make up for the discrepenticy of the producers. And the producers know this is what will happen so they plan accordingly. They know that if they screw everyone from start to finish, top to bottom, they will get what they want using those thousands of workers life energy to off set the balance sheet.

What makes me think this?

Well I’ve seen all the above playing out now a few times. Years ago there once was a time when there was great facilities, time and budget to get excellent work done with limited stress. That has not been the case for a few years now.

The main sign though is the apparent compromises that production makes when they push too hard. The problem with this model is sometimes they will be so extreme with budget and timing, things just can’t be done, it breaks down. If the reality was as production have always said, when the deadline arrives or more finances are required and it’s not there, then the whole house of cards would collapse… But No!

Every time we couldn’t deliver on time I saw schedules moved, if we couldn’t find the materials, they would find the money to get more, if we needed to work more or get more staff they always managed to find just enough money to get what was needed done, by the skin of our teeth. Funny that! Doesn’t matter how desperate they said it was, they always managed to find more. They are so deep in the hole they have to and if they can’t it would turn into The Fountain that was six weeks into pre production and was pulled to go overseas. That’s often remembered as a threat.

If things are so bad that the production is going to fail, hiring more help, putting in better dust extraction equipment and allowing people to have some rest wouldn’t be an issue as they’re insignificant, the problems are far bigger than we on the shop floor. The production would fail, simple, that’s bad management and incompetence.

What I think we have here is concerted manipulation to create a sense of lack and desperation to achieve excellent return for minimal outlay. That’s good business I hear you say but it’s on the backs of those who work in the industry, strip mining their personal life energy. Yes I’m talking about people actually dying at a younger age.

If you’re going to say they have a choice. Well, yes and no. There are other jobs out there sure but as I’ve hopefully shown, many of these people have become addicted to the lifestyle and if they do leave, there are always more who are prepared to join the industry and that is what the producers are relying on. There is and will continue to be more people who will choose for whatever reason to throw themselves into the machinery, to grease the wheels of the film industry.

I’ve tired of this cycle now that I can see it for what it has become. I may continue to return to it from time to time for a cash injection but after this post I may well never be invited back because I’m saying the Emperor has no clothes. Unfortunately those who create these issues are at the top of the production and don’t care as they look up from their spreadsheets in their ivory towers. Those I deal with (and that is everyone actually making the film), who are addicted to the lifestyle, would probably rather I don’t mention these points as it’s what’s eating them up inside and they would rather just continue to live the dream. Sadly it a bad dream.

PS I know I’ve made many gross generalisations here. There are always going to be exceptions to everything I’ve said here. There are people with passion and purpose, with balanced lives and great relationships but what I’m expressing is what I’ve observed and from what I’ve seen is the norm albeit a generalisation. To those who have it all together, congratulations and keep an eye on the industry so it doesn’t suck the life out of you.

Back in a previous post I mentioned that I wanted to try something, to see how it might go,  just for the hell of it.  To just opt out somewhat from the expectations of society.  I called it a society fast, to not buy into the things that society says that you have to do.

Well that week back in March of last year went okay and my world didn’t end. I still did what needed to be done when things needed to be done and I was able to do whatever I wanted to do as I felt inspired.  So I kept doing it, the society fast.  Doing what I wanted to do as I wanted to do it.

Hanging with Friends in Buenos Aires

And guess what?  I haven’t stopped.  I haven’t found the need or desire to buy back into what society says that I’m supposed to do.  What am I talking about I hear you say?

I’m taking about how our Western Society says that we have to do certain things, like relationships, work,  income, career, worry and stress about tomorrow and how it’s going to be when I’m old and I don’t have enough money in my retirement fund, how at my time of life I should be in this certain type of lifestyle, all of that sort of thing.

That’s why I started the society fast to have a break for just one week away from that and see what would happen and I haven’t stopped.  That was 16 months ago and it has been some of the best times of my life because I’m living in the moment and just doing what is right for now and it keeps working.

Now before you think I have it easy, that’s not my point.  In the last 16 months I have worked for income in an employed situation for only 6 weeks and earned $12,000.  I’ve additionally done a little audio and video recording and editing work and earned another couple of thousand dollars but that is all.  I have been leaning on my credit card and I’m slowly going backwards at about $1000/mth but I’m fine with that.  I live a very lean life and I have everything I need and desire little more.

For a long time I was looking for something to put my attention to, some strong focus and direction that society says that you have to have to be a member of this society.  That was causing me grief and one of the reason for starting this society fast, to have some chill time away from that stress.

The thing(and this is important) is that I couldn’t find that career focus even once I started the society fast.  So my focus was just on living in the moment and doing what was appropriate each day.  I continued to look for something, learn and live, moment by moment and my life still didn’t break.  In actual fact it kept getting better.  I still went to Buenos Aires in July for four weeks and the work I did do on the film last year was better and more rewarding than I expected and reinforced that this was still the correct path.  I continued to produce Your Story and I continued to look for a way to generate some income from something that impassioned me.  And while nothing appeared instead of becoming frustrated and running all over the place with angst in my heart, like I used to, I just chilled and did what seemed appropriate in the moment… and all was good.

I can do anything I want at any time I want because I’m free to choose my daily activities and follow my passions.  Sure more money would give me additional options like travel which I desire but for the moment my priorities are finding direction and I need time for that and employment would rob that most valuable commodity from me.

Relaxed and chilled, doing what I liked for months, living lean, dancing tango and learning from those around me and always aware that when the time is right the inspiration will appear, I just wasn’t mature enough in something yet for me to see it.  And then it appeared…

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear”

I discovered it(yes discovered), I didn’t dream it up, it was waiting out there all along for me to mature in something and become ready to see what was always there.  I discovered Create Your Life Story as a way of taking what I care about(other peoples stories), blending it with what I’ve learned producing Your Story, adding a pinch of my learning’s of internet business courtesy of Internet Business Mastery and ProBlogger, then wrapping it all up into what I desire to have as a lifestyle that resonates with me.  Sixteen months later, I’m still here living the dream of fasting from the expectations of society and it’s still working.

Sure I realise that I have no money and it is too easy if I allow it, to start to worry about how I’ll pay for even the necessities in a months time. So I don’t think about it until I can do something about it and I always think of something when the time is right, in the mean time I do what is right for now.  Now it felt right to write this post and get these thoughts down, a little later this afternoon I’ll probably do some more study and learning or maybe write a post on Create your Life Story or edit some video or maybe send that invoice that I should send off, I don’t know but it’s(this lifestyle) working.

How do I know that it’s working?

I’m happy!  That’s all.

Is there any other measure of how well a life is working?  I don’t expect happiness from external effects, happiness resides in me and I know that by living this lifestyle it suits me.  I have the time and energy to explore the ideas that I think are important for my life(not yours dear reader), I can only say that for me.  I would love Create Your Life Story and Your Story to become successful, earn a good income for a few dreams that I would like to create and travel a lot.  I’m moving to create that reality but one thing I do know is,  I can’t create it if I buy into societal expectations.  It sucks the very life essence out of me and I would not be happy over there again as a wage slave, I would not ever be successful either.  I may or not be successful here but I know that I will be happy and if I’m only happy, “I Win”

I’ve been very quiet these many months here on Your Story. I’ve been busy putting a few things in place, starting a new podcast and site. I have been a little bit head down getting everything done so to speak.
For two years I had wanted to sit and talk to with my uncle, Bill Kath.  Recently I finally got around to recording a series of conversations with him and published them on his own site to share his Life Story with my family and anyone who may come along from the greater community.

This inspired me to start a new podcast to help explain how the average person can now record, edit and publish an audio Life Story, then share that story with family and the world if they choose.

My other podcast Your Story is a personal passion and I would love, one day to travel a lot more and record stories from around the world. For three years now I have been learning and developing the skills needed to converse and produce audio while slowly going backwards financially. With Create Your Life Story I hope to create a podcast to allow me to develop an income that will give me the ability to continue to produce Your Story while helping others to gain some of the amazing benefits that I have seen from sharing personal Life Stories.

The premise of Create Your Life Story is simple. There are people who want to capture the Life Story of someone they know or there are people who wish to record their own personal Life Story. These stories are interesting initially for family but also for the greater community, if only they can be recorded and made available, before they are lost, as has happened for all of human history.

I now have the knowledge from producing Your Story and several other versions of audio Life Stories to share with anyone who is interested in learning how easy and available it is for them to do the same.

It’s very early days but I have already produced a considerable amount of content to share that will give a lot of people a good start. I have even produced a free e-Book to help you get started.

Please come over to Create Your Life Story and if you know of anyone who may be interested in learning to record and share a life story, either their own or someone else’s, please share this information.

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

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.

I recently heard the when Oprah was a television news reader she modeled herself on Barbara Walters only to one day loose the persona while news reading, became her true self and the rest is history. This is the first thing that I noticed when I started watching this video but there are a lot more good ideas in this little gem that I found over at Please Feed The Animals. Enjoy

To me he seems to explain in terms that we in the West understand, some of the long held wisdom of the ages. Nothing he says is new, it’s all simply a rehash of what all the great spiritual teachers have been saying for ages and I don’t think that he is anything special other than at present he is the one who has captured the minds of people who are searching. After all it’s not the messenger but the message that is important. It’s just that he is using the modern, Western  systems of understanding to get the message out and he is using the modern Western mindset to explain the things that defy that very Western mindset. A very challenging task. That’s why it’s probably taken him 20 years before he published his first book, The Power of Now,  as he mentions that he didn’t understand what happened to him for a long time and as he realised it he was able to then explain it, in the terms of his culture, to the advantage of we, who also live in it.

His latest book A New Earth and some of his talks get a little deep and could be somewhat overwhelming in the first instance but recently I found these three CBC interviews which I feel are a great introduction into what he is about. I’ve also recorded the audio if you just want to listen to that, the links are below each embedded YouTube clip.

Here is the Audio from Eckhart Tolle Part One

[powerpress url=http://iankath.com/mp3/TolleEp1.mp3]

Here is Episode Two.

Here is the Audio from Eckhart Tolle Part Two

[powerpress url=http://iankath.com/mp3/TolleEp2.mp3]

And lastly here is Episode 3

Here is the Audio from Eckhart Tolle Part Three

[powerpress url=http://iankath.com/mp3/TolleEp3.mp3]