Mentalechoes

I’ve just finished watching a TV program on station Nederland Twee (Netherlands Two), about the assisted suicide of Craig Ewert, a 59 year old university professor who was a sufferer of ALS. The show was a poignant journalistic peice following the last period of time of his life, and finished with his death. The story was told in a very sensitive and low key manner, devoid of any form of sensationalism or dramatisation that is the staple of our mainstream news diet. Indeed, I found it to be a moving tribute to an intelligent man who wanted to choose for himself the manner of his own passing, rather than let nature run its course and reduce him to not much more than - in his words - a living tomb. At the end I found myself in tears, as I was very emotionally involved with his life and his death, and was thankful to him for letting me explore in a meaningful way just what death means to me as an individual. I think that’s really only how death can be explored, as an individual, because death is something deeply personal for all of us.

As I was reading some of the comments on the news articles concerning the show, I become angered at the petulant statements made by some people in the right to life, or ‘Care Not Killing’ camp, who apparently were angered by the show being televised at all. With one comment made, that this could actually give people ideas! To which I say, I hope it does!

I try not to go down the path of very politically sensitive discussions on my blog because I don’t want my blog to be a political discussion board, but I’m going to break my own guidelines on this issue and speak my peice. So here’s the fair warning label. If anyone has strong views on Euthanasia supporting the pro life position, or simply cannot take part in a discussion of this nature, leave now. From here on in, I’m going to discuss why I believe they are wrong, and the individual right to choice is morally right. Anyone who feels even slightly mentally challenged on this issue should seriously back out now.

It is in fact an appalling state of affairs when one individual can pass judgement and determine for another terminally sick individual the manner in which they will die. It is quite simply, wrong! Any society that proclaims to be civilised will have built into it a legal framework for allowing an individual to choose an assisted death to preserve dignity and end suffering when a natural death will do neither. The fact that there are individuals who have the audacity to proclaim that this is wrong, are in fact contributing to the suffering of those whose wish to opt for euthanasia. How dare they! The most basic of all human rights, is the right to live and the right to choice. As a person of sound mind and body, noone has the right to tell me how I should live. As long as I live my life within the bounds of the law of the society I choose to live in, I should be free to live to do as I want without interference from another. Similarly I should be allowed to choose the manner of my passing. There is no moral or legal argument that can be made that is sufficient to take that choice away from me. And should anyone dare to impose on me that it is “Gods law” that implicitly denies me my right to choose my end, then I would say it is a choice taken away from me by ignorant savages incapable of intelligent thought. Hence by the very extreme extent of their stupidity they should not be allowed to make decisions at all, let alone one that affects me in such a profound way.

So this is my stance on the issue itself. I make no apologies for the strong manner in which I present it, as it is a deeply philosophical topic that doesn’t deserve anything less than a strong opinion.

Concerning the show itself there were a lot of claims that this was a media stunt designed to promote the channel, and pull in ratings. Having seen the show, I completely disagree with this opinion. In an age of spoonfed sensationalistic drama TV, this program was quiet, sensitive and thoughtful. Most importantly it was made at the request of Craig and his wife. This was absolutely the opposite of Big Brother, which is the very definition of a media stunt that uses sensationalism to create a vortex of drama designed to capture audiences and ratings. Craig’s ending was emotional, but for those who chose to watch it, it made you reflect on your own life and consider what it is that ‘a good life’ means.

Perhaps the best summation of my feelings I found was from an article in the UK’s, The Guardian newspaper

Watching a man drink liquid through a pink straw, ask for apple juice and music, then close his eyes and lie back on his pillows is intense, moving and tragic. It should make us think and talk about death, as we did when we were children and asked our parents if we would ever die. Too many grown ups push away that question forever – dispensing with the memento mori, the reminder of mortality, that has been part of human culture for thousands of years.

As I finish this peice, it’s late, with the clock striking into the wee hours of the morning, and I feel a sense of happiness at the thought that I will wake up tomorrow with my good health and a new day of possibilities before me. I’ll cherish for a while that I still have time to live and chase dreams and I’ll hopefully appreciate for a little while longer that life is a gift and should not be wasted or taken for granted. For it doesn’t last forever and we all have to come to terms with, and face, our own ultimate end.

When I do, I hope do so with the same courage, dignity and calm that Craig Ewert did. Peace be with him.

Andy.

Recently - as in about 3 hours ago when I was on my trusty bicycle - I started wondering about whether there is any such thing as real magic in the world, and the power of belief in magic.

Back when I was a wee teenage lad I got hooked on Dungeons and Dragons (and subsequently AD&D when it was released), and part of the game involved picking a god to worship and converting others to his/her belief. As the game lore went, the more people who believed in said god, (or demi-god, or major diety) the more powerful they became, because of the power that belief generated. In the game if you were successful in converting enough people and did enough deeds for your god, you had a chance to be divinely rewarded with some item or bonus that was outrageously cool. Now while I never was actually bestowed any of these sacred gifts, it nevertheless motivated me to try on odd occassions in the hope that the dice would go my way on a roll.

I do wonder if it could be the same thing in the wider scope of existence. For instance, take Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings. It is arguably the most widely read fantasy novel ever published, and has amassed in its wake an army of fans that on some level believe in this world that was created. Take me as an example, while I am wholy accepting of the reality that I operate in on a day to day basis, during the times of my life when I am reading the novel TLOTR, I lose myself completely in its realm, and I come to think of the characters as real. So is the power of the book that it creates a belief that it _could_ exist. I know I’m not alone, and I’m not even close to being a hardcore fan. I don’t even have to describe one, because even people who haven’t met one have an idea of what your real hardcore Tolkien fanatics are like! (Crazy bastards!)

But what if all of this power of belief actually does mould reality? Before you say I’m crazy, I’m actually not. In a quasi scientific film that came out a while ago called, What the Bleep Do We Know, there was an experiment that some researchers did using water and peoples emotions. They showed that a water drop will actually change its shape when it is subjected to different types of human emotion. While I’m not going to go into that particular experiment here - and you can take it or leave it as you feel - it does at least offer the possibility that there is some force associated with our awareness. If you extrapolate that to a global scale, where you take millions, maybe billions of people who all share a common belief about something, doesn’t it stand to reason that reality would shape itself to that view?

If that were true however, why doesn’t Gandalf walk through the front door of my office, wave his staff and make all my work disappear, before giving me a ride on Shadowfax to Gondor for a few hot nights with some beer wenches? Cause that’s a reality I’d like to see happen. Well you know, I just don’t think it works that flagrantly. That’s a perverse violation of our existing reality, because in order to create TLOTR reality, this one would have be sundered! And sundering realities probably isn’t tolerated on some cosmic level because it upsets the order of things higher up. However, that doesn’t mean that TLOTR doesn’t exist, it just means it exists somewhere else, and we’d have to find a doorway to it.

Like with magic!

The scientific amongst you will say - magic is only a phenomenon of physics that is not yet understood. Once it is understood, it will  no longer be called magic, but a law (of physics). To which I would say, yes that is true, and it isn’t because magic is really a great paradox; it is really acheiving that which is impossible through belief. Which is something physics will never accomplish, because physics only deals with what is possible, not that which is impossible. Once you cross that line, it’s all magic, baby!

In essence then, magic is really the realm of all impossibilities made possible through the force of awareness, and will. You just have to believe in them enough.

But is it real?

Andy!

About four years ago now the postman delivered one of those little cardboard box packages designed to carry a couple of CD’s. There was no sender details written on the thing, only my name and my address in black pen on the front. Inside the box was this black disc in a clear plastic CD cover. The disc itself was one that started off its life blank, and was burned like a real music CD, with actual (raw) wav files on it, not stripped down compressed mp3’s or anything like that. There was nothing written on the disc; not the names of the tunes, not anything. I didn’t even know what it was until I put it in a computer, after scanning the hell out of it for general bastardware that turns computers into expensive boat anchors. When I got around to listening to the music I could tell someone had made it for me, because it was all awesome music that I just so lurved to listen to. So the question that begged answering was, who the fuck sent it?!

I was sure it was this one friend of mine, Pete. (Name has been changed to protect his privacy… unless his name is really Pete, in which case, you know his name). So I called up to thank him for the wicked tunes, and why didn’t he just put his name on it somewhere so I would know it was him.

There was a moment of silence on the phone. “You’re a real freak sometimes, McDowell. You know that”!

Okay, so it wasn’t Pete.

A couple more rounds of phone calls to people that I pinned as likely suspects turned up the same kind of responses. Good to know what my friends thought about me, but not really helpful to find out where this CD came from. It started to itch not knowing who sent it, and why. It wasn’t my birthday, or Christmas, I hadn’t broken up with someone, or got marriend, or come back  from a long holiday; none of the usual shit that we give presents to someone for. The itch turned into a burn, and for months I sent out emails to everyone I knew who could have sent that CD, and it turned up nothing. Either someone was lying, or none of these people actually sent the damn thing.

To this day I’ve never found out just where it came from. It remains the greatest mystery of my life; my own personal Mary Celeste. Every so often when I pick the CD up and turn it over in my hands new theories come to mind about its origin, but now they’re starting to take on bizarre edged fantasy twists. Maybe it was delivered by a future me that had travelled back in time to give me the CD to start me on a journey of obsession that would lead me to somewhere I’m meant to be in the future to get to the time machine so I can go back in time to give myself the CD - but the CD was never made by me, it was made by another entity to start the cycle for a purpose that can’t be understood by me yet. Okay, granted it’s not very original, but it would make for a cool story… because it’s goddamn true!

It’s good to have mysteries in our lives I reckon. Something that we can ponder on that will defy conventional understanding so you can stretch your mind and push back the boundary of what’s possible. It’s these kind of things which lead us to the true heart of imagination and creativity. And quite possibly drive you a bit mad in the process!

Andy.

I’m a pretty online kinda guy. I wouldn’t go so far as to give myself a geek label because that doesn’t do anything to improve my image with women, but if I lived on a planet with no women I would probably be called a geek. The funny thing about being a geek is that you tend to keep a lot of bookmarks in browsers scattered across various computers between work, home and the odd strangers house you managed to get some laptop time in. To the untrained eye - or less net savvy individual - this collection of links is just a quick way to find favourite websites (hence the term Favourites). (Right now there may be one or two of you tempted to nod your heads and say, yeah but that’s what they are. If you are, slap yourself, because this is wrong). No, bookmarks are windows into a geeks cultural identity; they will tell you what they like and don’t like, and what phases and fads they went through in days, months, years gone past. You can pretty much take all those Favourites links and work out what kind of person they are better than any psychologist armed with a completed Rorschach test.

This became very apparent to me during the week when I migrated all my own bookmarks from the seven computers I use with regularity, and the ones I had in an online bookmark service, all into another online bookmark service (called delicious.com for those interested). I had something like 550 links in total which amazed me to start with, and then amazed me more just seeing what kind of things I had actually bothered to favourite since 2002. I went through periods of being into linux, goth chix, 80’s t-shirts, 80’s music, Annie Lennox, digital cameras, cheap airfares to India, xbmc, crappy blogs *cough cough*, bittorrent, more goth chix, mmorpgs galore, cheap chinese blank cds, russian brides, paranoid cryptoware, and a whole lot more. I did wonder what some psychologist would have made of it all, especially if I had’ve done a Rorschach test with him and said all the pictures looked like vaginas.

I spent about 4 to 5 hours tidying all of the bookmarks up, removing all the ones that had become roads to nowhere, and were from phases I just wasn’t ever going to go through again, like applying for jobs with secret service agencies in every country in the free world (no kidding, I had tons of application forms bookmarked in their own category). In doing so, I got down to 173 quality bookmarks that I think represents the new modern me, and which anyone else would think represents someone in the new electro-bohemian class of society. It’s almost a fitting way to make an online introduction really; swapping bookmark collections to see how compatible you are, and whether or not you should make a date, or block that person to hell. Personally I know if I meet a girl with 100 Favourites in the “Cats” category, I’m heading for the door, and I’m not looking back!

So in the new modern online era our choice of bookmarks define us as much as our choice of furniture, music, movies and porn. All of which would be bookmarks in their own right. Which in the end, really makes my point for me.

Andy.

Every so often I go through this stage where I feel that life needs a sense of danger to really let me know I’m alive. And I’m not just talking about having a bit of a scare like I might not make it to the train station on time to make my train to work in the morning. No, I’m talking about some shit scarey thing that makes your heart pound like a bastard and not knowing whether or not you’re going to make it out alive. Kinda like what the ultimate adrenaline junkies chase I guess, when they do stuff like extreme base jumping, or extreme crocodile taming Steve Irwin style.

I developed this danger need during my first trip overseas after leaving Australia when I was travelling in Egypt from Dahab to Sharm el-Sheikh in a taxi with three Palestinians I had met in a cafe on the beach while stoned out of my skull. They said they new the owners of a night club there and I could drink for free if I came along. All I heard was free drinks, and I was sold! As was pretty typical we passed through military checkpoints in the car every 50 kilometers or so, which normally wasn’t a big deal, except for this one checkpoint where we got pulled over for a passport check. One military guy came out with a huge fucking assault rifle in his hands, takes one look at the car and the next thing he is screaming at the guard house and these five guys all come running out armed to the teeth with big fucking guns and grenades strapped to their chest. We all got pulled out of the car - except for the driver - and I was pushed onto the car bonnet (front) and the other three were put face down on the ground. Everyone is screaming in Egyptian - or Arabic, I just couldn’t recall clearly afterwards - and then the gaurd on me put the barrel of his rifle about an inch from my face. I honestly thought that was it; siyonara, goodbye, see you all in the next life. My mind went blank, and the only thing I could think of was, I hadn’t even told mum I was in Egypt, the poor woman wouldn’t even know where to tell the Australian Embassy where to look for me. I couldn’t help but stare at the end of the barrel like an acid tripper will stare at a spot on the wall. When you’re faced with the end, it’s funny what will hold your concentration. Well the very next thing, the three Palestinians are being picked up off the ground and their passports are being checked. A minute passed, and then everybody starts shaking hands and patting each other on the back like their old pals. This gaurd who I thought was going to blow me away, gives me this big smile and asks for my passport. I just about drop the thing handing it over my hands were shaking so much.

“Ahhh… Australian… Home and Away… Neighbours… Very nice shows. I love beautiful beaches you have”.

What the fuck is going on? Was pretty much what I was thinking. All I could actually say was some grunts and a few, yeah right’s!

“How you like Egypt? Very beautiful country. Are you having a nice time”?

The warm smile; the eagerness of his friendly conversation; it was all just too much. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. So I smiled and said, ‘yeah right’.

After that the gaurds opened up the car doors for us like chauffeurs and we got in and drove off. Just to add to the bizarreness, they all waved us off with big smiles as if farewelling good friends.

Nobody said anything for about a minute, until I turned around (me being in the front seat, and three amigos being in the back) and asked just what the fuck happened, and why the fuck did that just happen to me? One of the guys that that happened all the time, unfortunately he really closely resembled a high profile Middle East Terrorist wanted in several countries, and it was a case of mistaken identity. He apologised, and hoped that my shirt wasn’t too covered in dust from the road. But not to worry, I could enjoy free drinks when I got to the club.

I was dumbfounded, and shocked into stupidity, and just let it go. The rest of the night was a total blast. I had so much fun because it was as if something was liberated inside of me. I felt free and alive. Every drink tasted like the best drink I’d ever had, and every song was like my favourite. Nearly 10 years on, I don’t know what it is, but every so often I think about going out and finding danger like that again just so I can feel alive like that again! Pretty stupid because at the time that happened I never ever wanted to go through that again. But that feeling of liberation was pretty intoxicating.

Funnily enough, since that event, I’ve never actually been scared in my life since. Sure I’ve had adrenaline rushes from exciting times, but I’ve never felt fear since that night.

I wonder if it’s too late to apply for international jetsetting spy jobs with ASIO?

Andy.

I’ve been pondering for a while the next direction in life. Turning 40 has had some sort of profound affect on me in the way I view the world. It’s as if all of the value systems I was using suddenly underwent a massive shift in order in the same way that an apartment block will undergo a massive shift in order when an 8-on-the-richter-scale earthquake hits. Everything is picked up and thrown asunder, reassembling itself into something unrecogniseable, and awaiting reconstruction back into something meaningful.

Being in my 30’s was easy. The first few years of that decade was about launching myself into the big unknown wide world and experiencing everything for the first time, all up close and personal and raw. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing back then, but I didn’t really care either, each day was exciting and I was learning about the world as I went along. By my mid 30’s I’d found some stability and made a life in a foreign country and was exploring a new relationship that while I knew wasn’t ever going to be long term and stabile, it was fast and furious and intoxicating. The last part of my 30’s was this period of consolidation when I earned my right to live in the country I had chosen as home, and putting a foundation down that was security for now and the future. It represented the end of a time of being able to up and move at a moments notice, but then, I’d moved past that desire as well, so it wasn’t a loss.

Then I turned 40.

It’s funny, but sometimes lying in bed at night just before going to sleep I feel like all the lessons I’ve learned in the past decade are all coalescing into one place in my mind. They are pulling together into a framework that I can use like a ladder to take me somewhere. But I just feel like there are a few things I’m still not aware of to use that framework in any meaningful way. I’m still waiting for something. Which is frustrating when I feel like I want to be more in a hurry to get where all this is taking me.

If I leave myself idle for too long though, I start to realise that I’m bored with all the things in life that used to be interesting. I don’t mean bored in that I no longer like the hobbies I have for fun, or with the people I know. No I mean bored in that in my 30’s I was happy enough for life to lead me from one week to the next because I felt I had time and something interesting would come along. Now though, time is a premium, it’s something not to be wasted, so I get bored easily if weeks pass and nothing interesting happens. Perhaps that’s it; the thing that is boring is not the time between events, but the lack of direction that is still the way I live life. Being more in a hurry means actively taking a direction where I want to go, and make things happen, rather than wait for things to happen in a passive way.

Maybe the boredom is with the way I live life.

Something to think about.

Andy.

I have a friend who is something of a philosopher, a person of deep thought who has spent a large part of time on earth plumbing the depths of the human condition, determing what the really important things in life are. He was over last weekend and I asked him what it is that is important in a relationship. Knowing that a picture would convey more than just words ever could, he took it upon himself to embody the answer into a form I could more easily digest intellectually!

It’s rare that male wisdom is shared in a form that everyone, from the youngest school kiddie to the oldest old bastard in the geriatrics home, can see and learn from. So I wanted to share this with you the secrets to making a great relationship.

I can only say, don’t try to take it all in at once. It’s a deep message and takes time to fully appreciate. And to you, my friend who did this for me - thanks mate, for taking the time to care and share!

Andy.

Regular readers of my blog (all 2 of you - including myself) will know that I am quite keen on MMORPGs. There is something about virtual worlds that I find incredibly fascinating. I’m not an console fan, owning neither an xbox360 or a Playstation3, and I don’t play any other games that aren’t MMO based. The real high for me that I’m hooked on is the world - the reality - created around you that actually is given life by every gamer that logs in and shares the world with you. You don’t just play an MMORPG, you _experience_ an MMORPG.

Okay enough with the dramatic lead in. You get it. And if you don’t, you never will, but that’s okay; different horses for different courses, as the old saying goes.

Everyone has heard of World of Warcraft, and anyone that calls themselves a gamer will not just have heard of it, but will know a little bit about it as well. Enough to hold their own in a conversation. To the non gamer though, it’s just a computer game… and that’s about it. Well let me tell you, if that were true, then you could describe the American political system by calling it, a couple of guys trying to work out who will run the country; there is an infinitude of complexity that runs deep behind the facade.

And that, is actually the problem I have right now! (Plus the point of this post, because I have to rant somewhere). To the casual player it is enough to play a basic game and be able to complete the basic quests that continue your progress. Which is what the whole point of these games are, and why people play them. Play the game –> to get experience –> to get higher levels –> get better gear –> to play the game. It’s a nice comfy feedback loop, that works - in principle - in just the same way as training for the Olympics. This week I joined a guild, a group of players in a club so to speak, to run some of the higher end content that the casual player couldnt reach on their own. And it was like country Bob coming to the big city for the first time and being totally overwhelmed. These guys still call it a game, but they play seriously. They want the big gear, the big numbers on their damage scores, and take down the big bosses that require highly refined tactics and knowledge of play style. It’s no more a game at this level than any other high level competition sporting event is a ‘game’. That’s part of the appeal to be sure, learning how to be a higher end player, doing things other players can’t do. Seeing parts of the game that other players won’t see. But there is a commitment there as well. You don’t just walk into any sporting club and challenge the top player, you have to put the work in first and prove that your worth being taken seriously, otherwise you’ll be ridiculed and laughed out the front door, or hammered into the ground and then ridiculed and laughed out the front door.

Which is where my delimma comes in. I’m at the top of the casual game now, and there is nowhere else for me to go except to the next level. But if I do, then it’s going to require me to put more time in, and take it more seriously. Maximising your DPS (damage-per-second) for a Hunter class is no less complex than working out the equations for rocket propulsion. Aquiring the equipment necessary to achieve the numbers capable of making those equations is no less trivial than collecting parts for a mint condition original 1970 vintage muscle car. Which means that the game is going to be less a game, and more a second job that is like the job you always wanted to have (in a fun way… I guess).

It does beg the question how real is the virtual reality is that I’m constructing for myself here? But that is entirely another discussion to rant about.

I do wonder that if the game becomes more serious and becomes less a game, will it remain something I do to relax, or will it become work, and bring with it work related stress?

Maybe I should take up cigarettes?

Andy.

When I was in early teens I got my first flat top haircut. Razor sharp on the sides, with rounded edges and a bit of a fringe. Back when I was surfing a lot it was a fully functional hairstyle, no care necessary. It was all the rage back in the day. But then when I got to my late 20’s life changed and I grew my hair out, first in a shortish same length neckline cut, then shoulder length cut, finally to a long mane that came a quarter way down my back. My 30’s was the time of long hair, sometimes messy, sometimes neat, but always flowing never pulled back in a ponytail at all, because I found that too restrictive. I found that my hair was a statement of my nonconformity, it showed externally my internal nature that - I always thought - was slightly wild and not to be tamed. Hair it seems can come full circle just like life. Over my last two hair cuts I’ve returned to short hair, tight on the sides with a bit of a fringe. It’s not the old flat top of a bygone surfing age, but instead a modern messy-neat cut being sported by all the hippest trendsetters in the young European celebrity circles.

To look at me you would think me like any mainstream society person, whose life is lived in happy conformity. Once that would have worried me, back in my early 30’s, but now it’s not so important. It seems to me returning to short hair is an external sign of a life come full circle and a change of attitude to the way I live and think about the world around me. 

It does make me think that maybe radicalism is a young mans game.

Andy.