Category Archives: life

a consise history of my life

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2012: Organised a work related conference in Austin, Texas in March which resulted in a falling out with a friend of many years. Struggled with work most of the year but came out okay in the end. Dabbled in old school hifi to return to more modern compact JBL speakers. Current succulent and cacti collection stands at 100 pots.
2011: Moved into a bigger apartment in anticipation of large family size (same street, same suburb). Traveled to San Francisco for work with Kitty & Junior Pixels. Little bear was born late in the year, and shortly after his birth, whilst still on leave, I dislocated my patella (knee cap) resulting in knee surgery and the sudden realization I would die. Became a teetotaler.
2010: Took junior pixels for a holiday in Malaysia when he was six months old. Changed jobs after 3 years in previous position. Bought first Apple Mac in 6 years.
2009: Visited Austin, Texas for a conference (first visit to the USA) in January. In April, we spent 3 weeks in the USA visiting NYC, Vegas, SF and LA. My grandma died in September and soon after junior pixels entered the world and completely changed our life.
2008: Traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and KL with Kitty.
2007:  Adjusted to living in Brisbane.Started my collection of succulents and cacti. Accepted my first permanent job in Brisbane.
2006: Moved to Brisbane from Canberra as sick of the cold and prefer to be closer to home. Started working as a contractor. Married Kitty after nearly 10 years of dating.
2005: Sold the Apple Mac due to reliability issues.
2004: Holidayed in Bangkok and Kho Samet.
2003: Moved to Canberra from the Gold Coast to start graduate jobs. Bought an Apple Mac before they were cool.
2002: Finished IT degree with excellent grades.
2001: Drank way too much alcohol, but got increasingly good grades. Got my first tattoo (an @ on my right hand wrist).
2000: Started IT degree at Griffith University on the Gold Coast much to the delight of my parents. Met a good group of study friends.
1999: Much to the dismay of parents, took a year off study to work in Cafes on the Gold Coast then spent three months in the UK and Thailand backpacking with Kitty.
1998: Finished high school on the Gold Coast
1997: Shot up in height, and started dating Kitty and eventually fell in love with her.
1994-1996: Struggled at a new private high school as the poor, fat kid with acne.
1992-1993: Family moved from Taree, NSW to the Gold Coast in Queensland due to traumatic shit, lack of options for us in Taree, and my Dad being offered a voluntary redundancy by the NSW Government. Skipped a grade when starting at a new public school, which I quite enjoyed.
1983-1992: Grew up in Taree, NSW with my family. Met my first ‘best friend’ when I was two (who I still speak to today). Went to a public primary school. Had some traumatic shit happen which took years to forget.
1982: Moved from Grafton to Taree, NSW for my Dad’s work.
1981: Born in Grafton, NSW, the city of Jacarandas. Lived in a housing commission house with my parents and three older brothers.

the paradox of choice

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I remember reading a book a few years ago called ‘The Paradox of Choice’:

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy.
Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.
—quoted from Ch.5, The Paradox of Choice, 2004
I’ve been struggling with this lately. I try to avoid situations where there are too many choices. Here’s two examples:
itunes movie weekThe iTunes movie of the week is a fantastic idea as each week they have a hand picked movie rental for 99c which is pretty much guaranteed to be a good movie. I love not having to make a choice about what movie to watch, I just watch whatever they’ve chosen for me, for less than a dollar. Today I watched ‘Two Hands‘ (for some reason I had never seen it before) and a few weeks ago I watched ‘The Company Men‘: both were excellent films and even better in that I didn’t need to choose them.
We’re headed to Sri Lanka next April for a family holiday. Rather than try to organize the whole trip by ourselves, I found a local tour operator on TripAdvisor who has organized a 10 day private tour of Sri Lanka. He has organized everything: transport, hotels, sights, meals. We get picked up at the airport and then dropped off there at the end. And it’s amazing that we don’t need to make a single decision about anything.
Businesses need to keep this paradox in mind when marketing goods and services. Too many choices can be a bad thing, somethings things are easier when you don’t need to make a decision about everything.
I think building a house would be the absolutely worse thing I can think of in this regard. Having to make decisions about trivial things (taps, sinks, vanities) would drive me insane. No thanks, I’ll keep things simple and take what’s given to me.

put down your camera

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I was recently looking at some of the amazing images of the Endeavour’s 19km road tip though Los Angeles, and like when anything amazing like this happens, it seems that people are often too busy taking photos of it to actually enjoy it.

I think that last picture is a perfect reflection of the life many of us lead. Always behind cameras/iPhones/iPads, giving up a current experience for a future reminiscence, not realizing how many professional photographers will take much better photos than you can and they will be freely available on the web for anyone to see at any time.

It isn’t an isolated occurrence, take the Queen’s visit to the races in England last year.

Seriously? Stop living behind a 3 inch screen. As a Jason Mraz concert goer recently wrote:

The Mrs. is a HUGE Jason Mraz fan (I’m like “meh”, but whatever). We got 3rd row center seats to his show last night. Throughout the whole show just about EVERYONE around us was holding up their cameras, ipads, whatever for the ENTIRE FUCKING show.

 

The funny thing is, he has a very large band spread out all over the stage (bass, drums, horn section, violinist, bongos), so all these idiots missed everything that was going on around the stage just to hold their stuff up in the air so they could show their friends how cool they were, not to mention potentially blocking the view of the people behind them. I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…I wanted to yell, “PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE, YOU’RE MISSING A GREAT SHOW, DUMBASS!”

 

toughening up?

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“I fear we’re turning into a nation of wussbags. Softies. Princesses. People in need of a big bowl of cement for breakfast. Everywhere you look, there’s wuss.”

I really liked, and agreed with, this article by Mia Freedman published last weekend on toughening up.

But then I read Fiona Scott Norman’s article in The Big Issue about Grant Hackett and his recent relationship issues:

“Australian men are not encouraged to talk, sportsmen in particular. Any emotional vulnerability has been traditionally met with an exhortation to ‘suck it up, princess’. Until recently, when at least one code has moved into the appropriate century, footy players complaining about sledges targeting, say, their wives and mothers were told to ‘toughen up’.

 

This is our culture, Australia. Where men are commanded to bottle any feelings that relate to woman.”

So, whilst I agree with Mia that we need to toughen up on a lot of things, we also need to be able to have close friendships that allow us to share what’s on our chest, in those tough times, where toughening up might not be an option.

on death

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Discussing death is somewhat of a taboo in modern life: we just don’t really talk about it. Somewhat understandably, it is rather grim. It’s much easier to talk about inane personal details such as how much someone earns or how much their house is worth. When someone does start talking or thinking about death, we start questioning whether there is something wrong with that person: are they okay, are they going to kill themselves?

I enjoyed reading The New Manhood by Steve Biddulph where he talks about this exact issue. He explains how in more tribal times death was a key part of life, and there was much more exposure to death and dead bodies through rituals, burials and ceremonies. It was more tactile and therefore people knew it was inevitable.

Case in point: twice a year Kitty and I attend Lifeline Bookfest where we get large piles of second hand children’s books for Junior Pixels and Little Bear to read. The thing we love about these books are they’re not the ones you see for sale in the shops: a lot of them are from the seventies and eighties. One thing Kitty observed is how they’re generally darker than new books being released today: there’s more death.

In November last year I dislocated my patellar (knee cap). It was the worst pain I have ever experienced, especially during the twenty five odd minutes it took for ambulance to arrive, give me the green whistle and relocate my patellar. I thought I was going to die, and strangely, until that moment, I never actually realized I would at some point die.

It dramatically changed my whole outlook on life (and death). I realized I needed to be healthier. I completely gave up drinking soft drinks and alcohol (not that I ever was a regular drinker: more of the occasional social binge), and gave up eating sugary foods.

The first two weeks of zero caffeinated soft drinks were hard, but I drank green tea instead and I can’t remember feeling healthier.  My trip to Austin in March was the first time I have ever been able to sleep soundly on a plane (not being completely wired on caffeine).

Seven months later I don’t miss the soft drinks one bit and I enjoy being sober all the time as I’ve never had clearer thoughts or been able to sleep so easily. After a knee operation and a long recovery of physiotherapy, my knee is also mostly better.

Through my experience I realised what death actually is and while that it is inevitable for us all: I don’t want to die. I want to be healthy because there is so much to live for.

the wisdom of michael j fox

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I thoroughly enjoyed watching this interview with Michael J Fox recently. There were lots of particularly inspiring moments:

“There’s this aphorism that I learnt when I quit drinking, which is that my happiness grows in proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.”

Like when he speaks frankly about dealing with early onset Parkinson’s Disease:

”The experience of dealing with the reality of a diagnosis with an incurable progressive illness … once I recognised that and accepted it, that opened [life] up for me in terms of possibilities. You see the entirety of your life in a way that you don’t when you myopically focus on your career, or what your last movie did. All of a sudden it’s all bigger, the stakes are bigger, the implications are bigger and the possibilities are bigger.

The only thing you know for sure is that there’s no cure for this, it’s going to get worse. Given that’s what your great truth is, you have to find ways to make things better.”

I recommend your check it out.

the intergenerational wars continue

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You Boomers! I swear you are the worst generation ever to walk this earth, self centred, ladder kicking, asset sucking, greed merchants, look at moi, look at moi. all you have ever done is position yourselves in some moral highground, now its emotional intelligence! Cant you all just accept that you inhaled the stoic platform of stabiltiy and unmatched prosperity provided by your hardworking, long suffering parents and ridiculed it in the most pathetic way, dirty hippies. to much outta sight and not enough insight.

Why dont you all just climb into your disgustingly named (and priced) winnebagos and drive off into the sunset. “Spending the kids inheritance”! Pah- you lot spent the countries inheritence.

So to all you 60 year old super sensitive emo dudes, dont trust anyone over thirty, life begins at 40, hippy, yippee, yuppie, dink, grey nomads, go get into your now luxuriously appointed retirement villas (after saving money sending your folks to crap ones) and shut the hell up, I for one am sick of you and all your ridiculous studies.

~ The inter-generational wars continue: a SMH reader posts a rather passionate anti-baby-boomer comment.