Audit #51

I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago now - thank you - and as is my custom, I found myself doing an audit of the year just gone, and what I've experienced, for better or worse, since the last time I blew out the candles...it gets easier as you get older - who can be fagged putting 51 candles on a cake, really? By the time you've got the last ones lit, the first ones are already puddles of hot wax all over the icing, you've got through half a box of matches and suffered half a dozen burns to your fingers and forearms...at most, at this age, you'll get but a motley handful, representing 'many'…either that, or those candles shaped like numbers...get 'em lit, get 'em blown out, and let's eat the damn cake, that's my motto...

The day in question itself doesn't seem worth making so much of a fuss about these days...I agree with Dave Barry that there is an age past which your birthday is of no real interest to anyone else. That age is twelve. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy celebrating my anniversary, another year still out here swinging, a nice excuse to spoil myself a little, maybe receive a gift or a card, a call or an email, maybe go for a spin on the bike, have a beer or two, go out for dinner somewhere...I like birthdays - specifically, I like my birthdays…I do take pleasure when my kids have birthdays, to see them reach different milestones and reflect on what I was doing at their age…interestingly, I never find myself wondering what they'll be doing at my age, I have no mental picture at all…I do know how well they can each think for themselves and stand on their own two feet, and that makes them pretty well equipped to toddle around the planet, using their powers for good and not evil....unlike when they were younger…

Having a mid-year birthday also gives me a chance to look at life outside the distractions of the festive season, and reflect on how things have changed over twelve months...it always surprises me when I stop and sit down and actually think of everything that can happen in a year, and the first year of my 50s has been as interesting as any, with some unusual twists...

Fifty-one is pretty much one of those nothing birthdays...'fifty something'...the big five-oh is a year behind, and whether you saw that birthday as a milestone or a millstone, you've had a year to get a grip on yourself again...I love being in my fifties, to be honest...it's like some kind of sign that you've paid at least a few dues and satisfied one or two rites of passage...it's like making Sergeant in the Army - unless you're a complete wanker, people will give you some credibility from the get go until you prove yourself otherwise, on the premise that you must know something to have got to this point...that's the way it seems to be panning out so far, anyway...

The most striking thing about this most recent birthday is that I celebrated it in the same house for the third year in a row...I've lived in this cool little cedar shingle house, here in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, for two and a half years now...which, in and of itself, wouldn't be much of a big deal for most people...but it's the second longest I've lived anywhere since I left home in the mid 70s...I officially moved out in '78, but I'd not slept there more than two or three times a week on average since I got my first car in '76...that was what struck me, I think - I knew I'd moved around a lot, but when I started thinking about actual numbers it was like seeing my lifelong dissatisfaction with standing still in a new light...well over thirty years, and two and a half years is the second longest I've lived anywhere…the longest, for the record, was 8 years, in my 'first home'…and, since you've got me started, here's a tip from one who knows - anyone who tells you that "you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar" or "God's not making any more land" is a thief, a rogue and a lying scoundrel, and you can tell them so from me…it did turn out to be a pretty good place to live and get a toehold on being a real grownup, but it cost me a helluva sight more than renting would have done…however, I digress…

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows that I disappear for periods of time varying from a few hours to several years, often without much trace...so, it all begs the question as to why I'm still here, and why haven't I been scratching my fingertips bloody against the inside of the door? Well, I'm glad you asked…

I think that living in a new country goes a long way, especially one where there is so much to see and do...if you can't find something you like in America, there really is something wrong with you...I've always been irresistibly drawn by America, even as a small child in England...when I read Eric Clapton's story of having won a book about America as a child and being fascinated, I understood him completely...I passed through the USA once or twice before I moved here, and so far I haven't regretted it...I have finally shed the constant feeling that I was living inside a movie, which characterized my first two years here...now, I think I can safely say that America has become as much Home as anywhere else has ever been...I've almost completed my two year conditional residency, and by Thanksgiving I should have my unconditional Permanent Resident card, valid for the next 10 years...all of which have lead some to ask, yet again, whether I have finally got wandering out of my system and s-s-s-s...koff, choke...s-s-settl....ack...'settled down'....eeurgh....well, no....

I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have been able to structure my life so that I can pretty much go anywhere I want, whenever I want...somewhere, I must have done a something or two right to have attracted karma this good…and, whether I choose to meander around within a hundred miles from home, or head off and cover a couple States, or whether I choose to stay home and plant roses, knowing that I can is pretty much all of the battle for me...I need to be able to far more often than I need to actually do...and here, with hundreds of icons to visit within a 3 or 4 day road trip, I'm not going to run out of new things to see for a few years to come yet.

I wasn't sure when, or if, this time would come, but I think I can finally say that, for now, I am sick to death of flying...I am very well aware that an extraordinary number of people - including my callow young self of twenty or thirty years ago - would love to be able to say "I'm sick of flying", so I'm cognizant of trying not to sound like some spoiled wanker...different people like different things, and I love to travel...I was given a questionnaire once that asked me where my idea of Shangri La was, my ultimate place to live, and I had to answer "Anywhere but here...wherever 'here' is"....I scraped, begged and borrowed to see as much of the world as I could as often as I could, and I think I can say that every penny was well spent...but I really have had enough, for now, of planes and airports...this decade, I think, will be a time for seeing things at ground level. Stopping more frequently, and for longer. And now, I'm not only taking the time to smell the roses, for the first time I'm getting pretty good at growing them.

I finally have the motorcycle I've dreamed of since I was a kid...it was always more an idea than a detailed picture, but a motorbike that would, like a magic carpet or Forrest Gump's shoes, take me anywhere...I like travelling by train, by car, truck, horse and cart, and I've covered an awful lot of ground over the years by foot - but I've found that unusually interesting things do seem to happen when you head out on a motorcycle for the day...for me, it always seems like a step of faith right from the word go, of confidence in oneself, to head out on the road on such a flimsy, basic piece of machinery...you can't even sleep in them (or even under them in any sensible fashion) if they break down...and, of course, there is the ever present but rarely spoken about overwhelming likelihood of death if you are ever unfortunate enough to become separated from your machine under trying circumstances...I can't help but think that it breeds something of a devil-may-care attitude among motorcyclists, but I couldn't say for sure…

This year, 2010, also saw the decision to work on the house and property until it's as finished as we're prepared to make it, rather than me chase minimum wage work and then pay someone else three times as much to do all the reno work for me…and I would have to be facing starvation before I'd consider getting back on the hamster wheel and having another real job...it was becoming increasingly clear that the house was never going to be finished by working on it part-time on weekends, particularly given that the weather here doesn't lend itself well to outdoor activities for a goodly part of the year...and so, instructive and entertaining as they were, paying hobbies such as tending bar, flipping burgers and taking other people's motorcycles apart were put away and I have thrown myself at the garden like a bull at a locomotive...

I've had the notion for a very long time that if I were to find the right house and take the time to  work on it, fix and mend and trim and paint, there was a pretty good chance that what I'd add to the value of the property would be enough to compensate me for the time involved, and quite possibly more than I could make working for someone else…now, fortunately, I'm married to someone who agrees with me…

I used to hate gardening with a passion, especially as a renter, and it didn't improve much for the first several years after I bought my first home, way back in the late 80s...I can't help thinking that, again, the reason I enjoy it so much these days is because I don't have to...and, as time's passed, the blackberry bushes have been finally poisoned and machetted into a fragmented underground guerrilla force, lessons have been learned and relearned, the right tools and equipment slowly accumulated, and I have carte blanche to do pretty much exactly what I want to with the place, within a reasonable budget...fortunately, we had a huge variety of decent looking plants laying dormant under all that blackberry vine, and it seemed as if a succession of owners over a long time had pretty much planted whatever they thought was a good idea...none of it seemed to be where it wanted to be, it sure wasn't where I thought it should be, and so most of the work so far has been weeding, trimming, cutting back and transplanting, and there's also been a surprising number of rocks, on and beneath the surface...not completely unlike the rest of my life in some ways...I'm told they come from Montana, courtesy of a glacial event a few years back, and their smoothness does seem to reflect a long journey sans moss...it's become my habit to ring the base of every plant with the stones that were dug up when it was planted, and nice, now, to be able to sit on the front lawn or the back deck and not see only more work to do wherever you look...I've found that as long as you keep meandering in the right general direction, you eventually tend to get where you were supposed to be going, whether you wanted to or not...

It's funny what happens when you're left to your own devices for any real length of time...what defaults bob to the surface, what things we remember from the past, which are our reliefs and which our regrets...looking back, I seem to have been drawn to getting simple things done well, and doing as much as I can of things I like doing...it surprises me more than somewhat how often, in years past, I continued to do things I didn't really like much at all, and kept company with people I liked not really that much at all, and wondered why I was unhappy as often as I was...seems ridiculously simple when you actually write it down, but it clearly seemed the thing to do at the time...

This has, as it turns out, been a good year for simplifying...I read recently that if you find yourself frequently losing track of time, it's a sign that you're in synch with the rhythm of nature, and there seems to be some truth in that...since I've been able to stop worrying about alarm clocks, and spending long periods of time each day, regardless of the weather, walking around my garden, our garden, seeing what's come into bloom, where the rainwater is backing up, which plants are thriving where I've placed them and which are going to need moving again, and how many new blackberry shoots have sprung up...well, time just seems to get away from me...I'm a Northern Hemisphere kid by birth, and the longer I live here again, the more in tune I feel with the rhythm of the seasons, the ridiculously late-lit summer evenings, the rain and the eternal greenery...I am grateful that I got to grow up in Australia, and that I raised my own kids there...but, 'up here', there is something familiar at a very primitive level...

Last month also marked a year since I stopped smoking cigarettes after 35 years...that's given me a whole new outlook on life, primarily that it looks like I'll have one for quite a while longer than I had anticipated...you never know, I may yet live to see grandchildren...I'm reading again and, as you've noted, writing...all of a sudden, after decades of chasing my tail and wanting and doing and getting and listing and planning.....all of a sudden, it seems, life has slowed down...I sleep undisturbed all night, for the first time in years, and I wake up happy for the first time in longer.

My extensive t-shirt collection is, at last, to be made into a quilt...I'm still mustering at the moment, and hope to have a head count by the end of the week, but I'm thinking it will be at least 3 or 4 dozen accumulated over 30 years, mostly souvenirs of places I've been, some I've pretty much worn to death and some maybe a handful of times - sometimes I liked the shirt, just not on me...I wear very few of them much anymore, and when I do they often get stained or damaged, so it's time to swap them out for half a dozen plain Carhartt's heavy duty work t-shirts, and a couple of old favorites that I'd rather wear out than hang onto…they go with the canvas dungarees that I've bought to replace my jeans, with enough pockets to carry my specs case, wallet, bandana,  padlock, cell phone, Maglite torch and a partridge in a pear tree…

So, all in all, I'd have to say that this 51st year, and the start of my 52nd, are panning out pretty well so far...I'm well in practice for retirement to gradually become more full time, and have become reacquainted with living within my means...repairing clothes instead of replacing them, buying quality and making it last, using hand tools again in lieu of motor driven ones where it's practical, building and repairing things myself whenever I possibly can…it takes a little longer, but time is one thing I am close to having enough of if I play my cards right…turning up is a lot of it, turning up and doing a little more every day, and putting one foot in front of the other....it's funny how the older I get, the older my ideas get...

Drop in anytime…if the bike's in the garage, it means I'm in the garden...

I'm taking my days back.

"People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time."  - Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-delete-your-facebook-account-2010-5 

I'm done with Facebook. It's starting to feel like walking down a street where everyone is walking around their house naked, with a megaphone in their hand and all the windows open.

I don't like what Facebook is doing to the way people interact with each other. In a manner that text messaging barely hinted at, our interpersonal communication is being butchered. We discard sentences for garbled abbreviations and word limits, and wax at length about things that, until recently, we found boring when we did them ourselves. Now we spend significant amounts of our day listening to other people, many of whom we barely know, talk about them.

Mostly, I don't like what it's done to the way I communicate. I've fallen for it. Instead of getting out and doing things, I'm spending far too much of my life trolling Facebook to see who's said what, who's commented on their comments, who's commented on my comments about their comments...and much of it is worth neither saying nor hearing.  In what seems like only months, we have fallen far too easily into a pattern of the electronic equivalent of talking for the joy of hearing the sound of our own voice...remember when that used to be a bad thing? When we would put at least some thought into making what we said interesting, witty, intelligent...now, in a practice that completely overshadows the fast, exciting sport of train spotting, we have people on pages like The Onion who simply want to be the first person to type 'First' in the comments...that has to be one of the saddest fads I've ever seen.

I'm done with vaguebooking attention seekers. " X doesn't think she can take it any longer", "Y is NOT happy", "there's no turning back now..."....and then their friends, often the same old handful, swallow the bait and confirm that self-pity and vague hinting at your emotional distress  is still a valid strategy for getting your ego stroked...what is this, 9th Grade again? This is from people in their forties and fifties, for crying out loud....just because I'm continually trying to learn new ways to use technology to improve my quality of life, doesn't mean I have to revert to the emotional maturity of the target age group. I love technology, it allows me to do things I never dreamed of. It also provides the perfect megaphone for drama queens. I learned this lesson two years ago when I resigned from a couple of email discussion groups. Time to learn it again.

I'm going to start putting my life back the way it was before we all started washing our underwear at the same trough. I'm leaving the page up while I consider the alternatives. I won't be spending time on Facebook anymore. Enough's enough, and I have other things to do, and better ways to stay in touch.  I'm sick of the digital diarrhea, this white noise of so much boring detail of other people's lives...I may love you like a Tasmanian sister, but I really don't care that much that you're tired and it's time for bed, I really don't care what you had for breakfast - at least, I never used to....can you imagine, 5 years ago, hitting speed dial on your phone to fifty or a hundred friends to let them know you're off to bed?  And the reason I've been guilty of the same thing is because, like the proverbial boiling frog, I've come to accept the banal, creeping dullness of this minutae, this reduction of life to detail that would embarrass the Seinfeld scriptwriters...I'm no longer sure I believe that this continual living out loud is taking us anywhere good...'slide nights' used to be considered by many the ultimate symbol of suburban mind-numbing boredom - now we do it for recreation...in a darkened room by ourselves, watching other people's slides...

This isn't normal. We didn't used to do this. This isn't how grownups behave. Looking through other people's stuff when they're not home, poking in drawers and cupboards because we can, because they forgot to reset the 'Everyone' default on every single one of their Facebook photo albums individually, and leaving post-its all over the place saying "I was here"...if you can remember someone's name, anyone, doesn't matter how long ago you knew them, if you have enough time, you'll find their page if they have one...where they live, who they're friends with, anything they've taken pictures of, what colour socks they wear on Thursdays...we used to read novels and watch films about the great lengths that spies and private detectives had to go to when they went snooping for this sort of stuff, we used to value our privacy. 

Minding your own business used to be the norm. Now it's a dying art.

Big Day Out

I had the itch Friday morning, but they were still talking hail...by noon, I'd got sick of walking out into the garden and trying to stare down the clouds so I figured I'd just head in the general direction of the coast and see how far I could get before this unnatural Northern Hemisphere weather turned me around...I had some friends heading out to the clamming shack, which was 125 miles away according to Mapquest...one of the disadvantages of moving to a country where they use a different measurement system is that after a while, you forget to convert the numbers and end up thinking 125 'things' isn't all that far....by the time I got to the clamming shack, after what one of my associates in Australia would have called "an enthusiast's ride" - I'm told the bridge across the Columbia at Astoria, Oregon is 4 miles long, and when the temperature is below 50f and falling, it feels like it - I took my time to warm up and accept a gracious demand to join the crew for dinner...by 9pm the first two were asleep, and by 10 o'clock my reprobate friend and I were home from the bar and I was buried into a recliner rocker, covered in blankets and dreaming of tropical beaches where long bridges over cold rivers are merely tales to frighten small children...

I woke at 0530, I often don't sleep well when I'm travelling and I've been travelling for a while...I laid out all my riding gear near the front door the night before, and managed to haul it all out onto the front step without making too much noise...the downside of having parked the bike right next to the sliding door behind which everyone else was still sleeping was having to push it further than I'd ordinarily be happy to push 700 pounds of greasy metal across patchy sand and dead grass before I could start the thing. With hindsight this, coupled with only having had one meal and several beers since dinnertime on Thursday, was probably responsible for me deciding to sit down for a while to let the spinning stop, then remove the numerous layers of animal hide and go back to bed for an hour....by 7:30am, I'm motoring south, back towards the river, and feeling as good as I always do when I do this, even in the wind, the dark and the rain...

They get deer around here, and by the time I reach the bridge I decide that being paranoid about deer is preferable, even if only marginally, to being paranoid about elk so I decide to meander home on 'the Washington side'....plus, I really can't seem to generate a lot of interest for riding back across that bridge, given that it's around 10 degrees colder than it was when I rode over it heading this way....the Washington side is longer in time and miles but pretty and with less traffic....I pass two other bikes heading back the way I came and we wave...I wave at everyone, it's an inclusive pursuit, or at least it is for me...and if some other crazy bastard is out there in the post-dawn dreariness that most people, including me, would generally prefer to sleep through, then we have more than enough in common to wave at each other...

Twenty miles from the Interstate, I realise my boots are slowly filling with water...the jacket and pants are holding up reasonably well, but it's been too long a while since the boots saw enough polish...add it to next week's list...leather is great for preventing road rash and pretty damn good at keeping out the cold, and it's Old School which is good enough for me in the absence of a better alternative - but it's crap in the rain after any more than about half an hour...at this point I'm two hours into it, and now it's just a matter of reeling in the miles until the home stretch...

Stanley and I hit I-5 liked a raped ape on rails...whatever the hell one of them looks like, it's quick...this is a 'Sport model', and like 'Sport models' across every motorcycle brand across the planet, they are designed, in the words of the old Moto-Guzzi owner's manual, "to be ridden in a sportsmanlike manner"....which is the major part of why I bought this particular model bike, a Harley FXDX T-Sport, known by some, apparently, as the D-T....the rain is still on and off and there's still enough water on the road to make it worth staying switched-on for, but the Saturday morning traffic has dried out the highway a lot more than the backroads, and in no time we're up to 90 without even thinking about it, and then a sudden volley of red lights half a mile ahead means the lanes are diverging and I drop back under 70 and stay there while the cages jockey for position...

Once thick cowhide gets wet it pretty much stays wet, sometimes literally for days, and after a while the wicking of moisture by the wind is enough to start tapping at your core temperature...it's the same dilemma of whether or not to run to shelter in a rainstorm...for the record, I walk through rain at a casual pace and have no idea whether or not it helps or hinders getting rained on - it's that running away from water just seems so....undignified....it's a different dilemma when the wind has successfully located every existing pinhole in your clothing, and riding faster gets you there sooner but you get colder a lot more quickly...I realise that I forgot to stop for coffee or something to eat, and I've now had one small meal in almost 48 hours, 5 hours sleep sitting up in a chair, and it seems to be getting colder...when you're tired, hungry and alone it always feels like it's getting colder....I'm less than an hour from home now, so it's not much more than an inconvenience unless I break down, and it's good to learn where the gaps in my clothing are, this close to home...

It's always a guessing game, what to wear to go riding, and everyone regularly gets it wrong and ends up sweating buckets in black leather jackets on Fall days that turn into Indian Summer and just as often, like me, are dressed fine for the cold, and maybe a few 15 or 20 minute showers, but not for hours of steady rain...check and test, check and test....I'll be better prepared next week when I've got a couple of longer trips in mind, and getting too cold can mean the abrupt end of a ride or, worse I guess, a long horrible slow end to the ride. As it is, I'm cold but I'm further from misery than I am from home.

And then as I'm leaning hard into a long left hander sweeping through the Washington firs, The Sun comes out and suddenly God is in Heaven and all's right with the world again...the sun on one's face is one of hte biggest morale boosters in history, and it is all I can do to restrain myself from bursting into song...I burst into song anyway...I often think of Wagner when I'm riding (Da dudda da dah dah, dudder da dah dah, DUDDER DA DAHH DAH, dutter da daaaahhhh...who says German lyrics are difficult to learn?)...especially on the big six- and eight-laners with the 75mph speed limits, where you can open up a little, get creative, and you make that last lane change and suddenly you're in that big open space between the herds....flying along with the nearest other vehicle hundreds of yards ahead or behind, with the sun beating down....it's about as close as I get to prayer....

I hit the driveway just after 10:30, and there's no negatives to be told other than "I realised I need a flannel shirt"...the coffee's hot, the toast is brown and after a hot shower and a pair of dry socks it's already time to start sharpening the story of the day I rode for three hours in the rain to have breakfast...bon appetit.

It can't be just me

It started with the petitions. And the facebook groups. Save The Whales. Stop Uranium Mining. Save The South African Police Child Abuse Unit. The last one got me curious, so I checked snopes, and confirmed my suspicion that so many of these feel-good-but-make-no-damn-difference campaigns are worse than useless, and frequently completely redundant, even if the cause is in fact more than an urban myth.

This bra colour campaign got me thinking - although not what the creators or participants of this campaign had in mind. I've been doing a slow burn since yesterday morning when this campaign started, and when I read AllFacebook's claim this morning about a men's underwear campaign, due to the 'incredible success' of yesterdays bra campaign, something snapped, pardon the pun.

This note is not a criticism of any of my facebook friends who participated yesterday. Seriously, I don't want anyone to think that this is a personal attack, it's not. It's that I'm fuming at what looks tome like a damaging campaign. It's a criticism of the people who create the false impression that this kind of simplistic activity, in and of itself, will actually do any good. In my view, breast cancer is decades past needing awareness - I doubt there are many people left who can see a pink ribbon bumper sticker without knowing what it's for. My argument is that, unlike other more rare conditions, no-one is unaware of breast cancer. Let's take awareness as a given, and then take the subsequent steps that move the world closer to prevention and cure.

As an aside, breast cancer kills one tenth as many as heart disease. A tenth. How many of you would have guessed that? Why do you think that is that you didn't realise that? Maybe because tits are more appealing than internal organs, in the way that everyone abhors dolphins and whales being killed for food, but couldn't care less about calves. It tells me that breast cancer 'awareness' campaigns are not only superfluous, but they are diverting energy and awareness from something that is 10 times more likely to kill you. That figure again - ten times. Which disease do you think should have 10 times the recognition of the other? What colour is the ribbon for heart disease? There isn't one - but more than one of you stopped and thought about it, wondered what it was...and there isn't one, what does that tell you?....or a snappy slogan, like the one for the last breast cancer awareness campaign a few months ago, "Save Second Base" (now *that* is a great campaign to raise MONEY - not awareness - for research and prevention programs...I would pay twenty bucks for a t-shirt with that slogan and an appropriate picture...yep, it's crass, but if you have the income to donate twenty bucks to every single worthy charity, you must be Donald Trump...if you want me to spend my limited cash on your passion rather than mine, you have to really stand out from the crowd)...where's the snappy slogan for heart disease? Even the Heartsmart logo on packaged food looks like it's been made redundant because the Heart Foundation accepts cash for endorsement and has lowered the bar below useful as a result...

I have had several friends die of cancer, and more that have survived after having major surgery. Three have had mastectomies. A close friend is, as I write, in hospital recovering from an operation to remove a large tumour from their bowel. I have a dog in this fight. I want to see a cure. I think that campaigns like this take us further away from a cure, by making ineffective lip-service too easy, without the mandatory follow-on link from 2-second status update to parting with cold hard cash, or booking the overdue mammogram...I can recall at least four breast cancer awareness campaigns in the last 12 months...there is a 'turn facebook pink' campaign underway as I write...

The attached article is AllFacebook's self-congratulatory message; the following two are my responses. It has occurred to me that having now spent an entire week dealing with a painful shoulder injury, primarily by taking as much hydrocodone as the doc will give me, that there's an outside chance that I am currently less than my usual light-hearted and effervescent self, and there may be a possibility that I have got it wr...wr-r-r-r....wr-r-r-r-o...less correct than I usually am...I'm interested in what my 76 closest and most trusted friends think...for the record, I draw the line at being lynched...

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Facebook Boxers Campaign Attempts To Duplicate Success Of Bra Color Campaign
Posted by Nick O'Neill on January 11th, 2010 10:35 AM
Share78 3 Comments »
After the incredible success of the Facebook bra color campaign, guys are now being encouraged to post the types of underwear they are using in order to spread awareness about prostate cancer. It’s not exactly a new concept. Within minutes of women posting their bra colors, many guys began posting the colors of their underwear in order to “raise awareness about testicular cancer”. It’s clear though that this was just an attempt to have some fun with the existing breast cancer campaign.

The following message was being sent out to male users over the past 24 hours:
“Some fun is going on,which is also raising awareness of Prostate Cancer Just write “briefs” , “boxers,” “jocks,” or “commando” in your status. Just the word, nothing else. It will be cool to see if this will spread Prostate cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the men describe their shorts in their status.”
We’re copying a worldwide effort started by Breast Cancer activists, who are updating their facebook status with their bra color. In the spirit of emulation being a sincere form of flattery, why not?
So will the campaign for men to post their underwear gain as much traction? Personally I think breasts always generate more buzz, however I’ve had numerous male friends post their underwear color and pattern to their status. It’s a catchy idea and it’s extremely simple. I’ve seen numerous conversations spawned as a result of a user posting only a color and a wink. Last week’s bra color campaign is ongoing and now there is a movement for men to do the same.
Following every successful vial Facebook campaign there are always loads of copycats, although most, if not all, fail to gain a similar traction as the initial campaign. For now we’ll have to wait and see if the prostate cancer (or testicular cancer) campaigns generate similar traction. Whether or not they do, having a little bit of fun to generate cancer awareness is never a bad thing!

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Jack Butler:
An incredible success? By what measure? Thousands of women writing one word then going back to sleep on the issue? An awareness campaign that holds back what it is that we're supposed to be aware of? Where the posters get pissy because 'men' let the secret out of the bag? Did you, 'AllFacebook', read the comments on your own post? Where there is no process by which to donate, or make any kind of contribution? Yes, we are aware that breast cancer exists, that news has been out for a while now. To be effective, campaigns need to offer more than for people to post cute, cryptic one-word status updates and do nothing else.

Show me the money - how did the fight against breast cancer benefit from this banal idea?

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Jack Butler:
Mark, you miss the point; awareness is a first step, and conditions like mesothelioma and benign intercranial hypertension (an FB friend posted a link today, she has a friend who has it) need more of it. People are already well aware of breast cancer. I had a 36 yo friend die of it. She didn't die because there weren't enough people who'd heard of it. She died, as so many others do, because she had an incompetent oncologist, and because research is so dependent on big pharmacy that they withhold information from each other to secure the funds they need. Because people think writing 'RED' in their FB status bar is all they need to do. As Randy points out, "this should save a lot of lives... not really sure how.. but we can feel like we are doing something"...and, having done little more than encourage all their male FB friends to stare at their boobs while they wonder whether you're still wearing the Lilac one, they feel so good about having 'helped', that they do nothing more. No donation, no buying a t-shirt, no offering to volunteer at a cancer ward, reading books to people too whacked on morphine to read for themselves. Sorry, that's just too hard, isn't it? Try the 'turn FB pink' campaign. That looks like a real campaign. It might make a difference. The bra and boxer ideas do more harm than good, by salving people's conscience without them actually having to do anything.

Read these: http://tinyurl.com/yeusctk

and

http://tinyurl.com/y8o7fey

then get back to me.

I'd like to see a cure for breast cancer. I'd like to see a cure for all cancers. Campaigns like this distract energy from things that might achieve that. Without a link or even yet another breast examination chart (is there *anyone* that doesn't know how to do this, after twenty or thirty years of 'awareness' campaigns?) This campaign is great, I have dozens of very pleasant mental images I wouldn't otherwise have had. Given I was already aware that breast cancer existed and regular self examination *may* help (last I heard they're now rethinking the usefulness of mammograms), the campaign achieved very little else....

This was a facebook traffic generator, nothing else.

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YOU ARE HERE ->

Welcome, or welcome back. I've been away.

There's often no better time to spring clean your life than the start of a new time period in your life. I generally don't save changes until 'the Spirit moves me' because my Spirit is a lazy bastard and notoriously unreliable, but I often find that my passing of a milestone inspires me to action. The end of the first decade of the Third Millenium is a milestone that everyone seems to be happy to see pass. I'll probably write more on that later. I might also re-post some of my older stuff, either in it's original format or polished up a little.

This is to confirm that if you navigated here from somewhere else that you're in the right place, and that the blog is still current. It's just lay fallow while I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month, and then had a great holiday season. I love living in America. Anyway. Wander about. Make yourself at home. Have a look through the library. Feel free to comment.

STUFF THE ROAD TAUGHT ME

1.       PATIENCE

It doesn't matter whether you're waiting for a flooded river to go down or an airline check-in clerk to hand over your boarding pass, getting angry doesn't usually help.  It takes just as long, the only difference is you get to be angry while you wait.  And everyone else thinks you're a jerk.  Jerks don't usually get upgrades.  Most things take longer than you expect.

2.       MAPS

You can't be lost if you don't care where you are.  For the other times, there are maps.

An outdated map is a false friend…but sometimes it's better than nothing. I once drove around England and Scotland for 9 days using only the thumbnail sketches in a very small Holiday Inn Locations brochure…it worked pretty okay, really, although London was a challenge…

Any journey requires 3 things - a here, a there and a way of identifying the terrain between them.  Pinning down the direction part often requires a separate, known 'there' as a reference point,  usually 'North' although it can be something familiar to just you and one or two special others - "the old Johnson place" or "the restaurant where we met"….whether you need to find a waterhole or you need to turn left at the third traffic light after the cathedral will dictate which maps you're going to need for today…

Unless I'm on an easy journey that I know well (and sometimes even then), I generally use at least three maps at once -

·         the Big Map that shows the major highways and town names, so you can get an idea of the big picture, the whole trip laid out from beginning to end…it shows major changes in direction, when mountains turn to deserts, swampland to coast…you can't see much detail mile by mile, but you know what the real signposts are…

·         Today's Map, the detailed one, that shows the names of streets, where the rest areas and car parks are, how you get down to the marina or to the tourist info centre from here…

·         the directions I printed off Mapquest…discovery is romantic and wonderful and all that, but as a rule I'm happy to follow generations of navigators before me and learn from the work of others…can you imagine if the great sailors of the Middle Ages, Drake, Magellan, Columbus and the rest had Mapquest?  Making - and stealing -  maps was big business, the espionage war of its day…put it this way - if someone has been there before me, I want to hear what he's got to say about the trip.

Between them I can usually get where I'm going…although you never know when things are going to change…which brings us back to patience, really….


SAFE MOVEMENT ACROSS TERRAIN

Navigate carefully and methodically.  It is always better to take a more measured pace and hit your mark, or close to it, the first time. Rushing gets you tired. Rushing gets you lost. Lost stops being fun when you run out of water.  More about that under Leaders, below. Keep the big map in mind, but notice the details of what's around you…are you now walking slightly uphill? What does the map say? Is that a dry creek bed or a fire trail? If we do get lost, where is the biggest landmark around from here - a mountain, a big river or a paved road, something you can't possibly miss.  You need these landmarks. Something that is so big you can't miss it, no matter which direction you approach it from…a place to get your bearings, find other reference points, re-orientate your map to the terrain, and take off on the new bearing…sometimes it's worth getting lost just enough to recognise what 'close' looks like and whether it's close enough…

It's also worthwhile relating map to ground on a regular basis. I've seen people walk blindly along a trail, fixated on the map and never learning how to discern the signs all around…the signs of life…the things you only really understand by experiencing in the flesh…warmth, colour, depth….

And remember - it's the terrain that changes.  What used to be a river is now just a dry gully. The art deco cinema and roller skating rink is now an office block. Get your bearings. Adjust the map. Take notes. Take pictures. Remind yourself to remember how this smelt. You might not be back this way again for a while….somewhere like it maybe… 

A SPECIAL CASE: THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

Here's a tip for the travel novice - you cannot navigate your way around London using a map of The Underground.  Trust me on this one.  Designed in 1931 by railway employee Harry Beck, the 'tube map' is probably the most famous map that completely ignores scale and physical location in the real world.  It is truly fiendish in its simplicity and it works brilliantly…as long as you already knew exactly where you were and exactly where you want to go - on a real map …it is possible (I know, I've done it) to travel halfway across London using several intersecting and overlapping different lines, and emerge into the sunlight to find that you're less than a hundred yards from where you started…which only goes to show you, again, that maps are just tools, just pictures of one person's vision of the journey ahead…

3.       LEADERS

I was on a one day management course and the ice-breaking discussion was 'Define Leadership'.   After a lot of bollocks backward and forward, the presenter gave the best definition of 'Leader' that I've ever heard - "someone who has followers"….that's not as obvious as it sounds…I think it was back around the early 1990's when every guru was banging on about leadership as distinct from management, and how every corporation had a desperate shortage of the former and a glut of the latter, soft, fat, pasty managers with pastel coloured short-sleeved shirts with outdated ties that were cheap when new…the new would-be CEO needed to be a Leader….military parallels were drawn, sweeping away any doubt that there was little difference between overseeing the landings at Normandy and running a supermarket…

I think much that was good got lost during those years, along with an awful lot of people who followed the self-styled leaders. I saw the Peter Principle in action for years, the theory that people will tend to rise to their level of incompetence and stay there…I watched the meteoric rise of men and women who could not have led hungry wolves to meat, but they could lie brilliantly on their applications for promotion…no-one ever checked with the followers or, for that matter, whether in fact there ever were any followers…

The point of all of which is that I have learned from being on the road that I don't like groups, I don't trust groups, I don't want to be in a group, and I sure don't want to be told what to do and where to go by some control freak with an overactive alpha complex…does that pretty much make it clear? One of the big reasons I don't like groups is that they tend to draw wannabe leaders like dung draws flies…

There are times when urgency is a factor. No argument.  On rare occasions, perhaps only a handful of times in an individual's life, someone has to take control of a situation. Someone has to say "This way" with the authority that people know somehow not to question. I get that. I love that whole 'leader born under fire' bullshit. But. It's rare. The circumstances that require it, and the presence of an individual with the cajones to make it happen, both rare. And unless my life is in danger I really don't like being told what to do. Say please, and say it with a smile. Please. . .

Which brings me back to groups. There is some safety in groups. Some. And sometimes a group just makes a bigger target, especially if they're not being led right.

From what I've seen, I'm better off on my own. I don't aspire to leadership, I really don't. I have enough trouble getting my sad self through the day, I just don't have the time or the inclination to make other people's decisions for them. But, trouble notwithstanding, no-one knows how to get me through the day better than I do. I've had more practice than anyone else, for a start.

Once you've seen your fill of the big ticket milestones, remember that the really interesting stuff is in the backstreets. I missed the Roman arena in Amman but I drank coffee you could stand a spoon up in and smoked untipped Camels and a hookah with a young Greek guy in a little cafe overlooking the arena and I had a lot more fun doing that…it's surprising who you meet when you're not really looking for company…and be very careful of the person who wants you to follow them, it's not unknown for them to have an ulterior motive…I know, shocking, isn't it?

4.       LEAVE CACHES BESIDE THE PATH

You can't carry everything.  Packing well is an art, but even the most dithering eventually appreciate that what you want to take you have to carry.  Some things you have to leave behind, and if you know that you're going to be traversing the same road for a while it's not a bad idea to organise supply drops at certain points.

Some things you can post ahead to yourself before you leave, to be collected at post offices and hotels. There's a lot of stuff you can pick up on the road…just remember to pay the price for quality when it comes to things you need all the time. When the storm sets in, it's always comforting to know your umbrella won't leak.

If you don't stay in touch with people you meet on the road, leave on good terms as much as you can…you never know when you might run into them again, and it's surprising how the journey can change people for the better…

It's important to learn when to let go...and having said that, I must say that I try not to burn bridges behind me until I have no choice, and it has been my experience that stuff you've accumulated on previous trips can really come in handy…however, in the interests of full disclosure, it is now a decade or more that I have carried one of those inflatable u-shaped neck pillows for use on planes and so on…you've all seen them...this navy blue plush-finish blob has accompanied me around the world at least twice, it even has its own little carry case…and I've never used it, not once ever…I blew it up the day I received it as a gift, tried it on, then deflated it and put it in my 'carry on' rucksack…where it sits from one hemisphere to the next, just in case….it's funny the useless things we carry around with us for years, don't you think? We secretly know we're never going to need it, but we're just not ready to let it go…lucky a neck pillow doesn't take up much room.

CACHE BOOKS FOR OTHERS

You can't carry a library. Read the travel guides and the cheap airport paperbacks and then leave them on the train, in a bar or on the bookshelf at the guest house…knowledge hoarded is knowledge squandered, and it's one way you can pay something forward, something nice…

5.       PLANS

Planning can be a fun game when you're stuck somewhere that you can't get a ticket out of and you need to kill time…there is a very old saying that if you want to make the gods laugh just tell them your plans…refer earlier under Patience…

A journey has to blend the pre-arranged and the ad-hoc, and everyone has their own idea of the perfect balance…if you know you're going to be in a certain place at a certain time, there can be advantages in making arrangements before you get there. Book the hotel, it's almost always cheaper over the net. Have someone meet you when you arrive. Cultivate contacts, talk to friends who've been there.

Group people usually don't travel much out of their own familiar territory…when they do, they like other people to have organised everything for them, when, where, how long…jolly good luck to them, I say, and I mean that…having life packaged for you can be a real help at times, and not everyone has the experience or the ability to do for themselves…although it can be surprising how interesting life can be when you set aside some time to just wander around…I found a brilliant old oak-lined pub down a cobbled side street in Dublin, only because I wasn't in a rush and wasn't paying too much attention to the detail map, just meandering in a general direction…almost all of the best experiences of my life have been just down a side street that was off the usual map…

6.       VILLAGES

Everyone needs to come back in to the village sooner or later. Even the most hardened nomads and outlaws need a solid base from time to time, protection from weather and other predators, a place to relax for a time, barter, repair the wear and tear, drink fresh water, trade stories, and get ready for the next leg of the journey.  It is my belief that environments shape the communities that dwell in them…the natural surrounds shape the city, the village, the family as the soil, rainfall and sunshine shape the plants…and their individual fruits…their values, their compassion, their art, what they do to survive, to celebrate, to give thanks, how they live and how they die… which is the reason it pays to choose your village carefully…some places just don't take kindly to strangers…doesn't matter how long you stay there, it will never feel like home…and there's other places at other times when you feel like you just fit right in. They're the places worth coming back to. Where your accounts are all paid up and there's a coffee cup in the cupboard with your name on it.

7.       ATTACHMENTS

Goodbyes suck, and there's no getting away from them, not ever. During the course of a life, everyone's going to get through a bewildering array of parents, neighbour kids, siblings, school friends, goldfish, team mates, parents of friends, dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs, college friends, workmates, lovers, haters, spouses, kids, friends of kids, store owners, the guys at the bar….they all come and go as we move on through, it's just how it is…

I refuse to hold life at arm's length because I'll miss it when it's gone. I'm not generally what I'd call a people person by nature. I don't hate people, I just find a lot of them annoying after a while. How long usually depends a lot on the person. Some people are great. I love some people. I love the contribution that some people have made to my life. It's inspired me to help other people from time to time. I like to think that I've made a positive change in the life of everyone I've ever met - although it has to be said that I'm sure I've improved some people's lives by removing myself from it…

I can't go through life refusing to get close to people, or let them get close to me…I don't think that would be much of a life, not for me…and I can't spend my whole time 'missing' people and sobbing in airports either…so I've learned, as best I can, to know, to like and love, and to let go…I try and make the most of people while they're here, because no-one's going to be here forever…I have some great friends that I've never met, and there's a reasonable chance I never will…there's some people I couldn't imagine ever seeing enough of then whose names I can barely remember now…

That's one thing I've learned from the road. All things pass. Eventually, all things pass. You'll be surprised what you miss most.

ONLY USERS LOSE DRUGS

"Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."   W.C. Fields

As an Army Reservist, for 9 months of the year for almost 10 years I used to parade almost every Tuesday night, one or two weekends a month, and at least two 16 day courses a year...I was a Medic,  as well as being a qualified Infantry Rifleman and an Armoured Corps AFV Commander, and I tried to get in at least one course a year plying my trade, usually as medical support for recruit courses, and a second course to increase my qualifications for more interesting roles...

 Sometimes I could get into the Army mentality and sometimes I found it a little bit harder...on the courses when I could just put on my green skin, 'switch on Army', turn off my creative brain and just do what I was told, I generally had a lot of fun...you know, keeping in mind that we were all being trained to kill people in really quite disturbing ways and all that....but anyone that knows me knows that if there's one thing that fires me up it's incompetence hiding behind rank...so, there were some courses when I'd just feel compelled to liven things up...

Every military training course I ever attended incorporated a lecture on the Army's policy on drugs...as you can imagine, psychoactive drugs are heavily frowned upon when using high-powered large calibre automatic weapons...these are the ultimate power tool...back around the early 1990s I was attending a course for Reservist Corporals to become eligible for promotion to Sergeant...

It was about day 3, and already we're suffering from sleep deprivation... up at 5:30am for PT, and we're showered, fed and in the classroom by 7:30, lectures well into the evening and you're up until past midnight practicing drill and weapons lessons out on the parade ground, writing up lesson plans, spit polishing boots and ironing uniforms...we are Corporals training to be Sergeants and we have an example to set to other soldiers on base, so our dress and bearing must be impeccable... and in my view, it's at times like this that one must have a sense of humour...and, well, sometimes I just get bored, y'know?....

This guy, a career MP, is a Warrant Officer, which means he has come up through the ranks of enlisted men...he's done the hard yards...and he is about to deliver the classic, textbook anti-drugs lecture straight from the Manual...

"The Army has a no-drugs policy"  A selective no-drugs policy...

"If you are caught using drugs or in possession of drugs while on Army property you will be liable to penalties both civil and military that may include imprisonment"  This guy has creases ironed  into his forearms...he hates having to deal with Reservists who are dope smoking anti-war tree-huggers when they're not in uniform...waste of time and money...

"If you experience stress, do not turn to drugs, do as I do and go to the boozer for a few beers"  This guy is a caricature and doesn't even know it...

"There are many reasons why someone would want to take drugs. Can anyone tell me what one of them might be.  Yes, Corporal"  Indicating me

"Well personally sir, I've always believed it's part of man's inherent need to alter his consciousness..."

The silence kind of hangs there. Like a weapon. The WO has me pinned into my seat with one of those cold, emotionless unblinking stares that leaves me in no doubt that he could quite happily slit my throat and then go inside and eat dinner with the same knife....

"What the fuck does that mean, smartarse?"

"People take drugs because it makes them feel good, sir"

"Good answer. Why didn't you say that in the first place? Yes, Corporal Bloggs.....""

You see, this is why the war on drugs was doomed from the start. Drug use is in our nature. The only people really speaking out against drugs are the ones that have either successfully recovered from their habit of choice, or like the MP have never tried 'em, don't like 'em on principle, and will not accept that a few beers after work every day will screw their minds and bodies up at least as bad as most of the alternatives... who knows what the answer is, but the bottom line is that people take drugs, from aspirin to crack, because it makes them feel good...

A few years ago a Close Personal Friend was visiting Amsterdam, a place he'd wanted to visit for years to see what the fuss was all about...after the routine hotel transfer, a quick shower and change, and he's out checking out the famous cafes...one in particular quickly becomes a favourite, good strong coffee, a wide selection of herbal teas and cool drinks, and a nice line in locally grown hydroponic pot and Nepalese hash...it also has a number of nice al fresco tables on the cobbled footpath next to the canal, where one can sip herbal tea and take a nice scone with strawberry jam and whipped cream, as the 60-something English couple are doing...or, like the young Italian guys are doing, roll 3 and 5 paper joints from the large pile of pot in the middle of the table...by Day 2, CPF has settled into a comfortable daily routine; a quick shower and down to the cafe for breakfast; one tourist expedition - Anne Frank's house, a cruise along the canals, whatever, take a few photos; and then just a general dazed meander around the streets....it really is just the way he'd pictured it two or three decades before...

Of course, there's always the things that many innocents abroad don't expect...petty crime thrives in crowds, the pickpockets, the scam artists and hustlers...and organised crime thrives in places where people would really rather not have their wife, mother, neighbour or boss find out they've been...they pay big, they pay cash, they don't ask for receipts or anything else that might reveal they've been there...the red light districts, where prostitutes, cops, crooks and all the other night people love to hang out, nightclubs, strip bars, brothels, casinos...on the first trip into the back of the coffee shop by the canal, where The Reason Other Than Coffee is kept...there's a standup menu for a variety of types of bud on one side and hash on the other, prices by the gram...the shop dude takes out a large wooden cutting block and a very big and what looks like a very sharp knife, cuts an appropriate sized piece from the brick of hashish, slips it on the scales and gives you the price...he won't roll it for you, but there are booths off to the side, painted matt black with bright blacklights to roll by, and ashtrays...be their guest...

If it fails to cross your mind whose guest you are, and who you would be upsetting if your behaviour failed to respect the establishment, there are two large red and white stickers on the wall behind the counter; "Support Your Local Red And White" and "This Business Supports The Big Red Machine".  Hells Angels. These guys are big here, in what has become the major conduit for all manner of pharmaceutical mood enhancers, in the middle of a river of cash and blood....you'll find them all over the world, old neighbourhoods, often revived ex-commercial districts, hip urban cafes by day....darker things come out at night...

In his afternoon meandering, CPF happens across an unexpected bonus - The Mushroom Shop...it's been years, seriously years...the shop is very small, but clean and tidy inside...among the usual paraphernalia is a small glass fronted refrigerator, filled with plastic takeaway containers as you'd find in a Chinese restaurant...except these have a range of magic mushrooms, each with a short summary of what effects one can expect from each..."bright colours", "enhanced sense of euphoria", "for experienced users only".....he opts for possible mild hallucinations and bright colours....

An hour later, he has survived the onset, unfamiliar after so many years of abstinence, traffic, other pedestrians and having been attacked by a mime....I hate mimes, I don't know about you....I hate street theatre generally, anything where you're likely to get singled out for comment or dragged into the performance...an interesting feature of the cafes around the Rembrandtplein is that all the chairs are facing the street...it works well, there's always something to see in the middle of the square...

A pair of buskers sets up on the footpath, a young white guy with a scruffy afro and a tie-dyed t-shirt on a guitar and a blonde female singer...a midget blond....bright platinum blonde hair, a yellow croptop and fluoro purple spandex capri pants, and she is belting out the tunes for all she's worth, "ROLLIN' ! ROLLIN' ! ROLLIN' ON A RIVERRR..."....he's transfixed....,his travelling companion nudges his arm and says "They're great, aren't they?"....to which CPF replies "Oh thank Christ you can see them too...."

It's fun. However you slice it, people do it because it makes them feel better. I have no idea what the answer is, but the cure of prohibition seems worse than the disease.

GLOBAL ALTRUISM THROUGH CREATIVE SELF INDULGENCE

...being  part of an occasional series in which I cast a light on behaviour ordinarily considered by casual observers to be anti-social, when in fact these behaviours, seen in the correct way, can be recognised as beneficial for the entire Societe de Humanitie Masse...what I do, I do for the good of humanity...

Self indulgence, I have often noted, is seriously underrated. Not just as a selfish, personal pursuit, but as a contribution to the greater good.

Sharon and Kenneth Holley have opened a bookshop, apparently it's the first African-American bookshop in Buffalo, NY. The thing that interests me is how Sharon got involved in this project. She likes comics. That's pretty much it.  "I had a real extensive comic collection", she says...one thing lead to another, and now she owns a bookshop. It got me thinking.  Lately I've been noticing people who seem to have led happier lives for having primarily done what they want as often as possible...

Doing what you want as often as possible. It sounds pretty obvious when you just write it down. Thing is, a lot of us really don't do an awful lot of what we want. I'd posit that the response of many to the idea of doing what we want would be that we simply can't - and where would the world be if we all did what we wanted. I'm starting to wonder.

We do a lot of things that are about making money, having a certain standard of living, impressing The Collective Other that we are fit for their company.  There's probably nothing wrong with that. My own philosophy has always been that what we have to do for money should be balanced by what we like to do. What we would do if we won the lottery. I could count on one hand the times when I've thought that, if I won the lottery, I would keep working at whatever I was doing at the time.  I've often wondered if it's possible for the average member of humanity to ever make a good living from what they like to do when they don't have to. I've known a lot of tradesmen and professionals who are highly regarded in their field. Almost without exception, the primary reason they do the job they do is because they realised that they have an aptitude for it and it pays enough to finance their chosen lifestyle. They enjoy the kudos, they enjoy the money, and it is generally a pretty good feeling to know that you're considered highly by your peers...and they'd quit tomorrow if they won the lottery. Engineers who spend all weekend sailing, motorcycling bank managers, the plumber who loves working in his garden.

I had a mate once who was an amateur member of a national sporting team.  Once a month, she'd be flown across the country to train with the elite in her sport. Two or three times a year she would be flown overseas for a week or two to play other countries.  Pretty impressive stuff. I asked her once if her mother used to shout at her to "put that bloody ball away and come and do your homework".  It seemed strange to me that she had earned a college degree and worked hard in a male dominated industry and gained a secure, well paid job - and yet the most amazing thing about her life came out of what she loves to do when she's at home, what she's done whenever she can get the chance.

The Piano Man, Billy Joel, was asked what made him decide to become a musician, and he replied that he didn't know how not to be a musician. He maintained that if you have to force yourself to play scales, or practice this week's piece, you're not really a musician at heart. I thought of my brother, who started learning guitar the same time I did, when we were kids back in the seventies...the guitar never really set me on fire, but Bro couldn't put the thing down...every morning, he'd tune the thing before he went to the bathroom...when he got home from school, the first thing he'd do was pick up the guitar and play...for hours....

I don't know if too many other people are like this, but I find it hard to practice something I'm crap at...it's a major gateway moment for me early on in the piece when I find that things aren't going as easily as I'd pictured them in my mind...and whether the skill I want to learn is important enough to me to struggle through the fumbling early stages of a skill to get to at least a base level of  competence....or, of course, whether I like doing it, even badly...

I also think of the school swimming champion, whose dad had faithfully taken him from a relatively early age down to the pool at 5:30am to swim laps with the club...the kid seemed to have a natural aptitude for it, and with a lot of encouragement and support from dad, he won a lot of medals and trophies...around 16 years old, dad tells the kid that with the last two years of school coming up, the kid can decide for himself at what level he will compete in swimming the following year. The kid says "Thank God. If I never see another swimming pool for the rest of my life, I'll die happy."  Best I know, the kid never endured that black lane line or the smell of chlorine again. It doesn't matter how much fun it looks to other people, I guess - if it's your thing, you'll do whatever you can to get your taste of it regardless of the circumstances. If it's not your thing, you can learn to be competent at it, in a lot of cases we can learn to be pretty good at it...but...we do our best work, we create ART when we do that which we love, and love that which we do....

So, speaking of creating art, among the many activities for  which I don't need my arm twisted, two of my absolute favourites are riding motorcycles and drinking beer.  Yep, a surprise, I know. I don't do either particularly well, but I'm generally happy in my incompetence and even on the occasions I don't perform well, I often end up with a story to tell. It lead to my last two jobs. True story. I took to frequenting one of the local taverns when I landed in this neighbourhood, as one does who wishes to be recognised as a valued member of the local community.  I'd often ride down on the bike or stop in on the way home from a ride around the twisty mountain roads. It's a conversation opener, especially with other people having a similar interest.  One day, out of the blue, the bar owner offers me a job bartending, just filling in during the day on slow Sundays. Interestingly, the offer came at a time when a little extra money came in handy but synchronicity is a whole other subject for another day...

I had just enough bartending experience to get by, and overall I had a great time. I got to hang out at the bar with my mates all day, and the only downside was that I couldn't drink with them until my shift was done. The fact that I used to park the bike out front didn't hurt, either...people who knew me would know I was working and drop in; people who didn't know me saw the bike and thought they'd drop in and see if they wanted to get to know me. For someone who had a tenuous grip on what they were doing when they started, I did good business and averaged 20% in tips...made a bunch of money and had fun doing it - and it just fell out of the sky as a consequence of barhopping. I really think the Universe is trying to tell me something here.

Look, this might be blindingly obvious to everyone but me. Maybe I have been slow to notice, I don't know.  Maybe I have too much time on my hands these days, but just recently it's surprised me how often I meet people who have made a life of doing what they enjoy most.  It's not about financial reward or a lavish lifestyle, although several have been smart enough to combine fun and money...although I wonder whether, say, Tiger can still enjoy a quick back 9 and a few beers on a sunny afternoon at the clubhouse with his mates from across the road... and, after all, there are only just so many paying gigs for mediocre guitarists and trainspotters.

It's more about seeing what it is in life that you get most pleasure from doing - and then organise the rest of your life to give you the greatest amount of time that you can doing that.  More people seem to have started believing that's possible. Follow your Bliss. I think there's worse ways to be.