The Pathology of Posting

I’ve noticed a strong trend in when I post and what I tend to post about, and I don't think the correlation that I have observed really surprises me now that I’ve found the chance to think about it. I always see my posts as a way of formulating opinion, a way to work out what my own position is on something, to lay out in clear and precise nature what the arguments that are so loosely defined and so vaguely formulated when the monologue is internal develop a crystalline clarity when exposed to scrutiny by the commitment of pen to paper. This is a post about posting, but don’t let that trouble you.

What strikes me about this is that it seems to strongly depend and cohere to my feelings about life at that particular time. It seems that writing has become my answer to my own problems, a way of identifying as well as solving the problem. It’s an interesting methodology I guess, but I think people need a way to get through things, and it helps that I’ve found mine I guess. The odd thing I find is that, as much as I enjoy the writing process, I don’t have anything to write about when I’m feeling okay with the world. When things are good, when life is content, when there really is nothing to complain about in the magnificence of creation, I’m so tongue tied that I have nothing to say.

This post then really is in homage to the goodness of life that is given to me at this time. There is a serenity about it that I enjoy, a surety and a clarity of both routine and purpose that I have never enjoyed before in my life. This odd feeling, that for a little while the ship of my soul has both captain and navigator, both confident that the strong wind behind them is pushing continuously in the right direction.

I’m enjoying it while it lasts, it is as I’ve emphasised a reassuring and comforting feeling for a little while at least. What I find amusing though is that I have the cynical perspective internalised off course, but that simultaneously I’m unworried about its implications, sure that I can keep going on as long as the wind holds true. But in the interests of being careful and declaring my metaphor totally overextended, I’m very keenly aware that the wind is that of fortune, and it is a capricious and vicious wind, which often and violently changes, leaving many a ship in the lurch and a long way from shore. Life goes on though, and it looks like the right perspective on it makes life much more viable then it should ever be.

A Sense of Humour Changed

I think over the last few months, as I’ve become more aware of what I want to be and where I want to go, I have also developed another change, the import of which I am still trying to come to terms with, and especially to decide whether it amounts to a regression or a step forward.

I had what might be called a declining sense of humour. For a long time, from about 15 onwards, I had what I considered pretty high wit and sophisticatary in my sense of humour. I enjoyed the sharp pun, the sophisticated play on words. It was perhaps a manifestation of a desire to be more mature then I was, but it also is just the way my sense of humour developed. I never developed a taste for British black humour though; it was always more attuned to the finer word play then black depression coupled with either embarrassment or derision.

For the last few months I’ve found that I enjoy and am becoming to really appreciate the normal humour that is prevalent in every day life. In a way it marks a regression to the norm in that I like to watch and enjoy many of the shows that are now on mainstream TV, stuff like Friends and the much more superior Scrubs, make life much more enjoyable. I enjoy movies that I would find patent nonsense a little while ago. The Fantastic Four was good enough to enjoy and there were bits that were laugh out loud. Bruce Almighty and Jim Carey generally, which was slapstick humour that got a chuckle but a lot of rolled eyes has been rehabilitated as a good pick me up movie, fun stuff to get into a fun mood. It’s a big change.

Simultaneously I am actually finding much more humour in life. The absurd, the irrational, the silly and the stupid walk by us everyday in the street, a view from your window will show more comedy to the discerning eye then the most exquisitely planned comedy scene. There is an implicit joy in life that I feel I am tapping into for the first time, it brings a little bit of a smile to my life. There is a surrealism about life, that somehow what people think about life, all their worries and concerns, so weighed down on their way to their every day burdens is actually humorous. People don’t see the humour that I think you need to ferret out of life. For me both these things have become something that I find amusing. I found the second one all my life, but for the first time the actual rather then the intellectual world is a source of entertainment for me.

I’d like to think it’s a step in the right direction, an internalization of the quote that there is no reason to take life seriously, given that you’re never going to get out of it alive, that there is a certain logic in just enjoying the ride, understanding that it is a ride rather then anything more weighty then that. We are here for a little while, a few instances of the blinks of the cosmic eye. We might as well smile while we are here.

Some Thoughts on Freedom in Government

I'm watching a documentary on Nazi Germany, and it throws into sharp contrast the world of the free and the unfree, the danger of those willing to stay silent in the face of horror, those willing to let evil pass you by, because it doesn't concern you. The words of Father Martin Niermoller are famous in this context, and I won't repeat them.

I want to say a little bit about freedom, and how essential it is to our lives. More importantly I wanted to explain what it meant and how it should be properly conceived of by us in the modern day. In the end though, I found this quote that seemed to say more then I could ever say, and perhaps implies in its details more then I properly understood what ought to be included in the concept.


In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon


Its such a simple injunction, the realisation that true freedom comes in our own willingness to take sovereignty of our soul and then to extend the proper and neccessary compassion to our fellow man, who like me and you, will inevitably slip and fall, and will need a gentle and helping hand to rise again and see them on their way once again. But perhaps more true and equally inevitable, is that this period of freedom will eventually fail. There is a certainty to this, that this democratic modern world will fail. It may keep its dressings and its institutional strucutre, but its substance will be, and currently is, being fundamentally undermined every day through the very nature of its creation and maintainence.

Maybe I read too much into it, that there is a chance that things could persever and not fail as they seem so inevitably determined to do. But I've never been a great optimist mind, so you will pardon me if I don't plan on that being a likely result.

The Transparent Face

I just want to put up this link and invite you to read it. It is an abolutely fascinating piece about what is hidden in plain site. The moral of the piece is that your face says more then you think it possibly can. There is so much about basic and real knowledge that modern science has only the most peripheral understanding off. It reminds me how vast the sea of knowledge really is. Modern man has barely passed the paddling pool....

http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_08_05_a_face.htm