tim minchin on atheism and the after-life

...I have one life and it’s short and unimportant.

Do you feel that you are really just here for a moment and gone forever after that?

It’s not so much that I feel it that I know it. Our obsession with “surviving our own deaths”, as Dawkins says, is… er… I mean the very idea that it might not be the case just reeks so much of fantasy that it must be wrong.

But how people like you might live on is in your art: you create stuff…there is a feeling here, that, “I have created something here which is substantive and will tell people a little bit about who I am.”

It’s a lovely thought, and there’s no doubt that when people you love die, you take comfort in remembering the things they did. Whether they’re just making good porridge, whatever it is, whatever small things you will remember about them...and we can live for as long as those memories last in peoples’ minds.  But it’s sort of not of interest to me; “My legacy”. Even if you do live in the memories of a couple of generations, it’s so fleeting that it’s insignificant. But none of this is depressing. In fact it’s awe inspiringly awesome that this event has happened: one’s own existence; the idea that, after all this space, there’s you, and then there’s not you:  and you are faced with the question of how you are going to spend that time. It’s so much more profound than any hypothesis about some pathetic garden with unicorns and hugs that goes forever. People don’t even know how to spend their Saturday afternoons. What do I want with eternity?

(i have been digging around on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway and loving it. radio 4 you are a star.)

naughty.

oh tit biscuits, it has been a long time since i wrote anything. i guess i should apologise, but then again, i don't actually have an audience, so why would i waste my energy.

interesting things that have happened/ which have occurred to me:
1. i have actually read more books in the past 2 months than I read in my entire 4 year uni career. and it's fantastic.
2. things are really quite fabulous with my boyfriend.
3. i have a job which means i have money. unsurprisingly, this has not made me any happier.
4. i have extremely low self-confidence. as a result, if i don't have someone telling me i am doing a job well, i will literally resort to crying in toilets in self doubt and shame.
5. i discovered misfits. squeee.
6. it is winter now and apparently my ability to tolerate temperatures below 18 degrees has SEVERELY deteriorated. this is concerning.

hard wiring.

tonight i went to UoN's alumni lecture, on pre-natal nutrition and its permanent affects on weight and health throughout life. pretty interesting stuff.

anyway. much talk of the difficulty of dieting and the talk of food 'habits' as a type of addiction.

of course it's difficult to lose weight (and keep the weight off!), because it means changing just about everything to do with our lifestyle; being more active, eating more/ less regularly, drinking less, and, of course, changing the types of food we eat (which can mean massive changes in time management). for weight loss to be permanent, it needs to occur as part of a permanent lifestyle change. just a bit intimidating, yes?

all this made me think of other habits and addictions we can get wrapped up in, and sometimes not even see it. like an addiction to thinking negatively. similarly, conquering this habit requires all round changes in lifestyle...

brasov 2008.

success.

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

things i want to buy when i have a job.

a massive landscape picture of something... so far I am thinking Kandinsky, maybe The White Border, to go above our bed, because the back wall is a little naked right now.

A new desk (especially if I get a PhD, which things don't roll off. because old school school writing desks may look kitsch, but they are actually a little annoying, unless you happen to be lucky enough to own non-circular pens.

MORE WEDGE BOOTS because it's technically autumn and you can never have too many boots. OH BOOTS I LOVE YOU.

a new TV, not because i'm a gadget junkie, but because i would like a TV which actually works, so I don't have to watch DVDs on my approx. 2" netbook.

stuff for painting, because i have never felt comfortable splashing out on it so i have always had F grade stuff, and i'm guessing, especially with brushes, you can tell the difference.

start saving for a ticket home for christmas.

hi.

issues.

Thanks to Cat Party for bringing this to my attention. Such a disturbing, dull, repetitive,  personal complex-inducing publication, much of which is quite adequately portrayed here.

http://ilovecatparty.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/we-need-to-talk-about-cosmo.html

about time.

OH BE MINE.

heart breaking.

today i met a canadian girl who has come to australia to be with her australian boyfriend.

she hasn't been to uni yet but she really wants to, but she can't afford to study here and her boyfriend can't get a job in canada.

she wants to travel with her friends in asia.

she loves her boyfriend but she misses having her own friends and life.

she doesn't want to make a decision, so she isn't going to yet.

farms.

if there is anything that i have learned in the past 6 weeks of farm labour, it is:

farm labour is shit.

cera.

mail.

receiving mail from friends and family makes me forget how shit a person i am.

s'nice.

the beach.

i think i first watched this movie when i was about 12, for the sole reason that my sister was a ridiculous leo fan (i was more of a will smith lady at that point, though this has not really changed). the only thing i remember liking was the music, i didn't really get the story, other than the fact that leo was a bit of alright.

anyway, i recently picked up the novel at my library and gave it a shot, and watched the movie not long after i finished it. it made me so angry that a book can be shat all over to such an extent as this one.

the story follows a young british backpacker, richard, as he, like so many of us, searches for new and genuine experiences whilst travelling. as a result, he ends up living as part of a small self sufficient community on an isolated tropical island in thailand. though the majority of the narrative is consumed with richard's daily chores and experiences, it is still an absorbing story. the encapsulating and more shocking parts of the story don't occur until quite far towards the end, but by this point i was already hooked.

garland builds a wonderfully potent description of the island; of the atmosphere, the relationships, the location. its inhabitants have come to lead such a secluded existence, and the reader is invited into this notion so tactfully, that it is only very occasionally that one remembers that the island is still a part of this world, and not a stand alone fantasy. richard's unusual eccentricity and playfulness also helps to build this invisible 'bridge' between the two perspectives.

the gradual culmination of desperation to maintain the islands isolation leads to a violent and bloody finale, where the reader is snapped out of their trance.

the story was somewhat 'orwellian' in its political message; to me, anyway. that a collection of such a multi-cultural and left wing individuals could commit such violence and betrayal, all in the name of maintaining a way of life, whilst still believing that their actions are justified, just because they are carried out in the name of community.

the film, on the other hand, skips ignorantly through the islanders chores, skims carelessly over vital relationships, opting to doodle lazy crayola new relationships instead and ignore's richard's integral playful disposition. the result; the viewer sits happily through some beautiful cinematography for an hour, before being plunged into a sudden and confusing state of panic as the nature of the island switches with no good reason.

makes me want to be a director. grrr.

spaces.

we have been apart before, but this feels different, further. even though i am in the same country as him now, i still feel further away than i did when i was in a different hemisphere.

i have built my own life in this little town, far away from the city we live in. i have friends, a job, a schedule, shared experiences. i settled in faster and easier here than i did when i was living with him.

it's very hard not to try and plan and predict what could happen. it's only very occasionally that i let myself just be with what is here and now.

ldr.

We flow and merge like fluid; We can inhabit just one space, one body, one mind, where words are unnecessary to communicate the intimacy, the connection, the undeniable wholeness that We occupy.

that ‘space’ between Us is merely physics, a force unrecognisable in the luminescence of the energy We effortlessly generate.

the weight of each other’s hearts  presses in on the distances between us. We feed on the strength and consistency of each other’s longing and loving and We know We will be together again.

equilibrium, where no forces oppose Our state, is met in each other’s arms.

life is not a collection of metabolic processes, but the collection of the numbers and ways Our hearts respond to each other. responses when they beat against each other or when they call out to each other across the time and space that may fall between Our bodies (but never Our minds).