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.)

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.

edge.

you know that feeling you get when you're at the peak of a rollercoaster waiting for it to fall?

i've been feeling that for about 72 hours solid. i have never felt such intensity of emotion. it's terrifying, it's exhausting, it's overwhelming...

it's FUN!

three cheers for being an over-emotional blundering babbling clumsy absent-minded twat!

rushed.

a couple of years ago, i was lucky enough to get away from just about every part of the world that i was familiar with (ok, except for the english language) and find myself living in the homes of some inspiring people whilst i worked with them on whatever projects they had going. these projects included, but were not limited to: rescuing tropical birds from orchard netting, ripping up parasitic plants from their non-native soils, tending generous vegetable gardens, walking escaped ponies home along winding roads at 5AM, teaching english to french, korean, japanese and belgian people and building kangaroo-proof fencing.

while i took the time to complete said projects, i also used the time to think. i think a lot already, i know this. but having the time and space to think in a completely new and unfamiliar framework, surrounded by people who i didn't know and who didn't know me, let me rebuild a lot of my preformed opinions and interpretations.

as the time between this period of rejuvenation (of myself, and of several over-grown gardens) and 'now' gets longer, i can feel those vital thought processes and conclusions slipping away. they don't feel relevant anymore.

it's so easy to get tied up in the now. there are so few occasions these days when i feel i am in control of my feelings and my fears. though i was able to take that time, so long ago now, to regroup and to reassess my attitudes, the lessons i taught myself are getting forgotten. i feel as though every day, i am standing in a hole, and all this dirt keeps getting shoveled in on top of me. i keep forgetting to step up, and so i am slowly getting buried.

it's sad to think that the only way i can regain control of my thoughts and my well-being is by going on holiday, and physically removing myself from the world i have come to associate with negativity. i can't afford (financially and temporally) to go travelling for months at a time every time i start to feel inundated with pressures. which are going to be coming fast and lose from now until the day i die.

i need to start to be able to channel all my lessons and my love into a place where they can be addressed and taken care of, properly, or i'll sink. i am hoping that by moving closer to some old freinds, i'll find that place.

rage 2008.

The quality is terrible but you get the idea.

OH MY GOD. I have never felt so much excitement in a crowd. The anticipation. The heat. We were so ready for it you could feel it in the air. Mental. Amazing amazing amazing. 

Getting excited for the Foos in December. FUCK CHA.

fighting.

every time i tell someone new or old, a relative or a friend, a co-worker or a stranger about my plans for the next 18 months of my life, i find myself fighting.

admittedly, not aggressively, but definitely passionately. i fight to defend my plans against their criticisms or implied opinions. i also have to fight to stay positive about my plans in my own mind, which is difficult when no-one seems to have many qualms on giving me their thoughts about it all.

i can't expect people not to give their opinions, and i know that no-one does it to upset me, or even to provoke any sort of emotion or lingering thought. but obviously it does.

i have to keep asserting the facts and the reasons as to why i am doing what i am doing, and also why it really doesn't matter what 95% of people who have an opinion on the matter say or think.

although i know that this could all fall down, and that i will miss my family, friends and this country, and that   i didn't work hard for four years as a scientist to be a waitress or a cleaner or a telemarketer...i also know that 

this is the oppurtunity of a lifetime.

my passion, my qualifications, my ambition and my spirit aren't going anywhere. my career can wait. my heart can't. i'm not throwing anything away. quite the opposite in fact; i'm spreading my arms so far wide with such enthusiastic openness, a willingness to learn, and no pre-judgement or specified intention that i'll scoop up anything i can get.

this is what i tell anyone who doubts me...

...but it's also what i have to tell myself. 

the essence of the thing.

That's right, I did it. I finished a book. Though I will admit I had to skip a few chunks... for reasons which will follow.

The Essence of the Thing, by Madeline St John


The book appealed to me because, like almost everyone, I've been through a relationship break up. It's not an original concept I know, but the novel still appealed. The story follows twenty-something Nicola through the weeks that follow an unexpected end to her long term relationship with lawyer Jonathan.

I appreciate the short chapters and the conversational style, as there were times when it was effective at emphasising a narrative or a concept without it being outlined for the reader in what would have been a more patronising manner. The blurb suggests that the short chapters are reflective of middle class pretence, and I can appreciate this too. That none of the other characters but Nicola are really predominantly focussed on her break-up also emphasises the perhaps self centered, busy-body attitude of the London-ite middle class 'status' families she is (for some reason) friends with.

Generally however, the story disappointed me with its pace, its reasoning, its perspective and its character...Sorry Ms St John. I was given no reason to believe that Nicola and Jonathan would have even been a couple, and a happy one at that. That Nicola manages herself so gracefully and modestly throughout her turmoil indicates that she is not stupid, or shallow, or unreasonable. But for her to have been involved for so long with a man so apparently emotionally void really confuses me. Also, for Nicola to be transformed to a blubbering wreck of woman to a proudly single and defiant one over the space of one night in a night club (with two fabulous gay guys; complete with montage makeover if it were a movie, I'm sure) is a depressingly stereotypical and lazy way to give some illusion of progression.

If I was a guy, I think I'd find the book a little offensive if I'm honest. Jonathan is portrayed as a shallow, dull, selfish, and irresponsible man; the stereotypical 'bad guy' in a relationship break down. I was hoping that this stereotype would be diffused throughout the story as we perhaps found out why or how he had adopted this attitude. But no, he continues to be a dull and lifeless sod until the very end, when (randomly) he starts to beg for Nicola to come back- this is where I had to stop reading. Anyone who has gone through a horrendous breakup, and thinks that they can identify with this story obviously needs closure. People don't just become dicks overnight because they are men. There is reasoning and explanation behind every relationship breakdown. I'm not saying that it can never not 'be someone's fault', but this was an extremely one-dimensional perspective of relationships, people and particularly men.

So much about the book seemed completely unnecessary (maybe this was supposed to add to the 'realistic' tone; that we were literally just watching a series of events unfold), and yet so many necessary explanations seemed to have been completely forgotten.

Oh, also.: I don't know when the book is set but everyone talks like it's 1945 ("Whizzy!"). It was published in 1997 and there is no indication it was set in a different era to this. Upon then reading that the author is Australian, and then noticing the number of pointless 'Oh look, we're in London' references, it's just all very embarrassing to read.

No thanks, please avoid.

heckyeatumblr#9.

http://tumblr.com/xsx1xkgzm5

9. Write about each of the places which you have called 'home'.


Kelso Road, Bury St Edmunds


This is the house where I grew up. I lived here for 11 happy years with my Mum, Dad, sister and number of guinea-pigs and gerbils. It was a smallish house, with a little garden. I remember that every surface was covered in ornamental pigs or pot plants, courtesy of Mum. We had a rubber plant which grew all the way around the living room ceiling. There was at least one cabinet full of the pigs, and they filled the mantelpiece of the fireplace, in front of which sat four very heavy brass crocodiles, which were most definitely not meant to be toys but were always used as such.


There was one bathroom, which was decorated luminous turquoise and black, with some sort of fish in every potential fishy space (ie on top of the toilet, on the window ledge, on the ceiling).


The upstairs hallway, like the rest of the house, was small, but it managed to have room for a huge copy of Steve Pearson's 'Wings of Love', with an overly ornate gold frame.

The Warren

This is the first house my parents ever looked at buying, but as a newly wed couple they couldn't afford it. Fifteen years later the house went back up on the market and they could - so we moved 10 minutes up the road into a beautiful chalet bungalow with a large (for a town-house) garden. We've been here 11 years now, and since then basically re-built the whole thing, as a lot of work was needed. I love this house. It really is like a warren; there's a main hallway with lots of little rooms coming off it, including a hidden staircase which leads to the upstairs, where I live when I come home now. Nice and private since my sister moved out two years ago. Mum and Dad spend all their time in the garden with various odd jobs and gardening, Mum grows heaps of vegetables when the weather lets her, and Dad takes care of all the fruit trees and rhubarb. There's lots of 'stuff' everywhere, but I love all of it, because it's home. Since my grandparents died, we took on some of the ornaments and furniture and paintings. They lived in a really big old country house with high ceilings; their things look COMPLETELY out of place here, but I think that's pretty cool. My great-grandmother was a painter, and we have several of her paintings up, even though they take up half the bloody wall space.


The Ziggurats
 I lived on campus for my first year at university. I had my own little room in a flat for 14 people on the ground floor of the the 'ziggurats', which are listed buildings. Sharing a kitchen with 13 other people was...interesting. And I definitely wouldn't live there again. But I made some really cool friends, and I am glad I spent my first year there.

Bland Road

I have lived here on and off for the past three years, though with different people as registered 'tenants' at each of the addresses, I have more or less lived with the same group of friends, as everyone loiters and we hang out a lot, and cook for each other. I spend a lot of my time being miserable and whining about the state of the house, as it's pretty gross...no-one else really cleans apart from me. To be honest, it's a shame that I have had to live with the friends that I have lived with because if we had never been housemates I think we would all be closer, as I wouldn't be so angry with them a lot of the time. Despite this, I love being able to eat with my friends every evening, and I love that I have met and got to know some of the most interesting, independent, cultured, obscure (?!), honest, loving and passionate people I think I have ever met. As well as this, adventures with aforesaid house mates make for i) some pretty cool anecdotes and ii) some vital life-lessons in patience....

Evatt House

This is where I lived during my year at Newcastle Uni, Australia. I loved it here. There were two 'quads' comprised of 10 blocks in total, each block being two flats of 10. Each flat had their own 'Residential Assistant', and participated in 'blunctions' regularly, which could have been trips to a restaurant, to a movie, dessert night etc...The college had heaps of activities going on all the time, games and nights out....I miss it :( It's also where I met my boyfriend, Sam. He lived just across the hallway from me...we would stay up late talking on facebook chat because we were too shy to go and see each other...sometimes I could hear him typing...Unfortunately keyboards are a major part of our relationship again now, but not for too much longer. I made some really awesome friends here, and even though lots of them have moved on to new cities/ states, I really hope they can come visit/ I have enough money to go and visit them.

Writing all this is making me very sad. So I'll stop now. 

denmark, WA.

I made some wonderful, inspiring friends. One day I'll go back and visit them, I just hope I can make them proud.

still burning.

" Now I feel home. We talk about everything, the keyboards have disappeared.  This week has been so intense, we are burning and I’m scared we will burn out.

On Friday we went to the Bar on the Hill and we were a couple. I love being a couple with him."


17/10/09

sunshine.

Today was the first truly gorgeous day of the year.
It only just hit 7 degrees but the sunshine was beautiful.

You don't have to be outside to tell when the weather is nice in England: everyone just beams with enthusiasm when the weather takes a good turn. It's like we're coming out of hibernation.

On the plus side, moving to Australia will GUARANTEE more days like this. On the down side, those guys can really take their weather for granted over there. It's unlikely that the sunny nature of the sky will reflect the average persons resultant disposition.

I'm hoping I can be different than that: and I'll always be happy!

Here's hoping :)

Looking forward to sharing my life, my weather, my daylight and smiles with a certain floppy haired Aussie gent. x

denial.

vegemite for breakfast.

sushi, wedges and sour cream + sweet chilli for dinner.