Valentines Day Scrooges and Haters

I just wanted to briefly share my thoughts on the Valentines Day haters out there. While l can greatly appreciate your anti consumerist sentiment, I nevertheless think it is grossly misplaced.

Of all the seasonal events to hate you choose the one that celebrates love? The one that celebrates love for the sake of love – I couldn’t think of a better thing to do to spice up another otherwise arbitrary day of the week.

Of course you don’t need some poor capitlist driven excuse of a day to remind you to love, and of course any decent and intelligent person knows to suprise their better half on any given day of the week.

If your going to hate on Valentines day might as well put those Christmas presents back under the tree that represents a religion you don’t believe in if not despise, those easter eggs back in the basket. Better put that Guinness down and leave the pub that you have absolutely no heritage to and forgo any further celebrating of a day that involves insane amounts of intoxication. While you’re at it might as well give up celebrating mothers and fathers day too – because if you don’t need to be reminded to celebrate one another you certainly dont need a reminder to celebrate your parents.

I don’t mind if you don’t celebrate Valentines Day, although perhaps the lonely old lady or man down the street might like a rose and some chocolates. Perhaps the lady at the checkout who lost her husband to cancer might like a nice card or a cup of tea or coffee? Especially after having served hundreds of gooey eyed teens and nervous husbands.

I don’t mind if don’t celebrate Valentines Day, but if you’re going to hate on this day of love – keep your hate to yourself and think of the lady down the street.

Happy Valentines Day!

Science & Psudeoscience

Recently an incident occurred on Facebook where I posted a link that raised the question of whether not Aliens existed which generated some interesting comments – long story short it reminded me of my own stance on “science” & “pseudoscience”, it got me fired up over mainstream sciences belligerent and arrogant attitudes towards pseudoscience.

Let me assure you though I have the greatest respect for science and scientists alike, but I also value the ideas of pseudoscience, a term which I have grown to hate – for it connotes an idea of invalidly. Furthermore it reminds me of a time when certain practices, beliefs and ideas were once considered witchcraft and heresy yet those very things are now considered “science”.

Pseudoscience has become a by word for crack pots and crazies among mainstream authorities, yet what people fail to realise is that mainstream science is not without its own zealots and self righteous freaks that are no better than members of Westboro Baptist church. They they hide behind their precious scientific method like religious fanatics hide behind their fundamentalist beliefs, afraid to acknowledge or even consider alternative ways of thinking. Too arrogant and stubborn to know that nothing is what it seems. That if we are to truly move forward at all in life than we must challenge these archaic paradigms of thought. Science (inc. pseudoscientists), religion and spiritualists must all swallow their pride and sit down together and confer in such a way that we are able to develop new paradigms of thought and belief – for none can be without the other – yet each acts as though they are the one & only. Importantly it should be a conference, a conversation, indeed a dialogue that politicians and government are kept out of. For it is the powers that be that divide an conquer each perspective so as to control us all.

Inspiration – On Writing and Life

What inspires you? It seems like such a generic question, in fact in my opinion it is but that doesn’t take away from the weight of the answer. Whatever you’re creative pursuit or interest may be, in my case its writing, inspiration forms the cornerstone, the foundation of that pursuit. Personally I feel that writing cannot be forced, that’s not to say you have to sit around waiting to be inspired, heavens no otherwise I’d never get any writing done, well no serious writing anyway. What I am getting at is that often we hit that wall, that damn brick wall that you can really run hard into. As you pick yourself up to look at the damage, all around you is stale material and old debris from the last time you brought down the wall.

When I look at the debris, I am reminded of what it was that brought down that wall time and time again – that wall that says your material is dry or uninteresting, that wall that prevents you from coming up with anything new. That wall that says “you aint good enough”, you see writers block isn’t just not being able to come up with anything new or an inability to continue a piece of work its more than that, it’s everything negative that impedes your ability to write at all – what brought down that wall time and time again is inspiration, passion for what you do, the captivating feeling of imagination and wonder at the world around you. Wonder and imagination for the creative pursuit you love and hate.

Personally, the trick to bringing down that wall, to writing, is continually being inspired, always finding something new you want to try out, something new to express or explore. Creative pursuits are often a means to understanding or expressing ones feelings and thoughts about the world around us. If we are not inspired by what surrounds us, if we are not at all in the slightest caught up in the wonder of the world; how at all can we write in a way that will affect other people or at least write in a way that stays with a person? Even if that wonder or inspiration comes from the darkest corners of the world or the brightest stars of space, inspiration comes in many shapes and forms and often we do not even realise when we are indeed inspired we simply feel and urge. An itch to engage with our creative passions, or even our passions for life itself, so when I hit that wall, that ever high and mighty wall that looks down on me with contempt, I look around at all the debris before me, all the debris that I have left behind me and I think to myself what inspires me?

Sometimes we are inspired by anger, love, hatred, compassion, empathy, jealousy or envy. Sometimes we are inspired by injustice, equality, progress, science, inspirations touch is inescapable; for it’s not just a cornerstone for creative pursuits, inspiration carries us throughout life. We are inspired by books, movies, poems and art. The best way to bring down that wall, is not just remembering ones creative inspiration such as ones materialistic and aesthetic inspiration, we need also look to life, and remind ourselves of what it is in life that inspires us. What is it about living that inspires us?

You can see how that creative wall we hit, translates also into life itself. Often when one is facing writers block, writers block isn’t the problem, writers block is the symptom of an uninspired life.

JS.

University as a Mature Age Student (Pt. 1)

With two weeks until I begin my Masters Degree I cannot help but reflect on my time during my Bachelor of Arts (Major in Psych I will proudly add, if only the peaice of paper said that) and wonder what lies in stall for me over the coming year and a half. Prior to my BA I done a couplt of certificates at TAFE and without sounding cocky it was a breeze, i was able to not only work fulltime and study part time I still managed some semblence of a social life. UNI though was to be completly different. I stepped down from my management position so that I could study fulltime and not jeapodise my studies incidentlythough my first semseter at UNI was something of a holiday, after the years at work and having aleady done three  at TAFE I found it hard to concentrate, among other things. nevertheless I studied hard and eventually leanred the ropes of the system and got through it. Most importantly though it was where I met my wonderful partner whom I am incredibly head over heels for, a love that has given us the most beautiful little girl / but that’s another story for another time.

As I reflect on my time during my BA I consider what it was like to be a mature age student. Uni as mature age student is thinking your special because you have gone and lived in the “real world” or some shit. Reality is knowing your just that annoying old guy who says something stupid because his so high on the idea that hes going to UNI he dosent think before speaking. While I like to think I wasnt that bad I sure as hell seen a few who were, that is one of those mature age sudents who think that their life story not only a valid answer but is empirical evidence to a teachers question, one of those mature age students who use class as opportunity to tell their life story regardless of the teachers question. Don’t get me wrong we we’rnt all like that, nah, the ones who wernt were the ones perhaps a little more like myself, still young, but a little cynica because of that so called “real world experience”. You find yourself telling jokes that no ones gets, your young enough to get along with the other students but too damn old to care what your wearing. Too damn young to care if your drinking before class, what? i thought that’s waht UNI was all about, *laughs* I kid, I kid. Still though, I often found myself too olf for the younger students and too young for the mature students, but perhaps that was just me being a snob… nah, one of the things I found hard at UNI was that no one really wanted to talk. I dont speak for all UNI’s and all people at UNI when i say this but some people just seemed too busy being cool to really have a good chat about UNI or whatever, as though they were still hanging on to the politics of high school. You find yourself generally talking about the same thing with most people, I mean I admit it is hard as you often find that as you finally get to know people your in a new class in a new semester, you talk about what your studying what thier studying ,what teachers they have liked and what ones they haven’t, what subjects they have enjoyed and what they havent.

That being said though I met some great people and made some great freinds that I still talk to. I have often surrmised though that it was just down to being a psych student, all the psych kids are too busy working through their demons to be able to talk to you, as I found whenever I took up electives in other schools it was a whole other vibe. People conversed, they spoke up, they spoke out, that being said it was usually the mature age students.

But, I look ever so forward to the year ahead, I know that it will be differnt and I cannot wait. I hope to keep up the posts about my experiences as a mature age student not to mention a teacher in training.

JS.

 

The Daily Grind

How I Reatin a Sense of creativity after the nine to five daily grind

As inspiring as the nine to five world can be to a would be writer, as we seek to escape the monotony of the daily grind, it really can have a stifling and suffocating effect on ones creativity. Yet the train ride home almost always invigorates my imagination, my wonderment at the world around me. Today an icy change has set in and brooding grey clouds blanket the vast sky above as the train sleepily traverses homeward bound, steadily I am inspired again as they stretch beyond the endless suburbs. I am reminded of the wonderment at which may lie beyond it all, again I am inspired. Towering factories, extensive junkyards and downtrodden fields float past like fading echoes of a once full life, yet they are flecks of dirt beneath the expanse of the sky above. Again I am inspired and I wonder what stories I have to tell of what lie beyond it all…

 

JS

A rant about postcode snobs.

It was a particulalary long day at work today, you know the sort. Time seems to stand still and you cant breathe yadda, yadda, yadda, you get that end of shift rush that you knnow is going to keep you up all night becuase you know you have the next day off so you just want to do a whole heap of fun shit! But in reality you end up sitting on the couch watching bad tv or like myself tonight, wasted a few hours trying to decide what sort of theme I wanted for my blog. Still not sure on the theme but when I realised the time, figured this one is still good for now and sumised that I should actually post something already lest the night slip away before me.

While I was waiting for the train home this evening I happen to overhear a persons converstation on the the phone. Now I generally don’t mind when people rag on the area in which I live, but every once and a while there will be someome who gets all snotty nosed on their high horse bad mouthing people and the area in which they live in such an insidious and offensive manner I cannott help but feel blood boiling infuriated. Broadly speaking I am referring to the western suburbs of Sydney, a certain famous novelist even reffered to them as a ghetto (while that may have an element of truth I nonetheless feel such a claim is debatable, especially given the recent spree of gun crime occuring in so called quiet nieghbourhoods) in the 26 years that I have lived in the western suburbs I have been attacked once and belive or not, it actually occured in what is supposed to be an upper class area.

I think maybe it’s the dividedness that really get’s to me, this us and them mentality. This mentality that “I’m on the good side of the tracks” or “I’m from the upper class”, get over your fucking self, you think your special? your not special, your lucky, because right before your mum gave brith to you, you could have ended up anywhere. That is to say, if not for divine chance or luck you could have been born anyway in the world. Your place of brith dosen’t make you special, that is you being born in some snotty nosed rich ass area where no doubt most of the money comes from to fund the crime that occurs in the so called lower classes suburbs dose not give you some exclusive right to rag on people less fortunate than you.

More merit, credit and respect goes to those who rise out of the ashes of abuse, violence, neglect, poverty whatever it may be than to those who have fucking SUV thrust into their hands when they turn 18, a trust fund and fucking job opportunity with the finaly name on it. Though I am yet to travel far and wide my experience of life so far is by no means shallow, for beneath the surface of the western suburbs lies a rich tapestry of knowledge and understanding about the world that no other snotty nosed area could ever come close to offering.

That being said though I suppose that statement alone makes me no better than the the toffee nosed people themselves who denouce others simply based on a postcode. Good side of the tracks, bad side of the tracks, it’s all arbitary. It’s what side of the tracks you on in life that matters most, not where you live or where you come from. In the grand scheme of things it is your actions that define you and the sort of person you are to be, not your postcode.

JS. (Twitter: @jotunnsymposium)

Great Western Highway, Sundown

 

Lazy Writer Syndrome

I had blog in mind for tonight, but alas when it came to writing it I just couldn’t quite pull it off so I threw it on the back burner, then I realised I couldn’t quite pull it off because I have caught a bout of lazy writer syndrome. You know that scene at the end of Indiana Jones, I’m not sure which one but whatever artefact Indy escaped death numerous times and no doubt witnessed the death of some beloved sidekick to secure, only to have that artefact stored in some giant secret warehouse for no one to ever lay eyes on, well that’s much like my writing.

I have plenty to write about and often have plenty to say about writing itself for that matter, as your probably realising. Yet when it comes down to it I quite often do little of it. Don’t get me wrong I have volumes of idea’s and starting points etc, short story drafts and the like, hence the Indiana Jones analogy, after its inital conception much of it gets locked away in the so called back burner after going through some long arduous inner journey to secure.

I figured a blog would be a great way to get started, I figure if I can make an effort to post something at least once a week then I’m on the right track. Get some feedback, some criticism and the like, then perhaps I will be motivated and inspired to take other aspects of my writing more seriously and hey who knows maybe one day I’ll be able to take the “wannabe” writer out of my profile description leaving simply the word “writer”.

How do you define Lazy Writer Syndrome? I hear you ask, I would have thought the above about sums it up, but to make it clearer… I’ll get back to you on that one, time to paint now.

JS