Yeah...what was the point to that Chris?

You know how people do those things on the internet, where people write a list of their friends and then proceed to inform all the poor souls who read said list why they love their friends so very much?

These lists generally bore me, because, well, they are boring. These people who are supposedly best friends can't seem to think of anything interesting about each other to inform the world about.

Example (quoted from a facebook group that shall go unnamed):

i love her because she is the love of my life. shes my best friend and my cousin. we know everything about each other and we have talked about everything in the world. she is everything to me and i would take 129837 bullets for her. she's the greatest person i know.

I love her because she is the love of my life

Well. I guess that is correct enough...

But it doesn't tell one much, does it?

Greatest person I know

Again, the sentiment, but why? Why is she the greatest?

Now. Perchance you all think I am nit picking here. And hell, I think I am nit picking.

Just to be clear, I am not critising the person who wrote this, and I do have a point. I think its great that she is letting the world know how much she loves her friends. And I'm sure her friends appreciate being told that too. I know I would appreciate being told how great I am every so often. (Please refrain from doing that, btw. My ego is already large enough).

No. My point is very simplistic.

STOP WRITING BORING TRASH ON THE PARTS OF THE INTERNET THAT EVERYONE CAN SEE.

Hypocritical? Probably. Deal with it.

But if one is going to inform the world why they think their friends are so great, do it in a way that arouses interest. You do justice to your ability to understand yourself, and you do justice to the people who surround you, and you do justice to your audience.

And the ACTUAL point for me writing this? Well, I just wanted to see if I could actually write something substantial and interesting about why I think my friends are great.

*******

Morgan.

I have known Morgan since year seven. He happens to be one of the first actual friends I made at high school. And he got me into the nerd group (achievement much?).

Morgan had a square head, rosy cheeks, and flat feet. Now he has long sexy hair, and a voice that makes people wonder how his pants contain his testicles.

If I had to sum him up in one word, I would say loyal, though its up there with trustworthy. I'm not entirely sure I have come across a more loyal person. He is one of those people who keeps his closest friends close, and distances himself from the rest. I can't see him stabbing me in the back. If he were going to stab me, it would be right out there in the open, for everyone to see. And I would most definitely have deserved it.

Adam.

Adam is very simple. This makes him a great friend. There is no crap with Adam. He tells it like it is. If you went to Adam with a problem, he would laugh at you. He also is incredibly hilarious. More so when he is angry.

Adam is my misanthropic comic relief.

*******

I would keep going.

But I am not too proud to admit that I think I have failed. Feel free to inform me otherwise, but I think if you ask yourself honestly you will find that nothing there was particularly interesting for you. Unless you are Adam or Morgan.

Apparently it is a lot harder to write something interesting and substantial about one's friends than I thought.

See, I think the main problem here is that if you don't know the people, none of it really means anything to you. Thus the audience will not be engaged with anything that you are writing.

Thus I have a new point.

Tell your friends personally, whether through email, text, msn, phone, or face to face, why they are so great. They will appreciate you for it, I assure you.

The world is never as interested in you as you want it to be.

Faces in a crowd

People fascinate me. Which I suppose is a good thing, considering I don't have much choice but to interact with them.

Now that, my friends, is a rather boring introduction...I once wrote an entire "seminar" on introductions, and how to make them work.

Turns out the "seminar" either sucked, or I just failed to listen to myself.

And judging by the huge amount that I love myself, I doubt it was the latter.

But this tangent is also boring.

Or is it?

Did you see what I did there. I started saying something, and the first three lines grabbed you, and asked "yeah, what's your point?" and you are all still hanging on my every word until I get to said point.

Now that I have mentioned the first three words again, you are all thinking, "so he hasn't forgotten, so really...what IS his point".

My point thus far? Well, its that I actually did listen to myself in that "seminar" and I have now drawn you into this entry like a juicy steak on a free buffet.

Yes. I just analogised (go figure! that's actually a word!) myself with juicy steak.

But yes, people fascinate me. (*sigh* oh here he goes)...

***

When I am feeling particularly melancholic (for that word is the flavour of the month), I start thinking about people, networks, the whole six degrees of separation thing. Actually I don't, because that theory is far too organised for my mind.

No, I tend to think about it on a more personal level.

Lets pick something mundane, something that you do everyday, when you meet someone you have never met before.

The shops.

Did you know the name of the last person who served you? What colour was their hair? What did they look like? Did you speak to them? Did they speak to you?

I know that the last time I was at a shop was the petrol station. A friendly old bloke served me, but I didnt speak to him, except to say "pump one" and "have a good evening". I don't know his name. I don't know anything about him. Except that he works in a place that charges me lots of money for dinosaur remains.

What about at school? You get to school, and you see a group of your friends. Automatically you know their name, you speak to them and they speak to you. And you know them well enough to even notice that they are wearing their hair differently, or its a different colour.

That nameless old bloke who served me has a network exactly like that. He has people that would come in and be like "Oh g'day Frank! What a surprise to see you. Are you dealing with it all okay, mate?".

Frank, as he has now been dubbed, has an entire network of people who know him, and know the details about his life. Maybe Frank's wife of 25 years just died, maybe his dog is in surgery, maybe he is working to pay off a gambling debt.

Who knows.

But it makes you think.

Well, it makes me think anyway.

You walk down the street, and every person that you see out in their gardens, driving their cars, tiling their roofs. All those children playing on the streets, the lone teen walking headdown with earphones jammed in, the elderly couple relaxing on their front verandah taking stock of the world around them.

Each one of those people is unique. They know where the weeds grow in the garden, they know the story behind the ripped car seat cover, they know what caused the tiles to break. The kids know the intricate details about the game they are playing, the lone teen knows the source of his sadness, and the elderly couple have decades of history they know about each other.

Each one of these individuals, people you have never met, people you may never see again in your lives, have a network. A mindbogglingly complex network. These people all have their own problems, their own personal adversity. They have an intricate knowledge of their history - the people that have shaped them, the people that mean the most to them, the events that stick clearly in their minds.

Just think about that the next time you go through a checkout.

And thats just for one person.

Apply that to your family. Your brother. Your sister. Your cat's crazy social life.

Apply it to the people in your street. The hundreds of screamy little kids next door. The couple who live a few houses up that are forever looking for their dog (stupid yappy little thing...).

Apply it to the people in your suburb. That overly friendly political candidate vying for community support at the local shops.

Apply it to your region.

Your city.

Your state.

Australia.

Bangladesh.

The Middle East.

The world.

Earth eh?

Its a pretty big place. For such a tiny spec in the universe.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

-Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Dihydrogen monoxide...

Everyday I wake up and stumble my way in the cold darkness that fills a winter morning. My first objective is to become warm and so I make my way to the panel that controls the central heating. I then stumble my way to the water-closet and urinate. Upon completion of the necessary human task, I sanitise my hands and return to my primary objective. Turning in the small room that the sanitisation of hands takes place, I notice in a small brown rectangular prism in the corner. The interior is tiled and hollow, and the exterior is frosted and in a 70's shade of brown. It's just big enough to fit perhaps two people. Though granted I have only ever seen one person in it at a time.

Abandoning my shivering physical form, curiosity takes hold. I carefully open a door leading into the tiled chamber, taking in the grey hose, the colourful plastic bottles, and the perfumed odour of the air. Placed one above the other were two knobs, one with a blue sticker, one with red. Very similar to those found on the sanitation sink. Curious I twisted the red-stickered knob. A gush of freezing water raced out of a tap-like device connected to the aforementioned hose. It splashed onto the base of the prism, rebounding off the tiled floor and haphazardly wetting me. I was freezing, and began to reach for the knob to turn it off. But suddenly the water became warmer, as if by magic. I began to enjoy the gentle caress of the warmed particles on my skin. Then, just as suddenly as it became warm, the water became deadly hot. Reacting by instinct I twist the other knob, and the amount of water gushing out the tap like device increased violently. I was soaked, but the water had now become pleasantly warm.

I was overcome, at this point, by a feeling. It was a strange feeling that I don't often have - but the warmth of the water was so inviting. I wanted to strip off my pyjamas, and throw myself into the vicious flow of water coming from the tap. So I did. Naked, I flung myself through the gap in the sliding frosted side of the prism, ever so desperate for the pounding embrace of the warm water on my now goose-pimpled skin. I slid the frosted glass closed.

Steam rose from the cascade of water, thickening the air with its warm vapour. I became completely relaxed and comfortable in the noisy pelting of water - it was like a cleansing dance in tropical rain. My mind began to wander from the brown-lit cubical and into the vast expanses of the fields in my mind. They traveled from my latest work in biology, to the cute girl in maths, to the current affairs of the world. Decisions were made, solutions were found and problems seemed lesser as I lathered myself with the exotic aromas from the colourful bottles. Nothing was too sacred to think about in the secluded confines of the watery box.

As I floated through the depths of my mind the water began to age my skin. A series of wrinkles, which I poetically began to examine on my hand. A landscape of ridges....a pock-marked plain...a frenzied....

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? YOU HAVE BEEN IN THERE FOREVER! WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?!"

The spell was shattered by the harsh tones of my mother's raised voice. Thoughts gushed out of my ears like water that was flowing around me. Just like that I was merely standing beneath an outlet of warm dihydrogen monoxide molecules, in the confines of an ugly brown room, staring at bottles of chemicals and the deflated suds of once proud shampoo. I twisted off the taps, the pleasant rattling of water on water replaced by the lonely drip of the metal drain.

Christopher.

"Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea."

Nolan Bushnell

Growing old(er)

I like writing. Many, if not all of you, will know this. Writing is, perhaps, my favourite past time, though of late it has seemed almost chore-ish. I put this down to being in a writing class at school, and being expected to meet many creative deadlines to produce a final portfolio for assessment. This is both a stimulating and stifling environment, one that I both thrive and drown in. This, however, is not what I wish to bore you all with this evening. What I wish to bore you with is one of the pieces that I completed for the previously mentioned final portfolio.

The piece in question is one that I am particularly proud of - even though I forgot that I wrote it and re-discovered it on my hard-drive a couple of weeks before the submission was due.

Now, I'm not going to post the whole thing (though it is available upon request), but the piece follows an old man exploring parallels between a human's aging and a footpath's aging. It concludes with the following lines:

New life through the gaps of broken memories – the details he was missing. The details that seem so insignificant with time, but so significant with youth.

The final sentence is what I will be focusing on.

Speaking as a teenager - I think many teenagers dramatise their lives (relative to adults). And I think this is perfectly acceptable. I'm young, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Though I have been around for eighteen years these days, there is still so much for me to discover - other cultures, natural wonders, Australian adult life, human interactions...

Everything is exciting. Everything is new. Everything is significant.

The girl that gave you a smile on the bus.
The boy that hugged you for just that second longer.
The whisper of breeze on a silent summer night.
The claustrophobia of a heavy fog.
The rhythmic tick of a cooling engine after your first road trip.
The sense of anticipation during a plane's safety announcement.

The details that seem so significant with youth.

I think as one experiences these things more and more often as they grown older, they begin to attach much less meaning to them.

She was just being friendly.
He was just being comforting.
I really want to be in bed.
Damn. This is going to make me late for work.
Finally, I can stretch my legs.
God, I'm so sick of this, can't we just get there already.

The details that seem so insignificant with time.

I'm afraid I must admit that many experiences which once meant so much to me, I have begun to just take for granted, I'm not going to be specific (I'm sure many of you can think of some). In some ways, I think this is a good thing. I don't stress every little thing. I am beginning to appreciate the differences between taking something at face value, and analysing beneath the surface - and when to apply each of these measures to ensure the best outcome.

But on the same token, I also think its a bad thing. Life is much less exciting if you think you already know everything. The latter of the examples were bland, hurried, and careless. The former of the examples were anticipatory, romantic, and genuine.

I know which I prefer.

In my humble internet blogging opinion - a lone voice in a sea of opinionated writers - there is a mindset that should be achieved in regards to my current rambling. Life is not all romantic and genuine - the human condition doesn't allow for that, and I accept that. But if life isn't romantic and genuine in some senses - it becomes bland, monotonous, and careless.

Accept those moments that seem romantic and genuine at face value.

Those moments that don't seem entirely genuine or romantic have the potential to be. See past the face value, analyse beneath the surface, and discover a hidden story.

One can always take for granted the footpath that runs along their nature strip - that harms no one.

But that path has a story, just below the surface, just as each and everyone one of us has a past just below the surface.


Christopher.

"Starting today - I'm not gonna worry about tomorrow..."

Starting Today - Natalie Imbruglia

To be or not to be?

I recently attended a school drama performance. While waiting for the play to begin, attendees were put into a holding room to wait. This room, generally serving as the drama class-room, featured a rather enjoyable noticeboard on one of the walls. There was a quote on said board that caught my attention, I can't for the life of me remember who said it, or any of the exact wording, but it bought about the question: How do actors act when they aren't acting?

This question intrigued me, as many intriguing questions do, and has been something mulling around in my head ever since.

Having spent time in a drama class, and having known many people who have continued with "drama", there are a few personality traits that seem to stem from these types of people. Most are very humanities oriented, choosing to focus on the grey areas instead of the black and white in the science/maths departments. Most have incredible amounts of energy and, at times, can be hard to keep up with. Many of them are thinkers and observers, as well. They generally have a higher grasp on how other people act with each other. Almost all are very confident and comfortable with themselves. This is a generalisation, but it seems to be how "actors" act off stage. They obviously act as "themselves". But who are they?

Actors, when preparing for a role, have to put vast amounts of thought in to many different aspects of a character. Physical aspects, such as their walk, their mannerisms and the way they talk have to be construed, constructed, and practiced to the point where the actor can throw away their personality in exchange for a new one. They have to file away their personality so as to let the character come alive and be believed. Actors must know the stories, the past of their characters. The characters dreams, quirks and interests all have to be explored.

The role of an actor is to essentially abandon who they are so as to become someone else.

How do actors actually create these characters though? They have to be based upon something. Writers must draw upon their own knowledge bank and personality to be able to write about something that is completely different. So too, must actors. To convey sadness to the audience the actor must know what sadness is like and how it feels. So if actors constantly abandon "who they are" for completely different characters and base many of their characters on their own experiences it begs a different set of questions...

Who are actors? Are all their characters a mixture of their actor's experience, or are actors merely a mixture of all the different characters they have played?

It could almost be seen in either of those two ways.

I think in a lot of ways it is harder for actors to determine who they actually are, which seems to run contrary to the personality traits they display. Many of the better "actors" that I know have very distinct character traits that stand out and can easily be described. Which raises another question. Are those who are good at acting naturally outgoing and unique? Or do they exaggerate their character traits as perhaps a (conscious or subconscious) reflection of the difficulty they may have in knowing who they are?

So I didn't really go anywhere on this, but hopefully it gave you some food for thought. I am interested to hear people's thoughts on this subject.

"Robert Cohen says, 'all people, and all characters in plays, think about their situation more than about their own personality or character.' This is almost always true about people, and is certainly the way actors should think during a performance. But actors, off the stage, must think about their own personality and character. If you do not know who you are, if your instrument is not limber and under your control for the most part, you will never be a great actor. Master actors cultivate effortless and automatic control of their instruments"

-Anonymous

Broken footprints

This was a short piece that I wrote last year - I feel it goes well with my previous entry.

Beams of light splayed upon the dusty grass. Air, cold embrace upon naked skin, although warming under the mid-morning sun. The footpath was dull with age, swollen black joinery between slabs, straggly weeds in the cracks. Absent minded avoidance, “Step on a crack, break your back”. Sad chords, weathering a river toward the canals of the ear, the sad lyrics: a boat on the river. She walked in time. Rough, red, brick buildings ahead, their off white colour bond roofs bright in the sunlight, background of blue sky. The buildings of a school, soaked in past lives and crossed paths, silently resting in the peace of the weekend. Absent curiosity, longing to relive memories. Stood at the main entrance, remembered the photo taken for the newsletter, stared up at the high black fence. A new addition, the catalyst for unseen changes.

She continued her walk, her hand gently running along the fence, a deep, satisfying sound of hollow metal. Stopped on occasions, her eyes darting along the ground, remembering the footsteps she once laid there, thoughtful. Made it to the oval, once a smooth green carpet, now a beaten and worn rug. A slow walk into the middle, one hand in the back pocket of her jeans, the other brushing fringe into the crook of her ear. Casual. Thought of the sport she used to play there, games with peers, and then thought about the many hundreds who placed their mark exactly where she stood. The memories of the earth. Remembered her junior years, playing in the dirt at the base of the giant eucalypts - saw they weren’t really that giant. The perspective of maturity. Saw a small footprint in the dust, huddling under the protection of roots. Brushed it away, began its journey to all the other broken footprints.

Christopher.

"I learned just enough in school to figure out that everything is not all there is to know"

-Anonymous

Memories of the Earth

I was on my way to school the other day, as I often am. Normally I just take my surroundings for granted, but this particular morning was slightly different.

I was in a bad mood, which isn't as uncommon as some of you might think. I was ignoring my brother and father in the front seat and had my headphones jammed in. Yup. I'm a polite young teenager, no doubt about it.

So, we were driving along, and I was rather fascinated by the dips and curves of the landscape. There was a particular part that drew my attention, and started this train of thought. We were traveling on a road was going up a slight incline, and one one side it fell away steeply. All around this decline, the landscape also declined, so it formed a kind of dip. If you were standing at the bottom of said dip you would be surrounded by inclines. It made me think of those flood way signs, warning people of a tendency to flooding, and how that place would probably be one, and were it to rain really heavily it would fill up with water. This made me start to think of what the landscape would look like if you took away all the houses, everywhere.

How would the landscape have looked to the first fleet or rather the first explorers of the region. Would it have been covered in Eucalypt forests, with kangaroos lying in the shade? When the road was built, how much dirt was removed? How much was the landscape changed?

Which leads me to think about how interesting it would be if the Earth could talk. Think about the block of land that you reside on. The stories it could tell. Did a dinosaur ever step foot into where your room is? Was your kitchen ever hit by a meteor? Did people once roam the patch of dirt you now call your own? Did they live and die there? How much life has it seen? How much death has it seen?

Christopher.

"Embroidery of the stars
Undress my feelings for this earth
Send me your salva to heal my scars
And let this nakedness me my birth"

Astral Romance - Nightwish