Author Archives: Ian

Better being privileged

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Tonight I watched a segment on one of the news program’s about a young footballer who was supporting a fan (who was only 17) who was recovering from a stroke.  The footballer said he would kick a footy with the young lad when he could walk.  The segment showed when they were both at the oval and the young stroke suffer kicked a gaol.  The absolute joy on the young fellas face was only matched by the smile on the young footballers face.

I liked what I saw.  The young footballer didn’t have to be involved at all but he chose to.

Then the cynic in me kicked in……

I thought the the footballer was one of the football privileged who SHOULD be putting back into the community. He was one of the people that we look up too, gets the big bucks and leads a life of privilege. I know he has worked hard for it, and has to work hard each week to make the team. I know that he is also expected to be a role model and put himself up each week he walks out onto the field.

I started to think that my cynicism was levelled at the wrong person, the wrong group of people.

What about all the politicians who earn big buck yet only appear to do things for political gain not community well being: what about the multi million dollar earning CEO’s that live a life of luxury: what about all the celebrities that make a movie or two and live a life of excess and privilege?

Suddenly I started to count the imbalance of privelege in our society and what everyone else had and what they did with it incomprison to me.

I thought I was not a person of privelege: then I started to count the things I have and not the things I don’t have. It may be about the things I need and the things I want.

I have clean water to dring, in my house.
I have good food, whenever I want.
I have shelter and clothes.
I live in a great country.
I am free.

I started to think what I had done with my privileges.

If the news program came to my place and said we want to do a story on what you have done with your privelege, what would their story report on.

Probably some weak stuff I half volunteered for in the past and all the entrepreneurial things I am going to do in the future.

I realised that we wait for the celebrities, footballers and CEO’s to show us the way… Because they should, it is their responsibility!

Maybe I should be better with my privelege and stop worrying about everyone else and start worrying about everyone else.

I am sure there is a great deal of privelege in having the choice to be a better man.

Better at Changing Tires

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I was driving home the other day and saw a guy on the side of the road changing a flat tire.  I noticed as it appeared that it was an older bloke with the flat, but another car had stopped behind and it looked like he was helping change the tire.

It got me to thinking; (firstly, glad it’s wasn’t me with the flat) is it me, or don’t we get flat tires as much as what we used to.

I can remember as a kid with Mum and Dad, spending half of our family travelling life changing tires on the side of the road, or filling the boiling radiator with water out of a nearby dam, or fixing some other mechanical problem with a bit of fencing wire or a wedge of wood and/or a hammer.

Is it that things don’t break down as much now days?  Or, have we stopped fixing them and just throw them away.  Is it also that we don’t know how to fix them and just get someone else to do it.  And as it turns out when we get someone else to do it (an expert!) half the time they just throw it away and replace it on our behalf?

I love fixing things and working in my shed with the old tools that I have bought from the market or inherited from my Dad.  Often when I am buying or later looking at an old tool, I get to thinking who used it, what it was used for and how many times it fixed or made things.  I used to work on my cars when I was younger too, but when I lift up the bonnet on my modern car I feel like I am looking under the hood of the Space Shuttle; if there is a problem I usually just ring someone to fix it.

I suppose this rambling is all about accepting that in a complicated world, complicated things need experts to fix them (if I was quoting my Dad he would say an expert stands for an ‘ex’ which is a has been and a ‘spert’ which is a drip under pressure!)

But, does it have to be so complicated.  I understand that technology (which I love) and machines (which I love) are getting better and hopefully, most of the time, assisting us in leading a better life.  However, is this complication in ‘things’ something that has to be transcribed into how we live our lives.  Is the ‘can’t fix it throw it away and get a new one’ mentality something that we do in more parts of our lives than just our car and dishwashers.  Is it worth fixing something that isn’t fixed for free under warranty.

I don’t want to throw away my old tools and not only are most of them well made, but they can still do the job and I have that connection to them that sometimes is hard to explain.

Every now and again it is probably not a bad idea to get a flat tire.  Firstly, it might give you some time on the side of the road to just sit and do something with your hands (and remind you of the first time you watched your Dad do it on one of those epic family road trips!); you may meet someone who stops to help, who may change your life (or at the least confirm your faith in human nature); and when you take the tire in to get fixed you may just contemplate that life doesn’t have to be too complicated and that flat tires can be fixed, like lots of things.

Plus, next time you see someone with a flat tire on the side of the road (which as I started off this post, isn’t too often) you might want to stop and say, I reckon I can help you fix that; maybe you’ll change there life.

 

Better People I Didn’t Know

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Today we all received the news that the great comedian Robin Williams died.  I have read a lot of posts on Facebook where people have said his death has effected them as he was such a part of their childhood and good memories in their lives.

I have never been one for worshipping celebrities or even a great fan of any particular celebrity.  But, even for me the death of Robin Williams plucked some cords49e1a75965445ee532c2096813f79b4b
in my heart.  I think it hurt a little more as the reports at this time are that he suicided.

I have written before the inevitability of death, but, it just seems that is something that takes us at our time not something that we seek because living is a worse alternative.

Robin Williams was the person that I didn’t know, the celebrity that I didn’t worship, or really think about much other than he made me laugh, cry in some of his movies and I thought appeared to be a pretty good bloke.

Maybe he knew us more than we knew him.  He knew how to make us laugh.  He came into our lives and made us feel.  He was a better person that I didn’t know was such a part of my life until he was gone.  He was the celebrity who I didn’t think of as a real man, with real pain, that he felt so much of in the end.  All the joy he gave us we couldn’t repay because he was the better person we didn’t know.

Better Experience the Presents

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I think we all love presents.  Some of us love receiving them more and some of us love giving them more.  The best part is giving or receiving a present that is just right.  That you love it, or the person you are giving it to, loving it as you imagined they would when you got it.

Just as a side note I love presents almost as much as I love the card that goes with it.  I love making cards, I love giving cards and I love getting cards (and letScreen Shot 2014-07-03 at 11.25.00 pmters!).  One of my favourite cards is the one I made for my Mum a few years ago I talked about it in Better Presents.  I just love making home made cards!

But there is one thing about getting presents which over the last couple of years (well decades for me) is that they are mostly just things.  Can you remember what you got for your last Birthday from the one you love, or your kids, or what you gave them.  Well, up until a few years ago I would have probably said no, but over the last couple of years I can tell you in the most minute detail the presents that counted the most.  The reason is that a few years ago a girl I worked with was acting weird.  She had this stash of dry biscuits and home brand tuna in the cupboard which she was having for lunch on the days she actually had any lunch.  She was not coming out for coffee or a drink after work.  Any plans for a farewell or birthday lunch were always undertaken without her, including the donation for the present.  Suddenly one day it all changed and she was back to ‘normal’.

So it did beg the question about what had been going on.  I, of course did ask it and got the reply I didn’t expect, but, it was also the reply that changed my life.

Just digressing, it is important to notice the small moments or individuals that change your  life.  I find it interesting when I look back and often I only realise when I look back, that it was at a particular moment that something did change my life, and often momentously.  It is often that we don’t notice these moments until we take the time to look back and try and figure out how we go to the present.  But, other times your life changes because you make a decision and say, ‘time for a change.’  This story about presents and the girl in my office is about making such a decision.

Anyway…. she told me she could go back to normal spending because she had bought the tickets for her and her husband to travel to the Maldives for his 50th birthday.  She had saved all her lunch money, drinks money and anything else she could scrap together to buy the tickets to surprise him.  She had to do it this way to keep it a surprise so the money would be obviously missing from their bank account.  She also told me that this is what they always did for birthdays.  Maybe not always such a big surprise, but always a something involving an EXPERIENCE.  She said that the gifts they alway gave and received would get lost in time, or broken, or just wore out.  But she said the memories of those ‘special experiences’ were nme 3 - chris 5 in back yard para hills - croppedever broken, never wore out and most of all never got lost in time.  The present of the experience was a gift forever.

I got to thinking about all the presents I had received or given over the years and realised that some, the ones I actually remembered, had an ‘experience’ attached to them.  I remembered the scooters my Dad had bought us when we were young, and I realised I remembered them because they were second had, and he had painted them, and the small amount of money they had cost was a lot of money to them – I can only just picture the scooter, but I can feel the scooter like it was yesterday.  I also remember the red plastic football my brother and I had.  We could never quite work out why it didn’t sound like a ‘real’ football when we kicked it.

The other experiences, some presents, some just holidays, some just time with family and the gifts from my past, I remember like I unwrapped them yesterday.  So, I got to thinking that it is not too late to stop looking for my presents in the shops and start looking for them in the memories I want to make.

Screen Shot 2014-08-01 at 4.11.39 pmSo, of recent years my family will always remember swimming with the dolphins, going to the circus and travelling to Bali.  The presents of our experiences get to be unwrapped again and again every time we think about them.

The presents of the future we don’t have to search the internet or the shops for, we just have to be there.

Give me a real card in my hand with a note you wrote; give me a big table with as much food as laughter; don’t give me selfies give me one big group shot; stay for 5 minutes or 5 hours but be present the whole time you’re there; give me a hug when you arrive and another when you leave and you give the best present of all – yourself, your time and your memories.

Better Happy Posts

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I like lots of things about Facebook.  I like the way you can connect with old friends that without Facebook you would never have been able to find.  That you can share your holidays and family photographs with each other.  That you can even have a whinge and on occasions share a pointless post (usually in my case because I have had a few too many wines) or a picture of your dinner!

I like the occasional stalking of a friend, or a friend of a friend – and the obligatory stalking of my children (and their friends who are leading them astray!).Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 3.22.20 pm

I think Facebook does connect us.

But, I think it also lures us into the perfect world of meaningful social contribution on Facebook that we are unable to translate into the connections we are supposed to be having in the real world.

I think this is most obvious in the heartfelt sayings, insightful interpretations of life, or the sage like advice that are shared, reshared, tweeted and plastered all over our daily Facebook walls.  I find it hard to accept that I need to share a post to show I love my children, country, mother, brother etc etc.  In addition I find it hard to accept that Facebook is like a warm electronic hug from the enlightened social media set, yet my most meaningful interactions I have outside Facebook with people under 20 other than my kids, is when I asked  ‘would you like fries with that!”

Again, I love Facebook as a new way that it lets us find each other, stay in touch and share our lives.  But, I love it as an enhancement to my life not a substitute

2014-07-31 Facebook Mum SayingHow about my ‘happy post’ for today?

It is just that we are a long time dead yet we go about our lives as if we are immortal, or more to the point, those that we are not spending our time with, will have time enough tomorrow for us to catch with at our leisure (when all the other really important stuff in life is done!)

I made a photo book after my Dad died and in the back I put the following caption.

The other day I was trying to explain to the kids what were the important things in life and knowing the ‘value’ of something.  I said I would be happy to have no job, no house, no possessions except the clothes I was wearing and perhaps a tooth brush in my back pocket. I would give it all away, all my ‘things’ to spend 1 minute with my Dad.  I told then if I could do this, I would, with no regrets.  I miss him as much today as I did all those years ago.  I now attempt to honour him by living a life that would make him proud…. and sometimes when I falter, I know he would understand, forgive me and know (which is all he ever expected on any of us) I am doing my best.  I love my Dad and I miss him.

I was chatting today with a friend who’s Mother recently died and we had the conversation that only we could have.  It is the one that tells us that we now know that the finite life is finite and when it ends, it just does.  No profound long goodbyes or settlement of lifes questions.  It is just the end which you measure not mostly on the last day but on all the other days.

I think a ‘happy post’ should be said out loud and it should start something like this:

“Hi, I just thought I’d ring to say hello”

“Hi, just thought I’d drop in for a visit to see how you’re going”

“Sure I’ve got time for a chat, lets get a coffee right now”

One of my ‘better man’ mantra’s is to write about my life.  Perhaps in addition to that I should be writing a few more letters, a few more cards and to steal a famous quote from the movie Avatar, say to my friend and family “I see you” and for it to be literally.

 

 

 

 

Better News Isn’t Always Good News

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I wrote a post on Facebook the other day which read:

“A little bit of good news can make a big difference in your day”

And, that little bit of good news did make my day a whole lot better.  But, this is my life, remember.  It all collapsed when the little bit of good news turned into a whole lot of unknown bad news.

Don’t you hate that!

So, is it still a good day – yeah, I reckon so.  Why?  Because I’m still here.

I really have this problem in that my bits of bad news are really not that bad, yet they smash me in the head like catastrophes.

Most times nobody dies and most times they are my ‘first world’ type problems.  It’s that perspective thing again – I saw it when I wrote ‘Better Dead‘ and I am trying to live it a bit more; but life does get in the way.

So, my good news, turned bad news, is now just news.  I am still here and my day, week, month, year goes on.  I am sure that most of the rest of the world didn’t really notice me having a shit day.  I know there are lots of other people, some my friends, some just because they are Palestinians, who are having worse days than me – and they have no end in sight, perhaps ever.

Well, I’m still here.

 

 

 

Better thank Mrs Nesmith

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Bette Nesmith was Michael Nesmith’s mum. Michael Nesmith was ‘Mike’ in the 1960’s TV Show and the band The Monkies.2473674_orig

Mrs Nesmith invented ‘Liquid Paper’ or Tipex, or White Out or whatever you want to call typing correction fluid…. If you don’t know what typing is I’m in big trouble!

So why do I want to thank Mrs Nesmith.  It is a bit to do with the same reason we have rubbers on the ends of pencils….. We all make mistakes.

Neither the rubber nor Liquid Paper are time machines, they just let us rub out, or paint over our mistakes. Sometimes, though, mistakes are a bit more permanent. However considering that the Liquid Paper company sold for over $45 million and we still have rubbers (erasers!) on the ends of pencils, it appears that we all make enough little mistakes that warrant providing us with an ability to fix them and move on. As a matter of fact, it would appear that mistakes are pretty much at epidemic terms as now we have the ‘back space’ and ‘delete’ keys which are probably hit just as many times as the letters on a keyboard.

So we all make mistakes. I think I have established that.

So, what is my point?

I think it is that we accept that mistakes happen and that it is okay to fix them. I also think it is more important that we are a little more forgiving about those mistakes; both to others and especially to ourselves.

It may be said a thousand times that it is okay to make mistakes, or that we learn from our mistakes, but, when they happen do we actually think that way. Do we blame ourselves too much for stumbling a bit as we go through our day, our job, or our entire life. Does society really say it is okay to make mistakes, do we? As important is not perhaps the mistake, but how we react to it.

Okay, me of all people do not suffer fools lightly, but do I really think people start their day with the express purpose of going around fucking up, just to annoy me. Although some days it seems like it, I am sure this is not true.

Having the rubber on the end of my pencil, looking at the bottle of white-out or pressing that delete/back space key needs to be a different experience. It needs to be about how I accept that the world is pretty imperfect and mistakes do happen, most can be fixed or forgiven. If I manage to remind myself of it every now and again, I am sure it will help to make me a better man.

Thank you Mrs Nesmith.

 

Better with Friends

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My wife wanted me to meet a friend of her’s from years ago who she admired as a craftsman and builder… he was coming from interstate and was just here for the night.

I said I didn’t want to.

There was a reason for this.

I have good friends, I love my friends.

I have a group of friends that at the end of phone calls, text messages and emails we say or write ‘LYLAB’ – which stands for “Love You Like a Brother” (Then again there was this great comment after one of those messages that instead of saying LYLAB what was written was LYMTMB – which stood for “love you more than my brother”….. hard to explain in some circumstances but understandable in others……)

I said to my wife (I regretted it a bit later) that I didnt want to meet her friend from years ago, as I didn’t want anymore friends, and for me to get a new friend someone would have to die.

I am pretty sure that the guy she wanted me to meet was a good bloke, my wife is a great judge of character, but, I didn’t have any history with him or any shared experiences and I was working on just geting my own experiences together at the time.

I got reminded….

I just have to talk briefly about reminded, because I am now getting to a point in my life when I am constantly reminded, well actually remembered if there is such a word, of things that have happened in the past.  The difference about these reminded rememberings is that they are usually memories of things that I have not thought of since they happened. It goes to show that my religion could possibly be correct, but it also goes to show that everything we do today has some thing to do with what has happened in the past.  This is not in a mystical sense, but in the sense that memories are not every really gone, but only come back into context, when they are actually in context. The thing is that these rememberings are usually not something I have thought about since it happened and for all intensive purposes was gone from my memory forever, and suddenly it is smashed into the now of my brain…… and it is like I am there again….. and it is sometimes an okay feeling to have…. sometimes a bad feeling.

Anyway.

I didn’t meet her friend, but, I did start to think about the friends who would have to die to be replaced.

Why were they in that group
Why couldn’t they be replaced
Why did I love them (and sometimes hate thm at the same time…)
Where did they live in my head…….
(and why did they live in my head?)

Well, you have to spend a bit of time thinking about why you think about the things that you do and where did or do those thoughts come from.

If this post sees the light of day, and it is the first one you have come across then some of these ruminations must be imaginations of the madness within me ….. Or, at least that is what I would be thinking if I was reading this (and I have read this a couple of times and made a few changes before I posted it, but each time I read it it seems like I can’t change it to not sound a bit crazy.)

Wow, the above was getting into the silly world of writing from my head to the keyboard with no filter…..’

so, onward…..

So were did the death of my friends requiring a replacement come from?
Nowhere and everywhere and the mentor (read the blog about Bob)

It is all about who you allow to live in your head….

First of all I have to tell you a story that Bob told me, and when he told me it, it was a story about me.  It was a story about the witches, Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda (the Worlock Gunna hadn’t yet been invented?)

I just changed my mind, I dont want to tell you a story, I want you to experience a story. The sad part of this story is that if you get into it, and let yourself experience it, then it will manafest the witches.

Think about your worst day at work, the last fight with a friend/wife/husband/workmate etc etc…. and as you were leaving that fight (either covered in blood or literal blood, or worse, damage, literal or actual, or emotional damage or some other damage, that even now leaves a scar that itches….)

Keep imagining.

It is your worse day and you are driving home….
The witches are in the car…..
You are gripping the wheel….
Driving home surrounded by the worst group of drivers on the planet….
Everyone is fucked except you…

You have a plan about the wrongs that have been avalanched upon you today, plus a few if not all the ones from the past…
You start the ruminating, then the plan for vengence, no not vengence you are way beyond that, this is outright revenge: there is no sitting on the riverbank today….. THEY WILL PAY……

Pay……
Pay What?
They will pay in that every minute that you let them live in your head they are stealing some of you from you…

Time you can never get back.

Well maybe it is time to reset the ledger.

They don’t pay rent so why do you let them live in your head!
I will say that again, because this is the most important part of this post “IF THEY DON’T PAY RENT THEY CAN’T LIVE IN YOUR HEAD”

Let me tell you about that! Let me tell you about the rental properties in my head that I manage.

My head has a a finite number of rooms.
The room with best View.
The room for my band of brothers.
The room for friends, family and close acquaintances, and
The room for people I have not yet met……

THE BEST VIEW
These are the people that love you and you love them. It might be your family it may not. They remember your birthday and hug you when you cry. They are your Mum, your Dad, your brother, your sister and those members of your family that make it a family. They get the best view and they get free rent for life (okay, sometimes they forget to pay the rent, but somtimes the rent is not necessary).

THE BAND OF BROTHERS
I got this from Bob and I can’t ever imagine making the sacrifice that he had to form his band. But, I have my band of brothers. They are the guys and girls that when you call, they come – anytime – anywhere – for any thing. They fight when you have to fight and they fight when you can’t fight. It’s a bond that is LYLAB – love you like a brother.  They start you on the right path and they stop you on the wrong path. But, not matter what path you are standing on, they stand shoulder to shoulder with you, they stand fast, unwavering, because they are your Band of Brothers.

FRIENDS, FAMILY AND close ACQUAINTANCES
Often these rooms are not visited often. The crowd is often a bit messy and is a bit on the transient nature. But, if you go to enough parties with the right people, then you only end up at parties with the right people. They are the peopel who pay rent, in your family (the annual, a bit awkward family BBQ  (but they are the host), the close aquaintances that live next dooor, offer to make you a coffee now and again at work, organise the secret Santa, or maybe are just the old odd bod that collects cans around your neighbourhood. they pay rent, they make your llife richer, more confortable and more than anything else…. connected.

PEOPLE I HAVE NOT MET YET….
Hey, the empty room. dont, dont ever, fill it with the ironing board, or the boxes that you haven’t unpacked from the last 3 moves. This may be an empty room, but a room that is prepared to to filled. The friend you have not yet met…..

So I am better with friends.  I am better because of my friends.  I am also better because of the friends I no longer have – they didn’t pay rent and they no longer live in my head.  I try to keep the Witches at bay and my friends in my head.

Next time I am driving home, every time that I am driving home, they will get the best view. I know through them I will be a better man.

Better Dead

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I have a current infatuation with death.

I do not think this is unhealthy as the condition is inevitable. I am just thinking how we go about our lives with this inevitability apparently not effecting the way we actually go about it. I am trying to put it in some sort of context with the rest of my life, but this is difficult. There are lots of things in life that are finite, but most of those we don’t really consider until they are over – including another persons life.

Just spend a minute thinking about someone that is not here anymore -that is dead. I know I often appreciate their life and them more, now. This is not a bad thing, but it is also a difficult thing to do with your own life. Hard to appreciate it when it is over.

It is also hard to measure a life, especially your own. The man adage of “he who dies with the most toys wins” is bullshit. It is bullshit mainly because not one of those things that you were infatuated with in life you can take with you (to where ever that is for you). Also in measuring that life it is hard to know the scale on which to make that measurement. Again, an adage, is it about the years of life or the life in the years.

As I said before in my post Mindfullness (and say often to my friends) “we all end up sitting in a chair, pissing our pants, watching days of our lives and waiting for our relatives to visit who never come”.

I think thinking about death makes you think about life. What if life ended now. It wouldn’t be enough, it never would, but would it any more years, anymore time, really make any difference. WE I be different. Could I let go of the regrets, hates, wants etc etc and live a life that is somehow significant – maybe not important, but at least somehow significant.

Define significant……

Better (Still) Stop Smoking

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Well today at 3.00 pm it was three (3) months since I stopped smoking. And, that is not having one single puff.

This is the best I can ever remember doing.

I have done it pretty good most of the time, but, there have been bad days, minutes, hours and times when I was just going to have one….. but the trick is I didn’t. I am proud of myself, but also still nervous that the smoking beast could get me at any time. I will just have to remain vigilant.

I am enjoying not smelling of smoke, being socially isolated and of course having all that extra cash (I think is adds up to about $2,000+ at this stage – that is a lot of money!).

I think I am better for it.