Better Water and a Mobile Phone

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I have a couple of vides that I watched the other day and wanted to put them somewhere were I could find them again.  And hopefully somewhere where people who like what I write will like things I like.  That is here.  Both videos I put up on my Facebook page, but so much ‘good advice’ and sage like quotations are posted on Facebook like leaves falling from trees in Autumn that they go unnoticed and have as much profound impact as the sayings they used to print on bus tickets (showing my age here!).

The first video is “This is Water.”  I will provide not explanation or comments until after you have watched it.

This is Water – YouTube

David Foster Wallace made this speech at his University to the graduating class.  The full speech can also be heard on YouTube – click here.

I always want to know more about people whose work I admire.  I looked up David Foster Wallace at Wikipedia and made the shocking discovery that he committed suicide (“suicided” depending on your political correctness views) three years after making this speech.  It just made me a little sad that a man could see the world so well as defined in this speech yet lose himself somewhere along the way.

Okay, shake that one off…….

The next video is I Forgot My Phone.  This is just a great video about how we are thinking we are becoming more connected and in fact are becoming more disconnected.  (1800 ‘Friends’ on Facebook which some kids have – really?!)  I watched this video and then I posted it on Facebook and got 5 ‘Likes’ and 3 Comments – the funny thing is that the day before I had posted a silly photograph of my mother and got 47 ‘Likes’ in a couple of hours?

I am hoping that insight in todays world is not just about looking at things but has something to do with actually seeing them and the ‘in’ part of insight has something to do with us looking at ourselves in a world we are a part of.

I do know that being a better man has nothing to do with getting more ‘Likes’.

Better at Connections

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Recently we had a dinner party and our friends came over and my wonderful wife cooked a wonderful meal – a culinary delight.

I felt connected and I don’t even know what that means. The company wasn’t hard. It wasn’t boring as our friends are smart and engage in witty and intellectually conversation. There was no competition or jealously, not spike or venom. Sarcasm was clever and reciprocated.

Conversations weren’t all safe and debates from different standpoints were flashed across the table.  Just to clarify, debates aren’t arguments – and there is nothing more enlightening than watching people ponder the comments of their foe and seeing that cock of the head when listening, and answering with the hesitation of an new understanding that perhaps they never had before.  During this evening this occurred sometimes, but if not, the opinions were thoughtful, unspiteful and genuine.

I sat at the head of the table and listen to more stories than I told (well I think I did) and if this is true it is a first.

Our friends left in a single wave and good buys had genuine hugs and firm handshakes – it was all punctuated with enthusiasm and firm arrangements for the future.

It was a good time and I felt connected. And I still don’t know what that means.

Maybe it is that friends are not about winning, losing, power or position; well not true friends anyway. Maybe it is that I didn’t have to try to feel as if I belonged. Maybe it is because friends come to a home, not a house or a restaurant, and they feel at home. Maybe it is because friends at dinner parties ask questions because they are interested in hearing the answers, because they are interested in you. Maybe it is because connection is about food and fellowship and laughter and friends and family and home.

Maybe it is about noticing the love of other couples, that makes you happy, because you know the love in your life makes you happy.

Maybe connection is about wanting to be with people because you want to know more about them; how they think; how they feel; how they see the world; and perhaps, having a little better understanding of yourself by accepting that others may thing differently to you; and that’s okay.

I felt connected because I felt safe;

Safe to be me
(I love, I hurt, I want to make a difference, I want to do the right thing, I fail, I don’t understand, I am interested, I feel okay to laugh)
Safe to talk
(Safe to tell my stories, use my language, also okay not to talk, silences that are okay, taking time to listen – really listen – and wanting to listen more than talk, time to understand, time to think before I speak)
Safe to be liked
(Not to prove, not to justify, not to be judged)
Safe to love
(Expressing love for wife, life and family, seeing how love lives in their lives – and accepting)

Tonight was interesting because it was with a group of relatively new friends. Considering my age anyone I have known for less that 10 years is a relatively new friend. So why is this a moment where I notice connection.

I don’t think it is something I noticed. I think it is something I felt.

I didn’t have to think about being a better man because I was in the company of better men and women.  Maybe I often don’t feel connected because there is nothing to be connected with.  Maybe tonight, in our home, we didn’t necessarily connect but found ourselves, in others; and perhaps we also found some of the things that we don’t have in ourselves, in them – and they gave it to us willingly and without obligation.

Connection is sometimes about friendship, lives shared and experienced together.

Connection is also sometimes about discovering the values and ideals that are important to you in new friends, or even old friends or even in people I have not yet met.  I look forward to those days, as even now the glow of our friends at our home, for a ‘normal’ dinner party, will remain as a made memory where due to everything, and perhaps nothing, I was a better man, and a lot of it lingers.

Better with lots of Cables

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I had a disaster in the shed the other day in finding white ants had eaten out most of the roof rafters.  It was a long time ago and I am glad I never went wandering around on the shed roof because I would have ended on the shed floor.  I had to remove all my ‘stuff’ from the shed to pull down the ceiling.  In packing stuff up, I was heavily into work avoidance and spending (read wasting) time on the trivial to avoid the main tasks.  I went to a couple of boxes that I had which contained all the cables you receive with a new TV, DVD, Stereo etc etc.

I had a lot of cables.

I had a lot of cables that were all the same.

I had a lot of cables I didn’t need.  Everything was already connected and working fine.

I thought to myself, I have too may cables.  All the same.  All of no use.  So, I unpacked the cables.  Folded them all nicely, with each individual cable held neatly in its little circle with a cable tie.  I had cable ties just in case I every needed them, and today was that day.  I was proud of myself for having the cable ties to tie the cables that I didn’t need.  I packed them all neatly and put them back in the boxes they came out of, and put them back to were they are stored; in case I need them.

I got to thinking about having to many cables.  I got to thinking about throwing them away.

And I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  I know I didn’t need them, I didn’t even really want them.

And I got to thinking are all these cables an analogy for something in my life.

And I realised.  I just had too many cables and I should get on with fixing the roof.

 

Better at Lonely

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Have you ever just got to the point when lonely was okay…..

Sometimes it is just okay to be by yourself; is this lonely or just being alone; is it okay for just a while or is there a danger of it becoming a habit.

I suppose it comes down to that old saying that you come into this world alone and that is how you go out (I think the actual saying is about coming and going in and out of the world naked… But, that strikes me as a bit of a perverted picture of not only sitting around alone, but also naked!).  If you can’t bear to be with yourself, who else can you bear to be with, and who else can bear to be with you?

There is nothing, quite as lonely as being in a room full of people and being alone.

I remember a long time ago when I was just a young bloke and I split up with my girlfriend.  I noticed that not only didn’t I have sex anymore (except of course when I was alone and naked!) but that I didn’t have a whole lot of places to go, or a whole lot of people to go with. I was in that really strange age group, or rather life stage, that falls differently for all of us. Everyone else was married, or was about to get married, or had partners (we used to call them boyfriends and girlfriends!) or just weren’t available when I was. I didn’t include the group of people that always seem to be surrounded by people;  I dont know about them because I have never been one of them.  (I just thought that perhaps the people surrounded by people all the time might be the loneliest of us all…. I dont know?)

So, am I now a better man at being alone, or am I over being lonely, or do I just accept lonely.

Yes, no.

(Incidentally the ‘yes, no’ beginning to sentences which appears to have become part of our everyday vocabulary is really beginning to shit me beyond believe.   Is it yes or no.  Why would you start a sentence by saying something positive and then negative, in agreeance and then in no-agreeance.  It is just weird, lazy, unthoughtful, non-speak.  It reminds me about the phrase that was going around a few years ago when you would ask someone a question and they would answer ‘pretty much’.  What the fuck does pretty much mean anyway… I suppose it means yes, no.)

Notwithstanding (which is a word that I love), things change over the years and ‘pretty much’ is replaced by ‘here’s the thing’ (which I might claim originality for as it was about 6 years ago that my lovely wife told me that after a few too many wines I would preempt most sentences with ‘here’s the thing’.  I think it has a bit to do with the wine but also a bit to do with the fact that I thought I knew everything and everyone should listen to me!   I also think it was a time before this blog and before my Being a Better Man project when I spent a lot of time talking without thinking and a lot of time thinking without thinking.  My ‘heads up display’ (see My Religion) in those days was more like heads up my own arse – and while I’m looking at me you look at me!)

So, where was I, lonely.

2009-06-09 Me Jo Short Hol 077I have experienced periods of being alone when that is not only what I wanted, but what I needed.  I have experienced periods of lonely that weren’t really ‘sad’ lonely, but just that I wished I had someone to share that moment with.  Upon reflection, I suppose I wasn’t really lonely in those moments I was just disappointed that there wasn’t someone else there to have that shared experience.  I have experience moments of lonely which have nothing to do with being sad, but being in a different time in my life when I wished I was in another (perhaps that is melancholy and not lonely?)

But, the lonely that trumps them all is the lonely I have felt when I haven’t felt like I was one of you, when I was really lost and didn’t know why I was even here?

This is the Black Dog Lonely (see Better with the Black Dog).

I sort of like the sound of Black Dog Lonely (“BDL”) because it really is in a category of its own. Having the BDL explanation, description and now acronym, also makes it a bit easiery to perhaps ask a mate, or tell a friend  – I am feeling a bit BDL today mate?  Oh, shit mate, that sucks, I’ll pop over for a beer.

I have also experienced lonely when I was not alone.

I have experienced lonely when I was siting on the lounge with the girl I loved. Maybe I didn’t love her that way any more and the being lonely was the knock on the theoretical door in my head telling me it is time to let go, or maybe just time to go.

and

I have experienced lonely when I was realy alone, really really alone. In a time before BDL was invented (which factually is any time before today really), but BDL was still just as real.  It was only about me, only me, with me, lonely… and it didn’t pass…. and the Black Dog was not just stalking me but was a part of me.  This is the BDL were you feel like an alien in your own world, in your own house, in your own life, in your own skin.

But,

I have another mantra about that, which is not only a mantra for me, but is a mantra I share.  I share it with you wether you want me to or not.

It is also a mantra that on a couple of occasions I have said our loud to myself or when I have rung a mate who was in the grips of BDL.  This is a time in life when you have gone down the lonely lane, to lonely place, to sit at lonely cafe, to wait for the Black Dog to arrive.

I have spoken to that mate, who is sometimes me, or sometimes another bloke who no one else has rung because they don’t know what to say, and, I tell them the truth.  That is, that doesn’t matter what is good in your life, it is not.  It doesn’t matter how much you look around you and realise how lucky you are, because you are not.  It doesn’t matter how many of your friends and family love and care about you, because you can’t feel it.  It doesn’t matter how much of a great and bright future you have, because you cant see it.  You can’t feel any of it.  It is all tainted, and sad, and lonely and black.  You know this is not true, but, now, it is.

I have spoken to them (and I have spoken to me.)

They were hard phone calls to make (but, I will make them again), hard coffee meetings have, or even arrange.  They are times when you know you are going to talk about things that you don’t talk about.

I ring up, they are surprised I have called, often I don’t know them very well and I tell them a story and it starts with, “I heard you were a bit crook”.  This is not a real ‘question’ about how someone in Australia is going.  We can be anywhere between being on our death beds, having a squirting arterial bleed, or just a bit of a cold; all which falls into the category of feeling a bit crook.  The funny part is that we often greet each other with “how are you going” and reply “Good, thanks” and that is the passing of our connection.  I must admit it is sometimes a relief in comparison to asking “how are you going” and they actually tell you!   When I make the call, or greet them for the coffee, I don’t ask then how they are going because I know, and I know, they can’t explain it.  So I explain it for them and I tell them a story.

I tell them about BDL.  I tell them about all that is good in their life, that feels bad.  I tell them I understand the woman (man) you love, the one you you love with all your heart, doesn’t matter.  I tell them I know they love their kids, but that doesn’t matter.  I tell them I know the hurt, regret, hate, love, questions, confusion, blackness they are feeling and don’t understand.  I talk to them about the feelings that if you have never had those feelings, you can’t explain.

I talk to them and I tell them the story:
about the tough guy crying.
about the fearless being afraid, for no reason, about nothing, about everything.
about letting everyone down, when you’re not.
about, lonely, lonely, lonely.
about never seeing how you will ever be better.

But is is not about that, it is about another thing…

I ring them up and I speak to them about all those things,
There is venom in my voice, because those things are here now and the hurt and they are to be despised.  If they are not here now then they are waiting around the corner to ambush you.  I speak to them, I throw it at them, that this is shit, their life is shit, it feels too bad, it feels to black, it feels too lonely.  I do this because they don’t think anyone else knows and if they do they definitely don’t speak about it

And I say to them. I cant make it better.
And I say to them. I know you. I have been you.
And I say to them, I only ask only one thing of you.
And you have to promise, before I ask you.
And they always say yes, because they don’t have anything else.

I tell them, you only have to do one thing.  You have to promise..

Survive.

If you survive the next minute, survive the next 2 minutes, survive the next 5 minutes, survive the next 15 minutes.

Survive an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year.

If you survive, you may not feel better, but you will feel,
If you survive, you may not get it all back, but you will not lose it all,
If you survive, you may not find the love, but you wont lose any that’s left,
If you survive, you may not find the answers, but you still get to ask,
If you survive, you get to survive,

and

That, can just maybe, be okay in its self, for now.

and

I think, when they realise that it is not about everything, and in fact may all be about nothing.  Then, they may not be so lonely.

Sometimes, you can’t be a better man, you just have to survive.

 

Better Giving Presents

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It is always better to give than receive. (From the Bible, Acts 20:35)

I find buying presents hard.  This is mainly because I want the person I buy the gift for to enjoy it, or love it, or need it…  this is often a pretty hard task as the world is so full of all the stuff we want and we have most of it already. Going out and buying a present for anybody nowadays is like buying for the person who already has everything.  Getting that perfect gift, for me anyway, is usually a bit stressful.

One of the hardest people to buy for is my Mum.  Firstly, my Mum never really in her entire life, wanted anything.  She loved my Dad, loved us kids, loved her work as a school teacher and was possibly one of the greatest gift givers of all time on par with my wife.  Mum has just been doing it longer.  Mum gave us all things that we needed over the years.  It was Mum’s birthday recently and I was at a complete loss.  Okay there were flowers (we could even have got them on the way to visit her at the Servo and Mum would have loved them) and chocolates (which she would have given to her visitors anyway) and an endless list of ‘granny gifts’ of picture frames, hankies, soap, doilies (what was the real purpose if a docile anyway.) and all the other gifts for the sake of arriving with a present.  All these gifts are really only to pacify our sense of gift giving and because we thought we had to.

I like making cards.  So I just sat down and made my Mum a card and wrote the following:

Dear Mum,IMG_5119

I know that you don’t really want anything for your Birthday:  so I went to the cupboard in my heart and mind, and thought I would return some of the gifts you have given us.  I return to you:

FAMILY
It is the largest gift you have given all of us, and the most precious, because you made it yourself.

LOVE
It is the oldest and most enduring gift, it doesn’t have any conditions and it comes with an unlimited lifetime guarantee.

FAITH
It came in so many parts, and we had to put it together ourselves.

MEMORIES
This came in a huge package, filled with laughter and tears, triumphs and tragedies, but everything always looked brand new with each moment wrapped in your influence.

I found a very small box in the back of the cupboard, which I had lost a few times over the years, but you kept finding it for me.  It was HOPE; and now I share that gift with everyone, when I can.

My cupboard of life is full of the gifts you have given me, and today I am giving back just a few.   But I saved the best for last.

You gave me the gift of being your son.  Sorry, but I am going to keep this one.

Happy Birthday Mum.  Thanks for all the presents.

Better with the Black Dog

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I wrote a post not too long ago about being naked – naked to the world by writing this blog, that is.

Well today I thought it was about time to get naked, climb on a pedestal and slam cymbals together over my head.

Let me tell you about the Black Dog.  First of all I got the phrase from a friend of mine who went on the Black Dog Ride (click here to go to their web site).  The Back Dog is depression.

I feel like I am really standing on the pedestal now….

Some time ago I wrote a letter to my family (although it was only for my wife as the kids already know I am not all there – all our kids think that about us! …. my kids know that Dad sometimes goes to a place that it is not a good idea to follow him too) trying to tell them what it was like.  Here it is again.  Let me tell you writing this feels a bit like tearng off a band-aid…. really slowly, plus it’s a bit scary:

“I am writing this because I am just feeling so bad, no worse than I have for the last 5 days, just more of the same worse.  Imagine you fill a glass with black water and then you keep pouring more, blacker water into the glass; but it never overflows; it just gets fuller, denser, deeper, heavier; more black than black.  This is what it feels like when the Black Dog arrives.  There is no joy in anything.  Even as I sit here and think about all the things that are good in my life (I can intellectualise it every time), and there are many.  There is no joy in it, there is nothing in it.  When the Black Dog comes he takes over your life, it’s dark, it’s black, it’s heavy and it’s overwhelming.  Although it always seems the worst when it is happening, it is always the worse at that time, and only that time, at the time that matters.  I can’t explain how it feels to feel so rotten.  I withdraw from you guys because I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to say the things I have said before, but I have to live with you all, and you have to survive me. I have been horrible to myself and to all those around me in the past when I have gotten in this hole.  I try to stay away, physically and emotionally because I know I will hurt you.  Hurting you makes me feel worse and I get further and go longer into the hole.  I know it is horrible and perhaps even scary and inflicts long lasting pain to everyone when I am like this.  But, when I am like this, I don’t care…. and you all rightfully stay away from me to protect yourselves, and I feel so lonely, and alone; me and the Black Dog.  I fail at all the mindfulness that has been guiding me, and get more into the hole.  My brain doesn’t work properly.  I spend most of the day in confused thinking, walking through noise and things I can’t quite grasp.  I shake without shaking, I can feel it but not see it.  I ruminate about every bad thing I have done from yesterday to 40 years ago.  Waves of regret, after regret, after regret, smashes into my mind and stabs my heart (sometimes it is so bad it actually feels like it is a real physical hurt).  The Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda witches haunt my every waking moment, and often the not waking moments.  I get to relive every bad moment in my life over and over again with increasing pain, regret, sadness and shame.  When the Black Dog arrives, I can feel him in the pit of my stomach, he doesn’t just ride on my back, he becomes an actual part of me, on a cellular level, he taints all the things that should be good, he makes everything so…. not good.”

So there is the Black Dog for me… and a lot of the above is probably on a good day.

Somedays I see the Black Dog hanging around in the back paddock and can scare him off.  Other days he attacks unexpectedly from my blind side with such ferocity and viciousness that there is not escape.  Some days getting out of bed in not an option.

I’ve slammed the cymbals together now and everyone is looking.  I don’t know if the noise of those cymbals scares off the Black Dog, but I know sometimes, banging a couple of things together just makes you feel better for not reason.

Maybe, being a better man, is sometimes, just about being able to tolerate yourself, so that later, you get to like yourself, then learn to love yourself..  and, that’s probably okay.

Better on the Riverbank

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I am really good at revenge. I suppose what I am saying is that revenge is really good at wrecking my life!!! I can consume myself in the company of the three Evil Witches – ‘Woulda’, ‘Shoulda’ and ‘Coulda’. But, they are just the ruminations of the past; the future is where real feelings of revenge can be placed with the Evil Warlock “Gunna’. My greatest gunna, is revenge.

But, I noticed a while back (before I became the all knowing mindful sea of tranquility I am today….?) that pursuing the future with Warlock Gunna was perhaps making me a little bitter. It is when I changed my mantra to:

“If you sit on the riverbank long enough, eventually the bodies of your enemies will come floating by” (Sorry, the closest citation I can get for this is an ‘ancient Japanese proverb’)

I decided that this was a good course of action and it actually involved doing nothing with a potentially vicious outcome. Historically the doing nothing part of revenge had not been my strong point and I had destroyed work environments, relationships and even a family (my own) in the activity of revenge and vengeance (well I thought at the time there was a degree of vengeance but most times it was revenge and it involved all consuming anger – and fuck the consequences… sad thinking about it now?).

So, I began to sit on the riverbank and wait. I was vigilant. What if someone missed something – it wasn’t going to be me. I was also pretty obsessed and imaginative about how my enemies would eventually end up in the river. Imagining the demise of my enemies was a good way to fill a few minutes of my day, or hours, or the entire day, or a week, month, year, or come to think of it, a life…….

Then something happened during my all consuming ruminating (which of course was better than the actual pursuit of my revenge because not doing anything and just waiting of course, was making me such a better man – outwardly anyway.)

… a friend came by and gave me a fishing rod.

I thought this was a good idea as I could use it to pull the bodies of my enemies over to the side of the riverbank so that I could see what their final agony was – which I hoped was prolonged and painful.

I didn’t do anything with the fishing rod at first, it just lay next to me all day. I couldn’t fish at that time, I was too busy; I had to be vigilant and watch for those bodies. Be under no misapprehension I was dedicated to this. I knew happiness would come from their pain (this never really quite sat right with me, but I had to put any thoughts of leniency out of my head, no weakness here! They had to pay, I had been wronged by them, I can’t remember all the specifics, but, that didn’t matter, whatever happened to them they deserved and I was going to be there to watch!)

Sometimes you do something for no reason, sometimes it is because you have to, sometimes it is because you need to, and sometimes it is just because now, in this place, at this time, it is the right time to do it. One day, I thought, for no reason, i would give the fishing rod a go. I picked that fishing rod up… and used it to just fish.

I did this a couple of times. Then I did it a lot. Then I found myself at the riverbank with the primary aim of fishing. I don’t think I actually caught very much, I don’t think that in the end I was even baiting the hooks; I just liked sitting on the riverbank. There was no purpose to it. I would sometimes think of my enemies, but they weren’t there, then, and I was fishing. I wasn’t even really waiting for my enemies anymore, as a matter of fact I started to notice that my friends used the river quite a bit and when they went past I would often wave to them; I also noticed all the other things around me on the riverbank, the birds, the small lizards, which would pop out, spy me and run away again. I noticed the movement of the sun during the day and how the wonderful river gum I sat under, cast a majestic shadow throughout the day that up until now, I had not notice, canopied the place I had been sitting for so long.

The other day, I went down to the riverbank. I didn’t go for any reason, I just went. And I sat there for a while. I didn’t think about too much. I didn’t think about my enemies, they weren’t there, and may possibly never be there. I did notice, that I was at the riverbank. I did notice what it really felt like to be at the riverbank.

And then I went home, I think, a better man.

I suppose the above should have been the end of this post.  But, I just have one more moment to write about.  It is the moment in the picture above.  It is actually the moment, my wife took me to the riverbank (both figuratively and literally), it was the moment in my real life that I picked up the fishing rod, and, can I say, it helps if you have a glass of wine in your hand, you’re with the one you love and one of the most beautiful sunsets you have ever seen is in the background.

Every time I think about that moment, I get that, NOW, all over again.  I made a new memory and feelings for my home (see Better Homes).

I think, sitting on the riverbank, can just be about, sitting on the riverbank.

Better Simple

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Yesterday I was commenting to a mate that sometimes it is all too hard and too complicated to bother doing half the stuff we have to do just to survive in modern society.

In my last job the boss said one of his things was, ‘don’t make it too complicated – keep in simple’.  Funnily enough in that job we did that and got the job done.  The down side was that because we didn’t create any fuss, demand additional money, people, resources, complain at every meeting and constantly bitch about how hard we were working…. no one noticed. In that job, what was a great strategy, faded into non-existence because it had actually got the job done, without fuss (oh the irony!)

I started to think about the complexity of things.

I know there are a lot of complex things in the world, and lots of complex things need to be done in life (bringing up kids is no walk in the park!), but…..

I am sure that most people don’t want it to be that hard, yet ‘those people’ are often the ones that are making it hard.  It is a bit like, it is only hard if I have to do it, but, it is not hard if you have to do it; do you know why? because you have to do it, it’s not me.

When a person is requiring you to do things a difficult way, they will justify this as reasonable because that is ‘the process’ (I’m sorry but you can’t have the refund etc etc etc, until you complete this form which of course requires information you don’t have with you – and a DNA sample – all of which you have to travel home to get, again…. you can of course fill out the form on line but that will require you sign up for a new account requiring the verification of identity which you can only do ‘in store’…. fucking kill me!)

Where was I….

…. this is the process or their job, or they don’t make the rules and they have been told it must be done that way (have you ever said these things and realised how stupid and obstructionary you sound – probably not).  In addition, when you explain the illogical nature of what they are asking, they mostly can not understand what you are talking about.  They don’t know why it is stupid, unnecessary. More often than not, they can not even explain what happens next and why you are doing it in the first place…. is this you, it has been me.

It is usually, if they can not explain why they want you do some obscure process usually for the age old reason of modern logic which is, because that is the way It has always been done.

Is the entire world going insane and not actually realising it, because insane (complicated) is the new NORMAL.

I think being a better man means I will be the one that doesn’t do this anymore. I don’t think I want to be ‘those people’ or the infamous ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are – perhaps I am they?). But, I suspect I will have to notice I am doing it first……

 

Better Naked

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The heading of this post is much like the email you receive from your boss or someone else in the office with the subject line “Free Beer”. It has nothing to do with free beer but does get your attention.

In actual fact this post does relate to the subject line, just not in the kind of naked that one would expect.

I am taking about being naked on the internet. Not, naked like a ‘sexting’ with pictures or the teen photographing themselves in the bedroom of there parents house for the love of their life boy/girlfriend of a whole three weeks now, where that private photograph follows them for the rest of their lives including their first job interview kind of naked (longs sentence, sorry…. take a deep breath now if you are reading out loud…) but, the kind of naked as in being out there completely exposed. I am thinking this is what I am doing with this blog. I am not sure if that is what I want to do?

I just read a couple of older posts out loud to my wife and as I was reading them I was thinking that perhaps I sound a little insane. But, the post was really what I was thinking at the time, which was the purpose and point of the post. My blog is about getting my ideas, thoughts, opinions down and putting them somewhere other than my Journal. But, is ‘out there’ the place they should be. Do I really want you to see me, as me, when I am having a fair bit of trouble actually finding me at the best of times.

Plus, is all this just a bit to pretentious and too self indulgent…. Yes, has to be the answer, I give myself.

So as I am putting it out there, when I am putting my ideas and thoughts out there, I am also putting myself out there….. Naked. Is that what I want.

Well, look at this this way. I know that in theory that is what I am doing, but in reality that is not happening now, because no one is reading my blog, because I haven’t put myself out there yet. That is the Catch 22 I am living with this blog at the moment. I am truly, at this time, writing to myself and the one friend who visited the site for a critique… And then went on with their life and I am pretty sure hasn’t visited since…. But, knowing I am writing in a public forum where eventually someone will read what I have written….. And I have no control as to who that will be (other than the about 300 spam posts which I have blocked and appear now to have stopped!)

But, I must be hoping that people will eventually read my blog, or otherwise why would I be writing it…. See, it is happening already, you are finding out my secrets.

Perhaps it is not about being naked that troubles me (although getting the naked me, standing in the middle if the road for all to see mental picture out of my head will be a problem) it is, can I accept the reflections I might receive from the world…. Some may be too true… Or some may be distortions like the fat and skinny mirrors at the Show.

Maybe the reflections are only in the eye of the beholder.

I want to ramble about how I don’t want this blog to be subjected to the toxic attacks of internet trolls (whatever they really are – does an internet troll call themselves an internet troll…. Do they have to be short?) and for it to not be about me being naked, but me being naked and laughed at, and ridiculed, and bullied, and embarrassed….

So why go there, or actually here… At this blog?

It may not be about being naked, it might just be about not hiding anymore.

Being a better man, unfortunately can not be done in a bubble. Life goes on, and I suppose being a better man is like the tree that falls in the forest….. If I am just a better man to myself, would anyone hear?

Do you mind, if just for a while, I keep my clothes on, we don’t necessarily have to go all the way, we can just sit here and talk, and perhaps cuddle….. We’ll see how things develop from there. If it doesn’t work out, I suppose one of us can just leave….

Better at Happy

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I am writing this blog entry live as I am teaching myself about now…. That is noticing now and doing something about it… That would be noticing it!!!

I am happy.

I have tried to consider what it is like to be naked in the world (and it just occurred to me that is the way we come in and go out) in a previous blog and I suppose this is me getting my gear off.

I am happy.

I am realising this in a country town in South Australia while I am on holidays with my wife. We are doing nothing special other then sitting around after having a day out driving around the area (and while I was doing this I realise I had become my parents!!) and now after putting the aerial on the caravan (again I can’t believe I have a caravan!!!) so that my wife can watch X factor, I realised…. I am happy.

The word may end tomorrow, or we could just have another fight with the kids about drinking and tattooing, but, NOW, I am happy.

Take a moment, sometime, anytime, and look at your life, for what it really is, and probably, you too are happy, it is okay and alright….. If not run, really run, really hard until you find a place to rest. Then consider again, after your run, are you happy.

None of this is mine to consider for you, but, don’t be unhappy if you can not find that moment, any moment, in any day, to be naked and say….

I am happy…. Now.