.#6

I once told a girl on the train she had a nice smile.

I think we should all try and compliment at least one person per day, it's too easy to do it and I'm sure it makes that persons' day.

the truth of reality is present in my initial statement.
"I once..."
The fact that I can remember that is a great portrait of what our current world is like.
We all sit in separate seats on the bus, no-one talks to each other.

There is so little a sense of community.
Tell someone you like their smile.
What are you scared of?
Fear?

Fear is nothing.

Good hair day. #5

Time has not been my friend as of recent.

I write this before I sleep tonight, from the comfort of my bed in hope my thoughts will go out and infest your minds.

I checked into a hotel two nights ago, I drove, I packed my bags for a night out, I ordered roomservice for breakfast. I looked and felt good.
I have no idea if this is just me or a global thought, but I look good - I feel good.

So when I broke it down, I realised that I can say that almost 99% of the time we are trying to look good for other people. That's all we're ever doing.

Whether it comes down to our hairstyle, fashion sense, style of music, which instruments we can play, that you may be a 'reader'. What your profile picture looks like, what your status on facebook is, who you're talking to.
Many of the above labels we can relay down to 'personal preference' but the truth is that all these preferences are aimed towards what we believe to be 'cool', the most 'attractive' in our social spotlight.
Are you the same to a person you just met as you are to people you've known forever?
You're not?
You're trying to look good.

So as a part of my blogging experience I've tried to even out the plain of what is truly me, and how I'm trying to portray myself.

A friend far more intelligent than I once explained a concept to me through the How I met Your Mother characters.
Ted, Marshall, and Barney Stinson.

Barney Stinson is the raw part of our characters, our 'unedited' animal instinct like identity.
"That girl/guy looks hot, I want to have sex with her/him"
is an abrupt example.

Then you have Marshall who is more like the moral and ethical part of our identity. Continuing with the example above
"She / He looks hot and I want to have sex with him/her but morally sex with someone a stranger isn't acceptable and I may look stupid if I approach him/her"

And then you get to Ted Moseby who is the combination of the two, and essentially, the person you want to portray yourself as
"She / He looks hot and I want to have sex with him/her but that's not socially acceptable to approach in that manner so I'll just buy her a drink and we'll chat about the latest book I read and our musical interests because that's the kind of person I want to come off as."

Ted Moseby is essentially who we all become. The combination of our ethics, against what we want and what's socially acceptable.

I can't think of a million example, but I'm sure we can all agree,
We could all think of many little examples in our lives where we do things in attempt to 'look good' towards other people.

I apologize for this poorly written post.
I'll finish with a few thoughts.

- I think that I'm able to do anything or understand any other persons action if I can rationalise it.
I may not agree with it, but If i can see how that person thinks and can rationalise the thought pattern, then it's understandable.

-When you think in your head, you think in english right? So without language, how would you ever think. We're bound by our language and it changes the way we understand everything. My father once told me, "Sometimes by saying things we change the meaning of them. You're true emotion or the way you feel  about something may be one way, but when explaining it to someone it changes the meaning of it by restricting it to the language you know/use. So sometimes it's just best to say nothing at all."

My last blog wasn't written from a coffe shop in the city overlooking the harbour.
I just wanted to look good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve0ry7jV5hg

Ritual. #4

I had a brilliant idea in the shower last night.

I would start writing my blog from circular quay before work each morning, coffee in hand - sydney harbour in full view. An enchanting idea yes?

Incorrect.

By 'towel' time I had stumbled across the notion that this idea was good in essence, but over time would become monotonous.

I'm a real 'realist' over 'idealist' but I fall into that category from time to time,
If the above example isn't enough for you,

I used to want to be rich, and drive my nice car to the city CBD where I had my own parking spot, and get out of my car in my nice suit and into my office where I did...

I had no idea.
The substance part of my life, the aspect which might be considered as 'success' was totally missing from the equation.

It seems to me that our social paradigm has done us a good one.
We're caught up in this dream of the future, and our measurement tools seem to be a little bit off.
How do we define success? The cut of a man's suit?
His net worth?
Yearly salary?

Dare I say it,

Happiness.

That's my belief, and to avoid the cliche I want to explain it further, let's look at success.

Who defined success? Is there a book which transcends man-kind that defined how we measure and look at success. If not, the theory of succes defined by our social paradigm is just one man's opinion.

I have an opinion.

How about we call success happiness.

Readers, why do you want to be rich? even if you don't admit it I'm sure you do.
But why?
Follow the logic in your head, whatever road it may take you down, but I'm sure the end result is to be happy.

Someone once told me 'if you're looking for happiness, remember the last time you went out with your friends'
For most of us I doubt that 'outing' cost us all the riches in the world.

Being taught from a young age that success is what university you get into, what course you do, how well you dress, what you look like.
The criteria is endless.

Among all this waffle, I have tried to get a point across.
- walk to your own beat.
- do what makes you happy.
- live to succeed by your own definition.

So to tie this up, that idea of drinking a coffee by the harbour and writing a blog isn't my reality. It's just a  thought from our social paradigm, dwarfed in nature by my analogy of success and happiness, but just as prevalent in my daily life.



As a blogger sometimes it seems like my opinions are going to be under constant judgement and that my ideas and theories exempt me from society.
These ideas and theories are just as real to me, except I acknowledge them.

So for the first and last time, I'll take in the view of the harbour and take my last sip of coffee before heading off back into the rat race.

Because who doesn't like a little coffee and harbour views before work?


p.s. I've decided to add youtube links at the bottom of my posts, so you can feel the same way i felt when i wrote this. Music controls emotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdbvGgPPiw

Guitars make me happy.

The Origami man. #3

My manager was born on a farm.
Being a city kid I've been raised in a 'quick' environment.
I would never want to move to a farm.

My manager and I had a  discussion on the bus back from work about why each place was preferable to the other.

He asked me why I lived in the city,
-cultural diversity?
-sheer amount of people?
-availability of diverse resources?

The underlying theme there would be surprises.
I don't know everything about this city yet, nor the world. The idea of living in a country town to me seems like a monotonous and lonely 'slow' environment.
To my manager hone of his benefits was described as 'you don't have to see anyone for a week, until you get some groceries'
Probably not a positive for me.

So we had different views and I think he felt i didn't see the value in his opinion.
His opinion is just as valid as mine? Nothing makes mine better.

So I explained the origami man.

Everyone starts off as a square piece of origami paper, lets say it's green for visualisation purposes.
So each experience and input in our life, our cultures, upbringing, geographic positioning (like in the story above) an infinite more inputs are like creases on our piece of paper.

At the end of the day we fold up into this man, and continually evolve, so we unfold and re-fold into something new, we are ever-changing. Folding and unfolding.

But we can never erase those first creases.
All those past creases are still in the final result of us, and as a result we look different, and understand and see everything differently.

MY REALITY is not yours.
You can't even comprehend my reality, and nor can I yours.

My blog is the origami time line.

What's your timeline?

Opinions. #2.

These are my opinions, so whatever I say may be right or it may be wrong.
I may come off naive or like I'm talking shit,
You may take something away from this or you may not.
Regardless, my opinions are my understanding of the world around me, my reality.
Your opinions are the same.
These concepts are true to me.

If you disagree, share your concepts with me.
Discussion is healthy.

Ants. #1

People are like ants.
During the day we all leave our houses and get out into the world and do shit,
make money, learn shit, sell shit, buy shit. Most of the shit we do we did the day before, and will do again tomorrow.
But why are we doing all this shit.
Then we go home at night to our houses and go to sleep and get up and do more of the same shit we did the day before and make more money to get more stuff to put in our house that night so we can sleep easy and do it again.
Building a colony is just as productive as all the nothingness we do.
Lot's of shit happens and we add meaning to it.

We just seem to leave our houses and go back to them.
Why?

This is my blog, for thoughts on reality, psychology, my understanding of anything,
It is a place to think about what is actually going on.
I will call it The Origami time line. And these are my opinions.