Fish Out of Order, Daily Edition - Unabashedly feeding my writing habit

September 6, 2010

Listing the bad things

I am, as I sometimes do, despairing. So, I am composing a list to cheer myself up.

Not a list of good things. No – after all, once you write down an appointment, isn’t that license for your brain to totally eradicate it from your memory, rendering you helpless when you are unable to access your appointment-recording device? If I write down the good things, won’t that mean I will promptly forget them?

So then, write down bad things! Let’s all erase the badness together, mina!

The shopping list of disappointment

Being lost in thought while halfway across the train tracks, and then have your heart leap into your mouth when the train crossing signal switches on.

Hearing multi-lingual people speak a few words in a non-native tongue even though no one present understands it. You think they are being pretentious. Then you learn a second language. You realise you want to use it all the time in order to practise - but don't because you'd feel like a hypocrite.

Waking up in the morning and having a big stretch to relieve the tension in your muscles - the first few wonderful seconds are erased when it suddenly creates a painful crick in your neck.

Watching the guy who sexually harassed three separate women continue to be employed, but the one who refused to place his manager on a pedestal is fired. And the one who wore eccentric (but completely appropriate) clothing who isn't interested in conversations about mortgages or children is fired. And the one who was more popular than his boss is fired. No wait, that last one is incorrect. He was "mutually dismissed" (he agreed to leave rather than to continue to make his boss look bad. True story.)

Ordering all 7 volumes of a series, and having #2-#7 delivered within a week, but waiting for several more weeks for a copy of #1 to appear.

Flies inside the house.

Knowing the reasons why something bad is happening, but being powerless to do anything to change them.

Watching your mother burn herself out working herself to the bone in her sixties, and being so broke you can't throw money at her so she doesn't have to any more.

Being too polite for your own good.

Getting a minor injury, then trying to be "tough" and exacerbating it to the point that something that would have taken you out for a few days takes you out for a few weeks/years/lives.

Hmmm. Didn't work. Don't feel any better. Guess I need to list more negative things I have encountered! :P

Posted by Wendy White

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September 3, 2010

A sole in synch

Today I walked ten metres behind a man whose footsteps echoed so loudly I winced. They rapped harshly against the concrete floor, sound bouncing off of the windows of the barber’s shop as we passed.

They were flat soles, unassuming shoes. To make a noise like that with such gentle shoes! He must be furious. I’m a fast walker (one eye on my book, one on passers-by, and not a single collision) but I slowed my pace. To catch up with someone so full of kinetic rage seemed a poor life decision.

As I slowed, a woman overtook me, nose buried in her flip-mirror, adjusting her blush.

Her footsteps were perfectly in synch with the man in front of me. Each stride matched. Each impact shared.

Her six-inch heels hammered into the ground.

And the student was enlightened.

Posted by Wendy White

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September 1, 2010

In the rain

Just stood under the bridge in this photograph and belted out a David Bowie song - http://youtu.be/9jg4ekLG9Zo

No one could hear me over all the rain pouring down around the bridge. And there weren’t any other pedestrians walking by. It was just me and the rain.

I feel most alive on rainy days. Especially when I am out in the middle of them. And yet I live in one of the driest cities in the world. Am I drawn to the rain because there is so little of it here? Or am I just living in the wrong place?

Posted by Wendy White

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September 1, 2010

Do I dare disturb the universe

(Image from the Powerhouse Museum collection)

Some T.S. Eliot quotes for you on this rainy day.

"There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not."

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

"For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."

"I am moved by fancies that are curled, around these images and cling, the notion of some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing."

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. “

"It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are...
...We must always take risks. That is our destiny..."

Posted by Wendy White

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August 30, 2010

Where ideas come from

Photograph credit: Empress of Insomnia by Annadriel

“The symptoms of hatching a good idea: despair, insomnia, irritability, mania...” – Alain de Botton

Insomnia has been my closest companion since I was a child. It makes living feel like freefall, every moment rushing past your ears and buffeting you upwards, upwards (but you keep falling all the same). There’s a parachute, and a string, and a number of things you plan on doing before you return to dirt. But you are strangely disconnected from the fall. It is as if you were your own camera crew, filming yourself dropping downwards, measuring the progress, capturing notable moments.

Insomnia is like living under an enchantment. It is a fanged nightly visitor that leaves you drained, waking unsettled and dishevelled. Except it doesn’t so much visit as occasionally go away. It is there, with you, every minute you are awake. When you lie in bed, eyes resolutely shut, uncomfortably aware of your surroundings, you aren’t waiting for a monster to come from the window or under the bed. You’re waiting for it to leave.

Insomnia. Despair. Irritability. Mania. You really can’t take them anywhere.

And yet – living with the monsters does come with advantages.

From conflict comes creativity. From pressure comes strength. You trade sleep for sentences, relaxation for revelation.

Sometimes it feels like my whole life is just one big idea, slowly forming. Or that I am one of the kinetically charged particles bouncing around inside this idea, never seeing the whole of it, but powering it from within.

Who has truly created anything without experiencing pain? Ideas come from friction. Ideas are not the candle we hold up to the night. Ideas are a fire fuelled by the darkness, the unknown.

As I lie awake at night, the darkness is all around me, but refuses to come inside. I lie, and I wait, and I think. I have a lot of time for thinking.

And at the edge of the darkness, the ideas come.

Posted by Wendy White

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August 27, 2010

I want you to dig

Original image from the Smithsonian collection - http://www.si.edu/termsofuse/

I added the part about digging though.

Because I want you to dig.

Posted by Wendy White

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August 26, 2010

I'm all for technological determinism, but...

I have some problems with this article. Saying that we "don't need to remember as much as a Neanderthal because [we] have a computer" is a flawed argument. Neanderthals were not carrying the equivalent of Wikipedia around in their heads. We have larger social circles than the Neanderthal had. We have highly specific skill-sets and bodies of knowledge.

Yes, humanity has specialised and within each of us is not the sum of all human knowledge - but I would say the size of a skull alone (Taylor mentions it has been decreasing over the last 30K years) does not indicate the complexity of the brain. Consider the use of tools and tactics some birds adapt, with their far smaller brains.

I would be very surprised if, on average, humans possess less stored knowledge and memory than Neanderthals. Taylor's work is interesting, and I'm always fascinated by discussions of how humans and technology influence each other. Still, he needs to address the flaws in his logic.

Also, he says here:

"There is no way to draw a definite philosophical boundary and say, here are the characteristics that are both necessary and sufficient to define a chair. The chair's meaning is linguistic and symbolic - a chair is a chair because we intend for it to be a chair and we use it in a particular way."

I would have thought that second sentence was the philosophical boundary for what "chair-ness" is. I think one fundamental problem I have with this article is I clearly have different understandings/definitions of some words and concepts compared to the researcher in question. Perhaps I am mistaking what he is implying with the quotes in this article.

However, I do love his closing paragraph;

"Now, you might think [the death of our sun is] a ridiculously long time away, but that's the kind of ridiculous timescale palaeoanthropologists think about. I look back 4 million years and see our emergence and our evolution and then I look forward 4 million years because those are the timescales I'm used to. And in the long run, humans will go extinct if we can't get off this planet. The only way out, ultimately, is up. The Tasmanians didn't have the kind of technology that would lead them there, but we do."

Something we can agree on!

Filed under // brains psychology technology

Posted by Wendy White

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August 24, 2010

Rockingham area - abandoned kittens

If you live in the Rockingham/Anchorage area, a dumped/lost mother cat has been found, but they cannot locate her kittens. She has lots of milk so we know they're out there somewhere.

The mother was found around Barossa/Fisher Streets. She is definitely not a stray. If anyone in the area has any idea about her owners or the location of the kittens please contact 9 Lives Cat Rescue on 0409587240.

Posted by Wendy White

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August 23, 2010

Apple! Plucking! BEAM!

I have just finished watching seasons 1, 2, 2.5 and 3 of a fantastic meta-textual, running-gag mindscrew of a social commentary show. So, my kind of series.

Example;

Schrödinger's cat episode

Itoshiki, a high school teacher, explains to his class the concept of the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment.

This leads into a surreal discussion of how it is "better not to know" some things that form a part of your life. A businessman walks into the conversation to show off the box he placed on his head ten years ago; "My hair was beginning to look a little thin, so I placed this box on my head! Now the possibilities are limitless! Underneath this box, I could have a full head of hair... or I could be bald. But I'll never have to find out!"

The examples get sillier and sillier, until they visit Itoshiki's older brother and his new wife. It turns out that his brother has decided to wed 'Schrödinger’s Wife'.

"As long as the box isn't opened, I can continue having multiple possibilities of my ideal wife!"

One of Itoshiki's students grows curious, though, and 'slips' with her pen-knife, cutting the part of the box obsuring the wife's left arm. Undearneath is revealed a hairy, muscular arm.

Itoshiki's brother: "Oh no! The possibilities for my wife are reduced!" *images of his potential wife are updated to include one hairy arm"

Student: Oh dear! I slipped again! *cuts off the box obscuring the right leg of the wife*

A shapely, fishnet-clad leg is revealed.

Itoshiki's brother: "Argh! The possibilities are reduced even further!"

The student slips again, and cuts the back of the box. Gigantic, building-sized wings unfurl from the back of 'Schrödinger’s Wife' and begin to destroy the roof of the house.

Itoshiki: (screaming while running out the door) "I don't think humanity is prepared to see your wife!"

This show is truly awesome.

Another great scene that appeals to my OCD nature:

Also, to get an idea of the mind-screw vibe of this show, check out one of 3.0's opening credits (they have several opening credit sequences for each season):

APPLE! PLUCKING! BEAM!

Filed under // apple plucking beam japan sayonara zetsubou sensei television what

Posted by Wendy White

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August 9, 2010

A Head Start

I joined a Toastmasters group a few weeks ago, and now I'm meant to present my first speech.

It has to be 4-6 minutes long, and reveal an aspect of your personality in the process. Listeners are meant to feel like they have gotten to know you, a little, by the end.

I have written my speech about how often my head impacted with the ground as a kid, and how fascinated I am by the brain.

I've just recorded myself reading my speech through entirely for the first time, in order to practise. You can listen to it here: