Loss of the parent

There is nothing more ridiculously tragic than a mother of beautiful children taking her own life. A friend's mother did this, all those years ago, two years before my own father died. Way back in the 1960s, she in Switzerland and he in London. She died due to unbearable depression it was eventually revealed. He died due to heart failure. And another death in the family, maybe suicide. They all died due to drugs, mainly medical.

We are not allowed to talk about suicide. It is too harsh to remind ourselves how fragile a fabric life really is - because our minds have evolved a failsafe - so long as we keep our wits about us, life is full of possibility. Fear of the other side and fate helps hold us back from the edge, from that potentially empty void of nothing.

As tragic as suicide is, it is more than just a moment of decision. It more likely follows much intellectual processing and when the instrument of thinking is not functional, either damaged so much there is no future without pain (P addiction and severe speed addiction cause brain damage) or shut down (addiction to barbiturates is a slippery slides into an increased risk of heart failure) there seems no solution.

The death of a parent has many side-effects. It is something that people misunderstand, and overlay their own supposed grief saying things like "you have to be so angry about that, it sucks!". You do not have to be angry. You just have to live anyway.

After many years, I have learned that Humans are indeed fragile in many ways. They survive due to an inner belief in the happy place to which the mind returns. (And good food and exercise).

It is not due to any ability to worry or be concerned. If you drop everything to be with your children, and this should normally apply to fathers too, then so be it. The world can turn without you a couple of times.

Our social order should change so it does not work against our wise evolutionary need - it is not rational to expect a parent to put others before their children. It is ugly and insane. Mental and physical health are both far more important than income and investment.

NZ Herald - Deborah Hill Cone article

Galaxies and Black Holes

Where do galaxies come from? It seems plausible that galaxies do indeed come from the gathering momentum in a climactic gravitational tendency that black holes very slowly develop by gravitational induction. The motion of the structure counters the gravity of the black hole, keeping it relatively small and also keeps the black hole from imploding. Maybe the galaxy is the reaction to the black hole's gradual growth.

'artist'

Am not really used to "being an artist" but it seems that is indeed what I am doing with this. "Popular" I am not; but that seems to be a realm inhabited by those prepared to strike a common chord with the dull masses; wish I could sometimes just relate more successfully; then confidence would perhaps follow naturally.

Forced confidence has no value to me. Sure, I can act a role in the world. It is understanding the "me" that is trying to drive my life forward to something I can say was "on my list" later that seems frustrating. It is like flying kites - you can spend thousands on a real fancy kite, but at the other end of the string, it is really much the same feat as flying any kite. You are still at the whim of the weather.

best lyrics in the world

Sir Ian

Best show this year was King Lear with Sir Ian McKellan in the lead.

A grand performance. A tour de force/

Days

Taking things the wrong way. Hearing one thing, understanding it and thinking something else. Those are the days to let the phone answer itself, listen to music. Listen back to the year 2000 - was in London following the antics of David Bowie and joined bowienet - found my way to tickets for concerts and was in an online chat session live - with him talking to a sort of electronic teletype of anon messages. Its very funny. He even takes a turn as a DJ in a segement called "Master of Disaster" which was apparently the CD he gave away to someone he called Bates. Fan's identities were completely hidden so as to be "fair when David selected questions", and that he found very frustrating. "Next times, its names. This is crap," he said something like and that and it nicely introduces my next subject. Social networking.

From this very early exposure - to the simple idea that maybe everyone hiding their identities on the internet for fear of intrusion; to - everyone reaching out and making 30,000 "friends" on their favourite social networking blog, degrees of exposure seem to be irrelevant to any fear of exposure to internet nasties - people want to sell their wares and they will risk everything to do so. But what these sites pretend to be are "social networks". Nobody actually has as many friends as some sites pretend.

I got a facebook invite from someone whom I have nothing against but when I knew them it was because of another - you probably do not need more detail here - but my reason for not answering them was more the brand of the social network. But why should I trust a dangerous Murdoch-owned myspace over and above a Microsoft-future-proofed-secure facebook?

The reason is that I am able to show a range of copyright material without risk that any ownership is transferred. Read the Terms and Conditions. And just like my recordings of someone famous remain a personal momento subject to copyright of another - so do the Terms and Conditions of major websites. Go read them. They also change.

No, that is not a rational reason to reject fb out of hand. Not that I have, but I reserve its use for business, only.

The divisions of a person are more pronounced due to the internet. It provides a forum of selves - and the plethora of ways to hang your shingle is both pervasive and also nothing more than a huge fabric that we expect as a freedom and it is providing we drive it ourselves.

The demise of social networking is not a demise but its incorporation as wigets makes sites like myspace only a conduit to another commodity. This is the revolution - social widgets - mark my words.

Back back to real life. Flyers for the event are vanishing into the hands of the public. The design seems to be working. Now to produce a TVC and alert the media.

New and old, that is how to get there in the end.

new blog

new blog for me on bebo