It's all about the journey

'Everyone's on a journey these days' writes John Elder in the Sunday Age this week, as he discusses the prevalence of the term in modern lingo. Several well known thinkers weigh into the discussion with their own perceptions of the use of the word - from a comparison with "aspirational voters and their ambitions", to a way to make sense of enduring hardship.

I often think of my life and discoveries as a journey, and the whole article got me to wondering why. Going through the many levels of education that I've encountered, I had a general sense of waiting for the world to start, for my life to start. Things always seemed to be happening while I was waiting for something else to really kick in. Some time in my mid-20s (and still enrolled as a full time student), I realised that there wasn't going to be any grand starting moment, where someone handed me a key and I opened the door to the rest of my life. Life was now, and I had better start actually paying attention to it. That life that I'd been thinking of as being fixed in a place in the future had actually been going on all around me, while I was patiently waiting to grow up. There was no actual destination, life was unfolding around me as I thought about it.

To me, the key features of a journey are the things that happen along the way. A journey in my mind has no need of a final end point, it continues on for as long as you let it. It's not a trip, or a visit or an outing - it's a journey, alluding that the path is greater than the destination. When we journey through the first three dimensions, it is easy to stand still in one place and assume a destination has been reached, but it would be sad to think that nothing had happened along the way. So now, as we all journey through the fourth dimension, do we ever reach a place where we might stand still in time? This constant movement is for me the essence of life. My greatest fear is standing still while the current washes around me, and watching the world go past. The journey is in fact all there is. It's no wonder that we're suddenly so pre-occupied with the word. Travel, movement, change, new thoughts, new ideas, new activities, they're all a part of the journey.

If we're constantly traveling, how can we ignore the journey? One of life's great lessons is to stop and smell the roses, to appreciate the moments as you find them, rather than dismissing them in favour of the next - living in the moment. Perhaps that is the key to it after all, if we think about the journey, where we have come from, to where we are, and pay attention to all of its parts we allow ourselves to appreciate the importance and beauty of each moment.

So despite journey being the new word of the decade, I'm sticking with it. I'm along for the ride and I'm not getting off - this journey has no destination, and I think that's what makes it the most exciting.

Deadlines seem to you to be of relative, rather than absolute, importance

The title of this post was one of many questions in myers briggs type personality test I saw recently. Ironically, without hesitation I answered yes. To the frustration of many people in my life, I'm not exactly what you'd call punctual. That would be one of the many reasons that I'm writing a "wrap-up of 2009, start again 2010" type blog post 2 weeks into the new year.

For three years in a row I made the same New Years resolutions without managing to ever keep one of them. The first was to lose 5kg (actually I think that had been a standing resolution since I was about 15, when I didn't actually need to lose 5kg). The second was to learn to speak Italian (which I did attempt one of the years). The third was to finish my PhD. So after 3 years of consistently failing, in 2009 I thought it was time to mix things up again. I abandoned all other resolutions, and summed it all up with one statement. "to not to do anything that I don't want someone* to find out about". As it went, there were only 2 incidents where I slipped up, and since they're things I don't want someone to find out about, I won't mention what they were here. Overall, I think 2 slip-ups in 365 days, counts as a success.

So 2010, and the semi-pointless task of thinking up new resolutions is back. Given my penchant for repeating resolutions it's not surprising that I've decided to maintain the same resolution this year. I think once I manage to keep it for 3 years in a row, I might just call it my life motto, although that being the case, it's going to need to be phrased a little better.

*excluding speed cameras and law enforcement officers

hands up if you have not had sex with someone sitting at this table...

Some years ago I was privileged enough to find myself hosting a radio show on Radio Adelaide under the guise of uncovering interesting things about Adelaide that not many people knew. Our first show was devoted to something that everyone already knows, and at the time seemed to be reverberating through our existence - the two and half degrees of separation between everyone living in Adelaide. We didn't research particularly well - there was no facebook back then to easily get statistics on who knew who - we figured on it being a fairly well established fact and discussed what it meant to us and our lives.

Six or seven years on, Adelaide being highly interconnected had stopped being a revelation and had become the status quo. It wasn't exactly surprising to find people who knew people who knew you, it was more expected than not. Feeling somewhat claustrophobic within the tangle of interconnections, and finding the start of an exciting new world just 8 hours drive away, I realised it was time to move on. Time to break free of the circles I'd grown up in and move to the bigger playground, where hopefully the swings would be more exciting, the monkey bars high enough that my feet didn't scrape the ground and where there'd be a whole bunch of new kids who didn't all know each other already.

The prospect was exciting and a little frightening - I knew a bunch of people , in a whole lot of different circles, but nothing as intertwined as the Venn Diagram I was leaving behind me. The thought of being able to go out and know no one at the party was invigorating. So I came and I met people, I socialised, I had a whole lot of fun. I met people through different avenues, at different parties, under different circumstances.

Slowly though, the circles started to tighten. People I thought were in entirely different circles were suddenly old friends, people who didn't know each other before I arrived became the best of friends, and I found myself struggling to describe who these new people were to the old circles back home. It's not a bad thing at all, just an interesting realisation, the world is a small place, you create your own circles, like attracts like, and you're drawn to the same people who are drawn to each other.

So here I am a year later, and I think I might have been spending too much time on the one piece of play equipment. Sitting around outside with a big group of people at the Black Cat on Brunswick St a friend of mine looked around and said "Hands up if you haven't had sex with someone sitting at this table". One person put their hand up. Welcome back to Adelaide circa 1999.

A little late, a little memory

I don’t want to ever forget this afternoon. I sat on the porch couch in the sun, drinking cider, smoking, reading Kerouac and listening to Bowie. As if that wasn’t fulfilling enough, as I sat out there a beautiful young girl walked past and handed me the most amazing looking pink blossoms. That completely random act made me feel so special, so pleased. I felt rewarded for taking time out to myself, to sit and engross myself in sweetness, all on my own. I know those moments are rare, the rare combination of sunshine and time out, and the will to sit and be peaceful doesn’t come as often as it should. I know that this period of my life is special; there will be times when my life is full of beautiful action, busy and hectic, yet still wonderful I’m sure. For now, I can appreciate the stillness, the languid afternoon, with the sun slowly melting through the trees, time to contemplate and reflect. The simple joy of reading words so beautifully put, images conjured and tales told as if they were playing out before me, in the same delicate slowness that they were witnessed. Oh, the joy of reading, tripping over the words as they saunter past, listening softly to the heartbeats, the moments of the characters, told, not to drive towards some suspenseful ending, but just to be told, and to be relished. Conjuring the memories of childhood and adolescence, feeling their emotions, and remembering my own stories like these. Stories that are by far more important to the participant than the observer, but throwing the reader into the participant’s pulsating memory, allows them re-witness the beauty of life over and over. Life is beautiful, its moments pass by so quickly, it is important to stop and notice them. Hold them briefly and preserve their memories. Please always let me remember the beauty of the sun shining through the plane trees on Rathdowne Street, framing the illuminated clouds in the azure sky, the moments of peace and stillness and the freedom of having time to read in my own company warmed by the sun, with the taste of cider on my lips. I could quite possibly be the luckiest girl in the world. At moments like these I wonder whether I could ask for anything more.

This blog was supposed to be about life...

...but this is too good to leave out.

Found this comic on xkcd.com today, then continued on to find this article.

Hover your mouse over the comic for the full effect.

Did I mention I love the internet?

Woe is Tuesday (aka Pimp my Monday)

My relationship with Tuesday has had its ups and downs. In fact it's possible to say that Tuesday and I have never really seen eye to eye, until just recently that is. In the past Tuesday has been tough, really tough. The excitement of Monday and a new week beginning is over, you've already discussed the follies of the weekend with co-workers, and most weeks, nothing thrilling has happened since yesterday afternoon.* The tedium of the week has set in. Unfortunately, on Tuesday morning, you still have another 4 days of it to go. A whole 4 days - that's practically forever. 4 more days of getting up early, 4 more days of work before the weekend, 4 more days of being sensible. Four. More. Days. Not to mention that sneaky little problem of the fun from the weekend really catching up with you - you can ride into Monday with a little bit of sparkle still left in your step, but it's Tuesday when you really start to suffer.

Recently however, Tuesday and I seem to have sorted out our differences, she has become somewhat the teacher's pet of weekdays. It might partly be because I've shifted my working hours slightly and no longer rise at 6am (I really hate early mornings), but I think our current rapport has grown from new Tuesday night activities, the anticipation of which manages to get me through the tedium of the working day. In fact the anticipation of my weekly rendezvous with Tuesday, boosts me through Monday, leaving me feeling as joyous as if I were coming up to Friday, a long time favourite.

So it got me to thinking - maybe all our troubled weekday relationships can be repaired. While Monday and I have enjoyed a cordial interaction thus far, I'm aware of many who don't feel the same way about her. So in their honour (and having fixed my one broken weekday relationship) I've been trying to come up with other ways to avoid wanting to break-up with Monday every time she comes around. So far I've thought of:** Cheap Monday dinner at the pub; some kind of exciting new activity like rock-climbing, jewelery making, painting, or dancing classes; cheap Monday movies; Monday spa time or even Monday massage. Leave your suggestions in the comments section, perhaps we'll find a way to kick Mondayitis to the curb once and for all.

Oh, and I know I may have picked unfairly on poor old Monday, she does get a rough ride. If your least favourite day of the week is another, feel free to substitute.

* Television does not count as something to talk about. Especially if it was last night's episode of Big Brother/Australian Idol/whatever mindless crap reality program is spewing forth this month. Exceptions might include a really fascinating documentary on string theory, anthropology or the meaning of life.

**Tried really hard to not make this sound like a list that you might find in Cosmo or FHM. Not sure that I've been successful. Actually, I probably didn't try that hard, but I did try at least a little bit.

How old am I really?

Read an article in today's Age by someone claiming to have lived their entire life with the internet. I still remember life without the internet. A lot of it. I even remember life before mobile phones. By my recollection the internet wasn't particularly widespread in Australia before 1995, I even remember the weird squelchy noises of dial-up, internet chat before facebook or msn, and the day that someone told me there was this crazy new search engine called google that was way better than anything else, and I thought "gee that's cool, they've named it the same as the number 10^100". I wonder if anyone still knows what a googol is? I'm still waiting for the new Google product called Googleplex. Even if it would be impossible to ever write the number down.

Anyway I digress. My main point was:

Do they let 14 year olds write in the paper these days?