Sunday Silences …

Screenshot of Apple TV screensaver I suppose you’d call that function.

It’s Sunday morning here and quieter than I appreciate. It struck me earlier that while I’ve been alone much of the time for the last twenty years, I absolutely depend on people sounds in the background to feel I still belong in human society.

My apartment/unit is so well insulated that I don’t get any noise from my neighbours. A blessing in disguise. Heating the place, for example, is no trouble at all.

With the balcony doors open, I get noise from the bus interchange across the road… buses arriving and leaving.

With the wind from the south, there is plenty of action in the trees. Leaves rustling. The podium sports many leafy plants.

With the balcony doors open, I can hear crows at their business harvesting food from the rubbish at the shopping centre, and seeing off rivals.

But no people. No voices.

Down at groundlevel, at the front of the building, there will be a few people waiting for their Sunday pick ups and a dog walker or two starting or coming back from their jaunts.

I’ve been toying all week with the idea of joining the dog walkers. Or cat owners, if there are any. Or even a bird … budgie, cockatiel or cockatoo. Imagining scenarios of how that would be …

Meditative Art

Life has been challenging over this past week. Sometimes things happen that are difficult, if not impossible, to process. Such has been our …
Meditative Art

This post by Judith on https://artistcoveries.wordpress.com/ was a serendipitous find for me when I was casting about for a distraction from the on-going disaster that is the world out there. I had already weakened and thrown a train of the ongoing grief onto the page (previous post) when I recalled how soothing painting can be and thought that I should get back to it.

There’s nothing I can do about the ongoing train-wreck but keep myself sane and … I just don’t know what we as individuals can do.

Painting these miniatures my whole attention needs to go into every step of the process. They offer me three stages … I sketch, trace the important lines with black waterproof, and I paint. Six miniatures per A4 page, with two more to serve as a front door into the space and backdoor, or gate, out of the space.

Unfinished sketch of a corner of a living room. A few more elements before I can call it done. the flowers need a touch of color, for example. And so do the bricks in the fireplace. 10 x 9.5 cm or 4 x 3.7 inches.

Before I put pen to paper I need to set the scheme out, and it’s easy to make a mistake. As I did with this series. To put the booklet together with the least number of cuts and gluing, the six inner elements need to be positioned facing upward, facing downward, facing upward. That didn’t happen here:

… and I will need to do more cutting and more gluing to get a successful outcome. My fingers are crossed.

It’s Hard Work …

It’s hard work to stay well to say hi you good couple more days and I’ll be well again hard work to talk hard to live as if hoping is still worthwhile work. For my childrens children. And for all children

It’s hard work to hope with the deluge reaching and over-reaching and we’re all still standing in the ankle-deep sludge downstream, arguing.

So much oil under the bridge, so much coal floating downstream, so many poisons soaking into our soils no it’s all good we can make it tech will save us

So much worry, words words words, worry beads and plastic bangles plastic nodules. Nerdles accreting barnacles as they float wither weather wind-driven across an ocean of plastic film and ghosts of sea life

So many islands shores coasts mangroves maldives rocks and reefs atolls and bird sanctuaries buried

So much delay anxiety about the future deaths of children bombings wars steel splinters and torn molten metals looping and lunging

So many floaters that the dead shoal under the bridge where finally the ocean receives us and our molecules and receives our ashes and our atoms

The ocean? No more than an elemental soup

But our souls? Where will theywe rest?

Is there a purgatory wide deep aeonic enough to gather us all in to stew gestate lumpify petrify turn us into crystals of negated promise?

You see why it’s difficult to decide to be well?

Why it’s difficult to want to turn up? To say hi with a smiling face, make bright talk, a cheery welcome?

Covid

Finally have it. Four years of obsessive isolating and six vaccinations were not enough protection.

I got sloppy, I guess, went shopping for a new computer not wearing a mask. Couldn’t face talking hi tech through a mask.

Hopefully the vaccinations will help prevent a full blown attack, though I am in the highest category of danger, being old, sick and immune compromised.

Trying to get some anti virals now, there’s misundestanding between the med clinic and the pharmacy.

This Year Alone …

This year alone we’ll all spend the equivalent of 500 million years scrolling on social media.
(Collectively, the world spends 720 billion minutes a day using social media platforms. Over a full year, that adds up to more than 260 trillion minutes, or 500 million years of collective human time, according to a report from GWI, a consumer research company.)

This quote in a newsletter from Scott Pape, The Barefoot Investor.

Beggars belief, the numbers he quotes. see the whole article below.

Hi Rita,

There were two weeks in July 2012 that completely changed your life forever.

However, at the time you were blissfully unaware of what was going on.

(We all were.)

What happened?

Well, it all began when Facebook listed on the Stock Exchange, which was a total and utter disaster. Within a few months its shares had crashed by more than 54%.

Why?

At the time of its IPO (initial public offering), Facebook stated it had “no material revenue from mobile”. (Yes, in 2012 we were all checking our Facebook friend requests on our web browsers.)

Zuckerberg could see the writing on the wall. They were dead meat unless they got on mobile. And so, as legend has it, he pivoted the entire company to building a killer app – fast. He famously refused to have a meeting with anyone until they had presented him with what he wanted.

And in those few weeks the smartest behavioural psychologists and programmers in Silicon Valley created the very first social media app, something so powerful that it changed the course of history.

Seriously.

Let’s flip forward.

This year alone we’ll all spend the equivalent of 500 million years scrolling on social media.

(Collectively, the world spends 720 billion minutes a day using social media platforms. Over a full year, that adds up to more than 260 trillion minutes, or 500 million years of collective human time, according to a report from GWI, a consumer research company.)

In short, you’re spending way too much time on your phone, right?

Everyone is.

The Digital Australia 2024 Report by consumer intelligence company Meltwater shows that the average time users spend on TikTok is 42 hours and 13 minutes per month. Second place is YouTube, with the average user spending 21 hours and 36 minutes per month. And Aussies are some of the biggest users of Snapchat, with 17 hours across 619 individual sessions (!) per month. Facebook users spend an average of 20 hours and 15 minutes per month, and for Instagram it’s 11 hours and 45 minutes per month (which I thought would be higher, to be honest).

Is this a good use of your most precious asset?

Well, if you ask Mark Zuckerberg the answer is “Hell, yeah!”. Facebook’s profits were $US32 million in 2012 … and last year they were $US39,000 million.

Yet what about for the rest of us?

Well, Facebook interviewed eMarketer’s Ezra Palmer about the dramatically increased use of mobile, which is up 627% in the last four years alone. She glowingly described it as our “connected consciousness” and brushed aside the naysayers:

“If it were not a valuable way of interacting and being, we wouldn’t be doing it. Mobile is an extension of us … it’s a fundamental shift in our psychology … it’s one thing to look at the [daily usage] numbers, it’s another to think about the amazing ramifications of that”, she gushed.

Uh-huh.

Just like all those people at the casino wouldn’t be there if it weren’t a valuable way of being.

And let’s look at those amazing ramifications.

The rise of social media has coincided with an accelerating decline in teen mental health, and hospitalisations for self-harm have exploded, especially for young girls.

Not only are today’s kids more anxious, depressed and suicidal than in previous generations, they’re also getting dumber. Australian students are among the world’s biggest users of digital devices at school, yet academic results released in December showed teens have fallen a full academic year behind those who went to school in 2000s, according to the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA).

This all makes sense.

Social media (which has done another ‘pivot’, this time to 45-second viral videos) is the equivalent of junk food.

You wouldn’t spend upwards of 10 hours a day continuously gorging on highly processed junk food and expect to be healthy.

It’s the same for our mental health. You are what you eat … and what you scroll (and Zuckerberg is your personal chef serving us up dopamine-soaked donuts all day long).

Yet waving our fists at the tech giants is about as useful as blaming Macca’s for your kid eating Big Macs for breakfast.

We’re the parents, and we’re in charge.

And many of us have trained our children to see that a phone is the most important thing on earth. I’m ashamed to admit that at every milestone of my kids’ life – the day they were born, the day they took their first steps, the day they pedalled their first bike, and every birthday – they looked up and didn’t see my eyes … they saw the back of my phone as I yelled “Smile!”.

They also see Mum and Dad mindlessly scrolling on our phones while the world passes us by.

Again, what message do you think that sends them?

So I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.

First, if I want my kids to have a healthy relationship with technology, I need to model it myself. That means keeping my phone in a dish with my car keys and wallet at the front door – and leaving it there – so I can engage with my family without constant distraction.

Second, it’s my job to give our kids experiences they can’t get from screens.

Like what?

Like encouraging them to have friends over to hang out IRL (which is what kids actually want most). Or going on a family hike, to the beach, or to a sporting event. Or encouraging them to start their own little Barefoot Business (perhaps with a mate).

Now this sounds very aspirational, but how would you force yourself to actually do it?

Well, the fastest way would be to implement Screen Free Sundays. And that’s what my wife and I havedecided to trial with our family – starting this week.

Yes, we’re trying to put the internet back in the box, and live like it’s 2012!

Tread Your Own Path!

Much better than I could’ve said.

Plus, I overworked my shoulders today, can’t type.

Cheers, all.

Overdoing it led …

To catching a bug

Which led to a respiratory inflammation

Which led to a fatigue, coughing, and everything else that goes with it event

Which led to a three week furlough

Today I thought I had recovered. Wishful thinking, obviously. Went to a meeting with about a hundred attendees. I was OK sitting down.

Then got a call. I’d forgotten to silence the little mobile beggar. Ran out to wring its neck, but ended up sitting outside in the solitary quiet taking the call.

And afterwards thought I should have a go at the greet and meet after the meeting. Found a chair, unfortunately just got in at the tail end of the last question about gardening.

Still, the development map on the drop-down screen showed a wide yellow road covering the place where I though to plant some veges. Guess I’ll rethink that one.

Suddenly everyone was up, either pushing to the front for the afternoon snacks and apparatif or toward the back to make their getaway. I drifted to the puzzles table and completed the roof of a shed in the time that it took for the scrum to subside.

When I looked up there were only people with a glass in one hand and juggling a plate piled with scones cake and cream puffs. But lots of them. I saw two people I’ve met but didn’t get to talk with them.

I found a the gluten free dairy free section and had a couple of meat balls and six grapes. The place to get a hotwater drink was inaccessible and anyway I had the weirdest feeling.

Like I was a square ball bearing, had a lot of people coasting wordlessly by me, my hearing aids did not cope either. You start questioning your sanity for even being there.

Found out a few facts. I am one of 133 new people these last 6 months. There are now 241 residents. I can totally understand that the people who were here last year are feeling swamped. I feel swamped with them.

But, not to forget, I’ve never been one for crowds. I’ve always run in the outer edges of the herd, where you can easily take time out.

On my way home met a couple walking their dog, which was a relief, and picked up my mail. Finally, A Little Course in Dreams by Robert Bosnak. Started reading it right away.

One of eight books with bookmarks in them. Plenty to write about. Though not today. Just finding a pic now to accompany this mournful screed.

About Lodestar

About Lodestar Part IV
Lodestar, up to this point, was written from more or less one viewpoint per part.
This fourth installment is in effect a series of short installments (novellas, probably) where some of the main minor characters are sidelined and others drawn forward. One or two important characters are only just now being introduced.

The various people whom I asked to critique the series fifteen years ago, advised against introducing important new characters at this late stage. I thought it through at the time, but quailed at the work involved in the restructuring. Put The Lodestar series aside. Years passed while I worked on a new series. Different, I thought.

But my ‘unconscious’ a marvelous entity I am only now learning about, was well and truly in charge, and encouraged me to write multiple stories featuring a main character being invaded and controlled by a foreign influence.

I’m laughing now when I read those lines, knowing that I am absolutely ruled by my unconscious, as you are by yours whatever you may believe. Fifteen years ago, I wasn’t writing unknowingly about my own personal unconscious mind, but about an alien, about an invasive computer program, and about the implant.

Without me realizing, which is the part that still amazes me. Until I had three mostly polished novels, ready to be professionally edited. That’s when I realized. At the time I was poor and troubled, and could afford to have only one of them edited professionally. So I decided to forward the most recent work, which was ‘Mongrel’.

Five years ago my life fell apart as long-time readers will know, and after the chemo, when I set about picking up the pieces, I decided I was done with marketing. The stress of dealing with giant corporations was not doing me any good. I decided that life is too short to hanker after the pittance that I would earn for not writing in the mainstream.

That’s not to say I won’t publish them at all. They’d be a lot easier to read as novel lengths than a chapter at the time.

Fast forward to the idea of the ‘story-debt’. It really grabbed me, for after I labored over The Lodestar world for ten years, its characters and their lives stayed with me. It’s like they are real people somewhere out there. I wondered if by paying off my story-debt, by ‘publishing’ them here, on my blog, these characters would then stop haunting me?

t’s a work in progress. Below a snippet …

The Implant, 1
‘I can almost feel the textures of the nutrient jelly I rest in. I’ve imagined them so often it must be that I now feel them. The heat of my skin melts the material near me, making it silky and fluid. It’s firmer further out. A spider webbing of fibrous supports grows among and between my miniaturized cables.

Fresh nutrient mix is added to the bottom of my housing, its floor is gridded and sits on a saucer, the whole is very like the design for a bird-feeder I have somewhere in my memory banks, though the action of the nutrient mix is opposite to that in the bird-feeder.

I don’t like remembering that I don’t have a skin and that I still don’t have a body. It is not my imagination that I feel a frizzle of anger pass along my synapses. If I’d had a body to use, I would’ve been able to express myself more satisfactorily. Where is that minx Ahni? The speaker fitting is clogged and I cannot call out. I’m not happy with the level of carelessness in this place. Who is on duty? I shouldn’t have to worry about utilities. That was always the work of the host.’