Leave it better than when you found it

I will always post too many quotes, too many pictures of cats doing cat things, too many shots of food as I make people wait to eat, too many posts of shoes and possibly too many photos of myself. You will hear my happiness most of the time but sometimes my sadness, my contemplation, my exasperation and my wonder. There will be inane questions and tipsy checkins. Maybe shallow ponderings and epics revelations. Some days I will make you cringe and other days I will make you smile.

Either way, this is me. We do this once. Just once. Really, only once. I shall do it my way. If you can live with that then... good. If not, so be it. I gave up on cool when I was 12 years old and have been happy ever since. Now, I just want to be kind to myself and those I care about. Let everything be what it is and be ok with that. Own my choices and their consequences. Live the best life I can while treading carefully.

That is me.

The Imagination of Readers

From a book I adore...

“After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer’s breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.”

- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

Being Born a Woman

“Being born a woman is an awful tragedy. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

- Sylvia Plath

Something Broke

At the beginning of August, I was mugged. Violently and viciously.

I sat on a cold hospital emergency department bed for six hours trying to stay awake as they observed my concussion. As a kid, I remember having a concussion but that isn't what I remember. It happened when I high-sided on a push bike. There was this almost eternal moment as my body flew over the handle bars and in to the concrete, face first. That's what I remember. Not the details of the concussion but the details of the accident that caused it.

The whole mugging thing was very different to that childhood bike accident. It is remembered the other way around.

Since the mugger ran up behind me, I had no idea that it was coming. There was no anticipation and the associated fear flashbacks that come with that. It happened so fast that even as he pushed me to my knees and slammed my face in to the ground, I didn't have time to put my hands out to stop myself. 

One second I was standing. The next I was wiping blood out of my eyes.

In the 20-30 seconds it took the first person to come to my aid, my emotions ran from shock to terror and then to anger. Not anger as I thought I had known once or twice in my life but an irrational overwhelming anger that made me scream, swear like  a potty mouth and attack my attacker.

I hope to never feel that level of anger ever again in my life. It was accompanied by thoughts including telling myself that if he was going to rape me that he would have to knock me unconscious and I would fight him until he knocked me out. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

Fighting him was not a rational or aware thought. It was fight or flight and I couldn't get up off the ground with him standing on my stomach and pulling at my bag. In my normal mind, I would have let him take it but in this case I used his holding the bag as leverage to kick the hell out of him.

The oddest part of all of this is that I feel mortal. I always have but now I feel a raw kind of mortal. And I don't want to die because someone else decides it or because I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time or because of some disease. I want to die when I choose to.

I have never felt more sure of anything before. No one chooses how I live and no one chooses how I die.

Divergent - Insurgent - Allegiant

Books 13, 14 and 15 of 2014 are the Divergent trilogy.

The first book is Divergent, which has recently been made in to a movie. The movie is a shallow interpretation of the book. The first book is both good and bad. It is not the original tale that everyone claims it is but more a mix of Hunger Games and Harry Potter.

It is however easy to read and very entertaining.

Unlike Katniss Everdeen, Tris (the main protagonist) is a little too caught up in teenage love and self absorbtion for me. She does improve rapidly in the second and third books though so it is worth persisting.

The second book of the trilogy, Insurgent is less about action and more about character development. I actually wish they'd taken the time for that in the first book. It worries me that people will not continue on through the whole story because the first book is a little shallow. The second book makes it worth it. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the middle book more than the first and last. I've only ever felt that with Lord of the Rings. Think Helm's Deep.

Then the third in the series, Allegiant made me sad and happy. Finally, a story that ends in a non-Hollywood way and concretes this as a possible stayer for years to come.

Without giving too much away, I will say that this series is worth reading. It is dystopian, aimed at teenagers and therefore easy to consume and a gripping plot to keep you engaged.

I'd give it 3.5 punches in the face out of 5.

Should I read this? Yes. it is good fiction and entertaining.
What did I learn? "Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other."

When Depressed, Don't Be Strong For Others

I was mugged at 10:30pm-ish on a Tuesday night. An ambulance took me to hospital. I spent 6 hours sitting on a bed being observed for concussion. Not allowed to sleep. Not up for bothering anyone to tell them I was there. Not overly fussed about anything other than my iPhone going flat. Gawd, it got boring.

At 4:30am, I was allowed to leave. Still an outpatient in ED meant that I didn't even need to sign any paperwork. Just called a taxi and went home.

When I arrived home just before 5am, I facebooked that I had been violently mugged and had only now returned home. Then I crashed. Exhausted, I fell in to a deep sleep fully unaware of how many people were panicking. 100+ missed called and 212 text messages greeted me when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

As I scrolled through the plethora of contact, the phone rang. I hit ignore. Another person called, I ignored that too. Then my sister called. A single thought ran through my mind... "she won't make this about her. I won't have to make her feel better about this having happened to me."

That summed up the entire morning. I didn't have the energy to make other people feel ok about me being mugged. I'm sure they were calling because they cared but they were also calling for themselves.

I didn't have the strength to tell them how ok I was. To tell them how I'd be ok. To not cry or let them hear the waver in my voice. I just couldn't give that at the time.

It reminded me of something. When you are going through things, some people will come to you to find out if you are ok but they want you to say yes you are. They want to hear that it will all be ok and mostly for themselves. They aren't selfish or mean. They just can't see passed what they feel to what you are going through.

When this happens, you have every right to choose not to give them anything. You are within your rights to not give them the little you have left to let them know you are ok. Don't answer the phone to everyone. Answer to at least one person who won't make it about them. They are a valuable friend because they won't take from you.

It is ok to give that energy you have to yourself.

Retrospection brings Revelations

My mate Jim and I are doing Dry July. At a sober dinner and subsequent Koko Black chocolate inhalation session tonight, we had a mini retrospective. I just realised that it has only been 2.5 years since I moved out of my parent's house. I'd spent 3 years prior suffering clinical depression. It was so bad that my mother gave me two tasks in the day that were all I had to achieve: Make my bed and check the mail box for mail. Those two things would exhaust me. Some days I couldn't do one or both and I'd sob at my failure. Some days, I'd do both and we'd celebrate the success.

When I left Darwin at the very end of 2011, I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to feed myself, work an entire 5 day week or stop myself crying if I ever started. Since then my failures have been vast but all lessons learnt. My heart has been broken once since but it kept beating. My brain chemistry has kicked my arse several times and I kicked it back.

I don't cry randomly anymore though. I don't wish to die. I pay my own bills and cook my own meals. I finally forgave myself for not being perfect. These are major achievements for me.

It has only been 2.5 years and I'm functioning quite well now. Even I'm impressed.

Thanks, Jim. You made me articulate it. This isn't an affirmation. This is surprise and pride mixed with slightly too much chocolate.

Confusion and Coffee

I often feel like an appropriate mix of comfortable conformism and antisocial complacent genius.

There is a constant struggle in my head around what I expect for myself and what I am not thoroughly convinced others want me to be. The latter is mostly imagined but it is still there. It doesn't make me change too much of who I am but more acts like a voice in my head that is unimpressed with my willingness to just give in and do as society tells me.

The thing is, I'm not really a bad arse or a rebel in any way. As a child and late in to my teens, I was the kind of girl who did what was expected of me. If my parents asked me to do something then I did it without question. I was a cluey kid and thought a lot about the world that I saw through fiction and no-fiction books. I did not however think much for myself.

The road was set out for me by my educated middle-class parents who I never for one moment doubted loved me dearly. First was primary school then high school and then a degree of my choosing. Something you could get a job in and that you enjoyed doing was the only real criteria I was given. I lived at home the whole time with my three square meals a day and all the comforts of my parents lifestyle.

I met my husband (now ex) outside a second year Discrete Maths class. He was geeky and kind. We talked about ideas and concepts and ideologies and literature and movies and music until we somehow got married 9 years later. In that almost-decade past, I did what was expected of me. Had the long term partner of equal intellect who loved me, two indoor pedigree cats that roamed our over-sized inner-city Canberra townhouse filled with expensive furniture and too much kitchenware. I threw lavish dinner parties with equivalent friends. I was friends with other couples with similar lives that validated my own. I wore an apron and baked. Enough said.

There are people I'm still friends with today who can vouch for the seemingly happy girl who had a pretty decent middle class life. I often wonder if they see me as the same type of person now as I was then or if they even saw me as happy. I thought I was happy. That I had everything a person could want.

Then it all went to shit.

My life fell apart through a series of inevitable miseries which I now see as a time of growth. Oh time, it is a friend and a brutal enemy. It helps you forget the pain but it gives you wrinkles. I'll accept the wrinkles as payment though.

The middle part (for those who didn't live through it with me on Facebook and Twitter) is a story for another time over several glasses of old Champagne that the waiter pours carefully so as not to waste a single drop.

The end part is now. Who I am now. What I am now. Those are not questions. There are solid answers. There are also solid uncertainties.

I have a good job that I love. Each morning I wake up enthusiastic about the coming workday. People joke that I am comfortable outside of my comfort zone and they are right. There is a comfortable thrill to the work I do but it is based in educated guesses and almost two decades of experience.

My ogre-like layered circle of friends are ordered and solid, if a little commutative. I am one of those lucky people who has a group of people who love me, despite knowing me. Some are so close that they will pick up the phone to me in tears or to me singing Pharrell or to me having butt dialled them because they are on speed dial and they won't hang up. Others interact with me at regular lunches or drinks or even via old fashioned Facebook stalking. Most don't live in the same town or country as me but those that do are people I can call on for mischief and adventures.

Then there is what I refer to as family. It isn't people I've given birth to. That really was never my thing. It is a Papua New Guinean definition of family. People who you are stuck with but actually like. That is my family. We support each other through everything. There is an unquestionable loyalty. I often joke that if my sister dislikes someone then I do to, without even having to have met them. We spend a lot of time laughing together. We don't really fight because we are grown ups. We know that even when one of us is being annoying that it is driven by love. That makes everything cool.

So I spend a lot of time on my own but a lot of time with people. I read and write a lot. I work a little too much. I spend so much time texting and talking on the phone that I had to sign up for the Optus Extreme User plan. But then I spend so much time in silence that a weekend day can pass and I've not spoken a single word. All of these contradictions are the sum of what makes me happy.

Maybe I am a hedonist or selfish or narcissistic or all the things that I worry about in my head. Things that people said in passing or that I heard in something they said. Maybe I am generous, loving and kind like my friends and family describe me as. Maybe I'm a little of all of them.

Either way, this makes me happy.

My life is not a series of adaptations. It is a series of conscious steps involving trying different sides of my life that has resulted in me being very happy and comfortable in a lifestyle that sometimes makes others uncomfortable. It is best to understand that I live each day to honour who I am and live my ethos. This makes me not just happy but content.

I often feel like an appropriate mix of comfortable conformism and antisocial complacent genius but I like that mix.

Friendzones and Fury

This afternoon, a male friend told me that men and women can not be friends. He is a little upset about what he sees as me putting him in the friendzone. I don't know about all these stoopid rules. I have a lot of friends, male and female. We can all be friends IMHO. If we go through life assuming everyone of the preferred sex wants to bonk us then that would be just strange. Instead, I choose to have lovely friends and let life be what it is.

How I Learnt to Concentrate Again

Many years ago now, I went through a bout of clinical depression. That sickness killed my concentration span. I could not read more than one or two pages of any kind of book before feeling sleepy. As soon as I put the book down, I was alert again.

My concentration span was pathetic and not improving.

In October 2012, I watched a badly shot video of Joe Kraus from Google Ventures who introduced the idea of Gap Time and "Slow Tech" to me.

The basis of the idea is that we live in a world of constant distraction and that paired with our evolutionary tendency to respond to stimulus has resulted in us heightening that skill and reducing our concentration spans. Technology in particular has been a culprit in this decline.

His fix for this was to suggest that we take time to not be distracted. Down time for your brain. That meant not picking up my phone when I was sitting waiting for someone at a cafe; not turning on music or a podcast in all my down time; and simply letting my brain spend time background processing.

Since taking on board this approach and spending a lot of time not doing anything with my brain, my concentration span is quite amazing. After 6 months, I could read up to 200 pages without feeling drained or distracted. After 18 months, I can read a book cover to cover without pausing... at least when I have the time to do so.

For me, that is a quantification of how my mind has improved by taking the time to let it rest. Not watching TV or Facebooking but actually taking time to do nothing. Distraction is not a good thing, at least not at the rates we allow it in our lives.

Take some time to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling or drive to work without the radio on. It will change you.

Love Letters

I wrote you a love letter.

I pressed the delete key until my pointer finger tingled.

I miss you. That is all.

Many Things

I've been through many things in my life.

It is true that there are many people who walk a simpler path and that I bring on certain situations upon myself.

It took me many years to work out why this might be the case. I looked to discrimination based on many of the minority groups I am in but that only explained the disadvantage. I looked to my choices to see if I was making bad ones on purpose. It wasn't a self destructive streak and years of therapy made me accept that.

Finally, I realised that things happen in my life because I choose to participate. I dive in to life head first. I fall in love. I take a chance. I change my situation to adopt an oppirtunity.

Some people die young and are not buried until they are old.

That will not be me.

I will not look towards the winter of my life with dread. I will not exist in the summer of my life and hope for moments of spring. No, each season will be the best that I can have and have the best of me that I can give.

Maybe that means I fall on my arse regularly but I also experience an overall level of happiness and contentment that a lot of people don't.

For now, I shall continue on this path. Yes, despite the downs. Always for the ups.

A Happy Death

Book 12 of 2014 appears a month after the last book I read. Yes, I have been slack and not actually finishing anything I start.

In this case, A Happy Death is the last of  Camus' books for me to read. That is both saddening and a prompt to re-read those ones I love and that changed my life.

As usual, I'm left with too much to think about after finishing one of his books. There are so many lines that fit perfectly in to what is happening in my life and my own search for happiness in life, while I am unable to feel the connection of love that others so readily feel.

"He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage"

When I started this book, it felt too much like my favourite of his, The Outsider. However, it took a different path. Maybe one that was a lot more acceptable to readers when Camus was younger. The Outsider is still a better book but a different one.

The in-depth exploration of suicide (assisted or not) and self-imposed exile is something I connected to deeply. A need to rebel against everything you should do by destroying yourself is a hard subject to discuss and not scare people away with. Although he writes in a scattered way, the way Camus wields words will always make me listen and not allow me to put down his books.

You have to read something of his. This may not be the book but it is an insight in to the man, 100 years after his birth. Although, I adore everything he has ever written... I do worry what people may think of me for that :)

This may not be the Camus book you should start with but certainly one to read on your Algerian existentialist absurdism journey. At least it is on mine.

If that is too much for you, start by watching the Big Lebowski. At least you'll understand why I always sigh and say "obviously, you're not a golfer."

Should I read this? Yeah, it is short, perspicacious and beautiful. Like me.
What did I learn? “Yes, I'm happy, in human terms.”

Reactions

I have learnt to forgive myself recently for being so sad, angry, happy and random. It was a situation I'd never been in, a place I never would have wandered myself and an ending that I would not have chosen.

So I dealt with it how I did. I will cope as best I can. And most importantly, I will be kind to myself because someone in this whole damn Universe has to be :)

As You Wish

This makes me teary now.

And the clowns come

If you can't find a Simpson's quote for it then it is not worth saying.

A Great Big World

"Say something, I’m giving up on you
I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you
Anywhere I would’ve followed you
Say something, I’m giving up on you
And I will swallow my pride
You’re the one that I love
And I’m saying goodbye" -- A Great Big World

And then it disappears in a puff of smoke

“She said, ‘I’m so afraid.’ And I said, ‘why?,’ and she said, ‘Because I’m so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening.’ I asked her why and she said, ‘They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.’”

- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner 

A Final Goodbye

I finally did it. I finally said goodbye to the past after accepting that this was it and I was wrong about all I'd thought and felt.

Now to keep doing awesome stuff.

One of these mornings

I Will Try

Rest in peace, Gabriel García Márquez

Until you’re about the age of twenty, you read everything, and you like it simply because you are reading it. Then between twenty and thirty you pick what you want, and you read the best, you read all the great works. After that you sit and wait for them to be written. But you know, the least known, the least famous writers, they are the better ones.

This is sooooo me

“I’m scared to get close and I hate being alone
I long for that feeling to not feel at all” - Bring me the Horizon

How music soothes my savage beast

Tonight, my mother listened to my current Spotify Starred list. We danced to Pharrel Williams and bopped to Christina Aguilera. She even had to take in John Legend croning All of Me which I call his song. You know... "Love your curves and all your edges. All your perfect imperfections."

The point was that we connected through music.

I told her about what music does for me. Instead of being sad, she was happy that I have music. She understands.

To me, music is a state.
To me, music is the tempo of happiness.
To me, music is salvation.

In my moments of deepest loneliness and sadness, I have tunes. They rescue me. They pick me up off the couch and twirl me around the room.

There is so much that I wouldn't survive if there weren't sounds to get me through. So I constantly look backward, forward and to now for the words and beats to represent me. I keep finding them. That preserves me.

Sometimes, I dread the day when music ceases to sing to me. When it stops explaining me to others.

The moments when I share a kiss with a perfect man, to a woman proclaiming that she asks that god accepts her man in heaven when the day comes.

May there always be music.

All the world's a stage

The five stages of grief usually experienced with a major loss are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

They don't have to happen in that order either and often stages will be repeated if they are not dealt with properly.

When I go through a big life change that I have no control over, these are the steps that I traverse.

People go on about acceptance as if it is something that you just decide on but that is not the case. Healthy human beings are supposed to feel feelings and not repress them.

I don't mean suppressed because suppression is consciously stopping yourself from feeling something. Repression is a form of denial where you don't even accept the thought or feeling exists.

Not dealing with emotions is what leaves people in a state of subconscious turmoil and dissatisfaction.

Acceptance is the end goal but it can sneak in earlier on as a form of closure at each stage.

My recent big loss has seen my journey to acceptance occur with severe peaks of each feeling that subside and leave me feeling the longed for closure.

I experienced denial first. I didn't even take the situation seriously because I didn't even entertain the idea it was happening. That lasted about 3 days.

Once I did entertain the idea, depression hit. I'm great at dealing with depression though since that is what my tool belt was built for. That didn't last too long - maybe a week.

Bargaining wasn't really a big part of me coping this time. I knew there was no point to it. I don't believe in asking someone else to fix something and I was aware of how little I would achieve so I tried a couple of times and then wrote that off. Total time was about four hours. Nothing takes less than half a working day.

Then came anger. Anger is something I've stopped suppressing now. For years, I let others be angry with me and I was always sorry. Then I would feel anger and not express it because I thought that made me a psycho bitch. I don't think that anymore. People are allowed to be angry. Emotions are fine as long as you aren't stuck on one for a long time. Even constant non-stop happiness without a peppering of other feelings is considered unhealthy. We are feeling creatures so we must feel.

In this case, I felt angry and not at myself. I expressed this in a burst of communication that lasted less than five minutes and then I felt better. Who knows how the receiver felt but to be honest, I don't much care.

And I don't much care because I have finally got my closure. I was treated horrendously. I took it as maturely as I could and showed compassion and understanding. But to achieve closure and move forward, I need to feel all those stages. Even anger. The one stage I still struggle to accept the good in but conceptually do comprehend.

Now, it is that time. Time to go on with life as I was contently doing two months ago before his all happened.

Now, I can and I am proud of myself for that.

Forgiveness

I grew up in a home that had some religious people and others who weren't. I am not religious but have no gripe with anyone who is. At least not based on their religion.

One concept that I noticed always popping up was forgiveness for others and for yourself. Not in a god granting forgiveness way but more in an accept what has happened and let go of the pain you carry way. Like putting down a weight you've been carrying while walking backwards on shale in 4" stiletto heels.

Last night, I wrote two blog posts: One wallowing in the self pity of heart break; and the other forgiving myself and forgiving someone who had hurt me.

Even now, I speak in the past tense because it feels like it is behind me. There will be moments of sadness but nothing so terrible that I cry.

I re-read them both and posted the one I thought represented me most sincerely. It was the latter.

It felt better to express that emotion than the sinking sadness alternate.

Today, I walked in to the workplace and felt free. For the first time in two months, I did not feel stressed, guilty, annoyed, sad or afraid. Especially, not afraid.

I've been feeling a strange mix of fear and sadness but today felt like it had a long time ago when I just felt happy and content.

I achieved so much at work, caught up with colleagues and friends, ticked off most of my to do list, connected with new people and felt a genuine sense of belonging that I'd misplaced.

Damana is back. All hail the Warrior Goddess reborn from the ashes.

Happiness is a Kong Foo Sing

With every challenge that life presents, I find that silver lining.

Sometimes, I think it might be delusion but then the mirage of contentment materialises and I'm lying on a beach with a cocktail in hand, while I wait for the cute waiter to bring me my tempura prawns with wasabi mayo. Bliss.

I recently experienced a loss of a good friend. He is not dead. Just no longer a friend. It felt quite awful and still hurts but I feel lucky that we spent time as good friends.

He taught me so much about life and myself. He taught me about gentleness and patience. He reminded me of how much I love words and people who wield them. He showed me that perfect souls exist but are cast imperfect by situation. He taught me to be a better engineer and to never stop fighting for what is right over what is easiest.

Most of all, he taught me how to forgive someone for not choosing you. True compassion and friendship means allowing someone to walk away from you because that is what is best for them, no matter how much you bleed as a result.

If one day someone feels towards me the way I do for him and allows me to do what I must do and be who I must be then I will make them my friend for life.

That is friendship. When I choose you over me.

I am a good person. I just never saw myself that way until now. Until he taught me.

Fahrenheit 451

Book 11 of 2014 and the 3rd book I have read in ten days, is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

The name comes from the temperature at which books will burn. It is about a future world where firefighters are no longer needed to put out fires since buildings are built to be fireproof. They are instead responsible for seeking out and burning books in a world similar to the middle ages where information is destroyed in order to prevent dissention.

I did spend a lot of time after this reading about the periods through history when books were burned. It is both disturbing and depressing to think of how much we regressed in those times. Where would humanity be now if those incidents never happened?

There were a lot of original ideas in this book but to be honest, it is not the kind of writing I enjoy. It feels like a lengthened short story and on further investigation, I found that it basically was.

Yes, this is my third book in three days. When I can't stop my brain from overthinking EVERYTHING, I read. It lets me escape my own thoughts and enter in to a world in which I don't exist. I share the concerns of the protagonist and forget my petty worries. I wonder if other people go to books to escape stress.

It might be time to move away from dystopian science fiction for a while. Not sure what awaits me now. Maybe I need a Kindle shuffle feature. Or I can just throw my to-read book pile in the air and read the next one I catch.

Should I read this? Honestly, don't bother. There is much better science fiction out there. This is a classic because it helped shape the genre. Read its spawn and leave this on that list of stuff to read when they've burned all the other good books.
What did I learn? The autoignition point of paper.

Selfishness is a side effect

I sat down with my boss today and received an insight that changed the entire way I see a situation and how I will approach it from now on.

Instead of thinking I was the cause of a situation, I can now accept that what I'm experiencing has nothing to do with me.

Without giving any detail, all I can say is that it was a "well duh!" moment.

Often I look to myself to understand why something adverse is happening to me. Other times, I'm just completely selfish and think the world revolves around me :)

Talking to people is a good way to understand a situation when I've come up with no reasons of my own. Must remember that.

Omniscience and then Null

I once knew everything you thought or I was able to ask for it.

You handed it up on a plate and I plated mine up on hand.

You bled for me. I did not drop a single platelet.

You wanted to understand and I wanted to explain it all to you.

Then it stopped and not because of anything I could control.

You took away that access like it had never been there.

You boarded up the windows and put that part of you back in a box on the shelf.

You didn't want to understand but I still wanted to explain.

And I see you five days of seven.

And I look down like I have done something wrong but I haven't.

And I wonder what you think and imagine only the worst possible things.

You don't care to understand and the apathy shows clearly.

I once knew everything you thought but now I don't.

You no longer know I exist and maybe I don't.

You wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire and I am.

I want to understand but I never will.

Acceptance Criteria

In software engineering we have a way of working that we refer to as "agile." It means that we behave in a way that makes it easier for us to adapt to change.

I often joke that I work as an agent of change so that I can make others change and not myself :)

There is an idea we work around that says that before we start any task, we must define upfront how we will know that a task is completed.

We call this the Acceptance Criteria.

Today, I applied this concept to a life situation and it helped me accept that what I thought was a case of friendship was really no more than a case of me being played.

As readers of this blog well know, I can be easily be convinced that 'gullible' has been removed from the Oxford English Dictionary. This often underwrites my tendency to believe people when they tell me something and that they are not lying to me. As a logician, I see the flaw in this statement immediately but apparently not in reality.

The acceptance criteria today involved checking what it means for someone to actually care for me. A friend for instance. A person who cares about how they make me feel and care that I am not made sad by their actions. A person who takes the time to understand where I am coming from. A person who gives me the benefit of the doubt. A person who would not act against me, no matter the situation.

Application of said criteria resulted in a fail.

I am a good friend. I am learning that I can not expect that from everyone.

Don't Overthink It Protocol

There is a Nietzsche quote that always pops in to my mind when I'm in the depths of introspection.

"And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

This is the point where I instigate the Don't Overthink It Protocol (AKA: DEFCON 3), which consists of the following...

• Accept what you can not control;
• Distract yourself with activities;
• Read a LOT;
• Plan things to look forward to; and
• Forgive the person who put you here.

Saying this out loud always helps me. It isn't a silver bullet but it is an easing of the melancholy.

Why I Run

The last six months have seen me start jogging again. It does involve a lot of walking but I run more now than I ever did before. Even on those cold mornings and dark wet evenings, I run.

I run because it makes my heart beat fast. Then I need to breathe. All I can think about is breathing. The rest of the world disappears and so do the thoughts in my head.

I run to stop thinking.

Stop thinking of the words written, those long ago peripheral glances and the silence. The deafening, wounding unending silence that feeds my pensive sadness.

There is an odd point when running where I feel myself coming up to the final few metres and my body is begging to stop but my brain doesn't want to. My brain doesn't want to because then it will start thinking again and that never ends well. Too much introspection is never a good thing.

So I keep on running.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Book ten of 2014 for me, is Phillip K. Dick's dystopian tale Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This of course is the book that the movie Bladerunner is based on.

Yes, I'm on a roll at the moment and that is probably due to the fact that this is another book I have read in the past. That was over a decade ago so I did have to read it carefully. There were a lot of new things I discovered that made this a magical and slightly depressing journey.

The androids that are being retired are of the class Nexus 6. This all brings together Google's naming of its tablet device as the Nexus 7. Of course, it runs the Android operating system. Yes, I'm slow on the uptake :)

There is far too much awesome in this book to list it all but the analysis of depression, life purpose and selective empathy are informing and disarming. As an existentialist, I now see more in this book than I would have when I read it previously. The questions of what is considered life and what happens when human beings detach from what makes us human is brilliantly thought inspiring.

Phillip K. Dick and everything he ever wrote was an obsession of mine in the mid-noughties. To revisit books I remember loving and finding them wonderful again is both a relief and a motivation to re-explore my favourite authors. Since life is short, I should pick books that I have not already read.

This though, I do not regret re-reading at all.

Should I read this? Yes. Another yes, you must be getting tired of me recommending books but this is an excellent read. PKD is an original author with challenging ideas set in unfamiliar places. Maybe that is why he could explore those topics. Aldous Huxley is another author in the same vein. Maybe it is just my dystopian view of the world that makes this so good but try it.
What did I learn? We all dream of electric sheep.

Pride and Prejudice

My 9th book of 2014 is one of my old favourites, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

I have read this book more times than can remember. My estimate would be about two dozen full reads and a few more skims through.

It is a book I pick to remind myself of a world where women were disempowered and found ways to be themselves and buck gently against the system.

People think it is all about love but it isn't. Love is not the point. It is about two people finding respect for each other. Without it, love means nothing. Mr and Mrs Bennet are an example of not having that respect. Lizzy's father talks about marrying a woman he does not respect and living with himself for the rest of his life knowing that. He hopes his daughters don't get the same deal when they marry.

A friend asked me yesterday why I have read this book over and over again. I thought for a while and supposed it was a cool love story or strong women or the restrained drama... but, no. I read this over and over because of the words. It is so well written. The banter is brilliant and quick. The book itself is more than just the story and how it is told but is also the words used and how they are placed. Having read everything Austen wrote, I can say this is consistent but none as good as this classic.

Should I read this? Over and over again. Whether you are male or female, this book is one you should read. At least one Jane Austen book should be on your list of classics read.
What did I learn? I still love this book 23 years after first reading it.

Thank you for being my friends

This last seven days has seen me lean on my closest friends and on my family to get through the challenges. My support network is amazing and if I don't say it enough: Thank you.

Thank you to Allison Carleton for being my voice of reason and for giving me sanctuary in every storm.

Thank you to Bernarda Maia for never letting me apologise for who I am and always offering to help me bury the bodies.

Thank you to Taylor-Trina Kadiba for being my loyal, loving and always supportive sister. You are my best friend.

Thank you to Candace Wong for making me laugh when I wanted to cry, usually at her but also at myself.

Thank you to Ola Kl for reminding me that I am awesome even when I don't feel like I am. And for making it ok to have You're So Vain as my life soundtrack.

Thank you to Bruce Cartland for tolerating my stupidity and always lifting me up.

Thank you to Evelyn Moreno for showing empathy and letting me be myself.

Thank you to Janet Wong for being endlessly kind and sincerely celebrating and sharing every achievement with me for my entire career.

And although we are not facebook friends, thank you to my boss who kicks my arse at the right times and sits and shows compassion when it counts.

Thanks to everyone else for always being kind. It counts whether it is in cyberspace or meatspace. I am honoured and humbled.

Benefit of the Doubt

I have been good at giving people the benefit of the doubt lately. No matter the situation, I have been able to find it in myself to look through the anger or negativity or coldness and see that there is a person feeling something behind that aggression.

Not everything makes sense to me. The recent events have left me sad that my privacy could be so violated and then those around me think ill of me.

Sometimes, you can't control what is happening to your life and you just have to accept it. This is one of those times.

The cruel words. The false accusations. Being discarded and rejected as if I did something wrong, has been a learning experience. It is most well learnt when you realise that neither you nor the person angry with you did anything wrong. Someone else just kicked you both.

Oh well, I never expected more than friendship from my friend. I got much less and it all wrapped in blame.

Life is teaching me something. I'm learning. Somehow however, it feels like I strayed in to the wrong lecture room of life this day.

Now to move on.

Always feel compassion but move on.

The Lieutenant

My eighth book of 2014 is The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville. This is the best book I have read this year and Australians should have to read this. It is fiction but based in facts around the First Fleet.

The story is so relevant to recent events in my life that I related to the point of tears. Even if you aren't where I am in a place of hopelessness and acceptance, you will find this book brilliant.

Without the usual guilt you get from tales of the English meeting the original Australians, this book bases the history we all know in compassion.

You will see that world and moment in time through the eyes of a physicist who falls in love with a black girl but can not love her because he has made a commitment to a life that he chose before he discovered who he was.

There is a scene in the book where the protagonist realises that he didn't find the person he was until he met this amazingly brilliant woman who he could be himself with. As if he became a person because she accepted and expected he was that. They shared a love of language and a great intellect but existed in a time and place where it was not allowed. They shared a mutual respect.

There is so much more to this book than a love story. There is a love of science and of history. Kate Grenville is an amazing writer who took me there. There, where everyone should go.

Should I read this? Oh my goodness, yes.
What did I learn? Life is not something that you should let happen to you. You should experience it. Live it. Love through it. Fail. Get up again. Learn and learn some more. Regret nothing.

Curvy: How one man's lust made me see myself as fat

Curvy. Voluptuous. Hourglass. Buxom. Luscious. Curvaceous.

They were all words a recent boyfriend used to describe me. He lusted after curves and it was all he ever cared about when we were together or apart. It was almost an obsession and one he proclaimed was my most alluring characteristic.

For all the people who have called me a narcissist, I have never really thought of myself as being physically beautiful. For me, beauty is about your soul. It is your kindness and compassion. It is having a mind like a steal trap and always improving it. It is an ability to express your thoughts and convey real emotions. It is about authenticity and sincerity in actions and words.

Yes, it can be dressed up with a fit body, nice clothes or makeup but without a solid baseline, none of that makes you beautiful. People see through the socially acceptable beauty that is but skin deep. That makes that kind of attraction fleeting. Although I appreciate an attractive person, I do not crave them if they have no more than that.

This man I was seeing is quite amazing with words. He can convey in a paragraph more than most men I've known could say in a novel, with one of the great Russians writing on their behalf. He could paint a picture with words, that hastened your beating heart or restarted a stalled one.

The problem was that instead of focussing on any of the things I care about improving in myself, he pointed only at those curves. He would write to me each night about them and lay with me for hours, always concerned with them. Those bits and bumps that most women work hard to hide or exercise and diet away.

Now, some men act as though them accepting you aren't a supermodel is them doing you a favour. This was in that vein but a little more insincere. With him, it was as if nothing else about me existed and if I were any other women with any other brain or talent or soul that it would not matter.

After a while, I started to become very self-conscious of my curvy parts. Words like voluptuous and buxom made me think of tavern wenches in old stories where drunken men with little to no inhibitions would hit on anything in a skirt.

Before him, I always thought I was ok with a need to exercise more and lay off the cheese but now I feel more aware and a little alarmed at my curvy physical nature. What before was a part of who I am but not that important, makes me feel bulgy and awkward.

He has gone now, on to curvier pastures but his legacy lingers. It will take me some time to work my way back to being confident with who I am and in knowing that I am not the sum of my fatty bits. As I move away from that continuous maths view of curves back to my discrete maths underlying building blocks of the world view, I will ignore those men who focus on that aspect of me.

Even if I was a supermodel or whatever some guy's exact physical type is, I'd still rather be loved or lusted after for the other parts of me that I think are quite special and wonderful. Not the aspect but the attitude. Not the shapely shapefulness but the happy happiness beneath my smile. Not the fat or skinny parts but the thinking and speaking parts.

We must all find that beauty inside us and not let anyone break that with their obsession. If we don't then we are held to the standards of others and will only disappoint.

This is why I will always ask: Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Violation of Volition

The preceding ten days has been a maelstrom of insanity accented with violations of my space and time. Yes, there have been major multi-dimensional offences committed.

The most distressing moment was when I realised that someone had complete access to my online presence, my online information and consequently my inner most thoughts via one of my laptops that had been stolen.

I have a habit that I developed mainly through work that has me writing an email that lets me honestly express my thoughts and feelings on a matter without any intention of ever sending it. Just writing it down gets it out of my system and I don't dwell on it anymore. It is always more brutally honest than I would ever be in reality. My email drafts folder is my Picture of Dorian Gray.

There are rules to this that I always honour in case by some cruel twist of fate, the dreaded email is sent:

• Never address the email to anyone;
• Do not mention the name of the person it is for; and
• Delete the email after a couple of weeks.

With the recent theft of one of my laptops, I have learnt a few lessons:

• Always set your laptop up to require password access;
• Encrypt your drives; and
• When a laptop is stolen, change all your passwords immediately.

The more recent set of rules is a result of the said theft of one of my computers on Thursday afternoon.

Yes, insurance covers it and it was reported to the police and all that. I am fine, no harm except that I now must lockdown my online presence and seriously reconsider my venting mechanisms.

Since Friday morning, I have received a few emails from people who were surprised to check their electronic post and find that they had grumpy or delightful or confusing notes from me. Luckily, none of the people who got these letters were the intended recipients so they laughed it all off and complimented me on my ability to insult or wow a person with such eloquence and lack of profanity.

There were (until I deleted them all yesterday afternoon), just under a dozen emails in my drafts folder that consisted of voluminous amounts of my thoughts on different subjects. Nothing terrible but nothing I actually ever wanted to share.

It seems that the person who took my laptop is the same person who has been making my life very difficult this last few weeks and finally got some ammunition to use against me. And boy did they use it.

So, the lesson here is to never write it down if you never want anyone to see it. Keep the thoughts in your head or whisper them to your pet rock but don't put them in gmail and then leave an unlocked laptop around to be stolen by a creep on a mission. It makes it far too easy for someone to screw with your life.

Now, with passwords changed, property secured and draft email folder empty, I shall continue my life and hope that no more damage has been done than the Send button being hit on a few ephemeral tanty-driven electronic brain dumps.

You aren't a priority

I have a lot of friends. In fact, it is possible that I call too many people friends.

Today, I had a friend who told me a bunch of truths about myself. One of them being that I am not loveable because he couldn't love me. He told me I love emotionally unavailable men because I do not wish to be loved. He told me that I was never his priority and never mattered. He told me that he never cared about me.

Ok, you can say A LOT of things about me but to say I am not open to love is wrong. Maybe I haven't found a person who can see my uniqueness. Maybe I haven't been around enough lately to make things work. Maybe I am not perfect.

I still think I am someone who is kind and full of love. To give and receive.

So, to that man or friend or somebody that I used to know, I am sorry I wasn't a priority to you but I'm not sorry. There is only one Damana and if you can't value her then it is your loss.

Comfortably Numb

It has been a long time since I shared the workings of my mind and what state I hold after recovering from clinical depression.

I still speak about my depression without shame or discomfort although I often see that in the eyes of those listening. It is still not understood that depression is an illness and not something that anyone would choose.

I would no longer consider myself someone who is suffering depression. It is something that I sometimes fear returning but I don't see myself ever returning to those dire straights. There are now too many tools under my belt to allow that regression.

There is however something very different to me now that never existed before my illness. I have a higher pain tolerance. I am happy but there is an undercurrent of chronic pain that exists as part of who I am now. My pain threshold does not allow it to overwhelm me but like chronic back pain, it is something I have learnt to live with. Unlike chronic back pain though, there are no pain killers or anti-inflammatories that will ease the constant ache. And no, antidepressants are not my friend because I am not depressed. This is an ingrained hurt that is laced between the atoms that make me. It can not be separated. It can not be dispersed.

I described my life recently to a friend as though I live on a super yacht that is my current happiness. This yacht is sailing on a giant lake of pain where at no point you can see all the edges. There is a thin film of sadness that reflects pretty colours and is often left in my yacht's happiness wake. However awful that may sound, it is a state that I understand and survive in quite happily... if not relatively.

Recently, I experienced immense happiness. Not just happiness but a spark of hope. Hope is something that was beaten out of me a long time ago and although I hold optimism in life and the future, I do not hope for more than what I am gifted with now... which is a lot.

Today that happiness fizzled and whisked away in the wind. I was left on my yacht on the lake, relatively happy.

The problem with this is that relativity has shifted. From the joy of beautiful hope to a sweet pensive sadness and down to what now feels like a comfortable numbness.

There are still endless reasons to smile. There are still reasons to be optimistic. There are still great moments to be sailed. The problem is, the numbness leaves me feeling it all as if I were floating outside my body watching someone else pilot me. Being John Malcovich with me as the puppet.

A part of me knows that the numbness will recede and I will sail my yacht of happiness again but the yacht will feel smaller and the pain lake bigger and the oily film of sadness slicker and thicker.

This all makes me wonder why I'd ever attempt or accept a happy state again if it ever presented itself because when it rejected me and left me floating unmoored, the vessel I travel in will be smaller.

I shall ponder this as I ponder many things, all the while feeling comfortably numb.

Sand

Each day, I grasp life in my hand and try to make sure I do it right. That I don't fuck it up and in doing so, do the best I can be.

Yesterday, I let the sand run through my fingers.

I let things be what they are. Accept that what is, is. Accept that what will be, will be. Que sera sera.

And today, life feels better. So much better. Coated in chocolate better.

Sometimes, it is best just to let it go. Let the sand run through your fingers.

Dark and Lovely

Characters. There is an album that I remember from when I was in my formative years. It really did shape me in ways. Stevie Wonder can do that to you. He changes the way you think. Music does.

If you have not heard it then you should take the trip, and it is a trip.

There is not a song on this album that can't teach you something.

Cruel To Be Kind

I was in a crap situation until today, where there were two awesome people who were going towards a place of pain and suffering for more than just themselves.

So, I broke it. Stopped it. Took it beyond recovery.

Sometimes, the one who ends it is not the coldest but the strongest.

Life is too short

When I was very young... when my age was just a single digit, I heard about how many books were in my school library. My school wasn't very big and I knew there were bigger libraries in the world and so many more books. Of course, not all books are worth reading but even if only 20% of them were and it took me a week to read each one... well, I'd never live long enough to read all the books I wanted to read.

I lay in bed and wept.

Now I am older and I have read so many more books but still they keep writing more that I need to read. There is non-fiction to go along with all the fiction that is still out there.

So, I don't watch television or movies much. And there is much much more time but still not enough.

So I lay in bed and weep.

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Since I am not counting Green Eggs and Ham, book 7 of 2014 is Neil Gaiman's The Ocean At The End Of The Lane.

I have read a lot of his books, starting with Neverwhere. Maybe that was my mistake because I have never enjoyed any of them the way I loved that story. American Gods disappointed me and made me realise that books others rave about can mean absolutely nothing to me and that is ok.

This book is good. It starts slowly though and makes me feel as though it was written with a movie in mind for it. I really hope that isn't the case but it sure feels like it.

Gaiman paints pictures with simple and accessible words unlike any modern authors I can think of today. I do enjoy reading him just for each individual sentence. He is a master like that.

It's a short book and obviously a short story that had to be told as a novel. It is easy to consume and enjoyable.


Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? When we are children, the world is magical. When we grow up, we are too broken to see that magic anymore. That thought makes me sad.

Eragon

Book 6 of 2014 in my reading quest is Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It is the first book in the Inheritance series. It is nice to read a book that has a dragon that isn't just a beast. Although, this book has that Like Skywalker kind of whingey young man become hero gets old, the story is engaging.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? The dragons are wise, beautiful and fierce. I want to be one when I grow up.

Life is like a box of chocolates on a 37 degree Celsius Canberra day

It's true. Sometimes, I am a complete fool. Sometimes a total bitch. And other times, nuttier than a Picnic bar. Most of the time, I'm doing my best to be a decent and considerate person. Although the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it is not good enough to act intending one thing and hurt others. So, I'm sorry if I've been an idiot. Will try to be less of one.

The Arabian Nights

Book five of 2014 is Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Arabian Nights. This book brought back so many childhood memories. Obviously, I read a children's version of this because I don't recall there being so many references to sex or to people being quartered.

This is well worth the revist and not an effort to consume.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? That women were regarded as cunning and smart in these stories. They were respected and treated as calm. This is a very different view than what I expected. I also got used to the thanking of Ala every five seconds.

Fry's English Delight by Stephen Fry

I have just finished listening to the entire series Fry's English Delight and am considering this my fourth book of 2014.

Like everything Stephen Fry does, I think it is worth taking the time to consume. He is the delight. 

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? Metaphor means "to transfer" in Greek and is used in modern Greek language for furniture removalists and bank transfers. The word in English means to transfer a meaning from one thing to another.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett

Book three of 2014 is How To Live On 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennet.

It is from very early last century, and after you stop giggling at some of the silliness, it is thought-provoking. The main idea is that we have one equaliser and that is that we have 24 hours in a day. How we use that is important. It really encourages you not to have time where you're just waiting and doing nothing.

Not sure I agree with it all but it is interesting. A very short read and worth the effort, even if just for the smile.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? How to look at my down-time and find an active way to live life.

We Are All Weird: The Myth of Mass and the End of Compliance

Book 2 for this year is: We Are All Weird: The Myth of Mass and the End of Compliance by Seth Godin.

As someone who has read his blog religiously for years, I found this book was concise and to the point as expected. The idea was interesting and one I'd heard others voice but didn't know where it came from.

Weirdness being about choice and the growth of the Internet supporting small tribes who would have been outliers is an interesting idea.

As someone who spends a lot of time making my own choices (good or bad) and has a lot of people telling me how I should act to be normal, this resonated on many levels.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? I feel far less pressured to conform. Not that I ever really did but now I feel less concerned about it.

On Depression

Imagine that the laws of the universe changed. Imagine that to maintain the structure you have, you would have to concentrate with all your energy on all the bits that make you, you.

You have to picture the molecules made up of the atoms made up of electrons and protons and neutrons and tiny things that are proven in colliders.

The last thing you think at night is the shape you are and that is held until the next day when you wake up and you think the same so that it holds your shape.

Think of all the effort it takes. The pure exertion of effort that you must give to make your toe a toe and your lung a lung.

If you let go for even a second, you will fade in to billions of tiny parts that never recombine.

It is tiring, right?

That is what it is like to be depressed. That is how much effort it takes.

Outliers: The Story of Success

Last year I wanted to read 25 books and I read 27. This year, I aim to read 25. This is the first.

Outliers is another great Gladwell book that made me go and look up a whole bunch of concepts, studies and ideas to get a deeper understanding behind his ideas. Ideas that bring together psychology, anecdotes and statistics to tell many interesting stories about the favourable variables that come together to give people advantage on top of which hard work and risk taking can lead to success.

Having read Blink and Tipping Point, which changed the way I think, it took me a while to get to this much bigger book. It however has changed the way I think about approaching life more than the first two.

It was interesting that Gladwell is part black Jamaican. I don't usually google the authors I read but I did at the end of this book due to the last story about his grandmother. He is different to what I imagined. Go the fro.

Now, I must go off and work out what factors make up being me.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? Success if all about opportunity, luck and hard work.