InSideOut

THE STEPHENING STANDARD : Taking a ‘Captain Cook’ at 2010

2011-01-02T21:07:00.002+10:00

(For the non-Aussie speakers, 'Captain Cook' means 'look' in rhyming slang)

New Year With the Rugrats

To see in 2010, Zach and I found ourselves on the island of Rottnest in Western Australia. Rottnest is from the Dutch for 'rat's nest' so named for the little animals found then and now all over the island. The little animals are in fact quokkas, a type of marsupial. The other little animals that populate this island (aside from tourists) are flies – as can be seen on my forehead in the following photo!

On Rottnest island, Zach and I joined my first cousin, David (from London), his wife Marian (from Perth), and my first cousins once removed (ie, their children). Zach spent most of his time with his second cousins (David's children).

I take a detour here to describe labelling of cousins which may be something you have always wanted to know about but never quite understood.

Degree of cousinship (first, second, third, etc.) is defined by the most recent common ancestor beginning with grandparent (first), great-grandparent (second), great-great-grandparent (third), etc.

Removal describes the number of generations separating any cousins. David's kids and I are related through grandparents to me (making them 'first cousins'), but they are one generation further away (my grandparents are their great-grandparents), so they are my first cousins once removed.

A Grand Tour

Zach joined me on my annual trip to Europe in June/July. One of the big highlights of this trip for Zach was a day spent exploring a forest with two of his French friends, Jean and Thomas (who are I believe second cousins to one another)

In the forest, we followed various trails, picked blackberries (not very ripe), hunted slugs (various colours and sizes - feel free to ask for photos), listened for bears, forded streams, squelched through water, swatted mosquitoes and stopped to eat packets of crisps.

Another memorable moment for Zach was spending some time with my father and his wife (Pauleen) in the tiny village of Montcuq in the Lot region of France. I'm not sure if I will be able to do this again as I discovered that Zach was not only out roaming the streets but ripping them up (see picture below):

Other highlights were a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g train trip from France to Italy, a visit to Monte Carlo (Zach as a car-enthusiast was enchanted by this stop), and a stay in Varenna on Lago di Como to celebrate the 50^th birthday of a primary school friend, Kim Cramer.

Yes, we went past George Clooney's house. He happened to be there and hollered out to me 'Hi Stephen', but I told him I was busy and we kept on moving. I note in passing that George will be celebrating his 50^th this year (2011). I consider this another of his sad attempts to emulate me.

Semi-Centennial Celebration

I celebrated my 50^th birthday in August 2010 with a Hawaiian theme boat trip on the Tweed River. If you think you were there, but you don't remember it – you're in good company!

My father having donated funds for the libations for this party was of course put on drinks duty. I bought various drinks, ice, loaded them into ice-chests and sent my Dad off to the wharf where the boat trip was to start. He was instructed to offer a welcome drink to those arriving early for the boat trip. I wondered how Dad would identify those going on the boattrip to offer them a drink. Dad's response was straightforward : "If they're wearing anything that looks vaguely Hawaiian, I will offer them a drink."

It is reported that street people in the Tweed region have taken up wearing Hawaiian shirts since that day.

Meanwhile, here are two 50-year old reprobates (Stephen and Kim) talking about the problem of the youth today. They're not only old, but they clearly have poor long-term memory as well.

Vanuatu

Zach and I travelled to Vanuatu in September to join my brother (Timothy), his wife Louise and their son Mitchell (a first cousin to Zach of course). We also had the good fortune to be shown around the island by a first cousin to Louise called Brian who lives on Vanuatu with his wife and kids. Brian introduced us to the joys of hydroponic kava – or at least, I reckon it must have been hydroponic!

I loved Vanuatu for its unpretentiousness and the fact that many of the people there speak English and French and Bislama and one of the many native languages. Vanuatu used to be known as the New Hebrides and has the rather unusual claim to fame as being one of the only joint British / French colonies in the world up from 1906 until it gained its independence in 1980.

Brian and his family showed us many wonderful things on the island, but one of the highlights for me was the trip to a coral beach on the other side of the island. The photo shows (from the left) Jessie & Chloe (second cousins to Mitchell), Zach (first cousin to Mitchell) and Mitchell on his way out.

The Big Issues in Life

Zach finished Year 2 in 2010 and starts Year 3 in 2011. In the picture below, Captain Kidd, The Great White Hunter (Zach) and Hiawatha are in a serious discussion about the world's problems (how to lift the ban on fighting Kung Zhu pets in the playground) at Cudgen Primary School.

More seriously, Zach is probably telling them about how I announced to him that in ten years from now, we (yes, he and I) will be moving out of home. I figured it is good to get in early. I have told him that I plan to buy a yacht and sail around the South Pacific for a couple of years.

He was concerned about where he might go and asked if he could come with me. I said he was welcome to join me for some of the time. He then asked me how he might see his mother every other week. I guess we're going to have to do some more talking on this one!

Even more seriously, I have launched a website with my colleague Charles : www.theotherglassceiling.com. Visit to see what I have been working on for the last year or so.

Here's looking forward to 2011. I hope that you and yours have a wonderful year.

Stephening Standard – 2009

2010-01-02T11:56:00.000+10:00

Happy 2010. I hope that 2009 was great for you, I hope that 2010 will be even better.

Attached, you will find a short update on the what Zach and I have been doing over the last year or so.

Zach does his commute in his sleep

Zach is a well-established bus-commuter taking the journey of over one hour between our home in Coolangatta to his school at Cudgen in New South Wales.

However, as our home is in Queensland without day-light saving, and his school is in New South Wales with day-light saving, the morning routine can be a little frantic during the summer months.

Zach began taking the bus at his insistence last year while he was still in his first year at school (‘Kinder’).

His first bus-driver, Bones (pictured) reports that Zach is very social during the bus-journey.

However, during the last 15 minutes of the ride home, there is no-one else on the bus, and Zach sometimes falls asleep.

On his second-ever trip, I had to carry Zach from the bus. Zach awoke as I carried him out of the bus and he announced how lucky it was that he had not fallen asleep.

Very lucky indeed.

Miles of smiles

Zach and I visited our dear friends, the family Larrieu south of Toulouse in July 2009. There Zach got to practice his French with Jean (both pictured below).

Zach who is very much into vehicles of all kinds was delighted to be able to visit the A380 factory while we were in Toulouse.

In 2008, Zach got to practice French when we were kindly accommodated first by the family Bitaud-Zerathe, and then by the family De Clercq on two separate visits to New Caledonia.

While sitting in the airport lounge in New Caledonia on our return from one of these trips, Zach was asking about which airline we would be taking for our return journey.

He recognised Qantas, I pointed out Air Calin and Air New Zealand to him.

Then, in the clear innocent voice that only a young boy can produce, Zach made a curious observation : “There aren’t many virgins here, are there Papa?” (Zach was referring to the Australian/Oceanic airline Virgin-Blue, part of Branson’s Virgin Group.)

That’s right Zach, our work here is done. Time for us to go home!

Couch potato to super-hero
Zach has applied for the position of couch-potato in the household.

He is very fond of his television.

Despite a letter to Santa requesting a Wii, I am glad to see that the big old fellow did not oblige.

Accordingly, I’m always delighted when I can get Zach off the couch.

I was less pleased however when Zach jumped off the couch while playing and managed to break his arm.

Despite the painful break, Zach was soon back in action as a super-hero – albeit with a clipped wing.

Over the renovations

Our home has been under renovation since about mid-2008.

Our home now sports a wonderful new deck overlooking the ocean at Coolangatta. Come and join us for a drink there sometime.

The kitchen and bathroom have been re-done, a new bathroom-ensuite added to Zach’s bedroom, and a repaint in and out.

In his visit during last winter, Dad was put to the task of putting a mural on the garage door.

Here, Zach and Dad show-off his handiwork.

Other stuff

I continue to work at Bond University on a 50% contract.

In the remainder of my time, I do parenting, consulting, and writing.

I am working on a book project dealing with gender inequality with a colleague of mine down at the University of Sydney, Charles Areni.

Charles and I were students together at the University of Florida many years ago.

In my spare time, I am pushing forward – very slowly – towards an MA in philosophy and sociology.

I completed my 49th year on this planet in August 2008, and am currently celebrating the passage of my 50th year.

I will celebrate the closing of this my jubilee year around Sunday, 1 August, 2010.

Let me know if you are in town and would like to join me.

For more on what I have been doing and thinking over time, please visit my blog : www.insideoutsite.blogspot.com

Family of Two (by Lucas Dell)

2009-12-08T09:45:00.002+10:00

My family is unique,
We live differently than most.
Not worse, not better
Just different.
Mum and me

A bit like an echidna
Prickly and protective
Sometimes very prickly.
Not all the time though.

Somewhat like a family of bats,
She says I smell like one,
Musty, like a closed-off room.
My room is my musty cave.

A lot like a koala
Close, protective of heights
I used to cling to her like a koala,
When I was a kid.

A whole lot like the Tasmanian Devil
Having babies when she’s older…
Watchful, and scary if you mess with me.
She’s can be really scary, but mostly just noisy.
Mainly when I don’t do something.
Like cleaning my room

Our family is like all these animal families.
Different yet same.
She cares for me like theirs do.
Alone.
Without help
I never met my father, either.
All of us…
Fatherless families
Not worse off
Not better.
Different from some
But no less happy,
We are happy
Just us
A family of two.

Yes.
I come from a family of two.
Is that true?
But a family is three.
Not mine.
It began as two but changed when I began.
From three to two, again.
A family of my Mum and me.

I spoke to him once.
To ask if he wanted to meet me
before we left for another place.
He said no.
I wondered why.
I wonder why.
Still.
I wonder many things.
Is he a good man?
Or is he not.
My thinking makes him neither.
He is, who he is.
Someone I don’t know.
Never met.
Probably never will.
But I can’t talk about that
when I have ‘now’.
You probably wonder.
Having only a Mum.
No grandparents on one side,
others too far to know.
What is that like
growing that way?
A family of two.

It’s different.
She’s different.
She teaches me things
I might need to know.
She is a woman
and she teaches me things
she knows.
But she never taught me
to wrestle.
She never taught me
to hug. The hug of a boy and man.
She never taught me
how to read maps.
She never taught me that sometimes
you really don’t need to talk.
She never taught me
to fight.
She never taught me
to shave.
She never taught me
how to tinker with things.
She never taught me
to leave the toilet seat up.
She never taught me
about the taste of a cold beer on a hot day.
She never taught me
to aim my pee at the porcelain or the shower drain.
She never taught me
to use deodorant when then was no time for a shower.

But she listened.
She listened to me.
So I learned to listen.

She teaches me
grace
and kindness
And shares her knowing.
Our family of two.

It braces me now
for my journey.
The one I will begin.
Unafraid,
stepping strong,
boldly into future
and destiny

and I step confidently
On my right path
…because
she never taught me.

Lucas Dell
(16 years old)

Owed to Marilyn

2009-03-27T13:00:00.003+10:00

Monday March 23, 12.42pm, I get an urgent phone call from Ant’s mum, Joan. She is looking for Ant. Marilyn has just been taken to hospital in an ambulance – seven minutes ago Joan tells me. I find Ant. He’s stoic. He’s on his way.

Later that day, at 6.12pm, I call Marilyn’s mobile phone. No answer. I leave no message. I call their home number. I feel awkward leaving a message, but I ask them – yes, ‘them’ – to call me back with an update when they have a chance.

Later that night, Ant calls me back. Marilyn died at 6.30pm.

Why all these detailed times? I don’t know. They have just stuck with me. Maybe because like the Superbowl this year, time is suddenly so much more valuable, so much more precious, so much more salient just near the end.

Ant and I continue our stereotypically, male telephone conversation.

“How you doing?” I ask.

“I’ve had better days.”

He has phone calls to make. He has family to support him. He seems ok.

I hang up.

And I cry.

The phantom which had given Marilyn breath, returned and sucked it away. That spark we call life was snuffed out.

I just felt hollow.

Thoughts of Marilyn flood my mind.

Marilyn always struck me as having the best of the American traits and none of the bad. For example, Marilyn was incapable of saying anything bad about anyone. Marilyn told me that one of my girlfriends was a ‘keeper’. As said girlfriend is now an ex, I think I can safely say Marilyn wasn’t always right. However, Marilyn’s falsely positive judgment did encourage me and X to produce a son, Zac – and he is a keeper.

The fourth Thursday of each November, Marilyn would invite all the American refugees to Thanksgiving dinner. The Seppos would bring enough food to remind us Aussies lucky enough to be invited that an entrée in American means all the food you can fit ‘on a tray.’

On a journey with Marilyn on the TGV across France one time, she talked to me about her family. Marilyn was an only-child. Her family were extremely long-lived. At the time, her mother was still alive. I remember remarking to Marilyn that she was in for a long life. I was clearly and sadly wrong.

While in France, Marilyn and I saw a proverb written on the walls of St Etienne Cathedral in Toulouse : “Fais ce que tu vouldrois avoir fait quand tu mourras.” Do now what you’d like to have done when you die.

On July 23, 2008, Marilyn called me to tell me that she had been diagnosed with cancer. I was overseas at the time. I didn’t know what to say. Later that day, I wrote to Marilyn: “I feel pretty helpless about your situation, and yep, I realise that what I feel is probably only a tiny little bit of what you feel. My thoughts are with you...” They still are.

Remembering the French proverb and our cross-cultural experiences, I chose to honour Marilyn while she lived with some token gifts – my treats, my choices.

I had always wanted to try the dégustation menu at the three-star French restaurant, Absynthe in Q1. I invited Marilyn and we went there on December 9 for a spectacular meal a few days after her most recent birthday.

I don’t know which birthday. Marilyn proved that women can keep a secret about some things. Nonetheless, I can say unequivocally that Marilyn had too few birthdays.

Some years ago, Marilyn and I had talked about trying a Grange Hermitage, the famed pinnacle of Australian wine. On February 19 this year, Marilyn and I and some others drank a Grange Hermitage. And yes, it was Grange ‘Hermitage,’ not simply Grange. Penfolds agreed to drop the word ‘Hermitage’ from their label in 1990 out of deference to the French gripe that Hermitage is not a grape, but rather a region in France. We drank Grange Hermitage. 1987. Made not long after Marilyn was born by my estimate.

My son, Zac is 6 years old, and knows Marilyn and Ant well. Ant even changed his nappy – once – kind of!

When I told Zac that Marilyn had died, he asked me, “Why?”

Is anyone surprised? A young child asks the question ‘why’ approximately 426 times a day.

The real question is this - are any of us listening?

Why?

Yes, why?

Douglas Adams, writer of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has something to say on the question, ‘why?’ : “When you hear the word ‘why?,’ you know you’ve got one of the biggest unanswerables on your hands, such as ‘why are we born?’ or ‘why do we die?’ and ‘why do we spend so much of the intervening time receiving junk mail?’”

So what’s my answer to my son’s question ‘why?’

Life is a gift. And a gift that is frequently, and sadly overlooked.

Death is someone else’s gift to we the living. In letting go of life, Marilyn reminds us of the gift that we so often take for granted.

Of course, my son Zac doesn’t really understand these words. He does however understand the extra hugs and kisses that I’ve showered on him in the days since Marilyn’s death. Her gift is already working its magic. Even if my demonstrative affection leads Zac to ask me another inevitable ‘why?’ question : “Papa, you’re hugging and kissing me all the time, why?”

Just because!

And just 425 more ‘why’s’ to go today.

I want to thank Marilyn for her gifts to me. Both her own life which was a direct gift to me. And through her death which reminds me that the present is a gift.

I like to imagine I can hear Marilyn speaking some words written by Isabel Allende:

“There is no death…
People die only when we forget them…
If you can remember me,
I will be with you always.”

Thanks Marilyn for your wonderful gifts.

I owe you.

Marvelling at belief in miracles

2009-02-27T22:03:00.003+10:00

(Circa 30 CE)

Arthur and a large group are following a man called Brian[1]: They believe that he is the messiah – and Brian is trying to dissuade them of their belief.

FOLLOWER#1: Give us a sign!

ARTHUR: He has given us a sign! He has brought us to this place!

BRIAN: I didn't bring you here! You just followed me!

FOLLOWER#1: Oh, it's still a good sign by any standard.

ARTHUR: Master! Your people have walked many miles to be with You! They are weary and have not eaten.

BRIAN: It's not my fault they haven't eaten!

ARTHUR: There is no food in this high mountain!

BRIAN: Well, what about the juniper bushes over there?

FOLLOWERS: Hhhh! A miracle! A miracle! Ohh!...

FOLLOWER#1: He has made the bush fruitful by His words.

FOLLOWER#2: They have brought forth juniper berries.

BRIAN: Of course they've brought forth juniper berries! They're juniper bushes! What do you expect?!

ARTHUR: It’s a miracle! In this high mountain with virtually no vegetation, you conjured up juniper bushes.

BRIAN: But you agree that juniper bushes can grow here – even if they are not numerous – right?

A: (Nods)

B: Well, wouldn’t a miracle be something a little more spectacular?

A: Like to raise someone from the dead?

B: But what makes that a miracle?

A: Because dead people, once dead, stay dead. That’s the law of nature.

B: But what if the dead person was my friend and accomplice? It is claimed he has died, but it ain’t so[2].

A: But you can’t fake death. If he’s not breathing, he’s dead[3].

B: He can hold his breath for a long time. He has been subsequently entombed for four days[4], cloistered away so no-one can confirm or disconfirm his deadness. When I roll back the stone from the front of the tomb, on my command, he walks out alive.

A: But that’s cheating!

B: It’s magic! You said earlier, I ‘conjured up juniper bushes.’ Perhaps I’m simply a master magician. If I am good at it, you might never know you have been duped.

A: What if I was to bring you someone I knew to be dead, someone you didn’t know.

B: Ah, so you would simply seek more evidence to support your supposition of a miracle. Not sure where this will end, but sure, let’s say you bring me someone newly dead.

A: Right.

Brian: What if I had some technique for resurrecting him. By striking a newly dead man in the chest, I am able to revive him.

A: That’s a miracle.

B: But what if any person could do it? Or even say a bolt of lightening could revive him. What then?

A: It would still be a miracle. Bringing someone back from the dead is a miracle under any circumstances.

B: But what if it is a technology that you simply don’t understand. Like magic[5]. For instance, do you think that turning water into acid counts as a miracle?

A: Don’t you mean water into wine?

B: What’s the difference? Aren’t they both against the law of nature?

A: I would be more impressed if you turned water into wine.

B: OK, so water into wine is a miracle, and water into acid is… something else!. Was the great flood not a miracle wrought by god? Not a lot of joy for those that missed the boat, ‘ark, ‘ark!.

A: God has his reasons which we cannot understand.

B: OK, but let’s return to who creates miracles later. For now, I want to nail down what type of event counts as a miracle. I’ll return to the stock standard of water into wine. If I added grape juice to the water, and turned it into wine, would that be a miracle?

A: No! We know that grape juice turns into wine anyway by law of nature.

B: Not always. Still, imagine the first person to discover wine. He foolishly left some grape juice in a vat for six months or so. Rather than throw it out, he tastes it and lo and behold, he tastes that it is good. How would he feel?

A: Pretty good!. However, it has been repeated so many times since, we now know that is an act of nature, it happens all the time.

B: Now. But not then! On the first occasion, it is a miracle, but with repetition it becomes a law of nature?

A: A miracle is an improbable, an infrequent event.

B: If time extends for not just millennia, but billions or trillions of years, something improbable becomes increasingly probable over time, so even that becomes a trivial way of defining miracles.

A: Look, people know a miracle when they see one.

B: Well, that’s not so clear to me. However, I’m not interested in quibbling about what constitutes a miracle. Does it not strike you as amazing that grape juice – water with some sugar in it – turns to wine? Imagine that is all happening through the operation of say a little animal that is invisible to our naked eye, it eats up the sugar and poops out alcohol. Is that not awe-inspiring?

A: Humph. Unlikely! Nevertheless, grape-juice to wine is indeed awe-inspiring.

B: OK. Is not life itself is a miracle. Life may be commonplace now, but it was not always so. The creation of life is a miracle. Even if only one life had been created, all subsequent generations from that one life would be amazing[6].

A: OK, yes, it is a miracle. You agreeing with me? Miracles prove that God exists?

B: Steady on. The existence of exceptional or extraordinary events may be labelled as miracles. However, I do not agree that miracles imply a sign of the hand of god. Why do you not simply doubt your understanding rather than attribute to it to be an act of god?[7]

A: But if the event were delivered in response to prayer, then wouldn’t that count as evidence of a miracle at the hands of God?[8]

B: OK. But whose god? The inhabitants of ancient Rome, Turkey, Thailand and China support their belief in their gods by pointing to miracles[9].

A: They are ignorant and barbarous peoples[10]. Their miracles are probably fabricated.

B: Which they would say about yours. Give me your reasons why you reject their evidence; they are the reasons I would use to reject your evidence!

A: Well, it is my god that performed their miracles.

B: As they would say about yours. Returning me to my key question. How can you ascribe a miracle – or anything else for that matter – to a god?

A: OK, maybe we can’t say which god, but it is a god, or even a collection of gods.

B: You might be encouraged by a fortuitous circumstance of an unusual event apparently coinciding with a request, but I do not think the evidence is compelling. Many prayers are unanswered, and I daresay many unusual events are unrequested! It is not clear that anyone ‘asked’ for creation or the great flood. In which case, we must conclude that some god decided to create these miracles of his own volition.

A: Well I already believe in God. So, I don’t need miracles to prove His existence. And given that I believe He exists, His existence gives me an explanation for miracles[11]. That’s one more explanation than you have!

B: So your belief in the existence of god has been established independently of miracles?

A: Yeah. And the existence of miracles simply serves to strengthen my belief in God.

B: Why do you need the arguments strengthened? Why would you or god bother to strengthen the argument if his existence is already established? We seem to agree that miracles can’t prove his existence. Just for interest, how is god’s existence established to your satisfaction.

A: Well, you said it yourself. The miracle of creation that gave rise to nature. Who could have created this complex world if not God? There must be a designer!

B: God is certainly one possible explanation, but not the only one. It could be that nature has provided us with an unlikely event. It maybe that Life, the universe and everything was created by some other entity[12]. Or perhaps it sprung into existence spontaneously. It seems no more unlikely to me than that god created it.

A: Is not God a simpler explanation[13]? God is the prime mover, the first cause, the creator all of nature – and the miracles that violate nature.

B: Your argument reduces to a singularity. God creates everything - nature, and all events violating nature. Is there some alternative against which we can test this idea? Besides, using god as an explanation still leaves us with the problem of explaining how god came to exist.

A: Nothing that I can imagine. Is that not as it should be? God is the ultimate beginning.

B: We are returning to what I would call magic. A miracle is an event for which we do not have an explanation. Neither miracle nor creation - nor nature by the same reasoning - proves the existence of god.

A: At some point, one must simply rely on faith. To do otherwise tempts eternal damnation[14].

B: That may well explain why so many are willing to believe in a god, but it does not prove that there is one entity – or more – who created everything.

A: Some things cannot be understood with reason. ‘I have neither hope nor expectation of convincing a skeptic simply by miracles’[15].

B: Ha! You would have me dismiss reason in this instance. Would not any man losing a debate seek to have their opponent abandon reason – especially if the opponent’s reasons do not fit the defender’s beliefs?

A: But aren’t miracles and everything prove there is a god.

B: I have an alternative theory… it proves you’re an ignorant and barbarous fool!

A: Ah, but didn’t that fellow Anselm say that ‘the fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’. Does that not make you the fool?

B: Perhaps I am because Anselm said that a fool, with some understanding of God, would be forced to admit that he could not conceive that God does not exist.

A: Huh?

B: Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel too.

A: God you’re a pain to talk to.

B: They said the same about Socrates! Let’s call it quits. I agree there are miracles: (sings)

“Believe in miracles cause I’m one

I have been blessed with the power to survive

After all these years I’m still alive[16]”.

(Speaks) However, I do not agree that they are signs of god. I suggest you go help yourself to some of those miraculous juniper berries over there. I’m off to the tavern to sip in awe at a glass of wine. Divine!

[1] The section in italics is extracted from the script of The Life of Brian by Monty Python, 1979. The remainder of the script has been created to illustrate a variety of arguments for and against the existence of god based on miracles.

[2] Hume, ‘Of Miracles,’ R+W, p.498

[3] In 30CE, death would presumably have been established by breathing, the knowledge of heart and its measurement through pulse not having been understood then.

[4] John 11 recounts Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany who has been four days dead.

[5] C.f., Arthur C. Clarke’s observation that “Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

[6] Given that no other life has been yet found in the universe, the existence of life must count as an extreme, even singular example of an exceptional event, ‘E’ as defined by Swinburne in his paper, ‘Miracles’, R+W, p.500. As an interesting aside, the film The Life of Brian featured a bizarre scene where Brian was saved miraculously from a premature death, quite coincidentally, by a passing alien spaceship.

[7] Hume, ‘Of Miracles,’ R+W, p.495

[8] Swinburne, ‘Miracles,’ R+W, p.505

[9] c.f., Hume, ‘Of Miracles’ R+W, p.496

[10] c.f., Hume, ‘On Miracles,’ R+W, p.496

[11] Swinburne, ‘Miracles,’ R=W, p.505, from his argument that if god exists, then an explanation that an exceptional event “E is due to activity of a god is more adequately substantiated, and the occurrence of E gives further support to the evidence for the existence of a god.”

[12] Not to be confused with Douglas Adams, the author who did create a book entitled LIfe, the Universe and Everything

[13] Swinburne, ‘Miracles,’ R+W, p.506 invokes Occam’s razor to justify god as the simplest explanation.

[14] Pascal’s Wager

[15] Kathryn Kuhlman, I believe in miracles, Gainesville, FL : Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1990, p.1

[16] “I believe in miracles” by The Ramones, 1986, later re-recorded by Pearl Jam, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDwFydcnAVQ The Ramones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMvETKhyy7E Pearl Jam

No karma, no good ?

2008-10-12T15:54:00.005+10:00

I think that the notion of karma, and the related notion of rebirth are bunk! So, if I don’t believe in karma, why would I do good? I believe that I do – but why? In this essay, I explore karma and the reason why people are good.

Karma Defined

Karma is defined as being about cause and effect. In Buddhism, karma is more correctly identified as ‘cause[1],’ it is the action that will eventually result in an effect.

Karma is likened to a seed that will ultimately bear a fruit (vipaka):

"According to the seed that’s sown,

So is the fruit you reap therefrom,

Doer of good will gather good,

Doer of evil, evil reaps,

Down is the seed and thou shalt taste the fruit thereof[2]."

This passage is strikingly similar to a section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians[3], the first verse being: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Finally, it is important to note that while karma is referred to as an action, karma is more about the intention underlying the action. However, it is acknowledged that actions originating from a deluded mind, even if well-intended, can sow a negative karmic seed[4].

So (the fruit of) karma provides a strong motivation to exercise good intentions and actions. But how is karma distinguished from an alternative motivation such as the Abrahamic god?

Karma vs. Abrahamic God

Karma says that good actions will attract positive outcomes later in this life or another. However, the Abrahamic god provides a similar reward-structure. Abrahamic scriptures say that a person’s actions will be rewarded or punished as appropriate in the afterlife, e.g., “As for the righteous, they shall surely triumph. Theirs shall be gardens and vineyards, and high-bosomed maidens: a truly overflowing cup[5]”

Which reward structure is true? It seems impossible to know, at least here and now, although both Abrahamic apologists and Buddhists tell me that I will become aware of the truth of their position with the passage of time – although presumably only one can be correct. In this moment then, the choice appears to be a matter of personal preference.

I have a preference for karma as it encourages the individual to take responsibility for his/her actions. The Abrahamic view sometimes casts humans as helpless pawns at the mercy of God’s power (e.g., Job).

But what if one does not believe in karma or rebirth (or an afterlife)?

Belief and disbelief

While the Buddha exhorts his followers to believe in karma and rebirth, he acknowledges that there are few who can have direct knowledge or ‘experience’ of these two principles. Therefore, Buddhists must largely accept these ‘truths’ as acts of faith[6]. That is, they choose to believe; however, they do not know.

The skeptic is characterized as someone who falls short of believing. S/he is an ‘infidel,’ literally faithless, a non-believer[7]. There are however, a range of choices between believing and disbelieving. In the middle is doubt. The skeptic can range from doubt to strong disbelief. And strong disbelief, agnosticism as it was originally defined[8], is really an opposite belief. Agnostics believe (even ‘know’) that the knowledge is unobtainable.

The Buddha sees skepticism as “eel-wriggling”[9] However, the Buddha also encourages critical thinking about the claims of spiritual teachers[10]. So Buddha encourages skepticism of ‘authority’ on one hand, and encourages belief in principles without personal experience and on his authority on the other. Sounds like two eels intertwined to me!

Ultimately, the unknown is a matter of belief. It seems difficult to judge one belief as superior to another if the truth is unknown.

More pragmatically, the Buddha argues “that to believe in (the principles of karma and rebirth), and so live a moral life will lead to a good rebirth if rebirths exist. If rebirths do not exist, nothing will have been lost, and the person will in any case have been praised by wise people[11].”

Interestingly, this statement hints at why someone would be good – regardless of their belief or doubt in the concept of karma.

The problem of good

The problem of good can be stated as follows: if one does not believe in karma, what is the motivation to be good?

One obvious reason is the ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ in this life. A person may be complimented (“praised by wise people” as in the quote above), liked or receive other rewards for good deeds, and may be criticized, judged or punished for bad deeds. From this point of view, it is sensible for a person to be good – even without believing in karma.

Another reason is intrinsic motivation and that being good has its own rewards. Following the ‘right’ way feels good, deviating feels bad. The Epicurean philosophy of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain reflects a simple version of this notion[12]. More subtly, most ethical systems, religious or secular, encourage a person to strive for right conduct and a life worth living[13].

The notion of intrinsic rewards is well captured in the notion of “pay it forward” where the recipient of a good deed is invited to do a good deed for another. The original do-gooder does not get any direct reward; their only possible reward is the hope that someone else – and maybe many eventually – will benefit.

This idea does not invoke karma or any rewards after this life. While popularized by a 2000 film called Pay it forward, the practice is traced back to 1784[14] when Benjamin Franklin extended a loan to Benjamin Webb. Franklin invited Webb to ‘repay’ him by ‘lending’ the money to “another honest Man in similar Distress” in the future[15]. Franklin wrote “This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

Therefore, karma motivates good actions, but good actions may have other motivations. There are many who are good even if they do not believe in the Buddhist form of karma.

So, karma is not needed to explain why people are good. How does it go in explaining bad actions and bad events?

The problem of evil

Buddhists argue that karma is a satisfactory explanation for the suffering (dukkha) of people “who have done nothing to deserve it in this life[16].” That is, their past actions in this or another birth account for what they are experiencing today. Buddhists further argue that the karmic balance sheet is inaccessible (“unthinkable”) to anyone but a Buddha[17].

The argument is similar to the Abrahamic argument asking believers to accept that god is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. God’s actions cannot be understood by mortals, followers must trust that God treats people as they deserve and has (good) reasons for his actions[18].

Interestingly, Buddhism uses what is typically known as the ‘problem of evil’ to dismiss the notion of an Abrahamic God (identified as Brahma). Epicurus is often credited with being the first to describe this rebuttal for the existence of God:

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot;

or he can, but does not want to.

If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent.

If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.

If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"[19]

However, the argument from dukkha (suffering) is laid out by Buddha (who predated Epicurus) in the Bhûridatta Jataka which is in turn a story about one of the Buddha’s previous lives (therefore long predating Epicurus!):

He who has eyes can see the sickening sight;
Why does not Brahma set his creatures right?
If his wide power no limits can restrain,
Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?
Why does he not to all give happiness? [20]

Dukkha appears to serve a more fundamental role in Buddhism – it is the first Holy Truth. So, is dukkha inevitable, or is it a consequence of karma?

The Four Truths & karma

The first Truth states that there is dukkha. The second that dukkha comes from cravings. However, karma states that dukkha comes from past actions. The second Truth and karma are not inconsistent – the second Truth focuses on proximal causes, karma on distal causes – but they do give cause to pause on the issue of cause.

I accept the first Truth, but I do not believe karma. I have experienced dukkha but not karma. My lack of belief about karma does nothing to discredit the validity of the Four Truths. I acknowledge that I create dukkha through my cravings (second Truth). Of course, I seek to end dukkha (third Truth), and I believe that the Eightfold Path is an appropriate approach (fourth Truth).

Interestingly, given that I do not believe in rebirth, I have at least relinquished my craving for existence beyond this life, and presumably, I have made at least some tentative steps towards the Buddhist ideal of ‘not-self.’

Conclusions

Overall, I find Buddhist (and Abrahamic) cosmological views challenging as they are supported with little to no evidence. They are therefore, a matter for personal belief.

Moreover, I see such beliefs as irrelevant. It is as in the Buddha’s Parable of the Arrow where a man wounded by an arrow asks the name of the archer[21]. Such knowledge is irrelevant. So it is with karma. I am concerned about finding the right path in this life. To know the truth of karma is for me, irrelevant.

[1] Harvey, P. An introduction to Buddhism: teachings, history and practices, p.39, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism, accessed 9oct08

[2] Samyutta Nikaya, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samyutta_Nikaya, accessed 9oct08

[3] Galatians, 6.7-10

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma, accessed9oct08

[5] The Koran, 78th surah entitled “The Tidings” (or Al-Naba’), Dawood, N.A. (trans.), p. 417. It is interesting to note that Islam like Buddhism appears to favour

[6] Harvey, p.44

[7] http://www.answers.com/topic/infidel, accessed 10oct08

[8] Thomas Huxley created the term ‘agnostic’ and defined the ‘strong’ position : “They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis,"–had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.” Huxley, Thomas. Collected Essays, 237-239

[9] Harvey, p.14

[10] Anguttara Nitaya, I.189, cited by Harvey, p.30

[11] Harvey, p.44, paraphrasing Majjhima Nikaya I.403, Harvey’s emphasis

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus, accessed 10oct08

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics, accessed 11oct08

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward, accessed 9oct08

[15] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Franklin_to_Benjamin_Webb, accessed 9oct08

[16] Harvey, p.44

[17] Anguttara Nikaya, IV.77, cited by Harvey, p.41

[18] e.g., see Job, 34.10-13

[19] Haught, James A., 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt, 1996

[20] Bhuridatta Jataka, VIII, http://www.borobudur.tv/avadana_03.htm, accessed 8oct08

[21] Majjhima Nikaya 1.426, cited by Nelson, Peter, “The Buddha: Our Spiritual ‘Contemporary’”, originally published Westender Vol. 5(3), April, 2002, http://www.buddhanet.net/spiritual-contemporary.htm, accessed 26sep08

The Stephening Standard (v6, 2007)

2008-02-01T16:29:00.002+10:00

Zac at MiniSchool
in 2007
wearing his favourite
Holden t-shirt

Editoral - Life at Last

If you wake up, it is a good day…you’re alive at least. Getting the annual newsletter from Stephen may not make it a good day, but at least you know he is still alive.

The year 2007 was a very big year for me. It was not all good, and not all bad. Two big events are discussed in the following However, 2007 was a major turn-around year for me and that was great.

The big news in the here and now is that Zac started ‘Big School’ yesterday. I am proud to say that I did not cry – at least not while anyone was looking. So 2008 is looking great…but now, for a brief review of the highlights of 2007.

Papa & Zac
building card houses
at the weekly
French conversation
breakfast

The Good News - Lost in Love

The sometimes annual Latin Ball at Bond University happened on Friday, March 16, 2007. As I was walking toward the venue, I saw a ravishing dark-haired beauty standing looking a little lost.

She turned to ask me if I knew the location of the Princeton Room which was the location of the Latin Ball. It was with great pleasure that I offered to accompany her there…and beyond as it later turned out.

However, it was not ever too easy between us. Is it ever? Jeanette had been invited to the Ball by one of my friends, Marie-Claire. Marie-Claire as a perpetual match-maker had rather hoped that Jeanette might hook up with a particular fellow at the Ball – not me! This other guy quickly made it clear he shared the same hope. To fuel his hope, he had the good fortune to end up on the same table as Jeanette.

The odds against me seemed long, but I was not giving up. I managed to snatch some dances and some brief conversation with Jeanette when her attentive companion let his guard down briefly – for the call of nature or the bar or perhaps both as one seems inevitably to lead to the other. I later got her number from Marie-Claire, gave her a call, and we went from there.

Zac, Jeanette, Mac and Keaton

However, some challenges remained. Jeanette was in the process of embarking on an effort to immigrate to the US. She planned to join her sister who lives there. Together they wanted to help their parents living in South Africa to immigrate to the US.

Ultimately, Jeanette decided to head to the US. She did ask if I would go too – ironically to Jacksonville, Florida about 60 minutes from Gainesville where I lived when studying in the US in the 90s.

However, as the other love of my life lives with me one week out of every two, and his other week is with his mother who lives just 15 minutes from my home, I declined her offer.

And so it ended. I learned that I am capable of loving again, and I’m still capable of attracting challenging women! Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed our six-month sojourn.

Bad News - Suspicion & Intrigue

August 21, 2007 was a crap day to begin with, and it only got worse. The weather sucked…it was rainy, windy and all-round miserable. I was with my neighbour and his two boys, Mac and Keaton (you can see them in the picture with Jeanette and Zac). Mac had been with Zac and me for the afternoon. Mac’s dad and his other brother, Keaton, had come around to join the fun.

A ring at the doorbell heralded the end of the fun for me although I did not know it at the time. At my door were three police officers and two child safety officers.

In short, it was alleged (by an anonymous person) I was sexually abusing Zac. I was given no alternative but to submit to an interview myself, and to subsequently submit Zac to an interview with these same people without me or anyone that he knew present.

I will not go into further details here other than to say that after about 30+ minutes, the five people left without any apology and simply telling me that they felt there was no substantiation for the case made. It was a dark day as you can imagine.

Further details (read : an impassioned account of the event that I wrote the day after) elsewhere on this blog (see August 2007). One piece is entitled ‘confessions of a putative child abuser’; the other is a brief essay ‘on the nature of abuse’.

I survived, Zac has appeared to have come through the process unscathed thankfully.

The lesson to learn here is that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it. The other lesson is that when whatever hits the fan, it is not going to be distributed evenly.

(Above and Left)

A labyrinth
on Coolangatta Beach
that I built with some mates

But Wait, There’s More

As noted earlier, lot of things changed for me in 2007. I won the right in court to move to week about with Zachary in December – and that is now in place and Zac appears to be very happy with it.

I also won the right to take Zac away on extended overseas holidays beginning in 2010.

I have cut back to a 50% contract in my job at Bond University in order to be able to look after Zac half time.

I have also taken up study again. I am currently studying towards a MA in philosophy and sociology. I hope to give more detail on this project at the end of this year.

I hope 2008 is great year for you & yours.

Cheers, Stephen.

Dejeuner au Chateau Larrieu
just south of Toulouse in June

Feeling somnicidal

2007-12-20T16:00:00.002+10:00

This morning I woke up…and I know I should be thankful for that, but I wasn’t. I wanted to return to sleep. That really depressing feeling of not simply wanting to sleep more, but wanting to fall back to sleep and not come back. Not suicidal, but rather somnicidal. Is wishing to die in your sleep a bad thing? Isn’t that what most people wish for – to die in their sleep. However, I guess in most cases, it is prefaced by a conditional – ‘if I am to die, I want to die in my sleep.’ That’s not quite the same as ‘I want to die in my sleep.'

Do something important...

2007-12-06T17:12:00.001+10:00

It is not about doing something that’s important,
it is about doing something that is important for me.

And what's important to me now
may be different from what was important to me
and what will be important to me.

Follow your passion - for now.

Is there any justification for justifications?

2007-10-28T23:02:00.007+10:00

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

Donald Rumsfeld

Introduction

Enormous amounts of human endeavour are aimed at the getting of knowledge. Academics, scientists, educationalists and students are all interested in knowledge for its own sake. Businesses and governments are interested in knowledge for what it might do for them or allow them to do. Everyday people in their everyday lives want knowledge – be it expertise, sporting facts or gossip – both for its own sake and for what it can do for them.

But what constitutes knowledge? Many people may claim to have knowledge, but the claim (belief) alone is insufficient to constitute knowledge. For instance, many people claim to have knowledge about what influences their behaviour. Many would be willing to claim that advertising has no effect on their purchasing patterns. Many people (even the same ones!) would be willing to claim that subliminal advertisements in cinemas (presentations of ads so brief that they are not perceived consciously) can affect purchasing patterns – perhaps not their own so that they are consistent with their first belief!

I doubt that people have very complete knowledge about what influences their behaviour. And I doubt that the provision of ‘justification’ separates knowledge from non-knowledge. A woman says that she generally has no awareness of an ad when making a purchase, and justifies her claim by saying that if an ad has come to mind at the time of purchase, she explicitly refuses to buy the advertised brand. She also believes that subliminal ads have an influence on people, and as justification, points to a newspaper article from the late 1950s reporting that subliminal ads affected purchasing patterns.

My view is that the woman’s justifications add nothing to establishing whether she has knowledge or not. I believe that this woman is affected by advertising – without her awareness. I also believe that people are little affected by subliminally-presented stimuli. Determining whether she or I have knowledge can only be established if we ‘know’ the truth. The provision of justification does nothing to change the truth value of the claim. Plato’s definition that knowledge is ‘justified true belief’ is widely held today. I however, wonder whether the proposition that the true belief be justified is justified.

How does justification support true belief ?

Justification is, in my view, an attempt to show that truth and belief are aligned by simultaneously ‘proving’ the truth and bolstering the belief.

Justification serves first as a bootstrapping argument in support of the truth of a proposition. Whether a proposition such as ‘advertising has no effect on me’ is true is difficult to establish independently. We become more confident about the truth only through the passage of time and more specifically, through accumulated evidence. The evidence gathered increases our confidence of the claim of the truth value of the proposition, but does not prove it. The problem is that of induction where a number of instances may increase our confidence that some proposition is true, but they cannot prove irrefutably the truth of the proposition.

As a corollary to the role of justification as a proxy for truth, justification serves as a means of emphasizing our belief. A justification is however, just another belief, a belief about a belief. A justification, like the belief in a proposition, is a value-judgment, it is subjective and personal. Adding a belief about what justifies the first belief leads us to an infinite regress. Better to simply accept that the first belief is a direct personal experience, and cannot be questioned.

The insufficiency of justification

The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states that: “Not all true beliefs constitute knowledge; only true beliefs arrived at in the right way constitute knowledge.”[1] The assertion begs the question as to what is the ‘right way’? Arguing that only certain methods (as argued in reliabilism[2]) give us knowledge has a long history – with repeated failures. For instance, Galileo’s effort to show heliocentrism was denied as the telescope was dismissed as an unacceptable method of demonstrating his claims. However, as Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Introspection is a method that is generally dismissed in psychology today – even while William James’ highly regarded contributions to the field were typically based on this approach. In the study of customer psychology today, there are two approaches to generating knowledge known as quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research typically relies on complex statistical analyses about which many will argue or even reject as akin to “lies.” Qualitative research is rejected by many as lacking in rigour, validity and reliability.

If someone states their belief and justifies it based on voices or a vision, many would be prone to dismiss any claim for that proposition being knowledge. People arguing on the basis of a hunch or intuition might be similarly dismissed. However, there are parts of accepted knowledge today which appear to have come from essentially these types of sources. The chemist Kekulé claims that he realized that the benzene molecule was a closed-ring structure after seeing a snake swallowing its own tail during a daydream[3].

The field of psychology suggests that the explanations that people give for their behaviour are often constructed after the fact and only on questioning[4]. That is, justification follows belief, and is constructed in the way of backward reasoning[5] and / or self interest[6]. We humans dedicate a lot of energy to explaining tragedies such as air disasters (e.g., Challenger), mass murderers (e.g., the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007), and terrorism (e.g., 9-11). While post-event justifications may comfort humans, the ability of these justifications to establish knowledge appears to be dubious.

Another example of backward reasoning is argument by vindication. People may argue from subsequent evidence that their belief served them appropriately, and is therefore vindicated. However, if a person carries an umbrella every day, one day they will be vindicated for doing so. This reasoning puts me in mind of the bumper sticker, “Just ‘cos you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you.”

Justification in rhetoric

While the justification does not add to knowledge, it certainly helps in the communication of knowledge. For example, essays with strong reasons are far more compelling than those with poor reasons. However, powerful rhetoric does not constitute truth. Marketing communications and advertising are designed to persuade people, and provide justification for people to do so. The question of whether the belief is correctly aligned with truth is not important to rhetoric – something useful for the gullible to bear in mind.

Justification and meta-knowledge

If knowledge is based on only two conditions, truth and belief, can we know anything or are we left with the morass suggested by Donald Rumsfeld’s quote at the beginning of this essay? Justification appears to help resolve the problem of meta-knowledge. Justification increases our confidence that our belief is aligned with the truth by providing justification. It does not give us knowledge as noted earlier; but it makes us feel more comfortable that we know what we think we know.

Like truth on which it depends, knowledge is unknowable in an absolute sense. However, we are generally confident that we have ‘knowledge’, and accept that knowledge will be revised from time to time. Happily and encouragingly, the knowledge we operate on appears to work for us most of the time, much like the problem of induction is not a major concern for the pragmatist.

How do we live with the idea that knowledge is unknowable? In much the same way that we are unable to comprehend infinity.

My views are to some extent in accord with those of Feyeraband[7]. In a sense, I see that the development of knowledge is an ongoing movement of belief towards truth – whether the justifications are good or not. People once justified the existence of the earth and life on one or more gods; some still do. Others (e.g., Richard Dawkins, Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, etc.) prefer to rely on a theory derived from the notion of evolution. Given the objective of philosophy is often to elevate ‘reason’ to a supreme place, it is not surprising perhaps that justification should count as important in the definition of knowledge. However, as stated by Feyerabrand in the last chapter of Against Method (1975), “Praise of argument takes it for granted that the artifices of Reason give better results than the unchecked play of our emotions.”

In practical terms, I believe that we must accept the ‘truth’ of some proposition on a perpetual conditional basis. That is, we accept the truth for the moment, but we may have to revise this in light of disconfirming evidence (as proposed by Popper). Therefore, while we can talk of the ‘truth’ of a proposition, it would appear to me that the truth of any proposition is unknowable and cannot be independently established. Nevertheless, it does seem appropriate to me that knowledge is defined as those beliefs which are true – regardless of the justification given.

[1] http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epistemo.htm#H2

[2] Prof. Alvin Goldman, See Alvin Goldman "justification, epistemic" The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Bond University. 26 September 2007

http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t116.e1304

[3] http://www.chemsoc.org/timeline/pages/1864_benzene.html & http://www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm

[4] For example, there is an extensive and sometimes horrifying literature on the construction of memories - see E. Loftus, “Creating false memories,” Scientific American, 277 (3), 70-75, http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

[5] A recent article in the NY Times suggests that Kekulé’s account of developing the benzene ring through a dream is a fiction created by Kekulé and others. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4DF113BF935A2575BC0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[6] Clifford, William K., The Ethics of Belief, originally published in Contemporary Review, 1877, now available on the internet : http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html

[7] http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/ph29a/feyerabe.htm, University of West Indies

On the ethics of dying

2007-10-12T15:39:00.004+10:00

I want to talk to you about dying Zac. In particular, I want to talk to you about the ethics of dying. Ethics is a term that is generally used to describe ‘the right way to live.’ (It gets confused with morals where morals are often a collective opinion about what is right and wrong to do. Ethics has nothing to do with what others think is right and wrong. It has to do with what you think is right and wrong – decisions that you can make only on reflection and thought.)

However, that’s not my point here, I want you to think about the ethics of dying. That is ‘the right way to die.’ Life is amazing – it is so trite to say that. Every day we are confronted by miracle. Whenever someone asks me if I’m having a good day, I think to myself, ‘I woke up didn’t I?’ That’s a good day. To see life, vigour, energy, exchange, co-creation, ah…how can life be anything other than amazing – awesome.

However, we need to prepare for, be mindful of our mortality. One day, I will not awake – and one day, the same will be true for you.

My wish for you is not to throw away your life – and certainly, don’t do it too soon.

I’m biased of course, You are my son, I want you to live, to experience life as I have. Let me be really honest, I want you to carry forward our genes, our name. I am proud of you, I don’t want you to disappear early from this mortal coil.

I have to admit that I was lucky to get through my teenage years and twenties. I probably was close to dying on a number of occasions. I am just so grateful for having ‘lucked out.’ To think of all that I would have missed if I had not made it through.

In fairness, if I had been snuffed out, I wouldn’t of course have known what I had missed. And the same is for you. Perhaps you will be tempted to go to the edge, to experiment with motorbikes, unsafe sex, drugs – to amplify that experience of life. While I don’t want you to stop from exploring any of these areas, I want you to be aware that in your journey to the edge, you have to be careful because if you fall over the other side, there is no chance of coming back. On the other hand, it is hardly life if we don’t push to the limit of our possible glory.

There’s a right way to die – and you need to find that.

More specifically, I want you to consider not dying young. I have loved the changes in my life, the shifts, the movements, it is really exciting to grow old. Of course, I cannot really say whether dying younger might not have been bettter. I suggest you live longer – but I did not try the shorter, brighter option – which is probably something you ought to be grateful for!

Perhaps you will choose to exit in a blaze, a bright-magnesium spark of life lived. To die on a firey motorcycle crash, to die by contracting AIDS or some other terminal sexually transmitted disease contracted in a blazing orgasm, to die in mind-blowing ecstacy of a drug-induced trip – these may be glorious in ways that I cannot know because I never chose them. Perhaps I am weak for that. Perhaps you will be able to go closer to the edge than me – but do be careful. Don’t fall off – unless that is of course your conscious choice.

That’s what this is about – it is about choice. I want you to choose. More, I want you to choose wisely. You have the wisdom of youth which is quite different from the wisdom of age. Wisdom of age is that held in the hearts and minds of older people who survived – and if they were to be honest, survived by good fortune rather than good design. I hope you might at least consider that wisdom.

I admit that this piece of advice is as much for me as it is for you. For my part, I need to let go, to accept your decisions. It is your life. You have the right to choose how to live it and how to leave it. What sort of gift is it when I grant the gift, then try to control how you use it.

I want you to die consciously, not unconsciously. Don’t die by accident, make it deliberate, make it thoughtful. The ethics of living are intimately tied up with the ethics of dying. Give it some thought. Live, love, laugh – and when you go, it is my deepest wish that you will leave having experienced all that you would have wished to have experienced at the point that you exit.

ISO (17 words)

2007-09-07T09:05:00.000+10:00

If you think

you have learned

all of life's lessons,

at least two

important lessons

still remain

Religion as Creation

2007-09-01T15:14:00.000+10:00

Religion is a testimony to the curiosity, the creativity and the credibility of mankind.

The world is one helluva ‘n amazin’ place. Of this, there can be no doubt whatsoever.

In cuts the curiosity. So how did it all get here? I mean, this is frickin’ amazing, truly dazzling. Here we are on a sparkling, wafer-thin, life-infested segment of the surface of a great big hunk of rock hurling through lifeless space around an even huger ball of fire. The wafer-thin surface of the big rock accommodates not just human life, but lots of other forms too. But the other forms are too stupid to know how privileged they are. Or at least, that is the arrogant view of the humans. Curiosity never killed a cat – according to the humans. Okay, so if there is an earth, if there is a present moment, and if there are humans, then there must have been a beginning, and it all must have started at some point. So where’d it start, and how?

So now, a cut to creativity to fill in the gaps. Some use a backward inferencing process. If there is time, space and life now, there must be some point where each of these dimensions began. And for the beginning to move to becoming as it has today is sufficient for some to infer that God must have existed as the first mover. Well, that’s fine, but it is perhaps useful to remember that just because there is an inferential process doesn’t mean that that which is inferred is true. Apparently, some people used to believe that the planet was flat, that it had edges. I believe that Norse mythology suggests that it was supported by all sorts of animals. Voila, an inference – but no real evidence on which to base the inferences. Sure, there is an end-point, the here-and-now. However, the existence of the here-and-now does not by itself suggest the process by which the here-and-now was reached.

This was always the problem that I have had with Artificial Intelligence being proposed as a model of how humans operate. It may well be that the process reflects the outcomes that are arrived at by humans, but that by no means guarantees that humans took the same path to get there. To take a more mundane example, regression analysis is the way in which predictions can be made about a variable based on weighted sums of various predictors. The weights and predictors can be derived from humans, and the mathematics can effectively model how humans make their predictions. However, there is no necessity that this is the way that the human makes their predictions. The more recent emerging science of neural networks is an entirely different model that also makes predictions. Again, they model human predictions – quite accurately – just like regression. However, the pathway is quite different.

So creativity is invoked to answer the curiosity. How did we get here? No ideas out there? That’s okay because I’ve got some neat ideas here. How about that there was this big cauldron, and a fairy and a gremlin were fluttering around above it, an updraft blew the fairy out and into the flame and the gremlin fell in formed a precipitate. The precipitate exploded and the universe expanded rapidly from there. The fairy that fell into the flame created energy, and some lightning struck the sea of turgid green (but not organic) soup that encompassed much of the third planet from the sol, and out popped life. Millions of years passed, and instead of that life just staying the same (which would have probably led to that life being wiped out), it changed and begat brothers and sisters that were different, and better suited to different situations until we had lots of forms of life.

And finally, credulity. A goodly number of the godless many have no useful ideas, or lack the imagination to have an idea, about where we come from. They latch onto an idea developed by some wanna-be account executive. Yep, this is where ontological explanations (or rather of origin) become the domain of marketers. And to be honest, like most marketing, it really doesn’t take much because good ideas sell themselves. Most people are just dying to know where it all started – and to know that it won’t end. Who wants to believe otherwise?

Let's be honest, none of us has any real clue. The explanations are simply creations about creation. Here’s your choice. Version 1 offers you a world that sees your life as a brief spark in the longer but nevertheless minor ‘daytime’ in which life has existed on the planet. When you die, you’re snuffed out. Your molecules get recycled, and the closest you get to live again is when your molecules are co-opted to support some other living being.

Then there’s version 2. You know that self-important view you have. Well, this is the one for you. You are precious, the essence of you, hey let’s call it ‘luos’, this ineffable quality that is you, this will last forever. You have a purpose, there is a higher power watching over you, ...

Did my 'luos' just start with my birth, or has it existed forever? Will I be conscious after I'm gone? Will I see my friends again? And so on... Honestly, I dunno, go find someone else who can fill in answers to your endless questions.

Religion. It’s nothing really special. We’re here. We’re conscious. This place is truly amazing.

Of course we’re gunna ask how we got here. And some smart-ass is going to give you their thoughts. And if the story is appealing, we’re gonna accept it.

Religion is well-marketed stories. And like most marketing, it is less about developing a story to convince people. It is more about writing a story that people can accept easily. Something along the lines of a Jungian archetype. These are stories that seem eternal, they resonate with our internal software, they make us tingle, they inspire. Religion is great. It resonates, it inspires. But that doesn’t make it true.

Confessions of a Putative Child Abuser

2007-08-22T23:14:00.003+10:00

August 21 was a horrible evening. Blustery winds buffeted the windows and the door occasionally mixed with driving rain, and occasionally not. This was merely the harbinger of the horrors. An eye in the storm that heralded the arrival of the troopers. Let me begin with some background.

With the storm playing against the windows, Zac had been playing with Mac, the next door neighbor’s child, for about an hour and a half. Mac had been dropped off by his Dad an hour and a half before. The weather had been so inclement that Mac’s father pulled up in front of my house, called me and announced they were there. I opened my front door to greet and welcome Mackenzie; Mac opened the car door, and ran down the gangway towards my door.

So for about an hour and a half, they were having a blast spreading toys from one room to the other. They were like Hansel and Gretel, only the trail was of toys rather than lollies, and they were doing the leaving rather than the following! Or for me following the path to the teddy bear’s picnic, except I could follow a trail of toys in place of scats.

Mac’s father showed up with his second son, Keaton. I admitted the two of them from the wind and rain driving around the front of the house, and Zoey, the Doberman/staffie tangling herself in our legs. We played a little, the three boys rattling around the house, the dog sniffing and licking at each, and generally being a nuisance.

Then the knock that no-one was expecting rang on the door. I left the three boys, the dog and the neighbour/father to answer the door. I wondered if it might be my neighbour’s wife arrived home early come over to join the party. Or perhaps my partner.

Nothing prepared me for what was there.

There, huddled in the wintry, wet porch were five people. A shortish man with a rather striking white shirt with odd black decorations on it. A tall man (well over six foot) in dark blue shirt and jeans. A youngish woman, dressed in a unmemorable way, but normal-enough looking. This core of three was backed by a further two men for whom I have no description whatsoever. I guess I never got to processing who they were, or if I did, it was masked and lost by the events that followed. It was astounding enough, in such intemperate conditions, to come to my door to be confronted by five people. Five people as I was to find out, who were exceedingly keen to talk to me.

Seemed a little like overkill for Mormons. At any rate, salespeople generally call by the telephone at this hour – yes, almost exactly this hour, 5.30pm the buggers. Trying to sell me some new telephone service from the middle of India. No, they didn’t look like salespeople.

However, they started like most of the salespeople do. A shortish man asked if I was Stephen Holden. I said I was and asked them their business – as I do when they contact me by phone.

The shortish man stepped forward and said they were from the Child Protection Agency and they wished to come inside. My guts wrenched sideways. The Child Protection Agency? What did they want? Isn’t that the service that comes and takes children away from families that they deem are unfit to care for the child. My mind screamed. What was this about? What could I have possibly that might lead them to conclude I was unfit to care for my son? And how would they know anyway?

Despite my fears, my nerves, I realized that no accusation was being made. I was merely ‘catastrophising’ as one of my friends would put it. I needed to establish what they were here for. Later I would realize that five (as opposed to one or two or three) people showing up at your front door either from or supporting the Child Support Agency is not ‘catastrophising’ – it is a catastrophe.

Despite my head full of fears, I felt for them hunkering down from the wind and the rain and almost gave in to an automatic reaction to admit them into the house. However, my head screamed out in protest. No. Who they fuck do they think they are and what the fuck do they think they are here for. My home is my castle isn’t it? The last battle I had was winning the right to remain in the home that my son and I had occupied since he was six months of age some two and a half years after his mother had moved out. I felt invaded.

I asked them to present IDs and for them to state their business. The shortish man and the woman provided plastic coated IDs which I did not examine too closely. They looked like any other office badge. I recall that I was not all that impressed by their credentials. A shrink-wrapped credit card on a belt tag – big deal. However, the tall man presented a Queensland police badge which looked pretty authentic. I’ve been brought up well. How do you address a man who holds a gun? Sir – always.

I repeated my request for their business. The shortish man told me that they needed to discuss my care of my son. That a complaint had been lodged about the nature of his care.

I heard this, but I guess I had already guessed as much. I was not too shaken by this. I gathered my wits. I told them that this was extremely inconvenient, that I had a houseful of people. They were unmoved. I told them I wanted to defer this to another time and I wanted a lawyer present. They pressed on.

At the time, I felt that they told me that I had no choice. Reading a pamphlet that they gave me later in the proceedings, it appeared that I had the option of both – that is to delay the meeting until another time and to have legal representation. In fairness to them, the event was extremely overwhelming for me. (“No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”) Perhaps I am maligning the representation they made to me. Perhaps they simply encouraged me to proceed now rather than defer and go for lawyers. The brochure seems to suggest that it is better to cooperate in the first instance than make things difficult. Part of me understands that. Methinks the lady (or man in this case) protesteth too much. If I had something to hide, I would duck for cover. If I remained open and grounded, I might be able to deal with this right now.

However, I am not so naïve as to believe that innocence shines through. A lot of woman (and men) have been burned at stakes for cause of base allegations. I would like to believe that innocence will always win through, but I regret that I do not believe that myself. I (like most people I presume) have been falsely accused in the past. I felt crushed by the accusations, I felt bereft, left adrift. Visions of men going to death row, and later proved innocent by DNA or other evidence flashed through my mind. Even Australia, without capital punishment for many decades, has its own equivalent in the case of the death / disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain. Her mother, Lindy went ‘down’ for the crime, and three years later, Lindy was released from jail and exonerated of having committed the crime. It was determined that the evidence against Lindy was insufficient to clearly demonstrate that she had done it. Sure, she had an attitude that many didn’t like – but having a nasty demeanour is not evidence of having committed murder. Maybe the dingo done it after all; maybe not.

I felt like I had no choice. I was outraged at the ‘force’ that was present. I do not mean ‘The Force’ (with a capital T and F) of Star Wars fame.

Reluctantly, I admitted the Storm Troopers to my house. I told them that in view of the kids and neighbour down in the living room and play room, I would only allow them to interview me down in the backroom of the house. I admitted five people into the cramped area of my entry-hall and back bedrooom. Six of us were cramped in the recently cleared back room and its doorway. A smallish room, it was currently filled with a largish foldaway couch bed, a desk and one chair, a queen-size mattress up against the wall, some boxes and other miscellaneous household items stored against the walls of the room. Me and five others stood in a little cluster.

In an environment that became increasingly surreal, it was explained that that allegations had been made that I had sexually abused my son. The DCP was here to investigate those claims. I sputtered my outrage, repeated my disbelief that they could simply enter a citizen’s home, deny legal aid, and then make such accusations. The tall policeman rather foolishly offered “It is not like we have entered unannounced.” I laughed in bewilderment. “What are you talking about? You most certainly did come unannounced. I’ve just asked you to come back another time given that this is the announcement and you’ve declined to do so.” I still have no idea what he meant, but I guess he means that I did technically invite them into my home. Seems like semantics to me.

I asked who had made the accusations. I was told that the privacy act prevented them from revealing the accuser. White hot rage ran through my mind. What system allows an accuser to throw accusations from behind the black of a curtain. Innocent until proven guilty – except in cases of child and domestic abuse. Don’t get me wrong. I think that child and domestic abuse are the most heinous of crimes. They are clear examples of the abuse of power of one (a parent in the former, a partner in the second) over the other. However, the same curtain protects those that would throw false accusations. Is that not a crime of abuse in its own right?

As I write this, the government is appealing the decisions of a judge who has ruled that the withdrawal of Mohammed Haneef’s visa by the government was not appropriate. After the charges against him for aiding and abetting a terrorist effort (the attempted car bomb attack on a Scottish airport) were dropped (some weeks after his being detained) due to exceedingly weak evidence, his visa was revoked by the Australian government and he was shipped out of the country. The government representative defending the government’s decision to appeal ring in my ears: ”better to be safe than sorry.” I agree with the sentiment, but there is a line in the sand where the accusations or allegations are a little thin. This was the case in Mohammed Haneef. What would be the case here?

What were the accusations I asked. I was told the following…

…”Zachary has reported that you touch his penis and that your son touches your penis while you take showers together.”

I heard the words, and felt that I was watching a television show rather than experiencing the theatre in person. The man and woman from the CPA looked at me passively, virtually no expression. I guess in retrospect it could have been with disgust, but it seemed more ambivalence. I did not feel that I was judged – even if the entry and forced responses to questions seemed extreme.

The accusations were repeated. I think my mouth was probably opening and shutting like a gold fish. I was gobsmacked. The allegations were broken down and I was asked to address each in turn.

“Do you take showers together?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

“Do you touch his penis?”

“Sure.” Just as the ‘aha’ thought passed through their heads – perhaps more in my imagination than in reality, I went on to add “when I’m washing him.” I wondered in my head how sad our world is if that was a big deal, and an indictable offense. I feel for fathers (and other men like myself) who become scared to cuddle and kiss a little girl because it may begin to look ‘suspect.’ I consider that an outrage. That our pedophilia-phobia has brought good caring men to their knees, has led them to withhold their affection for children for fear of some ‘good neighbour / citizen’ launching a case that the behavior was inappropriate. Who for fuck sakes, decides what is appropriate and what is not?

Here on the Gold Coast with level 5 water restrictions, the hotline taking calls regarding water restriction violations recently admitted that 90% of the calls were unsupported, or against those that had special allowances. One poor woman reported that she had dispensation to water at times outside the ‘regular’ level 5 hours, and that she had on numerous times come out to find her hose slashed. To add insult to the physical injury to her hose, she had been ‘reported’ to the water hotline by at least one friendly neighbour.

I was brought back to the ugly present (this situation was no gift) with a smack to my dignity so complete that it defied comprehension. “Does he touch yours?”

“What?”

“Does he touch your penis?”

“No” I responded. What more could I say. Outrage blazed through my mind, but I knew that it had no place in this environment. There was nothing more I felt that I could say. However, my mind continued to turn. What might have led Zac to say that? It certainly was true that he had tried to touch my penis. I had told him early on that it was not on, that it was private. The fact that his grab was far from gentle probably merely added a tone of authority to my voice.

If a child slips in the shower-recess, grabs for something to stop from falling, ends up grabbing his father’s penis, the father smacks the child’s hand, the child let’s go with surprise and a cry, and then proceeds on down to crack his head on the shower track, is that child abuse? What is the abuse? That the father let the child grab his penis? Or that the father smacked the child (can anyone do that anymore – I gather it is outlawed in New Zealand now), or that he allowed the child to crack his head open on the shower floor? Gee, it’s tough being a father.

Zac is also fascinated by the way that water from the shower pours off it – I mean off my penis. If he is fascinated in aqua-dynamics, is that an indictable offense? I encourage his enquiring mind. So how do I handle this? I try to direct him to the fact that water is flowing off his penis, but he’s not interested. This one (my penis) is closer to his eye level. Perhaps he is already bored with his own; this one is different from his.

Back to reality. They went on to report in more detail the allegation. It was alleged that Zac had told someone (I wonder who?) that we played with one anothers’ “willies”, that we played puppets with them, that we had names for them.

Huh? Puppets? All I could think of was puppetry of the penis, and I was pretty sure that my son wasn’t moonlighting on that show. I pointed out that as I spoke only French with Zac, we never used the word ‘willy’. I had no idea where the concept of puppets came from, I had no nickname for my penis or for that of my son, and I never used the word willy.

I asked again who had made the allegation. They said that they could not tell me that information. I asked how they could come here on the basis of testimony presented by a four year old to an anonymous accuser. Who was the accuser? How would the accuser know or understand exactly what Zac was trying to say.

Could this be more about the projections of the accuser than the statements of the child. Like the old Benetton ad showing a black man handcuffed to a white man.

In the UK, a group claiming to represent anit-racist interests forced authorities to pull the billboard from public display. Where’s the racism? Perhaps the black man was the cop? Perhaps it was a black and white prisoner handcuffed together? Perhaps it was two consenting adults just having some fun? The stimulus is amibiguous – why should one person’s perception have a greater sway over other possible interpretations. Is the glass half full or half empty?

I asked if they had checked into all the details of the accuser and the alleged perpetrator. I questioned why they had showed up five of them. I’m a professional man, a white-collared worker. Molester’s are reportedly hard to spot from others; but generally those that run guns and are dangerous are reasonably easy to identify. I’m not a dangerous man. I’m a short man who can run reasonably fast; but I’m not a gun-runner, a drug-user, a bikie, etc. Why the show of force?

And the accuser? Could it be someone that just had a grudge against me? If the accusations were as stated, was there any corroborating evidence? Were there any background checks conducted into the accuser or the alleged perpetrator. Was there a different possible explanation? Had it been eliminated?

They hedged. I asked again, “What background checks have you conducted?”

“We do complete checks on all the people involved.”

“Have you already done that? Have you conducted those background checks? Do you know of any story between the accused and the accuser?”

Silence muffled by affirming kinds of sounds. As a university lecturer, I’ve seen it all before. The answer is ‘No,’ but the people in front of me do not want to admit that. They mumbled that all checks would be checked out. Ah, the tenses say it all – not the past, but the future, future conditional to be exact. Not impressive at all.

They changed the tack. I was asked why I thought Zac might have said these things. I really had little idea. My mind to be honest was partly at a blank. Partly, the phrases and so on that I had been told seemed incomplete, very unclear, exactly what I would expect of a little four and a half year old boy. Who knows what he was thinking? I barely know what adults I know well are thinking let alone my young son. What was the ‘adult’ who made these accusations thinking? Ask him!

They then told me that they would need to speak with Zac. If the Child Protection Agency wanted to see a protective parent, they got to see one then.

“How do you possibly think that Zac is going to happily assimilate the presence of five complete strangers, and respond to questions in any meaningful manner? He’s going to be fairly intimidated by you guys all standing around. Hell, I’m pretty intimidated by you five. What do you think Zac’s going to feel?”

The white-black, shortish guy from the CPA said he was going to remove himself. The woman said it would be just herself and the tall policeman. The policeman showed some good sense and suggested that he sit down on the couch and did so.

Nevertheless, I was dubious. I would have to walk Zac through the gauntlet of three strangers into a room little used in our house (only cleared last weekend) to be sat down, alone, with two more strangers. I told them my concerns. The woman explained that it would be just 60 seconds. I wondered what they could find out in 60 seconds from a 4.5 year old. Seemed they would have to go to pretty direct questions. I wondered at the effect such questions would have on Zac. How would he respond to such questions? My concerns were not for me. My concerns were for my small, innocent child. How would he respond to two complete strangers asking him questions about stuff that I have told him is completely private? The situation confronting me was one where I feel I am being forced to make him discuss this private stuff with complete strangers. My son trusts me, and I have to entrust him to these people. Not because I trust them, but because I’m scared, I’m powerless, I have no choice. The only way I can see of getting through this in one piece is to keep going.

I’m reminded of the first time climbing on a rollercoaster with my son. I realize that once we are in the seats, we are committed. If he doesn’t like it, there’s nothing that I am going to be able to do. I huddle up to him, I laugh, I try to make light of the event – and he went through the whole experience easily. He showed fear on the first descent, but after that giggled and laughed his way around. And rapidly worked out the shortcut for getting back on to go around again.

This ride, the Child Protection Agency Rollercoaster Ride, is different. I did not ask to be on this ride – and more importantly, neither did my son. I did not have time to ready him for this journey, nor could I sit by his side for this ride. My brave little man had to go it alone on this one. I felt tears come to my eyes. I returned to thoughts I had had during the separation when we (his mother and I) had to be individually assessed in terms of our relationship to Zac. I called the process barbaric. That a little boy’s life should be judged in squirly rooms by ‘experts.’ Experts in social science (like myself) note that our science is marked more by disagreements than agreement. Finally, the consequences of this ride might reverberate for months or years after the ride – and it might be a very long time before Zac would come to realize the full importance of being sat in the seat with the Child Protection Agency officer and the Police Officer – if he ever came to link it back to this moment. I had no idea.

Perhaps I was catastrophising – but as I’ve already noted, and as I was beginning to understand, the time for dismissing my fears as distant hypotheticals were gone. Schrodinger’s box was thrown open, and it did not contain one potentially dead or alive cat. The possibilities were gone. I had five very alive very complete strangers gathered in the small space of the entry-hall and backroom with real allegations.

How would this interview (god, please do not let him be harmed by it) be helpful for Zac? I was giving him up to answer questions about sexual behavior of others – which I daresay he can barely understand and presumably will not understand for many years to come – or at least, so I hope. What did they hope to learn?

Another catastrophe raised its head. When you’re in the middle of one, it is easy to move onto some more. What if they were not simply ‘strangers’ to me, but really strange. I mean stranger than strange. Perhaps this was their way of abusing children – and others. I really had no idea who they were. They were faces – a sea of indistinguished faces. I don’t even know the names right now. I would not be able to recognize them if they walked past me 24 hours later. Sure, the policeman’s badge had appeared genuine – but surely that can be faked. How weird this was. A service that is presumably for the protection of children was doing a pretty damn good job of getting me to put up a protective wall.

I returned to an earlier question perhaps in a hope of seeing some positive light to all of this dark experience. What did I think Zac might have been referring to in his accusations? I suggested to the Child Protection Officer that if in the interview with my son, she heard evidence that she thought truly indicated that there might be some abuse going on, she had my full support in tracking that down. As a concerned parent, I would want to know if there was abuse.

“Who do you think that it could be?”

I didn’t see it then, but I now see how easily a witch-hunt can escalate. I’m ashamed to say that my thoughts revisited an earlier fear I had had, a fear when the mother of my son began to involve a new man in her life. I knew nothing of this man. No-one knew much about him, and neither Zac’s mother, nor her partner, nor anyone else that did know about him was willing to talk to me about him. In that marsh of no information, my fears rose up. More catastrophising. No amount of assuring myself that pedophilia is an extremely rare event would re-assure me. Ironically, what did re-assure me is that Zac’s mother had rejected me – and I know I’m a good man – and I knew that she would be extremely unlikely to tolerate anyone that did not meet her extremely high standards. She of course loves her son, and I reassured myself that she would not tolerate anyone behaving outside of her standards, and I was sure that these standards would almost certainly exclude sufficient contact to virtually any other that would allow them to abuse their relationship with Zac.

I expressed my doubt that there was any case for any abuse going on at all. The allegations that I had heard for a case of abuse seemed fairly slim. They came from the mouth of a four year old and were not at all clear. I didn’t tell them, but it seemed that their ‘open minds’ to the responses of my son, were actually minds open to anything that might possibly be construed as abuse. The playing in the shower later occurred to me probably referred to us playing with his toys. It seems dreadful that such cases must rest on the testimony of one so young, so innocent, so naïve. Moreover, I consider it criminal that one so young should even by involved in this process, but I guess there is little alternative in cases of genuine abuse.

“Who would that be?” I was asked

The Grand Inquisitors had me surrounded in their court (despite this being my home, I felt it was their space), I began to reveal my thoughts. No instruments of torture – just the force of five, coercion through communication. I gave one – to me – evident possibility. What other male (why did I assume the perpetrator would have to be male?) has close contact with my son. None in my presence. So I revealed my suggestion, not because he was a likely perpetrator, not because I suspected him, but because if anyone was harming my son, and if it is someone close to him, and if it wasn’t me, then he would be my best guess. They asked me for his name. I baulked and ultimately refused to give it. I wouldn’t wish what I was going through on anyone unless I had a strong conviction of their doing ill.

I said that I would leave them to conduct their interview of my son, and then, and only on their advice that there was evidence of abuse would I continue to pursue this line of thought. For now, I had nothing more to say.

In the middle of this, my partner Jeanette, arrived home. I had seen her from the corner of my eye walk through the front door and had watched her back pass up the hallway. Seeing her simply heightened for me how alone I was. She later admitted that she did not see me for the forest of grumps.

I went and got Zac. Not surprisingly, the other kids wanted to come down the hallway, and I explained they could not. Zac was reluctant to go without them. Peter and Jeanette looked at me quizzickly. What could I say? What did I say? I think I simply told them it was the Child Protection Agency, and they wanted to speak with Zac. I felt no shame or fear in telling them. My fear was entirely for my son and for his and my ongoing relationship. I did later realize that I didn’t want to give them much of anything at that moment. I simply wanted their support – and I assumed it was there for me.

Peter is my longest friend from the Gold Coast. He was my neighbour when I first moved to the Coast, and recently bought the house next to me. He has two boys around the age of my son, and I’m delighted that they all play together so well. I’ve looked after their kids, and they’ve looked after mine. Only later did I think of how Peter must have reacted to the statement. Did the thought pass through his mind that there’s no smoke without fire, and that it would be risky to leave his children with me in the future..

Jeanette is my partner, my lover. She adores my son and me. However, what would she think. Similarly, can there be smoke without fire?

I walked with Zac, hand in hand, down to the back room. (Can that be construed as child abuse? If a man holds the child of a 4 and a half year old? When is it ‘wrong’ for the man to hold the child’s hand? When the child says so? Or when someone in the community sees it and says so – perhaps to the Child Protection Agency).

We passed through the gauntlet of three men failing manifestly to look inconspicuous in the entry-hall by the front door. We entered the room, and I closed the door to at least block the view of the three goons outside. Zac began backing away from the man and woman to me immediately. I imagine he was initimidated – as I had guessed he would be. I began to try and introduce the man and the woman to Zac, but the woman spoke to him directly over me. “Hello Zac, my name is…”

Zac nuzzled in towards my thigh more firmly. shook his head, turned in to face me. (His face right at the groin of my pants – is that child abuse? Every child does it, and parents and others just happen to be that height – but what would these strangers think?).

I suggested, rather abruptly I suspect, that she might like me to introduce them. I could not help thinking that for people who acted for the protection of young children, they showed precious little sense around the management of a young child. This little boy was singled out from all of his neighbours, friends, family and was walked away down the hall, through a cluster of three damp men into a cramped room that he has barely ever entered (until recently it was full of junk). It still contained a collection of assorted furniture, oh, and another two strangers who are keen to be his ‘friend.’ Zac is to my view, a naturally shy little boy, but he is also relatively easy to reassure. I explained to him that these two people were here to talk to him. He told me that he did not want to talk to them. Four year olds are thought to ask 200-400 questions a day (who counted?). As he delivered the simplest and perhaps most repeated question, “Why?” I felt tears burn in my eyes. (Because I say you have to. Because these people have told your weak Papa that he has to. Because if you and I don’t climb into the rollercoaster car, the consequences may be even more horrific than the consequences of getting into the car now. Sometimes life dishes up crap choices – one bad, the other awful.)

My mind went back to an experience in my teens when a woman accused me (falsely) of driving her car and damaging it. I couldn’t even drive a car then. She had me dragged off to the police who interviewed me, a 15 year old, alone, in a strange room, no family, no friends with me. It was very intimidating. No, it was plain frightening. I still remember it.

I wondered how Zac was handling and would handle his own version of such a situation. People that say they want to talk with him, but who in fact really want to just get him to answer some questions. Is this truth? Are they being honest? They are misrepresenting themselves in order to get what they want. I daresay that They (capitalized because it is more than the two people in that room) think that the ends justify the means. That’s dangerous territory in general. In this specific situation, what they really want is for Zac to reveal things. And not just no-things, but dark and dangerous things.

I have no idea how a child that has been genuinely abused nor a child that has not views those ‘dark and dangerous things.’ However, in this case at least, I remained pretty certain that the meanest, lousiest thoughts existed in the minds of the interrogators, not in the little four and half year old boy that faced them – or at least, would have faced them if he had any idea who they were, what they were here for and why he should speak to them. And these people were sent here to protect him?

It was hard to calm Zac’s stranger danger. Frankly I felt it myself. More tears welled up in my eyes as I explained that I would leave him for a little to talk with these people.

The woman thrust her ID badge in front of Zac and explained that this was a card with a picture of her on it. I laughed internally as her description pretty well echoed my earlier sentiment about the credibility offered by the ID card. The policeman, seated on the couch, drew out his badge and showed Zac this. I marveled at their officiousness with a young child. What would that mean to him? I figured that the police badge would probably do more to scare him, and is if to confirm this, Zac retreated into me. I explained to Zac that the man was a policeman like his Uncle Michael. I explained what I was doing to the two people as I speak only French to Zac. I did not want them to think that I might be stuffing him with some kind of story – as if there would be time, as if it would serve any use if I was a perpetrator.

I left the room. How would the questions be asked? I had never heard Zac say anything of the types of things that were alleged to have been said, and I spend 50% of his time with him. How can two complete strangers get that information in 60 seconds? They would have to ask direct questions. I shuddered as I imagined the series of questions : “What sorts of things do you like to play with your friends? Does you daddy touch your penis? Does he play with your penis? Do you play with his? Does he ask you to play with his? Do you play puppets with your penises? Do you have a name for your penis? Does you daddy have a name for his?”

I walked past the three men in the hall without acknowledging them. It was simply too weird, too surreal. I felt like a walked through some wormhole into a parallel universe. However, I was walking back into a home that I did know, people that I know and love, my things, my space. Back in the living room, Jeanette and Peter were clearly waiting for some more information. I told them what was happening, the accusations, detailing the troop sent to investigate me.

At the back of mind, I kept thinking that they were taking more than one minute. Nevertheless, Zac did appear fairly quickly. He came running through the hall to me and told me he wanted to tell me a secret. (Is this going to look bad? Are kids allowed to tell secrets to their fathers? I’m sure Papa is not allowed to have secrets with their children. Does it matter that Zac’s statement was really code meaning he wants to ask me for something with a whisper. He’s not telling me anything, he wants to ask for something.)

“Can you get me my B2 déguise. I want to show to the lady?”

I laughed – with relief, with joy at the return of my little boy, with pleasure that he did not seem too harmed – at least at this point. The B2 outfit is in fact an R2D2 outfit, the robot in Star Wars that he and I constructed for him to wear to a birthday party. That he calls it B2 is testimony to the power of ABC for Kids and Bananas in Pyjamas and that StarWars is not something that my son really understands yet. I retrieved the R2D2 outfit, put it on him, and he ran down the hall to show it to the ‘visitors.’ (He can’t see very well out of it. What if he runs into a wall – or one of those bloody goons while wearing the carboard outfit? Will that count as child abuse?)

Leaving behind my thoughts, I laughed to think how Zac’s bright, innocent naivety could push back the damp, dark secret thoughts of the taskforce gathered in the hall. I returned to the couch to continue my story, or more exactly, my outpouring of thin details and viscous outrage to Jeanette and Peter. Then Zac called for me, and I went down as Zac passed me going the other way.

The woman told me that Zac appeared to have corroborated the allegations on some levels. He had described playing with the penises. I repeated that I did not play with Zac’s penis, nor he with mine. He had described me touching his penis in cleaning it, in the shower apparently – and this was apparently some cause for concern.

I had a little spark of understanding. That’s how it is when kids talk and how older people understand kids. In my opinion, there is probably only 70%, 80%, 90% comprehension in both directions. Looking the woman straight in the eye, I told her that my son was uncircumcised. As such he had to learn that he needed to pull back the foreskin in order to keep himself clean. I pointed out that my son does not hold his penis when he pees, he tends to hold the skin just a the base of penis, and shakes it from there ! It is as ineffectual as it is funny – I didn’t tell them that. Of late, I had been physically handling his penis explaining that he must pull back the foreskin. Partly to teach him to hold his penis while peeing so he doesn’t make a mess (“I don’t want to”), partly because at some point he does need to learn to draw back the foreskin in order to keep it clean. Not in the shower, but at the toilet. (Would this be acceptable. It worked as a plausible explanation for what he might be saying. However, would they be unconvinced? They seemed to think it was in the shower.)

They tried to affirm with me that I lived alone with my son. I told them that no, I lived with my girlfriend. I told them she had just entered the house during the course of their interview. They wanted her full name. I objected. Who needed to know? They told me it formed part of the investigation. They would not be giving the name to anyone else. I gave her name.

I was told that I needed to go away, and the two DCP people and the police officer would talk about the case and make their decision. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel – or the light of an oncoming train. They would make a decision. I asked, “So you decide now and we go from there?”

“Yes.”

Extraordinary! I went away back to my normal life momentarily. We sat and talked – not particularly quietly – while the committee of three, one of whom wasn’t even present for Zac’s ‘testimony’, made a decision about my guilt or otherwise.

I was called back and they announced that they were not going to proceed any further on this case. With no apology (or if it was given, it was not registered by me – as if any apology could make amends for what I had just been through), five people who 25 minutes earlier had walked in as complete strangers walked out as stranger still.

I was left behind, but no longer the same. I was now an accused. I was now a putative child molester. Apparently I had been exonerated, but I wasn’t even certain of that. No papers, no documents. A little brochure that I read while shaking in the kitchen after their departure. What had just happened? What would happen in the future? What would be the consequences for my little boy? Would he remember this? Regardless of that, would it have any longer term effect?

I’m left now to wonder at the harshness of this process.

Let me be clear. I detest any abuse of power – as is the basis of much child abuse and domestic abuse. However, a person who has an advantage of intellect, age, authority, physical strength over another is not an abuser. A potential rapist is not equal to a rapist. A man with potential to abuse a child is not an abuser. However, if the person with that power mis-uses their power with ill intention, then they are an abuser.

However, there are many avenues for abuse. Asymmetry of power is a necessary condition, but not sufficient for abuse. The person with the power must ab-use their power. Giving anonymity to accusers is a gift of power. A great gift that might encourage some to come forward that would not have come forward otherwise. However, if someone with malicious intent can accuse an innocent of a crime (say, child abuse) with minimal evidence, that’s abuse.

Moreover, in the case of a malicious child-abuse-accuser, there’s another abused. And that is the child. Who could do this to a child? The child becomes a victim of the games that adults play. I was horrified at how my son was treated, how powerless I was to shape or change what happened to him in this process. It was like a car-accident, but emotional rather than physical. There was nothing I could do to help him.

In this case, perhaps the accuser really felt that there was ‘just cause’ and is justified in making his/her claim even if false. Better to be safe than sorry.

So, how come I tell my story to all you people? Well, given that the allegations of my accuser (who is of course unknown) led to me having to spill my guts about the intimate goings-on of my young son in front of five complete strangers, I guess I’d like to assure you all (friends, family and others) that I have nothing to hide. So, you’ve read my story.

The moral is please be mindful of the power you hold. May The Force be with you. Use it wisely. I hope that the Storm Troopers remain far from your door.

On the Nature of Abuse

2007-08-22T23:00:00.003+10:00

I stand accused of playing with my son’s penis, and for encouraging him to play with mine.

Forget the truth value of the accusation. Is that behavior abuse?

If I was to have named our respective penises and played some puppet game (as was alleged), would that constitute child abuse? Two grown men travel putting on a show called Puppetry of the Penis. It amuses adults. I'm not sure it is very sexual.

Is it child abuse because the child’s sexuality is being exploited when the child is incapable of understanding it? By that argument, making a child kiss you would be child abuse because there are not many children that understand love – in fact, there’s a good number of adults that don’t understand it!

Is it abuse because I’m playing with him, or he with me? If I’m playing with him and he’s laughing and giggling but not getting excited (does a child experience excitement when he experiences an erection?), is that abuse. Is tickling abuse? Is pleasure verboten? If he’s playing with me and I get excited, is that abuse? If I don’t get excited, is it not abuse?

I guess the notion of sexual abuse of a child typically refers to the adult engaging in sexual practices with the child. Kissing is in, hugging is in, but touching sexual parts is out. OK. No problem there.

But what about schooling on toileting. Am I the only parent that has a boy that won’t actually hold his penis when he goes for a pee? Instead, he insists on grabbing the skin at the base of the penis (and the top of the scrotum) and wiggling it side to side. This is his idea of shaking it!

However, he also has a foreskin. So, to be clean (because everyone knows that the foreskin harbours “germs”), he really needs to pull it back. So, he won’t do it. Do I show him? Once? Twice? Three times? Never again? I’m not engaging in sexual practices here. I’m helping in toileting.

Or should I leave it to his mother? Is it abuse if the man touches a boy's penis, but not if the mother touches it? Is it better that a woman show a boy how to behave like a man?

Some people engage in golden showers. My boy sometimes thinks it is fun for him and I to pee together – and when he gets excited and starts flicking it about, I get a golden shower. It is no kind of turn on for me. I put it down to his high spirits. I presume that this is not child abuse.

And what about other games. As he learns about the man’s penis, he’s probably going to grab for it. My son already has. I’ve explained it is a no-go zone. But he’s a child, what if he goes for it again. And again? And again? Sure, there’s some point where something has to be done – but how far do we go to stop an undesired behavior? How far should we go? Electro-therapy probably seems a little harsh. And isn’t that child abuse anyway! Going back from there, where's the line?

The hangup is ours. The dirty thoughts are in the head of the adult, not in the head of the child.

I think the key is that an adult who uses a child to get sexual excitement should be the measure of child abuse (as we typically use the word). Of course, it is perhaps hard to measure sexual excitement, let alone the adult's intentions. However, just because it is tough to measure does not mean we should simply measure something else which is not valid but easier to measure.

Frank Unfolding

2007-01-01T14:38:00.000+10:00

Frank loves the weather, the way that this piece of nature penetrates the force-field of the city. He loves its unpredictability. A little like the stock markets which are the focus of his job, but infinitely more interesting. While the stock market endlessly tracks perturbations of price; the weather shows its variety through infinitely more variety; temperature, clouds, precipitation, wind, humidity and more.

Today is a wintry summer day in November. Today’s weather is totally different from, but exactly what might be expected to follow yesterday’s tropical afternoon storm. Today, the air is cooler, humid, and sagging, heavy clouds are suspended from the sky like the grey washing of the old widower who lives next door to Frank. As the bus grinds up Ann St and out of the Valley, Frank senses the wall of warm air thrown up by the city, the prickle of heat.

Frank delights at the smell of a dash of salt in the air. Something clean, a whisper from nature, separate from the showered and perfumed smell of early-morning business people taking the bus. Frank wonders if a slight breeze is blowing in from beyond the bay and the islands and is pushing back at the busy city which honks, hisses, spits and spews. Strange to see the masses move mindlessly towards the song of the perverted city Siren, away from the islands by the sea.

Frank also loves the weather for the way that it reflects his thoughts, his feelings, his moods. Some think that the weather influences their mood. Frank sees it the other way around. It is a weather vane for his demeanour. Today is heavy, leaden, humid, with only a hint of a breeze. Ugh. He has had these thoughts for a while. Frank’s thoughts are electrical impulses, clinging together like tumble-dried polyester. Thinking simply creates more static, and Frank resigns himself to watch the swirl of negativity.

Frank sees himself as nothing out of the ordinary: he wakes, he widdles, he walks, he whinges, he whistles (badly) and he wanders home again. To his particular dissatisfaction, it is all without a woman. In the past, he dreamed of wealth, of achievement, of glory – and in some ways, he has achieved all that. Except he is alone – he had not addressed that concern and he wonders whether he has left it too late to do so. He feels he has officially reached middle age because he is now seeing more hair growth in his nose and his ears than on his head.

Frank’s morose thoughts continue. The way forward is simply to put one foot in front of the other – left, right, left, right. A rut with footprints. To top it all, at this moment, he is not even walking. He is standing, his feet planted on the sticky floor of the same bus, the same route (199), the same routine. He is gripping with his long slender fingers, the slimy leather strap hanging from the chrome rail. He is examining his own hand, hoping perhaps to understand why the back of his own hand does not look at all familiar. He looks a little higher, and sees his own face in the chrome rail, distorted obscenely. He smiles, but the image simply grimaces. However, just beside the image of his face, he sees another face, two eyes more than anything else. He looks down beside him and there is a young woman, blonde hair in pigtails. She smiles at him. He is a little piqued to realize that she has been watching him.

He asks, a little roughly he realizes, ‘Was there something that you were looking at?’

She laughs, ‘Yeah, the balding patch at the crown of your head actually.’

Mindlessly, Frank puts his hand to his crown. In hotel bathrooms where the mirrors create a corner, Frank would look into the infinite reflections to see if his hair was indeed thinning, only to promptly dismiss any evidence as an artifact of overly bright lighting.

She laughs, ‘I didn’t mean it as a criticism, it’s nice to see your head. It’s like getting to see you naked almost.’

She blushes and hastily adds, as if by way of explanation, “I’ve seen you on the bus before.”

Frank smiles at her remark, her inadequate explanation and her apparent awkwardness.

She appears to recover her composure, “Hey, look it’s our stop.”

Frank is now off balance. How does she know this is “our stop” as she has so proprietarily stated? Wordlessly, his bus-companion walks herself confidently off the bus, crosses the bustle of Adelaide St and up into Hutton Lane running up to Ann St. Frank follows in her wake, his disequilibrium descending into the surreal as she leads him along the exact route Frank takes towards his office each day. As they walk into the coolness of the lane between the buildings, she asks him in a conspiratorial whisper, “Do you smell the salt in the air? I think we are being called to the sea!” She laughs a bright clear laughter that echoes through off the walls of the lane. Frank enjoys her reverberating delight as he wonders at the echo of their thoughts.

As they walk in the shaded silence, Frank basks in the sunshine radiated by this woman. She is considerably younger than him; he normally would not allow himsel to even notice someone like her. However, he loves her youthfulness, he feels it like a match igniting an ember in himself, one he had thought to have been extinguished. As she walks along beside him in silence, he wonders if and how he might ask her out – but despairs at how to do this. The cloying negativity returns.

As they emerge onto Ann St, she ends the silence. “Here I am” and she sweeps a hand toward the Masonic Lodge to their left, a striking building dominated by six four storey corinthinian columns. Frank has always considered the Masonic Lodge to be a bizarre inhabitant of the area, but has never really considered it much even though it faces his own building. As if she is reading his mind, “And I think you’re over there somewhere,” his companion says waving her hand to the buildings across the street.

As Frank’s head fills with a flurry of thick thoughts, he hears her ask, “Hey, how about having coffee with me later this morning, say ten, over there at that coffee shop?”

Frank becomes inarticulate. Despite making a very successful living from developing and presenting complex financial investment strategies, Frank finds himself unable to connect words together. A string of words issue from his mouth, but to him, they are without meaning, without volition. Her beaming smile reassures him that somehow, he has communicated his grateful acceptance of her offer.

As she proceeds up the steps to the Masonic Lodge, he realizes he doesn’t know her name. Frank blurts out, “Hey, what’s your name? Mine is Frank.”

“Wendy” she replies, “I know. I’ll see you at ten.” She waves, turns, and disappears into the ancient building, a war memorial and the fitting headquarters of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Freemasons of Queensland. ‘How does she know my name?’ Frank asks himself as he walks across Ann St to the Suncorp-Metway tower. He smiles as he disappears into the nameless space behind the one-way mirror glass that adorns the building, smiling at the fact that its glory is really simply a reflection of the Masonic Lodge across the street. Everything is seen a little differently today.

Frank is happier entering the office today than he has felt for two or three years. People walking past probably notice nothing different. It is all on the inside that he is experiencing a great erupting, an unfolding, an emerging. This is a good thing, like a shower of rain, a refreshing sea-change blowing in from the inside. Cobwebs blown away, dust mites tumbling across acres of grey matter, and bright sparks bustling along the white leads of the information highway inside his head.

Of course, nothing is really different other than having met a cheeky, smiling, pretty stranger on the bus for a brief moment. He smiles at the fickle discontinuities of his thoughts and emotions. His happiness is briefly challenged when he sees on his calendar that he has a conference call with three directors of a Sydney-based client at 10h45. Coffee may be shorter than Frank would like, but it gives him enough time to set up a date, and not enough time to procrastinate.

Frank finds himself watching the clock on the wall across from his office, like a young child grappling with the concept that the symbols around the edge of the clock face indicate two different values – one for the big hand and one for the little. For Frank, the clock indicates the boring passage of time on one hand, and on the other, it is the smiling herald of exciting future possibilities.

Finally, the big hand reaches the little hand, both approaching the number 10. Frank feels a pull to leave right away, but he does not want to appear too eager and resolves to wait a further five minutes. Frank’s big clunky black retro phone rings startling Frank from his reverie. He grabs the handpiece, and an operator speaks, “This is Telstra Sydney, am I speaking with Frank Sadler?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, we’re connecting you to the planned conference call being hosted by Capital Finance, stand by please.”

As the connections are made, Frank’s brain whirs around what is happening. Had he wrongly recorded the time of the conference call? Was the office clock an hour out? Realization hit Frank with a clunk, like a narcissistic bird flying into the mirrored window of his office as had happened a month ago. Sydney had moved onto daylight saving a week ago, and it was just after 10h45 their time. His conference call was now.

Frank is listening, but not participating. He watches the clock helplessly, the hands now showing the implacable dripping away of minutes. The herald of exciting future possibilities now laughs in a deranged way as the torturous drip, drip, drip of minutes lost continues.

The waves of sound issuing from the receiver wash up against Frank’s ears. Like any seashore, thousands of waves hit the beach without being noticed by anyone. It is endless repetition that does the work. Over an hour later, the clients, like the tide, eventually recede. Frank is numb in the knowledge that the gem he found on the beach has been taken away by the tide.

Frank tries to make his mind do a left-hand or right-hand turn, away from his circling thoughts. Could he find Wendy again? Can he simply visit the Masonic Lodge? What would he say to her? In his mind’s eye, he sees a large red sign like one that guards off-ramps to the freeway: ‘Go back, go the other way.’ He tries to reverse but is now trapped on the carousel of self-doubt.

Today is Friday and Frank has resolved to act. Wendy is not on the bus and he has not seen her on any day since Monday. As he descends from the bus and crosses Adelaide St, Frank feels the steel of his new attitude. He will find Wendy and ask her out. But what if she says ‘No’? Or worse, what if she says ‘Yes’? Frank feels fear clawing at his throat. The uncertainty of how she might respond, and how he should respond in turn, leaves him a little giddy and breathless. He curses his thinking cycle. He tries to talk down his self doubt. In this moment, there is nothing but potentials. The only thing that is clear is that the future is not.

As he walks up Hutton Lane to Ann St, the pale pink Masonic Lodge towering on his left weakens his resolve. His mind begins to spin on thoughts of what might and might not be. He can hear his grandmother’s wise words, “Stop worrying Frank, worrying is like taking a journey on a rocking chair. You can go all day long, and you still won’t get anywhere.”

At 8.15am, almost exactly four days after meeting Wendy on the bus, Frank marches into the Masonic Lodge. The place appears deserted, a marble mosaic floor, great pillars, an enormous urn like one to hold ashes, only this one must have held the ashes of millions, a dizzying void stretches above. Frank walks around the enormous centerpiece urn, and looks up the long corridor framed by two Australian flags. He wonders what is done in this building, and what does Wendy do here? He has no answers, just numb, unnamed fear. With some relief he hears a hum, an industrial sound coming from the left-hand branch at the other end of the long corridor through the building. A power cable disappears around the corner to the left, and he sees it gently flicking like a cat’s tail.

He walks around the corridor to see a pretty feminine backside swaying back and forth, a blonde pony-tail that swings in a syncopated rhythm to the behind. He realizes he is looking at Wendy as she proficiently manoeuvres a floor polishing machine back and forth. “Hello” he shouts over the noise of the machine, feeling foolish.

She has not heard him. The telltale white cord running around the back of her neck gives him a clue as to why not. She is tuned into a virtual world. He steps forward and touches her shoulder. She looks around startled. Her eyes are wide. He smiles. She shuts down the machine and smiles back – to Frank’s relief.

She drops the headphones from her ears, “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“Yeah, and didn’t hear me either. Something interesting on the i-pod?’

‘Yeah, Black Sabbath reminds me of my childhood.’

‘Hey, good to see you again.’

Wendy looks at him blankly.

‘On the bus’ prompts Frank.

‘Oh’ says Wendy noncommittally.

Frank feels out of place, suspended in space, he feels like he’s being hung out to dry. He has to lead the way, and leading is not his forte, he is way out of depth.

‘Look, I was wondering if you’d like to go out for brunch with me, maybe tomorrow, 11am?’

Wendy’s face breaks into a smile.

‘Sure’ she says. ‘You wanna know where I live so you can come and pick me up? Maybe you could meet my family.’

A little surprised, Frank responds, ‘Well, sure I’d be happy to meet them. Where do you live?’

Wendy provides her address, “72 Welsby St” stumbling on the word Welsby and continuing, “near to the corner of Lamington St in New Farm.”

Frank jokes with her, “Bit of a mouthful, eh?”

Wendy smiles rather than laughs. Frank admits to himself quietly that his effort at some humour was probably a bit lame and did not deserve any greater response.

Frank feels relief at having asked his question and obtained the response he wanted, he moves to withdraw. Wendy smiles at him, seeing that he’s going, reinserts her headphones, switches on the floor polisher, and with a smile and a wave, turns back to her task.

Saturday morning, the sun is shining, and the atmosphere is crackling with energy – or so it feels for Frank. Arriving about 20 minutes early, Frank retreats to a coffee shop at the intersection of Lamington and Welsby. He does not want to appear too keen.

@@At 11am, Frank walks up to the little weatherboard house and rusty red roof half hidden behind the flourishing green of the long established verge-side trees. The house is a little sad, rundown, and especially dilapidated relative to the high ceilings, timber and glass flourishes of the bistros and boutiques at Welsby and Lamington just 50 metres away. The house looks substantial and Frank wonders if Wendy shares it with others. He nervously rubs his wet palms down his calm, cool beige pants, and immediately regrets it glancing down to see if he has marked them with the sweat.

He knocks firmly, but briefly on the door and steps back. He does not want to be crowded around the door, he needs to keep a polite distance. He hears soft footsteps, the sounds of locks being released, the handle turns, but a lock slips. “Shit” he hears at a low level. Eventually, the door opens. Peering through the screen door is Wendy. She looks beautiful, her bright airy face flushed red and stretched taunt by the two pigtails, and dressed in bright, tight running gear. Wendy looks a little surprised. Frank looks down at the sweat underlining her breasts, he tries to withhold his own surprise.

“Hi” says Frank brightly. He feels awkward. Something is wrong. Brunch isn’t meant to be dressy, but he thinks that running gear is a little too déclassé even if she does look pretty cute like that. And Wendy does not look like she is expecting him.

“Umm, have I stuffed up the time again” asks Frank.

Wendy recovers, “Sorry, I didn’t expect you at my door right now.”

“Brunch?” he asks plaintively, the ground shifting beneath him.

Wendy’s face knits up, then unravels as a large smile crosses her face. “Oh, oh, so, that’s why you’re here.”

Frank feels like he is climbing scree, two metres forward, one metre back. “Yeah, that’s right.. You made me a bit nervous.”

“You should be, after standing me up for coffee.”

“Yeah, sorry, I do feel bad about that, and I realize that I didn’t talk to you about it when I caught up with you at the Masonic Lodge.”

A moment’s silence. Frank fills the silence, “I guess I wanted to find out first whether you were an axe-murderer or not.” Frank smiles as much at his own humour, it helps him feel like things are okay again.

Wendy scoffs, “I swear, it was only once, the guy deserved it, and it’s like it’s going to follow me around my whole life.”

Frank laughs out loud but stops as he sees Wendy’s unbroken face. She meets his eyes, and then a smile spreads across her face. Frank starts to breathe again.

“So where to for lunch” Wendy asks.

“The Powerhouse down by the river” suggests Frank.

Silence follows, and Frank, flustered tries to fill the silence, “So, are you changing or coming out to lunch like that.”

“Oh, I don’t know about changing,” giving a big smile, “seems to me that you are quite taken with this outfit.”

Frank feels his cheeks redden. Her directness disarms him – and delights him. He remains perplexed about why she had appeared so distant and remote when he caught up with her at the Masonic Lodge. He thinks to ask her directly about this.

“Hey, you know when I caught up with you at the Masonic Lodge, I hope you didn’t think me a pest or something.”

Wendy laughs, “No Frank, I didn’t think you were a pest. In fact, I was’t even there!”

Frank tries to rewind the film, something is not gelling, he doesn’t understand what is happening here. He wonders if he has slipped through a wormhole into an alternative or parallel universe. Rather than go on with all the various seriously bizarre alternatives, he decides to check his understanding first.

“Sorry, what do you mean you weren’t even there?”

“I wasn’t there, I was at the pool, swimming. I did hear about your visit though later that day.”

“I’m not understanding this very much.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Wendy is alight with glee dancing in her face.

“The person you met and invited to lunch is my sister.” Turning, she calls back into the house, “Wembley, your date is here.”

Frank flushes again and offers some half formed questions,. “Sister? Wembley?”

A girl appears at the door, Wendy’s double, Wembley he presumes. One in sweaty shorts and t-shirt, the other in a pretty summer frock, sensible low sandals, and a fresh bright face featuring a few endearing freckles.

“Hi” says Wembley with a shiny smile. “So you’ve met some of my family already. This is Wendy, she’s my twin sister.”

Frank is flummoxed. He feels like his jaw is hanging open which Wendy confirms, “Frank, close your mouth, you look like you’ve never seen twins before.”

Wembley fills in some gaps, “We both share this house with our Grandma, but she’s busy out back at the moment. So, I’m ready to go, where are we headed?”

Frank is speechless.

Wendy steps in, “Well you two enjoy yourselves, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and have a glass of wine for me.” She winks at Frank.

Frank could see that the two are identical. Wembley is slightly smaller and slightly thinner, but nothing that he would notice – or indeed did notice – when he met them separately. Despite their being parallels one of the other, he realizes almost with shame, that he is more drawn to Wendy rather than Wembley. He can’t say why, but he realizes that he feels like he is going out with the wrong girl.

Stammering and uncertain about how to proceed, Frank asks Wendy “I…, you…, do you want to join us for lunch?”

Frank delights when he sees her smile, and then feels crushed when she replies, “Oh gosh no, Wembley has been so looking forward to this, haven’t you dear?”

Wembley nods her agreement.

“No, you two go out and have a great time.”

“Will I see you later?” asks Frank.

“Really Frank, I’m given to wonder whether you are here for Wembley or for me. No, you go and have lunch with Wembley.”

With a smile and wave, she gives Wembley a kiss on her cheek, pushes her outside towards Frank, closes the screen door and the front door and walks away inside.

Frank is left standing on the pavement befuddled. Wembley looks at him expectantly.

“Right then” says Frank, his head full of cloud and fog, “let’s head off to lunch then.”

As they begin the short walk, Frank feels his fear clarify, a fear of a long, silent lunch with Wendy physically present in the body, but not in the spirit. Frank’s fear of silence is quickly pushed aside.

Wembley talks easily, “I could tell you were nice guy from the moment that I met you. You have such a nice smile. I really enjoy meeting new people. My job is really great because I’m always meeting new people. That’s how I met you, isn’t it” as she gives a giggle.

“Isn’t it funny how things work. Actually, I don’t think I have met a lot of people there really. I’ve been working there Mondays for a while. You’re one of the first people to come and really talk to me. And you only talked to me for about a minute or two. I guess you didn’t want to disturb me from meeting up with Wendy. We often meet up for breakfast when I knock off at about 8.30. I am so glad that you did come and talk to me. I really love Wendy and Grandma, but we don’t always see a lot of people. Wendy has had a few boyfriends, but they don’t seem to last. And Grandma hasn’t had a boyfriend in years. And I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t think I want one, they seem to be just too much hassle. My friends at my other job, some of them have boyfriends, but they are always fighting. I don’t know why they bother. Seems strange to me. Grandma is probably too old for a boyfriend now. I don’t know how old she is, but seems like she doesn’t need a boyfriend now. Anyway, she will probably die soon. If there was a boyfriend, well then he would only be sad. We’ll be sad when Grandma dies too, but it has to happen eventually. Will happen to me too eventually. I wonder if I will die before Wendy, maybe because of the accident when I was a baby. Still, doesn’t help to be thinking about grim matters like that. Grim – a word that Grandma uses. So what are we going to eat? I love Italian, spaghetti, as long as you don’t mind me making a mess. You might want to be sure that you stand back. Wendy gets annoyed with me if I make too much mess when I’m eating, but it’s not my fault. I do try to do my best. She knows that. I guess I feel sorry for Wendy and Grandma having to look after me. But I’m really okay, it’s not like I’m a child, I’m an adult and I can fend for myself. Grandma says so. Wendy is not so sure. They don’t fight too much about that anymore. I like to listen to them. I’ve always liked to listen. That’s why I am called Wembley. I was actually named Arianne. Wendy learned to speak before me. I just copied her, only I didn’t pronounce her name correctly and I was calling myself Wembley.”

Frank allows the sounds of Wembley’s talk to wash over him. She is pleasant to listen to, undemanding, and allows him space and time to think. The sun warms his head and shoulders. He enjoys seeing the signs of life emerging under the sun, little lizards leaping away from the edges of pavements as they walk by, the trees buzzing and clicking with insects. Tt the restaurant, Frank notices the sun is warming the wildlife jogging, cycling, or simply walking along the riverwalk.

With Wembley beside him, Frank stops at a sign asking them to wait to be seated. Frank touches Wembley on the arm in pointing to the table by the riverwalk, “Look at that table there, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

A chubby waitress approaches taking two menus from a holder at the bar. She smiles as she approaches and remarks “Got your eye on the best table in the house, have you?”

Frank feels caught out, “No, I guess it’s reserved is it?”

Wembley chimes in, “Is it reserved?”

The waitress nods.

“For us?” Wembley asks.

The waitress laughs, and turns to face Frank, “What’s your name?”

Before Frank can reply, Wembley responds, “His name is Frank, mine is Wembley, what’s yours?”

The waitress laughs again, “My name’s Melanie. Did you make a reservation?”

“No” said Wembley turning to look at the desired table, “Should I make one now before someone else comes and makes one?”

Melanie, hugs the two menus she has picked up at the front of her body, she surveys the two of them with a smile. She continues, “Well Frank, Wembley clearly wants the best table in the house, but you seem a little less clear.”

Frank feels awkward inside. He hates the feeling of not being able to ask for even simple things. He wants to protest on many levels. Wembley can barely be counted as a friend at this early stage, and besides Wembley is merely a substitute for the one that he hopes – or hoped – might be his friend. Frank feels pressure pushing his blood into his face, and his lips into inactivity.

Melanie smiles, “Hmm, I take it that you would like that table.”

With a flick of his head towards the table, Frank responds, “Sure, if it’s no trouble.”

“I doubt you’ll be any more trouble than most of my customers, and good deal less trouble than my worst customers, so come on over.”

Wembley claps her hands in delight, and the trio move through the tables of early lunchtime diners to the prize table. Melanie leads the way in her black waiting outfit. Wembley follows asking Melanie questions about how big the kitchen must be to cook for all these people. Frank shuffles along in an embarrassed silence.

At the table, Melanie leans forward and deftly removes the black ‘Reserved’ sign putting it into the front pocket in her black apron. Once settled at the table, Frank is able to return to his quiet internal world as Wembley talks, asks questions of Melanie, and devours a bowl of spaghetti Napolitano. Frank is pleased to be at the front of the restaurant where somehow he feels safer close to the people walking past on the riverwalk and removed from his fellow diners. In fairness, he realises that Wembley makes only a little mess.

As he delivers Wembley back to her home, Frank feels unsure of what to do next. Wembley is beautiful, the cast of her sister, she’s a beautiful person, not some empty shell, and Frank finds it in him some compassion for this girl. She is a happy soul, full of delight and has sparks of the cheeky fun that make Wendy Wendy, but she is her own person. And not the person that Frank wants.

On arriving at the door, Wembley excitedly grabs his hand, shakes it vigorously, and says, “Hey that was really fun, I really enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll catch you around sometime.” She skips up the steps, pulls a key from her tiny purse which appears big enough to hold only this one key, opens it and dances inside without looking back and closes the door.

Frank grins. A delightful soul, how could he say anything otherwise. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the curtain at the front window flicker. He just smiles to himself.

As he turns to walk away, the door opens. Frank turns expecting to see Wendy, but it is not to be. A smallish, matronly figure is there, round around the middle in a really comforting sort of way, and wrapped in a stained butcher’s apron. In her hands, she is holding a wooden spoon covered in sauce or batter of some kind. Her blue eyes twinkle, and the beauty of Wembley and Wendy is clearly seen within. Beneath her rudy cheeks, a cheeky grin spreads across her face.

“Now you get to reckon with Grandma!”

Frank is flabbergasted.

“Where’s your manners boy. How about a “Hello, how do you do?’”

Frank grabs at her suggestions and uses them as he might a half-inflated, and rapidly deflating life vest: “Hello, how do you do?” He trails off.

“Very well thank you. How about you and I have a little talk?”

Frank nods.

“I can tell you’re quite taken with our girl. Thought it might be timely for me to have a little chat with you.”

Frank seeks to clarify any misunderstanding, “It’s actually Wendy that I’m quite taken with.”

“Of course it is. Who else would it be? I know Wendy pulled that little trick on you.” Grandma gives a wry laugh. “She’s a fool, but she’s young. Of course I know that you were here for Wendy.”

“Don’t you think that this talk is all a little premature?”

“Premature? How long should a person wait? Don’t you think that I’m old enough to know what is likely to work and what is not? Wendy told me about your meeting on the bus. You took your time to notice her, and I suspect she had to throw herself at you. I was frankly surprised that she had not heard from you since you met sooner – and Wendy was sure disappointed. However, all the pieces fell back together when you showed up today to take out our Wembley. Wendy was caught off guard.” Grandma snorted a wry laugh again. “But not so off guard as to not play coy. A foolish move I would suggest, but a woman must do what a woman must do.”

“Why foolish? Did she stand a chance of losing me you think?”

“No you silly boy. Foolish because times a-wastin’. They say experience gives wisdom. Maybe. However, I think that age can give a good deal of wisdom. I’ve collected more regrets about what I might have done than most. I’m a bit further down the track, and don’t have much truck with games. Why play bets from the side when you could be in the centre of the circle making the action happen.”

“What sort of action are you expecting here?”

“I’m here to tell you to take action. What that young missy needs is a good root.”

Frank’s face opens wide.

“Sorry” responds Grandma, and with a twinkle, “I realize that’s an old word now. What is it these days? A bang, a boink or something?”

“Bonk, and that’s an old word too” Frank offers.

“Yeah, well one of those. And no matter how old the word is, the intention and the motion are the same. The two of you might dance around forever, she playing games and you being shy.”

Frank starts to grin. He can see that Grandma is something of a character, but also, he can see the strong family resemblance, at least in manner, and perhaps even the clear sparkle in the eyes, the laughing face, the teasing nature.

“What if we go down that path, and we’re not really well suited for one another?”

“What if you do? Gawd sakes, you not been listening to me boy? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, a thousand other things that you might expect me to say as Grandma. But more to the point, d’ya wanna bonk her?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, time you got on with it. And I can’t wait around forever to become a great grandma while you do foolish time wasting things. So, you need to talk to her, maybe when she gets back from her run.”

“She went out running? I thought she must have been running this morning.”

“She did. Needed to bang out some of that energy she got from playing that game with you. That and trying to erase the demons of maybe having played you just a little too hard. Frankly, I think she could play you harder, but I don’t want to see that.” Looking to her right, Grandma continues, “Here she comes now.”

Looking left, Frank watches Wendy running strongly up through the dappled shadows of the pavement, then slowing cautiously as she sees him and Grandma arranged like a tableau on the front step. Wiping a wisp of blonde hair from her eyes, she glances from Frank to Grandma and back again.

“Hi.”

Frank could not help but admire her for a second time dressed in sweaty running gear. He felt guilt as lascivious thoughts ran through his mind, but a look to Grandma who was waving him on with a finger encouraged him. Frank was not sure that Wendy had seen her Grandma’s motions, but felt strength to continue in any case.

“Hey Wendy. Listen. I was wondering, if you were free tonight, to go out, on a date?”

“Hmm, well, I’ll have to check.”

“Nonsense,” said Grandma matter-of-factly. “You ain’t got nothing on tonight.” Frank blushes at Grandma’s double-entendre. Glancing at Wendy with embarrassment, he feels relief to see a pink blush in her cheeks too.

Wendy turns to Frank with a smile, “Appears that Grandma has got my dance card, and tells me that there are no other better offers around, sure, why not.” With a snort, Grandma retreats into the house leaving Frank and Wendy to sort themselves out.

Seasoned Greetings

2006-12-19T12:28:00.000+10:00

Seasons greetings…

Specifically, I hope that you have a (check as appropriate)…

__ Merry Christmas + Happy New Year

__ Happy Chanukah

__ Enlightening Eid-al-Adha

__ God Jul (means good yule or winter bonfire – nothing to do with ‘god’) og Gott Nyttar

__ Sunny summer solstice

__ Wondrous winter solstice

__ Other…

Just in case you are wondering, Eid-al-Adha is the Islamic feast (Dec 31 this year) celebrating the father (Ibraham) who heard voices and thought he should sacrifice his son. Notwithstanding the evidence that hearing voices and having a split personality (Ibraham = Abraham) suggests he is a little psychotic, any parent will tell you that filicidal ideation can arise from time to time. Interestingly, the Muslims believe the son on the chopping block was Ishmael, Jews and Christians believe it was Isaac. Ibraham/Abraham probably would have been happy to slaughter both of them. However Ibraham (like most parents) eventually relented from the idea of sacrificing his son(s), and went on to slaughter a ram, they all had a good feed, forgave one another, and Ibraham/Abraham became the forefather of the Arabs/Jews respectively. His great-great-great-great…etc…grand-kids, (the Jews and the Arabs) continue to fight to this day - like kids in any family. As if the family didn’t have enough problems, the Christians run around terrorizing the 'hood.

Meanwhile, here’s to a wonderful 2007…

Cheers and love,

from Stephen & Zachary

Funereal Winds

2006-10-09T16:22:00.000+10:00

It was a windy day for a funeral. I wondered whether the soul would be torn asunder by the bellowing gale. Down by the sea, a fitting funeral for a sailing man I guess. But wind is such a disturbing weather pattern. It is like it blows the elements of my insides like dust motes around a room. I am creeping around inside trying to find the cracks through the which the wind is coming. It is insidious. It may not be coming from the direction of the prevailing wind. An eddy is wrapping around my body, and this steady breeze, this incessant zephyr, this annoying compression of air, is blowing in from the other direction. Where the fuck is that gap.

I am set to wondering. Are the dust motes that I see being blown around, are these the elements of my soul. Are they the little bits of fluff and dust and are my essential nature. Are they so fragile, so light, so insubstantial that they are all that really holds together my soul. When these sprites – for surely they cannot be considered more than that – are whisked around, I am chasing my own soul.

In front of me, on a bench, on top of the bench, a solid box, open, and inside, a man’s body. My friend. Where is his soul I wonder. Is he now oblivious to the blow. Across the box and bench, I see the ocean, the whitecaps – and the wind continues to whisk around whipping up a frenzy. Is it his soul that has invited this disturbance? Is it that any death, like a wind, must disturb the souls of the living.

By my hand, I have my partner. Rebecca. Although right now, I am not looking at her face, she is number – god knows what number she is. I am reflecting on my life, my long string of girlfriends, lovers. How do I love them, let me count the ways. How do I count loves? My love for this man, Peter, the rock, so inappropriate a name for a sailor I always thought. Sailors don’t like rocks. The wind-whipped waves may look unfriendly, but the solid, unmoveable rocks are far more disturbing. The solidness of real life, the implacability of physical existence, it is not that which is undoubtedly present that leads to my doubts, my questioning, it is the elements that give that solidity life. Life. That is the wind. It is life which moves the dust motes around inside the shell of my existence. It is the breath of life. No breath, no life. Peter is no longer breathing. Rebecca’s hand is warm. I crave her body, her warm embrace, to be engulfed by another life, to be supported by her body, to be inside her. I am looking to go back to the source of my life, to my mother.

A man is droning on in the background. Talking about Peter’s life. But Peter is no longer with us. All I have here are the rocks. The breath is gone. And the man talking, just more breath. Save your breath. I have plenty of wind inside me. It is whistling in the eaves of my mind. It tells me, if nothing else, that I am alive.

(Cabarita, 9oct06)

"Like this Papa. Follow my lead"

2006-06-23T12:31:00.000+10:00

This picture was announced as the winner of the National Archives of Australia Holiday Snaps competition on Sunday, June 18.

The photographer was Margaret Burnell.

Please feel free to contact me if you want access to the photographer - or the models of course.

Here & Now

2006-06-18T12:33:00.000+10:00

Yesterday's future
Tomorrow's past
Visions, dreams & fantasies
Of a singular moment in time

(inspired by / paraphrased from a source I don't know!)

Letter from God

2006-06-09T12:34:00.000+10:00

Stephen,

Knock it off!

I haven’t forsaken you. I’m always there. A little busy, but always there.

Perhaps I can note here that you don’t always seem to have a lot of time to connect with me.

Sure, our connection is a little bit iffy. Given that when you try to connect with me, you’re essentially trying to communicate with everyone and everything living – who by the way seem to have lives just as busy as yours – of course there’s going to be a little static on the line.

I might add that you seem rather hung up on concrete communications. The spoken word – as in soundwaves – or the writing…on the wall. That’s fine, but if you’re going to insist on those forms of communication, and those ones only, then you’re limiting the channels we might use to connect. Kinda like waiting for a message from someone in the letter box or the answering machine. Let me explain a bit more…

You gotta put out a bit more energy than that. Give me a holler. Don’t be shy, come say ‘hi.’

And don’t give a holler and just turn and walk away. You gotta listen actively. Monitor multiple channels, holler down all of them – and listen carefully.

I’m out there. Yeah, I know, I can hear you say: ‘You can say that again.’ Cute. Bear in mind that your message ain’t just going around the corner, or even across the world. It’s going across dimensions.

You see (actually, you probably don’t, but you get the gist), you have this image of me as some guy. For starters, I don’t have a gender. I don’t need one. There is only one of me, and I’m not reproducing.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you: ‘Created man in his own image.’ You are not just like me, you are me. I really am created within you. I am your image of me – although not an old guy with white flowing robes and nor am I Aslan the lion. So knock it off.

I am the essence of you. You and everyone else. And everyone is / are through me. Maybe think of me as the life force. That spark that cannot be seen that drives all living creatures.

Everytime you see a living creature, you see me. Hey, and get this, you know those days you can’t even pull your ass out of bed. And when you finally do and you look in the mirror. Guess what – you see me. I have bad days too.

Communication is a two-way street. Just don’t put up a roadblock.

See ya round.

G.x

© Stephen Holden 2006

Tis-Con-Bob-Elated

2004-06-10T12:35:00.000+10:00

Eyeful
Disco
Neck
Dead

Like
An
E
Male
4
Vie
Ag
Ra

Wrong
Worse
- Worlds,
- Verse,
- Words.

Knot
Write

Over
Well
Med
Buy
The X-File

Ex
Crew
She
Ate
Me

Please
No
More

Eman

© Stephen Holden 2004 - (Clermont, 10jun04)