Opposition is the first option

This post has been floating in my head a while now.
A few weeks ago, the Australian Federal Government Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee published its report into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009. To put this into perspective for overseas visitors to my blog, Australia has the dubious 'honour' of being one of the few (the only?) developed countries who have constitutionally defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, so the commission's recommendations - that the government review relationship arrangements so that impediments to recognition of same-sex couples are removed, but that a bill allowing same-sex marriages be knocked back - is no huge surprise.
Go a few pages into the report and the submission figures are startling. 11,000 submissions from individuals and organisations for same-sex marraige. Opposition to same-sex marriage, however, numbered 17,000 - about 1 1/2 times to the affirmative submissions. Ever since I read that section, I've been haunted by these figures.

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Let me start by stating that I have not read the report in full. This post is not about the contents of the report. It is about how opposition is the easiest option - but it comes at too great a cost.

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Opposition is something that has been dominating the political landscape recently, particularly here in Sydney. On a global level, opposition to the concept of anthropogenic climate change has led to scientific espionage and the creation of a series of scandals in the lead-up to climate change talks in Copenhagen. In the last month, opposition to an Emission Trading Scheme within the federal Liberal party has cost the scalp of the (moderate) Opposition leader, to be replaced with a more combative, oppositional leader. In Sydney, the premier of New South Wales found himself replaced following his attempts to defang a group of power-brokers within his own party.
Don't get me wrong: fighting for something is often necessary. When all you do is fight against other things, though, it's easy to forget the overall plan and drag others down with you in the process.

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Let's bring this down to more personal level. The work I do as a producer involves a lot of risk analysis. My job is to anticipate potential roadblocks and issues, and develop strategies to mitigate them so that the projects I'm working on come to fruition. A lot of the time, I end up sounding like a Cassandra, warning people that if this doesn't happen, the world will come crashing down.
Doing this work comes at a cost. It's very easy to get bogged down in the negative all the time. It's mentally and emotionally exhaustive; there are many times I get home too tired to move.
To get out of it, I find myself often having to focus on the future, looking to better outcomes and staying my eye on positive scenarios. My out-of-work life can sometimes consist of only focusing on the good - looking for the best in everything as it is far too easy to stumble on the negative. This aspect is gratifying; I get to really appreciate the best in everything, to celebrate the wins. Especially others' wins - that can be really inspiring.

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The price you pay for focusing on the negative is great. A friendly disposition can draw people in, but a sour outlook tends to push people away.
I make no preference that I always succeed at being positive. I can come across as intensely introspective. My perceived lack of quality personal time tends to leave me without the necessary reserve of genuine interest in others' lives. I would definitely love to be there more often for my friends and lovers (well, when lovers come along).
Worse than that, spending time with negative people becomes a game of diplomacy. I've noticed, for example, that often those people I know who are going through a difficult period and especially for those who constantly focus on their difficulties, there is this habit of knocking down the positives in others' lives. Spending time with them becomes a battle - when their attention turns to you, everything positive you strive for is criticised, all the good things you talk about are deconstructed to illustrate fault or depicted as personal losses.
It becomes a chore to be around these people. Even when they find something positive, you find yourself biting your tongue lest they turn on you for "not doing enough" or your "inability" to achieve as much as they do. You start to wonder why you would want to spend time with them. After a while, rather than wanting to help them, you start to feel sad or exhausted at the very thought of this negative force in your life.

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So it is with these opposition forces at large. Spending too much time dealing with groups who would do anything to maintain a status quo that is too selfish, or "works" at the expense of others' misfortune ultimately comes at your own peril - and their own.
Striving for constructive solutions (such as creating a healthier, cooler world, or elevating a group of people from second-class status) is infinitely preferable to holding onto obstructive ones, even though it may be easier to oppose things in the meantime.

The boyfriend you don't have when you have a boyfriend

I've been seeing someone for a little while. He's a great guy, very interesting, incredibly sexy, etc.

The thing is, I haven't seen much of him for about 6 weeks now. It got so bad that I started preparing myself for the breakup the other day. I spent yesterday arvo having conversations with different friends discussing whether I should even bother seeing him any more, whether he was distancing himself or just politely saying he's not interested etc.

So I went to dinner with him tonight expecting the whole dumping thing. It turns out it's none of the above. He is interested; he's just honestly busy. He has a lot of study on his plate at the moment, which means he's pretty much unable to see me more than once a week for the next few months.

The weird thing is that up until recently, that would be a dealbreaker. Nowadays, I'm not so sure. I mean, I'm busy all the time, too. I also have a lot of people around who I love, and I'm not exactly the type of person who absorbs himself completely in the guy he's seeing. So yeah, maybe having a part time lover is not ideal, but it means I can enjoy getting to know him better in between everything else. It also means I get time to myself while appreciating the time we have together. Win-win, I guess.

introverted social media alien

for those of you that know me personally, you'll know i started working for a very interesting interactive agency a few months ago.

now that i've made the switch from software to online media and advertising, my life is even more focused on the online world, especially how I can contribute to the different spheres of online life. i've finally bought my first ever wireless modem/router the other day (unfortunately, i've not yet set up a broadband connection at home for a few rather annoying reasons). i've added myself to twitter and have updated my RSS feeds. I've made an effort to use facebook more often and acquaint myself with a whole heap of social networking tools. I've even managed to learn a lot about google analytics and development tools, and can talk about viral marketing best practice with some confidence.

if you'd asked me the difference between HTML, ASP and ASPX a month ago, i would have had a blank look on my face. Now - I may not be 100%, but i'm getting there. I'm able to tell you all the wireless hotspots within a km of my house. I can look at a site and pull apart its components in a few seconds.

Learning all this stuff comes at a price, however. I'm constantly exhausted, and the whole new household settling in thing isn't really helping. To add to it, I've been running around like crazy: networking, farewells, birthdays, celebrations, catching up with old friends, etc.

The thing is, I'm feeling a little done with it all. I'm constantly in contact with people, and as much as I love everyone, it's all a bit much. I don't feel like I'm adding anything to my life in the end, and I just want some time to myself. I need to work out how often I should tweet, blog or IM and what for. I need to know that when I get home, I won't be so exhausted I need to veg out for a good hour or two before I look up (that's assuming I get home before 10, which lately I haven't been doing often enough). It's just not that useful for my health, or life in general for that matter. I want to feel like I'm contributing something interesting, and not just floating along and watching life go past.

So, I'm slipping off the social radar for a little bit. My room needs a reorganise. I have books to read, plays to watch and films to catch up on. Oh, and I haven't been to the gym in god knows how long.

I'm not interested in going out to a bar every second night for the opening of an envelope. I'm not interested in sitting around watching the latest reality tv bore me with its inane host and pathetic contestants.

I'd much rather do a few things around the house, maybe catch up with the odd person, and recollect my thoughts. In other words, it's time to collect some social surplus. Maybe then I'll have something truly stimulating to contribute.

Gimme Less/Tears of an Uptight Clown

A couple of random weeks have come to a close, so I'd thought I'd try to make sense of them through the power of pop culture.

I've been feeling very lazy lately.
My university assignments are getting done at the last minute, my personal filing system (usually immaculate) is all over the place, my stuff in storage is probably growing an extra leg from the mould growing inside. In other words, it's not pretty. So I've decided to take the advice of one Ms Tyra Banks:



A friend turned around to me at a party a few weeks ago and asked why I don't smile any more.



At the time, I had a very bad case of some virus and it was a struggle to just be at this event, let alone giggle away all the time. I didn't want to say anything about it, but the comment did get under my skin.
I guess it comes down to me taking myself a little too seriously lately. It's time to allow me to laugh at myself. Weird to admit it, though.

I'm not sure that I'm ready for a relationship, but I'm really sick of meeting idiots.
I guess it would be the feeling that Amy Winehouse would have if she woke up to her husband's drug spiral. Or Kate Moss.



Thank fuck I'm not in love, though.



Maybe I need to hang out at some more (even just slightly more) intelligent parties or something. And stay away from London. (I think that advice is equally valid for Mr Doherty, FYI.)

On a vaguely related note, I could be off on a weird tangent here, but don't you think that it's pretty much a given that the Moss/Doherty and Winehouse/Fielder-Civil relationships will only end with the (fatal) overdose of one of the partners?

Morbid thought, though.

Right, I'm off to laugh at the sorry state of my poor fridge.

[Perez Hilton: We Just Can't Get Enough]
[Able & Baker: Run on Fun]
[Mollygood: Drinkin' and Snortin' and Fightin']
[Best Week Ever: ICYMI: Pete Doherty & Kate Moss Still Video Documenting their Mutual Love of Drugs]

No, I have NOT been smoking any of that stuff...

Pity, really. I could do with a good relax.

ANYWAY, I've been reading quite a lot of random material lately.

Let me just start off by talking about Manuel de Landa's A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. If you are in any way interested in a) historiography; b) philosophy; c) cultural history; d) economic theories; e) the debate about the relevance of science to the humanities, and vice versa; or f) any or all of the above, READ it.

I know it's 10 years old, and that there's other work building on the book, but this is just a fascinating read. And I'm only halfway through. Plus it works with everything I've been reading about dynamic (nonlinear) systems theory in the last few months.

On the other hand, I've just finished the latest Harry Potter (well, the day after it came out), and the last Tales of the City, Michael Tolliver Lives.

The most interesting topic I've been reading about, however, is to do with time. Now, Einstein's theory of relativity posits that time is experienced relatively - the speed at which your body travels through space affects your experience of time (or at least, that's my vague memory of the theory wrt time).

Then there's a concept I came across a while back - Henri Bergson's Virtual, which states that our perception of Now is based on our experience, as visualised through the connection of many possibilities. It's kind of complicated, but I'll give it a shot: effectively, our minds draw from a space called the Virtual (strangely enough, a virtual space) in which every image and concept (whether already-experienced or potential) exists. The way we make sense of any experience we have is to draw upon the Virtual. In other words, we make sense of the current sensations by filtering the various images that come to mind.

What has this got to do with time? Well, the images that come to mind are not just memories (aka. images of the past) - they are also images of presents-that-aren't, of pasts-that-never-were and futures-that-could-be. In other words, time is relative and somewhat circular - it is only present experience that is able to create a linear
impression of time (aka. past -> present -> future).

Anyway, all this is to say that there are plenty of valid philosophies and models for the way time operates.

Which (finally!) brings me to two interesting articles that have come across my desk in the last few weeks. The first, in which it turns out a simple light experiment comes up with very strange results. Apparently, the photons in this experiment either form stripes or spots depending on whether they are observed directly (following the uncertainty principle). However, the strange bit is when photons form spots when observed - but where the observing device is revealed after the photons have already passed through the barrier that supposedly decides the outcome. In other words, a future event affects the present outcome.

Now, a systems perspective would suggest that this is a matter of feedback playing itself out in time - elements related to the situation feeds back to the inputs and decide the ultimate outcome of the situation. It's a nonlinear model of time; the past and the future collude to make sense of the present. (Sound somewhat similar?).

Now, that's presuming time exists at all. Maybe it is just easy to think of time as an organizing concept; yet another social construct (nonetheless with real effects) that helps us to make sense.

[CTheory.Net: 1000 Years of War]
[Manuel De Land Annotated Bibliography]
[Good Morning Silicon Valley: Had we but world enough, and time]
[MSNBC.com: Putting Time in a (Leaky) Bottle]
[DISCOVER: Newsflash: Time May Not Exist]

Random Conspiracy Theory

Thought that floated into my head this morning:

What if AIDS really did kill the creative, humanist impulse of the western world?

Would you like a side of Obvious with that?

We moved office while I was away sick. Coming in today, I found a sticker on my chair I'd not noticed before, with the following gem of advice:

"CARE SHOULD BE EXERCISED NEAR OPEN FLAME OR WITH BURNING CIGARETTES"

Ummm...