sexiest woman room

An anonymous recently left this comment on the McGowan thing I wrote a little while ago. It struck a chord with me and I reprint it here with my thoughts on the matter following after.


Anonymous said...
I enjoy the works of McGowan very much and as an ex-southern fundamental christian, the more truth I find the better.

The sad truth about that for me is what difference can it make? I have no doubt that ALL religions are lies for the purpose of deceiving the masses and the few getting richer, but if there is no right or wrong, god or devil, why should any of this matter?

If I try to live and do good to my fellowman and someone else lives a life only to hate and destroy and we both get the same at death..nothing...what does it matter what we do?

Why should we try to make things better for the following generations if there is nothing beyond this life? We should steal, kill, lie or anything we can do to get all we can get while we are here!!!!

Hundreds of sweet precious children are abused mentally, emotionally and sexually almost every 30 seconds and few people care. What difference does that matter is there is nothing better beyond this life? If a man strives to do good and be kind to children and another man only lives to rape a child and yet they both get the same at the end of life why should we strive for the 'good'?

What kind of world is this and what does anything matter at all? Maybe this is the jumping off place of the universe but in the religious pious stupidity we are led to believe we are better! I want no part of any religion for as long as I draw breath.



Dear Anonymous,

Whatever pathetic consolation it may be, I know precisely how you feel. In fact, I suspect that most of the regulars here would be nodding their heads. Mate, you are not alone. A lot of us have been there. Everything that had once comprised the bedrock on which we based our understanding of ourselves and the world, has turned to shifting sand. Actually it was always thus. But now it's become so obvious that none of us can miss it. We've all learned that nothing was what we thought it was. And with nothing firm beneath our feet, it's hard to know who one should be.

It is my conceit here, to I think I have something to tell you. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I'm going to write it regardless and hope that it's of some use. If it isn't, and you don't care for it, feel free to dismiss it. I will not take it personally.

Professionals might disagree, but I reckon you are undergoing a slo-mo variation of a nervous breakdown. I say this because your words were mine and 'nervous breakdown' was how I chose to define the complete disconnect I experienced. But don't be afraid of the word 'breakdown'. You may as well embrace it. When a thing is built wrong at a foundational level, invariably there's no point fiddling around the edges. You may as well break it down and start again. It is a good and necessary thing. And I'm not talking about society here. I'm talking about you.

If you're like me, your understanding of yourself was based majorly on your understanding of the world. And now you've realised you've been had. It was all a con, a load of shit designed by vicious greedy bastards. Religion is a con, banking is a con, tax is a con, the media is a con. All of these things told you who to be and what to do. And now the scales have fallen from your eyes and you know it's all bullshit. So! Who are you? Who should you be? How should you behave? Where is the firm ground on which you can say, 'This is who I am'?

Well, I hate to tell you that you will never find this firm ground - certainly not externally. The only firm ground you'll find will have to be yourself. That which is outside us, is not us, and nor should it define us. You say that there is no right and wrong. Actually there is, but so far you've pretty much let others define it for you. I'm not attaching any blame to you for this. You, me, we all did it. The main thing, in rejecting this definition-of-others, is that you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Which is to say, don't throw yourself out too.

Let's start with the wrong end of the stick. Clearly there is wrong behaviour. And you identified it quite eloquently. But rather than making sense of it with a thicket of complex rules, why don't we distil it into its single essence? All wrong behaviour is merely an expression of selfishness. Every 'sin' is only so, if it is carried out as an act of selfishness. All of the ten commandments can, believe it or not, be done selflessly - in which case they are no longer a 'sin'. Who knew?

Think of Robin Hood. He would lie, cheat, and steal, but all in a spirit of selflessness. Who cares what the reality was - he's mythologised for this selflessness. Had he robbed to enrich himself, there wouldn't be any myth. His heroic stature doesn't come from his breaking of the rules but from why he broke them. The rules were, and still are, bullshit. They were there to serve the selfish, which is to say, the wealthy and powerful. Forget the rules, the only thing that counts is the selflessness. The ten commandments, the seven deadly sins, whatever, only make sense in terms of their selflessness. If you view them in this fashion, idiotic discussions about white lies etc. are instantly resolved. Contradictions, clever tricks and self-serving loopholes all turn to a puff of smoke.

The rules are, and always were, bullshit. Given that the only certainty is change, they must fail. And they do. And you've seen it, you said so. So let's chuck them out. The only thing that counts is the question of 'for whom was the action done?' Did a person act out of narrow self-interest, or for the benefit of all?

It won't take much of a prompt from me to get you to wonder at the religious power structure of which you were a member, and why they never put things in terms of selflessness. Ha! The question answers itself. If an organisation was governed by the simple rubric of selflessness how, or why, would it's leaders amass all that power? How would they explain all those mansions with their hot and cold running blowjobs? These organisations, in refusing to discuss things in terms of selflessness, are telling you where the answer lies.

Let's not forget the government and the media. Of course the media tells you that greed is good. The media is run by the powerful and wealthy, which is to say selfish, and unsurprisingly they want you to revere the powerful and wealthy. Sure, of course. And here am I telling you, media-style, how to behave. But I'll also tell you - don't take my word for it. Do not believe me. Belief is what led you, and the rest of us, astray. Instead take this thought of selflessness (it's not mine you know. I merely echo others) and roll it around in your head. Apply it to anything you like. See for yourself if it makes sense.

For no particular reason, the Beatles song 'Money Can't Buy Me Love' came to mind. As did the old phrase, 'You can't buy happiness'. Wonder at these again. What are they apart form simple discussions of selfishness and selflessness? Simple things are easy to see. Complicated things are not so easy. This simple template of selflessness is not some magic key that will do your thinking for you. You've already had people hand you all the answers and you know what that's worth. Nothing.

You will have to be your own bedrock. You will have to struggle to embody what is right. Not only will you have to struggle to understand the right thing to do, you will have to struggle in the face of all those who will tell you that you are wrong. Stand firm. Don't be distracted by the selfish end of the continuum, regardless of how many people tell you that sins are virtues. Being distracted by the selfish and their selfish behaviour will serve no purpose. It's arguable that any religion (or society, same-same) basing itself on what one shouldn't do, was always doomed to failure. Forget what's wrong. Aim for what's right.

By defining yourself by what's best for others, you can find a strength that is unimpeachable. If a man cannot be accused of acting selfishly, he cannot be accused - period. He need not fear the lies of others. To shed fear is to shed the confusion and unhappiness that the lies are designed to instil. The selfish do not have this option. Those with the most to lose will live lives of fear. It stands to reason. And sure, they wish you to be fearful. Hell, do they ever! Reject them. Reject their falsehoods. Reject their fear. Turn away from all of it. Find yourself. You are all that you have and all that you need.

You have already come a long way. The path you are on is difficult. The main thing is that you knew to start it. I salute you. Here I will not discuss what I think you will find at the end of this journey. That would merely be my opinion, whatever that's worth. Not much, since I haven't found it yet. And I may never. But it doesn't really matter. With each step, one casts off fear and knows oneself better. The ground beneath one's feet become ever firmer and each footfall more confident. Eventually you will find the solid bedrock of yourself. Godspeed.

"I got an idea: You should get a tattoo that says "Warning"
That's all, just a warning, so the potential victim can take a left and save breath,
And avoid you, sober and upset in the morning" ~ Atmosphere

So i stole this idea from this months Details magazine. The Article was called "Are you that guy" So i choose to make the gay version. Here is the first 30 that popped in my head. Please feel free to add your own...

"You know him. You roll your eyes at him everyday. But if your guilty of any of the following behavioral blunders, chances other fags are rolling their eyes at you..."

1. You have a lower back tatoo (aka tramp stamp)

2. You schdule your weekend around what DJ is spinning at what club

3. You are a Drag Queen and a strict top

4. You start wearing wifebeaters to the gym the second you start using steroids

5. You use a special comb to brush your eyebrows

6. You still drink apple martinis

7. You are extremely hot with a hideous boyfriend

8. You have douche hose in your shower, that never comes down

9. You use the term "Bro"

10. You use the term "Fierce"

11. You are a stict top with insufficient equipment

12. You have only female friends that you drag everywhere you go

13. You wear Jeans, short shorts or fetish gear at the gym.

14. You try to convince everyone your Manhunt account is to hopefully find a long term relationship

15. You look like powder and only date black men

16. You wear color contacts

17. You dye your hair blond when you are in your 40's

18. You refer to yourself as masculine and set off everyones Gaydar

19. You call people "papi"

20. You are Republican

21. You choose to go see "Mama Mia" over seeing "The Dark Knight"

22. You cover the walls of your partment with pictures of the male form

23. You have "muscle", "hung", or your penis size somewhere in your screenname

24. You are a stict bottom that has never douched and say "don't worry, i'm always clean"

25. You didn't realize your BF was a porn star or escort until after you broke up with them

26. You shop at Ambercrobie and Fitch in your 40's

27. You are a cheerleader

28. You dress in 80's fashion and consider yourself fashion forward

29. You use the gym to prepare for your "So You Think You Can Dance" and "American Idol" auditions.

30. You are a porn star that writes a blog to express your feelings

There are a couple of things I've been wanting to say, but none of them deserved a whole piece. Then it occurred to me I could kill a couple of birds with one stone (common mynahs perhaps) and I wrote the following.


Me

Whilst I was reading Dave McGowan I appreciated it when he told his readers what he looked like. Whilst I have no desire to be famous, or recognised, or anything other such thing, (I don't call myself nobody for no reason) I can see how there's a lot to be said for a reader being able to attach an image or description to the fellow one's reading. The idea that people should communicate without knowing what the other party looks like is, in the span of human existence, absurdly recent, and as such vaguely unsatisfying. And far be it from me to go against a million years of human evolutionary psychology.

I also liked McGowan's means of doing this. He merely named the famous person whom he most closely resembled, that being Kevin Bacon. Funnily enough I've actually already written about the fellow whom I resemble with an in-joke that only I got - this being over at the cinema blog in my review of Blueberry. My precise words were, 'He is exactly that kind of cinematic French ugly'. Ha! I crack myself up! Anyway, the fellow I'm talking about is Vincent Cassel. Who? Exactly. Happily, hardly anybody has seen his films or noticed him when they did. But those who have, declare the resemblance spooky. Should M. Cassel ever appear in a movie playing some long-haired, ill-shaven variant of a hippy, switch the screen format into some kind of anamorphic squeeze so that he appears tall and skinny, and there you'll see yours truly.

You may also be interested to know that I have an indeterminate accent. It's not quite Australian and not quite English. It seems no one is able to place me. When they ask me where I'm from, I always answer, 'Nowhere in particular'. This is true of course, and sure enough I have the accent to prove it.


Writing

Writing here has been a very interesting exercise for me. I don't know about other people, but me, I love the actual physical act of it. One of the best things I ever did was to learn to touch type. I enjoy watching words appear on the screen without me giving the least thought to what my fingers are doing. As someone who spent most of his life working with his hands, this is as close as I get now. Actually that's kind of sad, but never mind.

To be honest, the physicality is the least of it. The biggest questions are: who am I writing for; and what point am I making. The first question is ever fluid. I hold no fixed position on this and will sometimes chop and change within a single piece. That light-as-a-feather 'Hitman 5' thing I wrote was a perfect case in point. That was simultaneously written for: unsuspecting gamers who dream of assassinating people; the game designers who train them to think this way; the ever lurking spooks; regular readers who hopefully will get the gag; and me, sure enough. Sometimes I declare who it is I'm addressing and sometimes I don't. I like to keep the ground shifting and it pays to be nimble.

Then there is the matter of what point I'm making. Sure enough, this depends on who I'm addressing, as in that Hitman thing - different points for different people. But if I'm in stentorian mode addressing the masses (ha ha ha, just for the record I now average 60-70 hits a day - masses indeed) I do attempt to focus on a single point (or view perhaps). Ideally I'll be running at 180º to conventional wisdom. I've no desire to write something we've all read a dozen times already. And sometimes I fail, sure. And sometimes I confuse people too. I'm rarely straightforward and embrace ambiguity and sideways attack. Sorry, but that is what it is.

Otherwise, for every piece I post, there'll be another rejected and consigned to the 'unfinished' folder on my hard drive. Some seem to go nowhere and some I just can't tie up in any kind of satisfying fashion. So I ditch 'em. And of what I do post, some fly off my fingers and some get torn down and rebuilt over and over. I prefer the former, sure enough. The latter are arduous. And sometimes they're worth it and sometimes they're not. Inspiration is a funny thing. Great ideas go nowhere and dull ideas round up nicely and get lots of comments. I'm always surprised by what does and doesn't inspire people to comment.


The Cinema Blog

For some reason the cinema blog gets about a tenth as many hits as the church blog. It's possible that this is because I post so sporadically. It's also possible that people don't groove on it. If it's the latter, I'll have to be honest and say, I don't get it. For mine, there's not much difference between the church and the cinema. In approximately half the reviews I write there, I barely talk about the film as such. Often as not the film is merely a prop or spur for some other point I want to make. Other times I address the context that surrounds the film. I do this because I'm bored to death with reviewers who discuss films in complete isolation from their sociological meaning, or intent, or impact. With this in mind, it's often a complete toss-up as to what blog I put it on. Annemarie (who's on sabbatical at the moment it seems) made exactly this point when I did The Ground Truth. She was probably right. I probably should have posted it here.

And so it is with the latest effort, Bloody Sunday. I bounced it backwards and forwards and in the end decided to write it for the cinema blog. Unsurprisingly I barely discuss the film itself. Instead I try to make a point about non-violence and also discuss the film that Bloody Sunday isn't - if that makes any sense.

Otherwise, I've seen a couple of flicks lately and they'll keep me over at the cinema blog for a bit. It's possible something will pop up and put a wild hair up my clacker in between times, and I'll be back here to have a spray. Um, believe it or not, that was the main point I wanted to say. For someone who doesn't have much to say, I do go on. I expect it's just the joy of the typing.

PS It seems African Warrior, apropos Bloody Sunday, is urging me to do 'better' movies. Like Dark Knight. Perhaps he's got a point.

Here's a quote from Darryl Robert Schoon in Market Oracle -

"In but five decades, the US squandered not only its extraordinary patrimony (21,775 tons of gold), but the income and assets of future generations. Today US obligations, in excess of $70 trillion, are incapable of ever being paid back."

As I've said before, I have no time for impossible riddles. I view economics and monetarism as one of these riddles. Delving deeply into its intricacies will not lead anyone to enlightenment. The only way to get the true nature of the beast is to step back and ask simple questions.

The United States was the world's biggest economy. Its people all laboured mightily and produced untold amounts of everything - food, minerals, products and services. And yet inexplicably the whole enterprise seemed to go out backwards. Somehow all the labour and creativity of the American people left them worse off than when they started. Not only did they lose all that they possessed but they're now massively in hock. Does that make any sense at all?

If Americans had all sat on their arses doing nothing, I'd get it. But they didn't did they? They all worked like Trojans with only their lousy two weeks holiday a year. And now they're all in the hole. How the fuck does that work?

Obviously, labour and resources count for nothing in the face of the control of the notes of exchange. Forget all the gobbledegook, money is nothing more than a medium of exchange. In and of itself it's worthless - infinitely less useful than food, shelter, and tools. And yet magically everything is inverted. Bits of paper are all important and food and shelter has no value.

This is simple, simple stuff. As is the obviousness of the fact that the way things are currently arranged is bullshit. Monetarism is bullshit. It's a scam and we've all been had. Paying interest, which is to say more money, to those who already have all the money makes no sense. The rightness of our ancestors in viewing the usury of the goldsmiths as a sin, is made obvious once again. Clearly the whole system is fucked and there's only one thing for it. Burn it all down and start again.

Right this minute, Sydney, Australia's biggest city, is awash in Roman Catholics. There's some World Youth Thingy on featuring the Pope. Happily I'm a thousand kilometres away. Me, I already know precisely what everyone is in for, having been through this when I lived in Italy. Back then they had the Jubileo, whatever that was. There I was wandering around Padova (a really marvellous town with some spectacular Giotto frescoes) and you couldn't turn a corner without being surrounded by idiot young people singing and clapping. Between them and football hooligans, I'll take the hooligans. At least the hooligans don't stray far from places selling beer.


Anyway... a funny thing happened on the way to Australia's World Youth Thingy. A really tiny crowd of demonstrators seemed to hog all the air time. These being the curiously titled NoToPope Coalition. They were cross that the Pope won't support condoms. So cross, that they've made a sharp professional website, printed sharp professional t-shirts and stocked up on tons of branded (but hopefully not sharp) condoms. All washed down with a really cracking media campaign. These people are waaaay better funded, better organised and far more visible than Sydney's anti-war coalition ever was. All this for an event that lasts a week! Absurdly enough, these dozen or so people somehow seemed to get the same amount of screen time as the hundreds of thousands who marched against the Iraq war. What a whacky world.


I don't want to talk about the Pope and the church here. The Jewish media already heaps more than enough shit on the Catholic church. If you don't care for that thought, ask yourself what kind of coverage, or lack of it, would have been given to a NoToRabbis Coalition objecting to the Jewish Church's support for Palestinian ethnic cleansing. Exactly. In the media, screaming blue murder about the Catholic church is precisely as permissible as doing the same about the Jewish faith isn't, if you can dig it. But never mind that, what I'm interested in is the kerfuffle involving this little come-from-nowhere group who managed to hog all the limelight. And... the weird shit that followed.


Absurdly this tiny group was such a threat to social order that the police were astoundingly given the ability to arrest anyone who might behave in an 'annoying' fashion. I am not making this up. The people of New South Wales woke up that morning to learn that they suddenly had 'anti-annoyance' legislation.


Sure enough, the media went nuts with NoToPope starring as freedom-fighting, underdog heroes. Everyone else ducked for cover. It seemed that no one had asked for this legislation, no one wanted it, no one made it happen. The Youth Thingy people said it wasn't them. Nor was it the police. Nor even the government! Um, okay, that's weird. Perhaps this law wrote itself.


Next thing we know, the NoToPope Coaltion is in the Federal Court fighting for their right to hand condoms to people who don't want them. Did I miss something here? Has the legal system suddenly changed overnight and become cheap to participate in? Or does the No To Pope Coalition have scads of money? Really? From where? If all sorts of legal people donated their time for free, why did they do that?


Miraculously common sense ruled the day. Happily the legislation we didn't need for a public threat that didn't exist from an 'advocacy' group that seems to have no public support was defeated. Three cheers for whatever that was all about! Camera crews awaited the thronging mass of five or so celebrating NoToPopers. All five of them were rapt! They promptly starting walking up to random Catholics and giving them condoms.


Unsurprisingly these random individual Catholics who'd had nothing to do with any of it, behaved ungraciously. Not only did they not care for the NoToPoper's clever double-entendre t-shirts, they also didn't appreciate being given things to put on men's penises. What's wrong with these stupid Catholics? Who on earth would object to people asserting that they have sex with strangers and need something for their penises? The NoToPopers were merely helpfully assisting those too embarrassed to walk into an anonymous chemists by handing them condoms in public in front of all their friends and relatives. Why would anyone object to that?


Archness aside, what was this all about? I mean really? Dissuading Catholics from being Catholics? Seriously? Funnily enough, I have actually done this but I suspect I wouldn't have been so successful had I chosen to get in people's faces and make suggestions as to what they should do with their penises.


Perhaps it was to broadly promote condom use? But broadly is the wrong word. The only people the NoToPopers will appeal to are inner-city groovers who already use them. And teenagers. Teenagers have been perfectly trained by the TV to know that any kind of rebellion against squares is good.


Groovers and Teenagers aside, I'm prepared to declare, with perfect certainty, that the broad majority of Australian punters, Catholic or no, would view the NoToPopers as ratbags, dickheads and bullshit artists. God knows how many people wondered if anti-annoyance laws weren't a good thing. If it spares us these fuckwits maybe there's something to be said for it?


Otherwise, I broadly suspect that all of this was nothing more than yet another campaign against the Catholic church. The church is right up there with Muslims, the Russians, the Chinese, and Robert Mugabe as those we must hate. Forget what any given campaign is about exactly. There's no point trying to make sense of 'what' it's all for. The 'what' of any particular campaign is irrelevant. It's merely a cover for the campaign itself. The 'what' is an impossible riddle that will make less sense the more you look into it. All you need to do is ask who am I meant to hate here?


Frankly the bloc media could save us all a lot of time if they merely had a nightly hate list following the weather report. Talking head - 'And now we go to Murray with tonight's Jewish media's hate list. Murray?' Switch to camera 2. 'Thanks Tina, not much change from last night. With no attacks scheduled in the Middle East this week, Muslims have slid down to third place. But with the Catholics looking to hitch a free ride in the Jewish media with their World Youth Thingy, we've decided to take them down a notch by putting them in as tonight's Number One target of ridicule! So! All you impressionable people out there, teenagers, and kids - the Jewish media has spoken. Behave predictably! Good night, and back to you Tina.' Switch to camera 1. 'Thanks Murray, and following tonights news, on A Current Affair we'll have a grab bag of great anti-Catholic one-liners you can all repeat at school and make yourselves look clever. Good night!'

I used to think it was about oil. I thought that everything that was going on was driven by the inescapable fact that fossil fuels were necessarily finite and that the end of this finite resource was near. Of course there will be ructions, I thought - ain't nothing to be done about it. But that swine Dave McGowan made me go back to the drawing board. I can't pretend I know precisely what the story is with oil, but I do know it isn't the card hand that's driving the betting. It's merely part of the bluff.

The liars who run the world are very very good. Their lies are multi-layered. Up front are the stated reasons as to why things are being done. These are invariably presented in a blizzard fashion. There are so many lies, coming so thick and fast, that by the time one lie has been dealt with, three more have popped up. The point of the exercise is confusion and it usually works pretty well. It sure worked in Iraq.

But for those who know that the whole blizzard is bullshit there are a variety of unstated reasons. These are merely hinted at. Clever-trousers, like yours truly, cry, 'Aha! You liars! I know the real reason'. But really, they saw me coming. The hints were just more lies. The beauty of this is that anyone grasping this 'truth', what with their own cleverness being wrapped up in their 'discovery', will be unwilling to consider that they too have been had. 'Surely I wasn't played for a fool here too!' Who wants to admit that they were had as easily as the dim-witted lumpenproletariat? Nobody, that's who. Thus - I admit I was played for a fool.

So what is it all about?


Towards the end of WWI an Australian fellow, John Monash, invented the all-out assault. Rather than have a useless artillery bombardment followed by a useless infantry charge, he used the new tanks and aircraft to combine with the aforementioned so that everything happened all at once. The concept of the unchangeable front was blown to the weeds. For this and other things Monash got a spot on our one hundred dollar bill. He was Jewish by the way. Not that that's really germane here. Nor is it germane that this style of warfare was studied and implemented by the Germans and called 'blitzkrieg'. And of course, everyone does it now. It was called 'shock and awe' on it's last outing.

Anyway... the assault on our collective mind is not dissimilar. We are bombarded on a dozen fronts by various means of assault. The thought that oil is running out is one of them. Climate change is another. Then there's the obvious bullshit War on Terror. And to round everything off, there's the banker's collapsing of the world economy by way of debt and currency manipulation. And all of these combine to make food shortages and starvation. It's the equivalent of infantry, armour, artillery, and aerial assault. None of these elements were what it was all about. They were merely a means to a murderous end.

But what's the end? To kill us all? To be honest, I have more questions than answers. But let's see what we do know. We know that this thing is global. No country may opt out. If Australia with its insignificant population of twenty million on the far side of the world is forced to march to this tune, then everyone is. There will be no havens in the English speaking world.

We also know that the size of this assault is unprecedented. Not a single world leader will raise their voice in opposition. They understand that this is, as the Bard once said, the biggie to end all biggies. Every conceivable stop has been pulled out. The bloc-media, which is the theatre of war for our minds, is now all-fear, all-the-time. This campaign (speaking of Shakespeare) is in blood, stepped in so far, that a return (tedious or otherwise) is impossible - to go o'er is the only option. There is no turning back for these Macbeths. Whatever this thing is, it's all or nothing, now or never, crash or crash through.


This thing that's coming cannot be anything less than the final step (or an uber-significant penultimate step) in the biggest plan there is. Those people who've been rabbiting on about the 'illuminati' were right - our world is to come under the single control of an international elite. Previously the infrastructure hadn't existed to make this possible. But it exists now. If you thought yourselves lucky to live in these times, I expect you'll soon find yourself reconsidering. The marvels or science, manufacturing, and communication were actually the tools that those who would rule the world needed to pull it off. The dizzying heights of human achievement we were all so impressed with are to be our downfall. If only we'd all been Luddites. Never mind.

Is there anything to be done for it? Hell if I know. What will I, as a charisma-less git with bad teeth and a worse attitude, do in the face of this? I have no idea. I cannot resist this wave. I can merely body-surf it or get dumped. The only thing I possess is my mind and my sense of the truth. I will never concede either to fear. I will not give them what they want. I don't need anything they have to offer. I don't need their toys and I have nothing to lose. Whatever games are played I will refuse to play them. The games will be theirs. The threats, theirs. The wickedness, fear and duplicity, all theirs. If those who would have me fearful want to teach me a lesson I will refuse to learn it. Whatever this bullshit charade is, I will not play a part in it.

---

Is that of any use to anyone? Probably not. If stepping away from the machine was easy then there'd be no need to do it because there wouldn't be a 'machine' as such. Everything you need they have. You have to go to them. I've stepped away and currently live a twilight existence. I wouldn't wish my situation on anyone. God knows where I'll end up.


Today the entire state of Queensland lost the internet. Paranoid dickheads (oh alright, me) wondered if this was it. No one knew anything. Eventually I got in touch with a friend in Sydney who told me a cable had been cut and would be repaired shortly. But it makes you think. Whatever this thing is that we have here, a discussion or a community or whatever, will end. The internet cannot be allowed to live. And then we'll all be on our Pat Malone. It'll just be you and your neighbours. Godspeed.