existentialism on christmas night

Do you ever get so horrified by your meaningless and repetitive existence as to question whether survival really has any meaning? If you do, you will almost invariably come to the conclusion either that your life exists solely to serve others (be they real people or imaginary sky people) or that your life is driven by the biological need to fuck. Of course at this point your mind diverts into two streams of consciousness, one considering the literary/musical allusions and poor jokes available from such a diatribe, the other considering this more likely biological reason for existence. The trouble is that any consideration of fucking invariably leads you to a consideration of whether anyone would ever fuck you and why they might. All of a sudden about 90% of your life is pointless. Even trying hard you couldn't muster the attractiveness of sci-fi/fantasy actors, so why bother when it comes to them so easily. It's not just actors, of course. You have school-mates, work-mates and casual acquaintances who are all much better at being eye-candy. So you have to find some other way to be fuckable. Don't you see? You're at an evolutionary disadvantage here! And again it's easiest to die out. Suicide doesn't seem like a good idea, of course. It's really not. You need to consider high-order functions of human existence. Every person has an important place. So rather than entering the market for a relationship, don't bother. Consider yourself a tool of society, a maintainer of the social contract. Someone useful in ensuring that others can fulfil their biological needs. You are ancillary staff to the world. You hate the word fuck too, of course, because you need to believe in the value of this higher order. That perhaps the non-biological parts of human existence will lead to fucking that you can call love. But here fucking is appropriate - the connotation is clear. A purely physical act culminating and ending with orgasm. Pity or payment seem to be your best bets for sex. All this bullshit about love and perfection is just that. You start to believe in the words of those horrible Frenchmen who write books with names like The Fall. As the horror of the meaningless of your life sinks in you consider the idea of happiness. It's really not worth it to try and find happiness when at such a disadvantage. It's far too much work. So you resign yourself to a life of shallow, dull servitude. Occasionally you will break and rant and scream your unhappiness to the ether but then you sigh and relax and go back to ensuring those who never had to work for their mighty positions will never have to.

And by you, I mean me.

looking back

So, it's nearly Christmas. I'm thinking of writing a self-Annual Report. But that's probably a lot more effort than I have time to do.

I think I should pay more attention to the reasons why people do things.

I want to say more but I really can't. I'm watching Dinosaurs.

december

So, it's December apparently?

There are lots of Christmas ads. They make me a bit upset that I don't celebrate Christmas. But the two - three? - Christmas celebrations I've been to haven't quite been what is depicted on TV.

So yeah, I dunno. I just think it's about time I blog again.

New Leadership. Fresh Ideas

Kevin Rudd won convincingly. This is no surprise. I don't really care any more. There are a few things that will change (Work Choices, Freedom of Information, parliamentary terms (hopefully)) but in reality it'll be the same complaints for the next three years.

The more interesting thing I did today is this:

This is about a Human Rights Act, specifically in Tasmania, though it could be generalised nationally.

In October the Tasmanian Law Reform Commission released their Final Report #10 on a Charter of Human Rights for Tasmania. The model is quite good in most respects. It is similar to the New Matilda Act in that it is a piece of ordinary legislation.

The proposed Charter would recognise the superiority of Parliament to specifically exclude a piece of primary legislation from compatibility with the Charter[1]. It would, however, allow the Supreme Court to declare any executive action or subordinate legislation to be incompatible, resulting in that action or rule being invalidated.

The inconsistency, as I see it, is that in Australia (and especially in Tasmania) the Parliament is controlled by the executive. The Cabinet in Tasmania can rule the party caucus (8 of 13 members in the HoA) and a backbench revolt in Federal politics is beyond imagining[2].

So we recognise that the executive needs to be controlled but give the power to do anything to a body controlled by them? It is absurd.

If the executive were separate from the legislature (something for which I have long argued[3]) then this would indeed be appropriate. But as long as Parliament is a tool of the executive, it should not have the power to exclude the applicability of human rights.

The report makes for interesting reading, or even if you're not up for that, just check out the summary and recommendations.

[1] Subordinate legislation could be enabled by an Act of Parliament (i.e. primary legislation) and primary legislation ruled not compatible by the Supreme Court would become inactive after seven months if not affirmed by Parliament.

[2] Petro Georgio is the exception that proves the rule here.

[3] I've been saying it for at least a month now ;).

the trouble with romantic comedies

So I'm not sure if I posted this or not, but one of the reasons I want a girlfriend is to be able to do those good-guy things you get to do as a significant other. Like sitting in the rain waiting for someone to forgive you, or getting them just the right present... The "awww" stuff from movies.

The trouble with all that stuff is it's kinda creepy most of the time. "I'll never stop asking you out until you go out with me" - that's stalker behaviour. Or the famous first date in Hitch - I'll just call you, despite that you didn't give me your number, then I'll look up detailed genealogical information about you. It's a bit weird. I'd never do that. I'd be way too scared - so I guess I'll sit here and rot in the damp.

garden state

This movie is fantastic, really. It makes me want to move to New Jersey. And it's incredible. It is just incredible.

Meeting people is all about finding key questions. Just those few questions that you can ask someone and it will get them to tell you those key things that define people. But they won't tell you that voluntarily, you have to push the button - you have to ask them.

There are people I know - and who I know quite well - to whom I have never asked these questions, for whom I've never found those questions. People I know very well. And maybe I got those questions once but I haven't found a new ones recently. It's troublesome.

I love this movie. And the soundtrack. And Zach Braff.

ignore this post

Depression has hit.

I don't want sympathy; I don't want anything. I want regular fucking nothing.

I hate the use of "proper grammar" with terms like "lol". It's not "Lol" at the beginning of a sentence. It's a different dialect, doing that would be stupid.

I saw a brochure in my car and my thought wasn't "wow I was a candidate" (as it had been before tonight) but "fuck that was a massive waste of time, money and effort, and would be even if I did get in".

But now I'm pot committed I have to run again.

Fuck.

not having a girlfriend

Pros:
- Nobody to complain if you decide today might not be a day for pants
- Nobody concerned for your health if you decide today might not be a day for vitamins
- Nobody asking you what's wrong if you decide today might be a day for DVDs and silence
- You don't need permission to read until 4am
- Nobody bugging you for sexual contact when you're really not in the mood (e.g. it's 3am and you're at the dénouement)

Cons:
- Nobody to hug
- Nobody concerned for your health
- Nobody to bug for sexual contact when it's 3am and you really want a dénouement
- You don't have encouragement to go out
- Nobody with whom you can giggle about xkcd 335

PS: Linky to an abandoned blog that used to belong to TLC, just to appease her ;).

life (with soundtrack by zach braff)

There's a soundtrack because my car has a CD player. And the soundtrack fits because it's summer.

I love summer. It always reminds me of the summer of 69[1]. I flipped burgers all summer just to be able to buy an eight-track. It was great. All I did was party and get laid.[2] I was free. Not in the not-in-prison sense, not in the doesn't-cost-anything sense, but in the sense that hippies and philosophers talk about freedom. I had literally no obligations - no work, no school, no volunteering. Nothing but friends and time to fuck around. The only time in my whole life where I will be so free. Three months.

One might say I wasted that time - youth, as they say, wasted on the young. It wasn't waste. It was fantastic. And every summer I remember it pensively[3]. I wouldn't trade that time for the world. I would change some things about it, I reckon. But I don't know. There's nothing I really want to change before *tries to think*. Well, moving was a bad idea, so do I change that decision by deciding not to move? Or do I move and not decide to return? It's tough.[6]

I guess the primary point of this entry is to say yay I'm happy.[7]

1. This is the first of many pop culture references in this post that will reduce its accuracy but make me kool with a capital K. I'm really referring to the summer of 2004-5.


2. Again, I didn't get laid and I certainly didn't flip burgers. Hell, I didn't even flip pancakes. Pancake flipping is a winter-while-stoned sport for me.


3. Deep in thought, with a hint of melancholy, as I taught my SOSE[4] teacher in grade eight.


4. Don't you think it's weird that the "Of" in SOSE gets a capital but neither "and" nor "the" do? I don't suppose it's easy to pronounce SOSAE, SOSTE or SOSATE. Although really I could pronounce any of them. Where is equality for the little words? They're just as important as the big ones![5]


5. This is also entirely untrue. English only carries an entropy of about 3 bits per letter. We don't need the little words at all - certainly not "and" or "the" - and we can miss about 1/3 of the big words. If we're strategic.


6. I could actually pinpoint a few other things, probably even a time (if I tried hard enough, and went back over my notes) after which decisions started to be bad. But maybe that's not a share thing - it'd require SOOO much explanation. I'm kinda glad that I have the black books though, so I can know this myself.


7. Also to mock TLC's use of footnotes.[8]


8. Don't get me wrong, I love footnotes. It's just also funny to mock them.

dreams

I have very strange dreams. Last night there were two:

1. I had some sort of STI. That was the entire dream - I was diagnosed with... something. Nothing really bad (AIDS, herpes) but something curable. Not chlamydia... but something bacterial. No physical signs. Anyway, this is probably way too much detail.

2. I was going away, went out the night before, had a drink so couldn't get home. And I wasn't packed. And then I realised my passport might be expired. I woke up from this one and desperately tried to find my passport for ten minutes before realising that I couldn't figure out where I was going and maybe that was because I wasn't going anywhere.

But I do now know that my passports don't start to expire until May 2016.

The mind is strange.