The Winds Of Change

I feel like I should be in a confessional,
“ Forgive me readers for I have sinned, it has been over three months since my last Blog entry ”.

When I was young I always heard adults say that time goes quicker as you get older, I could never understand the logic or philosophy behind such a statement. That is I could never understand such a statement until I turned Forty myself.

I don’t know why it is but I seem to live life in three month blocks these days, I just seem to fall into routines that sweep me along like a fast flowing river called time, constantly being pulled deeper into the routines only to surface every few months to gulp a breath of fresh air before submitting to the flow once again.

Now before I go any further I must confess that I am very much a creature of habit and I LOVE routine and the security that it provides. I have never been a big one for left field surprises and tend to loose all direction if given too many choices.

So here I am three months down the track since my last Blog and wondering where the time has gone, three months ago I was unemployed and really starting to stress about where life was taking me, now three months later I find myself counting down the weeks until Christmas once again, acknowledging a big grateful thank you to the universe and starting to plan the Christmas gifts and a Big Family Christmas dinner at my place once again this year.

I find that I am a lot more comfortable within myself now that I am back working fulltime and for the first time in many years I am starting to make plans for the future. I have decided that I want to get a mobile campervan so that my son and I can start to travel a bit more and expand on our now found love of photography. I also find myself starting to dream and plan for a trip overseas, somewhere easy and close for starters but I would dearly love for my son to stand on foreign soil and to see with his own eyes just how big this world really is and the billions of opportunities that are out there for those hungry enough to reach for them.

I am also looking ahead to my sons future within the next few years when he will start to drive and hopefully move on to University to further chase his dreams. We have talked a lot about his first car and I have agreed to go halves with him towards a V.W Kombi Van as his first car. We are looking to get an older vehicle with a solid sound body and then to restore the vehicle with the help of a few of my mechanic mates who will show Dylan how to do all the mechanical work himself, so at the end of the day his first vehicle will be built with his own blood sweat and tears and in the process he will learn even more life skills from those that can offer him what I cannot.

A few other things have changed of late too.

In recent times I have become more and more disillusioned with all things technological in modern society.

I’ve decided that I do not want to be contactable 24/7 via a mobile phone attached to my hip.

I’ve decided that I do not want my son and I to spend all evening after diner on Facebook at either end of the house and sending chat comments to each other as our primary source of communication.

I’ve decided that playing a game console is not a bonding session, even if playing together ( Especially games that involve mass mayhem / bloodletting or performing criminal acts ).

I’ve decided that I do not want my son and I sitting brain dead in front of the TV 2 feet apart and not communicating.

I’ve decided that my son and I do not need to be checking and replying to 20 text messages a night.

I’ve decided that I do not want anyone contacting me and disrupting the peace and tranquillity of our house after 8:30pm at night unless someone is dying.

I’ve decided that I need to communicate with those that I love and those that I openly call friends more frequently and in a personal manner, texting short “how are you mate” messages is NOT actually communicating, it is just a means to allay my social guilt for neglecting those that matter.

I’ve decided grunts, groans and the shrugging of body parts does NOT constitute communication or a response to a question.

I’m not sure when things actually changed for me or why they changed but I have realised that I am clearly not happy with the road society is going down and I would like the bus to stop and let me and my son off thank-you.

I want to reconnect with the natural world and to return to a simpler life. A life filled with the necessities of life and a life with the shiny, glossy & flash veneer removed. I want to live a life that has been stripped back to the natural raw timber surface that shows all its beautiful natural texture and grain.

I recently declared Tuesdays and Thursdays as “ Technology Free Days ” much to the horror and protest from my 14 year old son. As a starting point I have declared that these two days out of the week we will not be answering texts or mobile phone calls, we will not be on Facebook or computers for ANY reason, no gaming consoles will be permitted to be used and if after dinner we decide to watch TV it will be together on the one lounge while I give my son a cuddle.

Rather than the first point of entertainment being the TV , computers or game consoles I have been putting the radio on in the background ( alternating between my sons radio station and my slower and older radio station ) and I have been slowly introducing my son to the lost art of communication and listening.

Now I will be the first to admit that this hasn’t been easy and I myself have really lost the art of not just hearing someone’s noise but hearing their words and thoughts instead.
I find it hard to understand how society has become so detached and isolated while at the same time getting more and more crowded. I find it hard to understand how society has abbreviated everything to a minimal exertion of energy such as a grunt, shrug of a body part or an abbreviated text language.

How many times have you asked a simple question of someone such as “ How are you ” only to either not get an answer, to get a 2 or 3 word answer or to even get a question directed straight back as an answer. How often have you felt that they didn’t even hear your words ?

How often have you replied “ I’m great ” or “ Not bad mate and you ? ” when asked how’s your day because you know they don’t really want to know how you are going, it’s all just social responses and posturing.

Well folks, for me and my son anyway it’s time to stop – slow down & put some reality back into life. Time to start doing things that add value to our lives or to the lives of those that we love and respect. Time to start focusing on the reality of life and then giving what is important 100% of our focus and energy. Hopefully time to turn the clock back a bit and take life back to a more non-commercial & non-technology dependant & superficial time.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I’d love to hear your thoughts & opinions so please take the time to comment.

Cheers & Ciao for now !

Open House

I started to Blog because I wanted to share my Poetry with the world and also to try and express who I am and why I am who I am for my son to read.

Grub and I talk often and I try very hard to make sure all emotions and all topics are welcome to the table. I try and give him a voice in this world, especially on those days when he feels that the world doesn't want to hear him.

As an extension to that I always wanted to put down in writing something about who I am, what I think, what I feel and why I see the world the way I do. I have never particularly felt like I had a voice in the world and have always chosen to stand at the back in the shadows and watch the rest of the world play in the sun.

I attempted to write a biography of types for my son ( and as therapy lol ) but when you write with your heart and soul but do not share it, it all seems rather a waste of time. I was writing for my son to read when I was gone which was of NO value at all, I want us to know each other in life and to share that life.

So I decided on a Baptism of Fire and to Blog online for all to see, I decided to open my house to anyone who wishes to join me on a journey of soul searching and to challenge both the readers and myself to stop and see the world though each others eyes.

My son reads all my Blogs, after all they were primarily written for him but my Blog has changed since I started. I find myself wanting to connect with the people who read my blogs, I find that I am wanting to come more and more out of the shadow to meet all of you and to feed on all of your opinions and views. I also find myself wanting to be heard, I no longer want to be the silent one hiding in the shadows but find myself wanting to come out and stand shoulder to shoulder with the world as an equal.

Now I have only been writing my Blog for nearly two months but in that short time I felt that I was really starting to grow as a person and as a writer, my confidence was growing and the more I wrote the more I seemed to have in my head backing up and wanting to get out.

Until ....

Now before I go any further, my comments to follow are not about the comment I received to a Blog or about the person whom wrote it, it's about MY response and MY insecurities.

Truth to be told I though the comment was a very good comment and very thought provoking. I very much valued and appreciated the comment.

I won't go into the specific comment but it was a simple question to my approach to Blogging and when I read it I instantly felt like I had done something wrong and that I was out of my league writing these Blogs. I instantly felt like slamming everything into reverse and heading back into those shadows.

It was amazing just how strong my instinctive responses were.

I also felt compelled to reply to the comment to help clarify my comments, no so much to defend them but to clarify them. But the more I tried to respond the more I seemed to fall over my words. I seemed to have lost the ability to write or think.

I had to take a deep breath, walk away from the computer and to remind myself of all the good positive growth that had come out of the last two months. Remind myself of how voiceless I had felt in the past and how much I enjoyed feeling like I had a voice now.

I also had to remind myself that my Blogs were only MY view of the world and that I will always have people challenging my views as well as agreeing with them and that a good vigorous debate on any topic is a gift from above. After all if we don't exercise our thoughts and beliefs how would we ever grow as human beings.

And if you decide to have an open house you have to be willing to accept all who visit.

After a long hard think I went back to the computer and responded, it still took about 5 attempts but I didn't go running for the shadows and the more I thought about the comment the more I found I had to say. In fact I could have written a whole new Blog with just the reply.

So here I am Blog number 20, at the beginning of a road that will be long and winding, one that I hope will take me many places and show me many wonderful views, one that will take me to places all over the world so that I may at some stage visit and get to know all of you, a road that I'm sure will be full of potholes and obstacles that will only make me a stronger person at journeys end.

Thank you all for reading my Blogs and Commenting.

Dohi to you all