All Things Change

1   Drinking tea whle walking up stairs ends in ruin.
2   Massages are relaxing.
3   Washing a spoon under fast running water can result in awkward wet patches on your clothing.
4   A healthy understanding of alcohol is healthy.
5   Talking to insects in your car, while driving, can result in an accident.
6   The way you act outwardly affects the way you think inwardly.
7   Most advertising plays on fears by constructing a false reality.
8   Living vicariously through your kids can be quite enjoyable.
9   Many leaders have egos that need caressing.
10 People act differently and have different beliefs but we all share similar needs.
11 Husbands who try to solve “the” problem usually further provoke an already upset wife.
12 Friendship is best served as an indelible connection. 

What have you learnt by doing?

At present we’re in Beijing sitting out the arrival of number three child, due two days before the Olympics. So we’re somewhat privy to the finishing touches going into the master piece that will be the 29^th modern Olympiad.

The city is bright and sparkling, relatively, with freshly painted lines on newly bituminized roads, with new road signs and no beggars. There is heightened security and an over abundance of just completed modern architectural marvels. But what has caught my attention is the fain. That’s right fake rain. 

By bombarding the Beijing skies with silver iodide particles shot from mountainside cannons the local authorities are trying the control the weather. Which means fain. The fain falls and cleans the pollution from the air by washing it earth bound.  

I not sure of any other country that would actually choose to hold a major international event in the peak of their bad weather season. China has of course chosen this date because the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of this century is ridiculously auspicious, and they can control the weather. Control the weather!? Well it has been faining fairly well the last few days.

In my own limited experience fain tends to fall very lightly for a prolonged period. It’s a very reluctant drop that is so small it shouldn’t be falling but I suspect the silver iodide adds the extra weight to cause its decent. The other day it fained from the morning until sundown then it turned into a half hour rain. Then precipitation ceased. 

The Olympics will be perfect. Almost like a studio production. In fact, I am convinced that if the organizers could get hold of a giant dome, ala “The Trueman Show”, they would plop it over the city, ala the “Simpsons Movie”. Control of the light, the season, the cast, the character development, and of course the plot is all important around these parts. 

Of course when you’re the host you make sure the drinks are cold, the table is set and that the kids are in bed, but this year’s Olympics is going to be a little bit Fhina than usual.

(I understand why “they’re” doing it, really I do, auspicious date and all. I’m just a little touchy about getting wet by fake water.)

Being the naive and idealistic parents that we are, we teach our boys that guns are bad and thus we don’t have any toy ones. Although the occasional one has slipped through the defenses camouflaged in birthday wrapping paper. The reality of using a gun is that they are designed to stop blooded living things from living. 

Although despite our efforts both our boys, 8 and 3 years old, have taken to making finger guns to shoot each other with. Of course if either of them does pull the finger gun out they demand of the other one, “Stick your hands up”. Oh the allure of the gun, oh what every little boy wants. Power. “Hands up now or I’ll shoot!” 

Explosions. Unless you’re a powder monkey from the war ships of yester year, a miner, a demolition expert, military munitions expert, or terrorist you probably don’t have any real practical use for explosions. But in many parts of the world small explosions mixed with mineral/chemical compounds are set off as fireworks. Fireworks are, on average, safe for the user, horrible for the environment and central to the well being of some economies. My source, a taxi driver, told me that the average family would spend at least a week’s salary each Chinese New Year on colorful and noisy explosives of all sizes.  

There is a sizable chunk of my conscience that really dislikes fireworks but the “little boy within” just can’t help but buy some. Lighting the wick is simple yet hazardous and the success of the strike is always unknown until the first bang or flash. The adrenalin, the power, the attention… the little boy within is glowing. But when my 8 year old son sees the debris of spent fireworks shells piled high in our housing complex he says with disgust, “What a waste of money, poor people need money”. 

So little boys love the abusive power of the gun. They also delight in the spectacle of explosions, but realize it’s a waste of money. Of course big men (like world leaders) also understand these facts, but seem to pretend they don’t… Pretending you don’t understand information is another thing little boys are good at. 

I caught up with an old friend the other day… 

That’s right I’m beginning a story with “the-old-friend-telling-me-something-intro”. The term “old friend” is supposed to make the reader feel comfortable and ready to hear something wholesome. The term “the other day” is also supposed to evoke accuracy and factually in the retelling. 

… and he told me about a speaker he heard. Now this speaker was a Catholic monk and this Catholic monk had a friend who was a Catholic priest. (Although the structure of this last sentence might suggest I’m telling a joke, really I’m not.) So this Catholic priest has heard every imaginable sin, via the confession box, but never has anyone confessed the sin of greed. Go figure. So either the priest is lying (which is a popular stance within the media) or people generally have no problem with excess.  Two days later I heard a little more about greed on the radio. A stock market guru type guy commenting on market fluctuations stated and then restated that, “Greed puts money into the market and fear takes it out.” I always thought there was something sinister about the stock market. 

And now since being on our family holiday back in Australia I’ve plateaued my food intake at a level of binge. I can say without any exaggeration that I have not felt even slightly hungry for the last six weeks. Christmas was so good that I just kept it coming. And there’s more for me to confess, but I’m not Catholic and chances are you’re not a priest so I’ll save it for the non-cyber world. 

So what is there to learn from this? Is it that Catholic’s don’t confess as much as they should? Or is it that the stock market scares me and may very well be the root of many sins? Or I am just greedy? 

Like many things, to become weird all you need to do is take a few simple steps. That’s right, get yourself out there and go for a walk: step, step, step… I don’t mean going for an early evening exercise walk with the dog. I mean go do something in suburbia like banking, shopping or paying a bill, but don’t take the car. Ever walked to a service station? It scares the shop assistant.  

Since being back in Perth I’ve had the time and the necessity to walk during standard busy hours. As I’ve walked I’ve tried to find somebody, anybody, anywhere within sight who might also be walking. But alas except for my own reflection in the vehicles stopped at intersections I couldn’t see another person between me and the horizon actually walking. Oh sure people get to and from their car, but again that’s not the walking. 

I’ve done this test both while walking and driving, and I haven’t been able to find the single person walking. Although I do on other occasions remember seeing some people walking during day time. From a generalized recollection these walkers belonged to marginalized demographics like new arrival immigrants and Australia’s traditional land owners. 

A definite sense of isolation and vulnerability comes over you as you make your way along the perfectly built foot/cycle path. Why am I the only one? Is this safe? Am I doing something wrong? It feels wrong? Maybe I’ve exhibiting some underlying criminal tendencies! Then you reassure yourself from within, “Nooo… you’re not wrong or a criminal, everyone else is just better than you that’s all. And yes, you might as well just consider yourself weird.” 

Epiphany- an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure. www.m-w.com 

For years I relied on long monotone Sunday morning sermons to allow my brain to slip into my “epiphany dimension”. It was much like staring at one of those magic pictures that look like repetitious patterns but after long enough something like a flying unicorn appears as a 3D image. This was a special time for me where my brain had taught it self to slip “out of gear” and begin resolving the deeper issues of life that had been challenging me throughout the week. But now, due to an overly engaging Sunday fellowship, I no longer experience the Sunday morning epiphany. 

But all is not lost because I have a new epiphany “place”. At the front of our housing complex is a crosswalk that straddles six lanes of craziness. Even the introduction of two full-time crosswalk guards has failed to improve the safety of the crosswalk experience. So daily on my way to language class I allow around 50 or more crazed drivers take my life into there hands. I hypothesize that my scrambling to safety results in adrenalin surging through my veins which kicks my epiphany drive into action by the time I’ve reach the “other side”.  And before I realize it my latest issue is resolved.

Discovering a new EP (epiphany place- or for the more hippy type folk epiphany “space”) has been important for me. It’s almost as if it gives me a competitive edge as I’m able to solve the questions that might otherwise go unresolved.  

If you want a piece of this competitive edge maybe you can workout where your EP is. Drug inducement doesn’t count and is a health hazard… although so is crossing the road outside my house. 

Being a resident in China it’s difficult to avoid Olympic hype. I find “The Games” hard to reconcile with the things I believe are important in this world. But as to not alienate myself too much from the Olympic adoring world I will only state the following two points (which are inflammatory enough) and then move on to isolate a number of events that are easy targets to mock. 

“The Olympics are a self indulgent Romanesque event where we get to pretend the world is about the latest track suit fashion.” AG Duirs 

“The Olympics are a gathering of obsessive compulsive individuals who claim to be the best in the world, but actually live a highly unbalanced lifestyle at the expense of important social, psychological, and spiritual needs.” 

In the 2008 Olympics there will be 28 sports. Each of the 28 sports has multiple events adding up to 302 events in all. Bizarrely enough I’m writing this with 302 days to go before opening ceremony. Spooky…

Most sports have developed from a practical life skill. Like the person who runs fastest generally doesn’t get eaten by the tiger; or the person who throws the spear (javelin) the best gets to kill the tiger; and so it goes on… But every now and then a sport like shot put develops, or equestrian dressage (dancing horses).  

So below is a limited list of sports that I have collected. To be honest I would prefer them gone but they could be quite entertaining if they were combined. Try combining some and outline what they would look like and send it to “All Things Change” in a comment. Also feel free to add any sports you feel I have been remiss in not including.
1 Synchronized swimming
2 Butterfly (swimming)
3 Shot put
4 Walking
5 Discus
6 Triple jump
7 Equestrian dressage
8 Rhythmic gymnastics
9 Parallel bars 

A sport like shooting has far too many events and I find boxing and wrestling a little too violent, but they are fun if you combined them with some of the above events. 

Before each post I like to talk the topic through with someone else. You know, develop a stance and consider other perspectives on the issue.

So thanks to a heated debate with my three year son I am able to present this post refined and informed. Although helpful, he’s a touch distracting as I’m needing to occasionally pause to stop him from drawing on his arms and legs. Skin, the Three Year Old’s ever ready medium.

So the debate topic was Dora the (expletive) Explorer, or more precisely the much maligned character Swiper the fox. I am very aware that attacking children’s television characters like Barny, the Tele-tubbies, and Sesame Street Characters etc is passé. But the Dora the Expletive really gets me agitated.

She’s not like other friendly kid’s characters who model nice behaviour, she’s preachy. She takes everyone else on HER adventures so no one else gets to use their imagination. She’s the kind of kid that introduces herself by saying, “Hello mister, I’m Dora the Explorer. I’m going on an adventure. I’m going to choose which friends go with me. I’m really smart. I know everything. Do you want to be my friend because I’m really great! Yay!”

Dora controls the games, makes the rules, and thinks everyone likes her.

But worst of all by far is Dora’s prejudice attitude toward to Swiper the fox. Poor old Swiper is continually accused of being a thief. Even before Swiper enters the story Dora warns everyone that Swiper just wants to steal stuff. The reader or viewer has to say/yell out loud, “Swiper no swiping!”. What a missed opportunity, because she could have said, “Hey everyone lets be nice to Swiper so then we can be friends. I think he’s lonely and just wants to join in.”

A self centered, pushy bully. But of course when I suggest to my three year old that Dora’s not being very nice to Swiper he takes the side of the ever wonderful sources of truth… TV and Dora.

On the other side of what you read here is a little bit of, what I think is called, “Blog Management”. For the more widely read blogs I assume the “Blog Manager” has quite a bit to do: adding links, signing marketing deals, writing entries, and then vetting comments. This not being a blog of such renown means that I have very little to do other than check each day to make sure that I delete and spam label the latest Viagra update from a friendly chap or chappet named “Superza” from the new comments folder.

I’m yet to actually read one of Superza’s “comments”, mostly because the message is written in what appears to be German but also because the only word intelligible to an English reader is “Viagra”. I knew I shouldn’t have written about getting old!

I’m not planning on ever needing to use the attention tablet but if “a friend I know” needs some down the track I’ll be sure to get some. Most probably from a reputable pharmacy as apposed to someone called “Superza” or “Affordablefix”.

So here’s a quick note to all you spammers out there, “Thanks for making me feel valued by giving me something to manage on my Blog. But I really don’t want your pharmaceutical goods now or ever. Like I said “a friend I know” might, but I’ll get that from the local pharmacy. Thanks for thinking of me though I really appreciate it.”

Also I’ve decided to post pone my going senile because the health club I’ve started going to has the following factual statement plastered on its refreshment refrigerators, “Anti-senile healthy club”. I’m thinking if I hang out there more, it may stave off being entertained by a children’s puppet show in a smelly senior citizens housing complex, while someone a fifth of my age wipes my chin.

Don’t get me wrong though, puppets are funny… 

I’m 33 this year and I’m pretty much in denial about aging, along with a bunch of other things.

I will admit that my body isn’t fast, slim or flexible anymore which I guess places me in the early stages of coming to terms with it. In recent months I’ve tried to get fit by visiting the gym only to discover that I have an amazing ability to strain weird and wonderful parts of my anatomy. And when I stagger into a semblance of life each morning I’m grateful for the movement I have in my hips and shoulders because there’s nothing going on in the knees, elbows, neck or ankles, etc.

I’ve actually kept a pair of trousers that haven’t fit in seven years, but I hope to wear again one day. This either shows hope for the future or highlights the level of denial I’m dealing with.

I’m watching my kids grow and my friend’s marry/divorce, have kids, buy houses, get promotions, loose hair, get fat,… oh, it goes on and on…

EVERYONE IS GETTING OLDER!

Now my grandparents have passed away, queuing up my parents generation to be the next in line. So besides feeling a little depressed for having pulled my head out of the denial sand I had it firmly stuck in, I am wanting to make sure I do a few things right, before it’s all over.

The main thing that comes to mind at this stage is to not mess up my/our kids. When we had one kid I thought we were pretty much the perfect parents (“other parents could have learnt a thing or two from us”) and then came the second child to rock our little perfect parenting world. It’s been hard but I’m now willing to admit that we can’t make “The Perfect Child ™” and even if we could the kiddilliwid would most likely stuff it up them self.

It’s intriguing and sometimes quite sad to watch parents of adult children try to teach their grown child “a good hard lesson” when they stuff up. Unfortunately we (parents) have an idea of how life is supposed to go and we project in our minds the type of person our children should be when they’re grown. This leaves some folk pretty disappointed when their kids do “the wrong thing” and shatter the fairytale. “The wrong thing” is anything that makes us (parents) feel embarrassed and then in turn angry.

When our kids are grown I hope to take the opportunity to model support and friendship during the embarrassing times, but it’ll probably only work if my expectations are based on loving my kids without conditions and not on their conduct.

One condition I do have though is if I feel good about myself because I can fit back into the trousers I’ve been keeping. If I can’t then I guess I’ll take it out on my adult kids. I’m expecting to go senile anytime soon so the trousers will hopefully give me some focus.