Recently I find myself sitting at my computer, re-checking the same five sites. Each one publishes a web comic that I enjoy reading, and each produces their comics at differing intervals. I hang out for these short comic strips in much the same way I imagine American kids hang out for their favourite weekly comic to line the shelves of their local comic book store.

I struck me that perhaps I should stop waiting for these people to write something new and take action by producing another post on my blog, so as to save my readers from the same agonising wait. Then I remembered that I don't have any readers. And this blog is written for me. I couldn't possibly be keeping anyone in suspense. I then decided to just go ahead and write something, and it wasn't until I was writing this that I realised that I do need to regularly write to keep a particular reader happy. Me.

Am I selfish? I don't care. Am I messed up in the head? I still don't care. I'm happy, and I have the means to reproduce the feeling. Do you?

I still need to write more...

Equal Opportunity Kids

I don't hit girls.

It's not because I've always, as a guy, been told that it is wrong. Well in a way it is. But not directly.
Have you ever questioned why it is wrong for a guy to hit a girl? If you have, you were probably told that it is because they are not as strong as you and, well, with great strength comes great responsibility. But that's not why I wont hit a girl.

I hate to break your illusion, and deflate your ego, but you aren't naturally stronger than women. Studies show that it is the way in which a boy is raised that gives him is physical superiority. Tests done on pre-teen children showed that boys were significantly better at throwing than girls, BUT, when tested with their non-dominant hand, all children were roughly equal. What does this mean? I'll tell you: It means that society tells us that boys should be rough and physically active, and girls should work in the kitchen and be responsible for raising families. As such, boys are raised playing rough games, and girls are raised with toys that replicate the kitchen or household. Of course the boys will be more physically capable as they get older.

One could almost argue that a boy should be able to hit a girl, because the girl has the potential to be stronger than the boy. Almost. But I'm not justifying domestic abuse. It is true, the girl could be stronger, and some are, but in reality they are not raised like boys. They may be strong, but they have not had the same opportunity to be strong that we take for granted.

So no, I don't hit girls because I am stronger than them. They have just as much potential to be as strong as I am. The reason they are not is not biological, it's social. I refuse to hit a girl, not because she is weaker than me, rather because she has not been given the same opportunity to be as strong as me. To believe that girls are not as strong as boys is to replicate the situation and reinforce it, restarting the cycle.

will you give your children equal opportunities?

The Eloquence of the Written Word

I love to write. I love to read. For me, the written language has always been an escape from reality into the world of my imagination. A book is not like a movie. The characters are explained and detailed, but how these details come together to form a character, that is left up to me. Movies leave no space for imagination. They use cheap tricks and mind games to make you think, but they never let you create. At least not to the degree that a book will. Books are a magic that is dying out. Nobody reads books anymore. I don't. I simply don't have time. And yet, I wish I did.

My imagination is one of my best kept secrets. I haven't even divulged the extent of it to those closest to me. It is the inner me that holds the rest of me together. The only place you will see that imagination, the only time I let it loose upon the world, is in my creative writing. I love writing stories, making my worlds, my heroes, my secret life a reality. And once again, it does not happen as much as I wish it did.

I've always been told by my teachers that I have a fantastic writing style. An English teacher whom I respect once told me of an essay I produced that it was written fantastically, But it made no sense. That was 4 years ago, and ever since the same comment has slipped into almost all of my work: "well written, but key points missing", "Beautifully written but contains fundamental errors", "a pleasure to read, but some points were not clear". My marks have always been good anyway.

But I'm losing it! My marks are slipping and more and more the comments hint at a lazy writing style. And I can see clearly why too. I'm out of practice. My imagination has been neglected, my bookshelf is gathering dust, and my writing is declining steadily. Look at this, for example, this is no pleasure to read. I wish it was. But not for you, for me. This is for me. And this is me telling me to stop not being me and just be myself.

Perhaps they were right. perhaps the video games have deadened my creativity and adventure. It's time to make a change, and even as I write it, I'm not sure what that change is...

Summer

I was jogging in to see Rose last week and came across someone's attempt to make the world a brighter place. It sure as hell made my day brighter. The person in question had written a word every 20 or so metres. Each word was written in brightly coloured chalk and each one made me think of summer memories. Laughter, music, sunset, happiness, rain, and glorious were just a few words of the art piece that streched a good kilometre along the footpath of George st.
Whoever that was, made my day.

Summer is without a doubt the source of the greatest memories in my life. It is where my home is, and where my heart is. I would be a completely different person if there was never a summer. I'd be a different person if there was never a winter either, but for me, it's the summers that makes me. If a man is determined by the mistakes he makes in his life, not the sum of his success, then this is not the right metaphor for me. I endure the dark times to see the summer.

But it's not the summer itself, it's the experience within my habitus. It wouldn't be summer without camping in Havelock, swimming with Rose and hanging out with the boys. SIGH