Another Day, Another Murder

When did this safe city start becoming the murder capital of the country? Another woman seems to be discovered killed every week. In fact, come to think of it, when did this country become so violent? It used to be the place described as the place to raise children; the place where it was the norm to leave doors unlocked and keys in cars. Now though the news is filled with stories of murder and death and car crashes and dog mauling and animal cruelty and police shootings and violence against people that are trying to do the right thing.

And yes I realise that our crime rate is nowhere near the scale that the rest of the world seem to sit on - especially the big cities - but that was the whole point. We are this little sparsely populated island at the end of the world. Green and clean and safe only now we have to add violent to the list.

It’s not only the volume of these horrible crimes but the age of those doing them. Children. 14 years old and being charged with murder.

Can we, as humans, be born devoid of all innocence? Is it as we have always believed? Something that is able to be lost but not regained? Do we start off our lives innocent and become more jaded and cynical depending upon our life’s experiences? But life affects us all differently. Perhaps innocence is instead another of these aspects of our being that we are either born with or not. Some born innocent and who retain some aspect of that throughout their lives no matter how long they live or what they go through while others are born with no hope of redemption.

Interview with a Non-Vampire

Job interviews are a strange beast. If you stop to think about it logically, the event is merely two or more people sitting, having a chat for 10-20 minutes. Though that person may earn more and/or own a company, he or she is no better nor no worse of a person that you are.

And yet we enter these interviews nervous and jittery and with very little of our true selves showing.

They are strange little things, snapshots in time where we must put our best foot forward so that we can be judged based on our appearance (despite the old adage of never judging books by their covers) and ability to answer questions. We are given such short periods of time to prove ourselves and yet for some unknown reason we become stuttering, blubbering shades of yes-men.

Okay so that may be an exaggeration. There's no real stuttering and blubbering going on. But shades of yes-men....??

Answering questions the way that we think they should be answered, using words that we think want to be heard. The clothes worn fit the bill of a corporate uniform...speaking from a script and playing our parts so that we can become yet another of the clones that populate the globe.

We teach our children so many things about originality and non conformity. We teach them not to judge others and to always do what is true to themselves. I wonder what would be the result if people went into job interviews with that approach. If we wore street clothes and piercings; if we failed to guard out speech and used the swears and slang's that fall so easily from lips; if the world was a little less corporate.

Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Climate Change

Global warming my ass - if the world is heating up where the hell has summer gone?

World Congenital Heart Deaffect Awareness Day

For all we would like to say that the day of Feb 14 is full of commercialised bull and Hallmark holiday making, is it too much to ask that once, just once in my life I have a proper Valentine?

Waiting

How much of our lives is spent in wait? How many moments, minutes - hours do we spend with our minds in turmoil as we patiently (or not so patiently) wait for what we deem to be inevitable? We wait in lines; we get stuck in traffic; we wait for test results and job applications. Then we wait for the bigger things; for the perfect career, the million dollar win, the knight on the white horse to sweep us off our feet.

And how many moments, minutes, hours do we spend disappointed and upset that out waiting has proved pointless?

We have moved so far away from the tangible existence that our ancestors knew. they lived hand to mouth, day to day, season to season. Sure their lives were shorter and primitive compared to our own but who are we to judge what is primitive and what is civilised. Yes, we have advances in technology and medicine and science. Yes we have schools and roads and shopping malls and multimillionaires and all the other minute nuances of our lives. But it seems that the 'better' the quality of life becomes the more waiting we seem to do. Lines get longer and we spend more time waiting in them; We wait to gain our 'superior' educations; we wait to find that perfect job that will kick start our careers so that we can wait for a promotion or a pay rise; We wait for the perfect partner to make the perfect gesture to sweep us off of our feet and into the crazy world of perfect romantic love that has been spoon feed to us since infancy.

I am so sick of the waiting.

Don't Look Down

One of the most ridiculous things is that there must be expectation both on and by society. When we try and meet them we fail; when we try and go against them we somehow manage to meet them.... they are are part of a no-win situation that for some god-only-knows reason play such a huge and affecting part of our everyday lives.

There are all these 'shoulds' that are placed upon us. Some of them make sense and others really really don't. We are forced into molds and shaped to fit - one size fits all despite the preaching for originality. How are we supposed to be ourselves when we are to be exactly like everyone else?

But then, even those that step outside the cube and fight for their own identity become cliche and trapped inside another box. Its box after box, cube after cube, cage after cage in a never ending maze of conformity and confinement....

And why do the spectators always tell the fearful not to look down? That's the first thing that you do when you hear it screamed at you.

Driftwood

It's strange the places where we find inspiration. Sometimes it is found in books, or movies, or music....or driftwood. Who knows were that one piece of wood has been. What shores it has seen. How long and how far has it travelled? Did it converse with fishes and swim with whales?

And, perhaps more importantly, how does it feel about its new use, if it feels at all.