The Flying Ship

The Flying Ship

Monday, February 28, 2011

Don't Stress

"I know not but what force this world and our bodies are held together, but I know it is good"

Natural disasters are not the work of God. They are the work of environmental change in our fallen world. Sometimes this results in the mass loss of human life.

But earthquakes or no, I would have to say that the vast majority of evil and misfortune in this world is caused by direct or indirect human action.

It's not our fault. A person is smart, but people are very very stupid. We can't see what will happen to us. We can't see that this new marvelous invention will cause cancer. We can't see that electing this particular human will have the end result of rivers clogged with bodies. Idi Amin just nicked power, it isn't always our fault.

I would have to say, that by and large, people are good. We have good intent, we simply lack the wisdom to change our actions on a large scale.

The end result is that eventually there will be a really really big problem and that will galvanize us all into action. But till then, get ready for a lot of bullets, melting ice caps, slavery, pollution, intolerance, animal extinction and just general crap like that which can really ruin a guy's day.

People will always be people, and disasters will always happen. But just maybe, we will be able to be better people. Maybe.





Sunday, February 27, 2011

Boots On

What possible reason would a boy have for sleeping with his boots on?

I had a nightmare one time.

That in the most ordinary repetitive actions we make, we allow evil to enter our souls. Applying make up, turning on the light, brushing teeth, locking the house, putting on boots.

Somehow, it was impressed upon me the idea that one day, when I put on my boots in the morning, something in my brain with just go "ding!". I'll realize that morality means nothing, that life means nothing, that everything means nothing. And the evil will get out. And I will kill everyone.

So I put on my boots at night, sleep with them on, just to shake things up a little.



Saturday, February 26, 2011

Torrents

Stealing yes, but not from an individual. Chances of being caught, incredibly unlikely. What you stole is information, cannot be physically missed.

In essence, the rich people are getting pissy because the poor people are depriving them from a relatively small amount of money.

But justifications aside, I, like so many people, simply do not care enough to stop.

I know it has been said, but I would download a car if I could.




Friday, February 25, 2011

A Night Of Desirable Objects

That is what I see before me. A great river of glittering silence, an endless see of swimming silver fishes that dance in and out of my hands.

The velvet of the cloudy nocturne fills me with glorious chills. I want to hold them all, the beautiful things that shimmer in the dark. This is my kind of night, a night of desirable objects.

Story

"They must know it was the rats; the slithering scurrying rats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls."

- H.P Lovecraft







Thursday, February 24, 2011

Meaning.

Sometimes we search for meaning in things that have no meaning.

Sometimes we see faces in crowds, hear names, feel familiar in places we have no reason to feel familiar in, because our minds are programed to search for such things.

Sometimes there is no reason, sometimes there is no deeper truth. Sometimes the strange things we glimpse through heat haze is nothing, sometimes the sounds in the night are nothing but scratching plants on window sills, sometimes the world is what we were always taught it is.

Sometimes it isn't.

For a few weeks, I have been being followed.

The thing that is following me is a bird. A black bird, an ordinary boring run-of-the-mill black bird.

It has a yellow fleck on its beak.

In Sydney, it tapped on the window of my father's flat. It was very late. It looked me, with one eye.

I ignored it.

When I came back to Canberra, I was walking home from the bus stop. It sat on the road in front of me. Same bird, same yellow fleck. It put it's head on one side, and looked at me.

I walked around it and tried to forget it happened.

The third time it happened, it tapped on my glass back door with it's beak. Same yellow fleck, same bird. I went to bed.

It happened again today. Although, I was feeling quite sick so I might have been mistaken. But I'm sure I saw a bird, with a yellow fleck on it's beak, that looked at me in that same way. It was at school, near the lake.

It is entirely possible that I hallucinated the animal. I do hallucinate. But never this strongly, or for such an extended period.

I have had... Strange dreams lately. Vivid dreams. Nothing definable. In the morning I am left with sensations, and memories of swirling colour.


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Dream Of A Little Creature

A gunner, manning the anti-aircraft cannon took his turn to sleep. He was tired, but he was all there, in his dirty uniform, and his too big helmet, and his boots with ragged laces. His body shook to the rhythm of the gun, his fingernails bit deeply into the wood of his rifle. As he lay in the mud in and crawled into a ball, he had a dream.

He dreamt of a clear evening sky, with stars that glitter in the darkness. Where no plane or missile or smoke obscured the beauty of the supernovas burning a million light years away.

He dreamt of a place where old war heroes walked slowly and safely down their drive ways in their dressing gowns and slippers to fetch the morning paper.

He dreamt of soldiers jumping up into life, of them running home to their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Of them fleeing to a place where they wouldn't die again, not like that, not that death.

He dreamt of a place where no arguments ripped open hearts, and no bullets ripped open ribcages.

He lies there still, curled into a knot of fear, shuddering silently at the air tearing scream of the gun, while his mind goes to happier places.

Always he will lie there, dreaming his dream. Always will his fingernails dig deeply into the wood of his rifle.




What We Fought For

We stood proudly against the tyrant of the desert,

We held strong against the
pestilence that ate our flesh,

We strode without fear into the lightless places where monsters breed,

We looked away from tempting mountains of shining yellow wealth,

We did not bow our heads to the false king of spirits,

In the end, it was a gentle breeze of thought, the tinniest whisper of doubt, that took root, that asked us so quietly,

"Why are you fighting?"

And one by one, we fell.



Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Books! Everywhere!

Reading ebooks is terribly good fun. I can listen to Nine Inch Nails as I read 20,000 leagues under the sea. It is quite, quite marvelous.

I hope to get an eReader for my eighteenth birthday. If I don't well, I'll be eighteen, I'll damn well buy one with some of my inheritance.


Forgetting

When you die,
And after a while,
The name will fade,
From the carved stone.

And the memories of you and me will be lost.

When you are old,
And your mind loses it's edge,
My face will fade,
From the corners of your heart.

And the memories of you and me will be lost.

When you see me,
And look away in regret,
And you wish we had never met
You will drink your tea and hold your lover's hand.

And the memories of you and me will be lost.

But none of that matters,
Empires are lost,
Mountains are lost,
Great words are lost,
Everything will be lost in the end.

What we have is now. Time is an illusion. Let us live always now.



Monday, February 21, 2011

Man Can Make A Monster, But Can He Create One?

"Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin."

The first sin of man was a desire to be like God. "Taste the fruit," said the serpent, "and you will have knowledge of good and evil, as God does."

A choice made with the power of the creative mind, the mind that creates, doomed us all. A robot follows the rules, a man does not.

To become our own God is the dream of man, to hold in our hands the universe, and shape it it as we please. And God, as we all know, is a jealous God.

But in our fever of hubris we most honestly believe that we can kill God with our actions. That by discovering the secrets of life and death, that by mapping the human genome and traveling to distant planets we somehow diminish God. The stupidity of this amazes me.

I can make only one conclusion.

Creativity is sin.




Saturday, February 19, 2011

If I Had Words

The master does not need to be told he is the master, he knows.



So Basically...

Sadly incapable seeing anything but what you are looking at.

So shallow it amazes me.

Starting to get an edge on me. I don't like it.

Infuriatingly incapable of seeing my point.

Take everything for granted. Do it now, because one day you won't be as pretty.

Wholly dependent upon the feelings of someone who would not care if you were someone else.

Cowardly. For so long.

Think you're better than everyone and very good at lying.

Slut. Without a point or purpose.

So confused I feel a little sorry for you.

Clearly you don't realized that you have no testicles. Metaphorically.

Fucked. And annoying. And angry.

Couldn't see that things were your fault if I drew you a flowchart.

Better than me at doing what I do.

Dumb. Very, very, very dumb.



Location:The Batcave

Things People Have Said To Me Recently

"Wow, you're a smart cunt aren't you?"

"You make me feel stupid"

"Stop doing clever things"

"Oh my God, you are so smart"

"That was amazing! How did you even get that?"

"You are a fountain of practical intelligence"

"Do that again! That was clever!"

I not really that smart people. I just use big words and frown meaningfully.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Chimp







Chimps frighten me. Strange violent animals, and all to close to the shape of a human.

Fear is an interesting thing. I feel it almost as much as I feel hunger.

To my opinion, fear is a subtle, well made defense mechanism and warning signal.

Why is it we so value bravery? Would you value someone who was able to ignore being hungry? No, you would take them to the doctor. Well, perhaps it is a bit different to that.

In me fear is more present than in many people. Some would call that cowardly or paranoid, and say it is a fault. I would say that I am simply more aware of how very, very close our delicate bodies are to tipping that balance that can't be untipped.

All creatures that feel fear are more intelligent than the ones that don't, though obviously the way they react to it is different depending on the animal. What does that say?

But it's still probably a fault.

If a chimp is five times stronger than an average man, and the average man is five times stronger than me, I conclude that I am as far above the average man as he is above a chimp.

Who needs self respect when they have raw egotism?

(I don't honestly believe that to tell you the truth)



Point?

I asked God once what my purpose is in life and asked for a sign.

No sign appeared. I asked again. Same nothing.

The third time I asked I nearly swallowed my own tongue saying it. Saying it in my head.

I took this as a sign that I should stop asking.


O.K

Sometimes people ask me if I'm doing 'okay'. I sometimes reply with "I'm always okay".

This is not because I am giving false bravado about my current condition, it is because I am always the same. Some days are of course worse or better than others, but I am never any different than what I usually am.

I feel it is at least more positive than 'I'm never okay' and less confusing than 'my levels of okay remain permanently unchanged'.

Just thought I'd clear that up for my own benefit.


Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Fortune?







I spoke to the fortune teller, shrouded in her thick clothes in the dingy cold caravan. Aged and bent as she was she possessed a strange strength to her. She said I could ask one question, and she would answer it.

I thought. I thought of the power of knowledge, the money, the fame, the potential for change. I could be beautiful, the beloved master of all. Perhaps I could even acquire the ultimate escape, the escape from mortality.

In that moment, I knew. I knew what the price of knowing was.

I asked her, "If you could have one thing, what would it be?"

She looked at me then, with old grey sad eyes. Eyes that had gone to far, seen too much. Eyes that knew the answer to any question I could ask. She smiled and nodded to me, as if I had passed the test.

She answered me,

"Ignorance"



Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Symbiosis




This is my cat. Her name is Keena.

Many animal species form symbiotic relationships with other animals.

There is a blind shrimp that follows around a particular type of sand gobi. They forage for food together. The shrimp, having nimble legs for acquiring edible debris, collects food for itself and the gobi. The gobi in turn guides the sightless crustacean to profitable locations of food and alerts its friend when predators are near by wagging its tail fin urgently. The shrimp feels this because of the antenna which it keeps in contact with the fish at all times. When it has gathered as much food as it can carry, the two swim back to the gobi's burrow and consume their spoils.

Egyptian plovers are famously known for walking on the teeth of the Nile crocodile, picking out bits of meat from between the gums of the huge animal's open mouth. This has the mutually beneficial affect of dentistry for the croc and food for the bird.

The honeyguide bird often leads the honey badger to the location of bee's hives, allowing the badger to break open the nest and both animals to enjoy the honey and grubs of the hapless bees, who's stings the badger easily shrugs off.

Another fine example of symbiosis is the humble clown fish and sea anemone. The clown fish eats harmful parasites, and is protected from its sting by a thick layer of mucus, a trait that its many potential predators do not share.

The action of keeping a pet is one of symbiosis, particularly in the case of working animals such as sheep dogs or trained vermin-killing cats.

Though in the case of my cat the only thing I receive in return for the board and lodging we provide for her is a bite on the ankle in the dark when I get up to drink a glass of milk at two o'clock in the morning. But the points still stands.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Little Marble Of Joel

I just had a dream,
In my dream my whole body maintained it's mass, but its size was decreased by fifty thousand percent. My form was so dense and so tightly compacted so instantly that in the moment of compaction, it caused a massive implosion which flattened every house in my street and killed everyone nearby.

In my dream, I was somehow totally conscious as I was crushed into a minuscule black marble fifty thousand times smaller than myself, and I have to say, it was horribly, horribly painful. I want to throw up.

Hope you had a pleasant evening.

Assumptions of Stupidity

All we have is what we have.

Everybody has got to do something.

Very rarely does anyone know exactly what you are thinking.

A savage world and savage surroundings do not justify savagery.

What and how are often equally important.

On this day I learned another thing. Perhaps I will tell you what it is sometime.

But you see, when I am hungry I eat, when I am afraid I run and when I am tired I sleep.

I am going to sleep now.


Saturday, February 12, 2011

I'm Rather Fond Of This Girlie

Just imagine that I'm not pulling a strange serial killer face, and then this is a rather nice photo.



Friday, February 11, 2011

Measuring Machine

My great uncle is giving me all his possessions. It's because he doesn't have a son, and he loves my mother best. He gave me this watch some time ago:


It's a very good watch. It is waterproof, and the only time it is the wrong time is when it needs a new battery or daylight savings.

It is strange perhaps the way we invite time into our homes like it is a friend. The way we make elaborate systems of measuring it.

Today, all I can think about time is that it runs out.


Thursday, February 10, 2011

Sea Of Sand And Humans

"Where will you go?

Oh don't worry about me, the desert will swallow me.

He'll send people after you.

The desert will swallow them too.

Without chewing?

Believe it."

I wonder what I want. Well, what does any human want? The modern human wants a life free of financial difficultly, well spent with family and friends, good health and to die when one is many many years old. Probably anyway.

I wonder what I shall end up becoming. I could not foreseen my character changes over the last few years, and people do not stop changing. I wonder if I will like what I am to become.

All people have value. But I disagree that all people have the same amount of value.

Some people are simply better than others. Smarter, stronger, kinder, in greater favor with man and with God. Some people are just superior.

I am not particularly valuable to humanity. My life is a fairly average one. Though some may consider me unconventional, this does not increase my value. I am both accepting and content with this.

People are funny things. I don't like to be in a great crowd of them, but watching a crowd from a distance and a comfortable seat is not a bad way to pass time.



Teenage Mutant, Not Turtle, Not A Ninja

Mutation occurs when a line of code in a being's DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid) is either missing, is written twice or in some way is faulty. A cow with an extra leg hanging off its neck is a typical example of doubling up of code. A cow born with three is an example of a missing piece of code, though obviously it is more complex than this, and there may be multiple reasons for mutation.

However due to the extremely large number of humans and the huge variety of genetic mixtures there have begun to sprout more and more mutations within our species. Many humans posses small and benign abnormalities. I myself have what is commonly known as a "sunken chest". It is relatively harmless to me and is mostly cosmetic.

Occasionally it is said that mutation is a large factor in our evolution. I disagree with this, mostly because information is only ever lost when animals mutate. Rather evolution is a slower, less easy to understand process.

"We are all mutants. What remarkable is how many of us appear to be normal."


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Prayer

I often pray. That is to say, I speak to God either out loud or more often in my thoughts.

Sometimes praying is just, "hoping out loud". Because we are human, we hope. And if you believe in God, you hope in Him.

But I suppose you might wonder if I believe in the power of prayer to alter our physical world. Well, the answer is yes and no.

A fervent, believing, honest prayer from many people will not always be answered. If all the world, all it's people that is, were joined in prayer to God requesting that He shrivel up and die, He wouldn't.

It is through no power of people that prayers are answered. Your prayer will not be answered more if you are a better person of if you have more trust in God. God will answer the prayers he chooses to.

I feel, personally, that it would be the hight of arrogance and selfishness to expect God to answer my prayers, when I am so fortunate in so many ways. None the less, He has on occasion done so.

Sleep

We spend half our lives unconscious and hallucinating so that our bodies don't collapse and our brains can debug and sort out the organization of significant and non significant encounters. If you do not sleep for roughly eleven days, you will die.

I dislike sleeping. Once, while I was in a state of extended hypomania, I did not sleep for five days, an entire school week. though I know people who due to anxiety or depression have not slept for longer.

There are different types of exhaustion. Physical exhaustion is something I deal with regularly. However, my brain has vastly larger amounts of stamina than my body. I am able to coherently, if towards the end drunkenly, think for much longer than I can act.

I find this mismatch odd. As I write this, my brain is working well, but my fingers and arms are weak.

I pray that as time passes my wit will stay strong. If my fingers, eyes and brain could only ever improve in quality or at least not deteriorate, I would be grateful beyond measure to the Lord.




The Falling Shadow

Queen Mabb, the Godess of dreams ceased to exist when she was forgotten. With no true believers in her left, she did not die, but she ceased to exist.

I have forgotten you. It was so easy. As easy as breathing out. I don't need you for anything anymore.

"Between the desire,
And the spasm,
Between the potency,
And the existence,
Between the essence,
And the descent,
Falls the shadow."

- T.S Elliot.



Whoa

Wow, crap. The events of today just caught up with me and now I'm really dizzy. I can not even believe I did half that stuff without even batting an eye.

That was... Slick Joel. Slick.

It is now presenting its bill. I need to get some water before I pass out. Cheerioh.

This Is What It Feels Like To Be Batman

Huh.

That went exactly to plan. Absolutely nothing went wrong at all. That was amazing.

If this time last year you told me that in one year I would have a loverly girlfriend, a clear plan for the future, an iPhone, a pair of vintage Doc Marten's and an addiction to a caffeine product that costs only 75 cents, I would have punched you in the mouth for being intolerably cruel. But I do have these things, imagination = not required, I literally do have them. And that's fucking awesome.

I mean, I know I complain about my life a lot, but I've got to say, that boy with the dust encrusted brownie and a face bony with lack of food would be damn proud.

Actually the me of the past would hate what I've become. But the point still stands. Things are awesome right now.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Of No Consequence

The Rock of Ages. Unweathered in the great terrible storm of time. Utterly eternal, without either beginning nor end. Beyond the reach of change and beyond mortal power. Only to exist without threat of compromise that existence.

In the unknowable stretches of infinity, there can be nothing but absolutes. Something either always is, or it never was.

Mortal can no more kill the immortal than all the oceans of the earth, though great, extinguish the fires of a supernova.




Languish In One's Questions

I asked myself the following questions this evening:

What does any human want?

Is fear a sin?

Who are these people?

What is this object for?

Do you always have to take yourself with you, where ever you go?

Can you ever consolidate your own prescience?

Is death a weakness?

What is the point of watches? All time does is run out.

What is the point of fighting? Even if you do, you wind up the same.

Of the very few people who read this, I doubt anyone will understand it. I shall be explaining nothing.


The most accurate map of a landscape is the landscape.



Sunday, February 6, 2011

How To Tell If A Human Is Lying

Joel's moderately difficult but reasonably reliable way to tell if someone is lying:

Obviously, there are many mechanical things that humans do when they lie, but here is one of my many methods.

What you'll need:

1 liar
1 thing that you know about them that they don't know you know.
1 pair of dark or reflective sunglasses


Step 1. Prepare your liar. It isn't that hard to find a good liar, any kind will do. As Mark Twain says, "Everybody lies".

Step 2. Find out something about her that she doesn't know you know and that she will probably lie to you about. Preferably something private, a good stand-by is who she is romantically interested in, but it needn't be something so cliché. Anything will do.

Step 3. Though not strictly necessary, put on your Sunglasses. Strike up conversation, and when it is getting underway, ask her a question about your known information in a relaxed way. If she tells the truth at this point, start again from step 2. But if she is lying continue on to step 4.

Step 4. From behind your glasses, study her face and hands intently. Try to notice any change of behavior such as fidgeting, twitching, raising or lowering of eyebrows and importantly, a loss of eye contact. Any or all of these could be what is called by poker players the liar's "tell".

Step 5. Once you know her tell, look for it whenever you talk to her from now on, in particular when you suspect deception.

Well done, you are officially a paranoid neuroticist like me. Do you like your new glasses?





Saturday, February 5, 2011

Ground Control To Major Joel

I encountered a situation the other day that I was quite simply not clever enough to solve in any capacity. And what was worse was that I CARED that I couldn't.

I thought to myself, "This must be what it is like to be a stupid/old/caring person" fortunately it solved itself. But none the less, I was left with an empty annoying feeling right inside my cranium.

It was like being a space explorer, who has traveled far and wide through what he believes is a limitless ocean of planets, stars and brightly burning asteroids in a marvelous silver space vessel, but suddenly he encounters a brick wall hanging there where there should be more space, and on it is a yellow post-it note that reads, "Well done. You have reached the end of the cosmos, better turn back."

Needless to say, I was rather unhappy about it all.

What? You were expecting some sort of conclusion to that? Well there isn't one. I'm still unhappy about it. Totally unresolved.

You know what? Screw you.

Friday, February 4, 2011

A, B or C


Phrases I am unlikely to say sincerely,

A)
"C'mon, if you think you're hard enough. I'll F***in' deck you"

B)
"I love you more than I would love a four liter tub of ice-cream and my doc martens combined"

C)
"Van Gogh was a drunken moron and Andy Warhol was a catholic twerp"

Which is least likely? Cast your public or private opinion to either everyone or yourself.

The Truth Will Set You Free


I like telling people the truth. I like telling them my truth. The truth of the world and the true ugliness that lies behind even the most beautiful face.

I like being cynical, dream-crushing and even fatalistic. I smile when I tell pampered silly people about how many children starve to death every day to produce our fancy clothes. I feel satisfaction when for brief moments people see the world the way I do.

I like killing the beautiful ageless Queen, and I like to watch her crumble to dust as all the years that she stole catch up with her.

But most of all I like to tell people what I think about the little lies. Santa isn't real. Neither is justice. Neither is peace, equality and true lack of prejudice.

Things movies lie to you about:

Money does make you happy, you won't have enough.

Love doesn't make you happy, you'll probably either get divorced, or be unhappily married.

Living forever would not be awful. It would be great.

True happiness is not only incredibly hard to find, but highly overrated.

Bad guys always win, nice people frequently get nothing out of it.

There is no dignity in death. When you die, it will be very ugly.

Can't you all see? It's fantasic, the truth is mass panic and freedom is unbridled anarchy. That's what it looks like. It is terrible, horrible and emotionally scaring. When I see it, I smile.

Truth is beauty, beauty, truth.

Air Con

If the coach could potentially break down because the air conditioning vents are closed, and every time we get on, the bus driver tells us, "Do not close the vents" why is it that the vents are even able to be closed by us? Makes no sense. It's like the garden of Eden all over again.

Location:On the coach

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Meat

I just killed a bug. It was walking across the screen of my phone, and I crushed it between the glass and my thumb. It was some kind of moth thing. It was attracted to the light.

The nature of our world is savage. The cats eat birds and owls eat squirrels. Be you mammal, bird, reptile, invertebrate or fish, you must either hunt or run. As David is always saying, we don't have canine teeth to eat fruit.

I don't necessarily need to eat meat to live. Some of my friends do not eat meat, but I eat meat because I like to. I like to taste the life of another mammal in my teeth. I don't pretend that it is right or justifiable for me to consume the flesh of another creature, but it is neither frowned upon nor is it personally harmful.

The strength to do something does not give you the right to do it. But it does give you the ability.



Location:My Bedroom