The other day I got to reminiscing about my radio days. Yep, that's right; I used to be a radio announcer. Shock Jock! I've never written of it, or the horrifying events of the time, and spoken very little. The radio work was nothing major, just held up a show on a couple of community radio stations. For those not in the know, working at a community radio station generally means that rather than them paying you for your talents, you pay a yearly "membership fee" to work there voluntarily.
It feels now like a lifetime ago. Before marriage and kids, the business... before being who I've now grown to be, really. And it's not like the radio gig ever helped me out, or showed any prospects for a future in the media. Instead, it was my time in radio that resulted in almost losing my life in a terrible car accident, at just 20 years of age.
It was 2001 in Redland Bay, Queensland, on a community radio station called Bay FM. I had been doing the Sunday night graveyard shift, midnight to dawn, with a middle-aged friend named Allan for about four or five months. It was often arduous, not least because I was working a full-time job at the time. (I'd finish up the six hour radio gig at 6am, go home for some breakfast, then toddle off to Brisbane for my paid day job.) But I loved every minute of it. Besides writing the Winchester Series, radio had always been one of my dream careers. I had already done work-experience at a commercial station, completed a private on-air media course and helped out at various OBs (Outside Broadcasts) for a couple of stations.
So when our chance came up to do a show of our very own, Allan and I jumped at it. Even if it was the graveyard shift. It eventually came at a cost, however. Over our time on-air, Allen and his fiancée had bought a house in the country and were commuting to Brisbane. I had bought my first car and got my driver's license. Stress was getting a bit much at the factory where I worked—multiple shifts back-to-back, one day off in three weeks, mongrel management—and Allan kept offering me to come up and stay at their new place for a holiday. I couldn't get any time off work, though, because the boss was a narcissistic prick, intent on running his staff into the ground. (No different from any other boss, really. Hehehe)
Anyway, I remember it like it was yesterday. For a bloke that for most of his teen-hood had gone about suppressing emotion, (I had convinced myself I was a robot, or maybe Vulcan, as a coping thing. That's another story!) it was a new experience for me to be "feeling" so stressed and generally crap. That Friday afternoon, I snuck into the boss's office and placed a note on his desk which said something to the effect of:
You have been working us too hard, sir. If I don't do this I am going to crash. As of this afternoon, I am on 2 weeks break. Fire me if you want. Otherwise, see you in a fortnight. -Damien.
Then I drove to the beach at Victoria Point, sat on the bonnet of my car and watched the sunset illuminate the islands across the water, while eating fish-n-chips and contemplating what I was going to do. Looking back now, it is obvious to me that it was a corner in the path of my life. But you know, even then at the time I think I knew it. It's only once in a blue moon you get to stand back and take a look from outside yourself, standing there on that forked-path deciding which direction to take.
For an outsider, unless you have been in a similar situation yourself, the scene I describe doesn't seem too big. However for me it really was, and still is, a massive life changing moment. There was no going back, only forward. Looking back now, everything I knew was to change after that day. I rang Allan on my mobile brick (Nokia 5110; best constructed mobile phone known to man) and told him I was coming to visit.
He said, "What? Now? It'll be 10 o'clock by the time you get here."
"I know, Allan. But I can't wait. I have to get out of here now."
"Ok then. I'll keep an eye out for you. Drive safe."
And I did. I got there by paper map, 3.5 hours out of Brisbane, in the dark at 9:45pm. The next morning I woke up to the sounds of strange birds chirping, wild kangaroos and wallabies bounding outside my window. The smell of bush and the company of friends. I could feel the life-force re-filling me. I spent a relaxing week far away from the world I had stagnated in, and felt new and refreshed.
The following weekend we went down to Redland Bay in separate cars to do our radio show. I decided to swing past home the next morning and grab some things, seeing as I had left on a whim with practically nothing the week before. On our way back up the mountains, around 9am October 22nd 2001, we both pulled over for breakfast at a small café. We all felt fine and fit, so off we went again. I followed Allan about ten kilometres past Cunninghams Gap, then fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road. I rolled in the ditch, end over end, at a hundred Ks an hour, the car coming to a rest about fifty metres from the highway, crushed and upside down in a paddock.
I remember only snippets. The sensation of the car rolling, being flung half out of my seat belt. Glass, everywhere. And the sounds. I'll never forget the sounds. I have never known if I was unconscious for any length of time, but I do remember coming-to with my head pressed against the roof, fragments of glass cutting through my hair. I was bleeding badly from my forehead. I grabbed a floor mat and pressed it to my head, got untangled from the seat-belt and crawled out through the window.
Now I know why I've never written about this; I'm having trouble keeping it together. Just taking a minute...
Ok, I'm back. Sorry about that. Anyway, I remember I couldn't actually see because of the blood in my eyes, so I don't know how far away from the wreckage I had managed to get myself. But I heard several voices of people running up from the highway, one of which was a woman that I'll never, ever forget.
"Oh my God! He's alive. Someone ring the ambulance? Hey, hey, are you ok?"
She rested my head on her knees; I never saw her, only heard her voice. She kept me together until the ambulance arrived, asking me questions to make sure I hadn't lost it or gone into shock. I was fully lucid, and could recall my name, family names, addresses etc. To this day I regret never getting her name or finding out who she was. Maybe she was my guardian angel, I don't know. I didn't even get to thank her for being there for me. (If by some freaky twist of fate you are reading this ma'am, I am forever grateful. Please get in contact so I can tell you in person.)
Only memory of the ambulance is the rough suspension, nice paramedics and the FLIES!!! Bloody hell I must have been covered in the little buggers. I still can't stand a fly on my face; it just sends me right back there! Strangely enough, there was little in the way of pain. It's been like that with most major traumas in my life actually. Small cut or scratch and it'll sting like anything, slice a half-inch into my big toe with a sheet of glass and I barely feel it. Maybe you're like that too... or perhaps I'm just a freak. No idea. I'm pretty sure my head throbbed, but honestly there was no real pain to speak of. The ambos still made me suck on their darn pain-relief thingo, though, which delivered some sort of dry powder medication. Every breath of it made me cough, which DID hurt everything!
Would you believe, though, despite the horrendous conditions of that accident and the clear odds that I should have died, I walked out of that hospital on the same day. Still can't believe that. I saw photos of my car, a twisted crumple of metal. If I'd had a passenger, they'd have been killed by decapitation as the passenger-side roof sheered away from the frame, and there was so much flying debris from my possessions flinging loose from the back seat, that it's simply impossible that I survived intact.
Yet here I am twelve and a half years later, writing this out for the first time with goose-bumps and cloudy eyes. Husband, father to four, and in a business that helps people everyday. I'm not religious, but damn if that ain't some sort of miracle. The only scar with me today is one across my right shoulder, where I had two surgeries in the following years to re-attach my clavicle, but that's a story for another day.
And you know the one thing that really has stayed with me, and what I'd like to think outlines my core values as a person now? I asked that lovely lady something at the accident scene. Lying in a paddock on a strangers lap, bleeding from the head, surrounded by the wreckage of my car and not knowing how badly I was injured or whether I was going to live, the first thing I asked was, "Did I hurt anyone else? Please say I didn't hit anyone else." Thankfully, I hadn't.
Now, I'm not saying that as if to be all high and mighty on myself. Honestly, I sort of find it difficult to correlate myself with myself, if you know what I mean. The whole incident was so unworldly that I feel like it was another person that had the accident, I'm just seeing his memories. But it was me, and my primary thought, as a 20 yr old boy involved in a horrific car crash from which I should be dead, is for someone else. That's a moral to live by, and young Damien taught it to me. I'm so proud of that kid. He had no idea of what lay before him at that point, but someone or something had a hand in him coming out of that accident alive. Maybe, just maybe, an innate sense of caring for others had something to do with it.
That's the motto I still live by now. I've used it to guide the way I interact with others, and how I run my business. With any luck, my little light is making way for a better world. Shine yours with me, will ya!
Thanks so much for reading. It means a lot.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Saturday, 26 April 2014
Monday, 17 March 2014
Repeat Sexual Offender or Biological Misfit?
A rather serious subject under discussion in this post; one which has often surfaced in my mind along with a passing intellectual curiosity. I'm an opinionated bloke, though generally not without first educating myself with the basic facts surrounding a subject.
Recently here in Australia there has been a paedophile/murder case going through the courts subject to substantial media coverage and public discussion. Out of respect to the family involved I won't mention any names or even the specific case, but I'm sure that even if you live halfway to Timbuktu you would have caught a snippet of the case and results on your local world-news broadcast at some stage over the last week or so.
This particular case has sparked much talk about a proposed Sexual Offender Register, mainly fanned by the Australian "Human Headline" himself, Mr Derryn Hinch. (Google him; he's a tripper!) While I personally think that on the surface the idea holds merit, I believe that if one looks just that little bit deeper into the possible outcomes of such a register, you'd find something like that would quickly turn the society to mush.
Firstly there's the vigilantly factor. In every town there'd be some meat-head that would round up a posse and go around stringing these sick buggers up. While I wouldn't necessarily want to put a stop to that, I'm sure we all agree that is not the way a "civilised" society such as the one we think we uphold would want to act.
Then there are other issues like where does one draw the line for and define a sexual offender? Is the 17yr old fella that has sex with his under-age girlfriend in the context of a loving relationship considered a sexual offender? Should he be listed forever and shunned by society? And there's the not-in-my-back-yard thing, where these supposedly rehabilitated sexual offenders can't find a place to settle back into normal life because nobody will allow them to move in next door.
Now don't get me wrong. I've got four children, and if one of my neighbours was a released sexual offender, I'd want to know about it. However, it would create a conundrum. While it may allow me to protect my kids, it would also have me wanting to toss a half-litre of petrol over the fence, promptly followed by a match! I don't want someone like that living next door any more than you want him next to your house. But is knowing that they are there a help or a hindrance to a normal society? Is it both?
I just can't see how a register of sexual offenders would work. Really though, if you really sit down and nut it out like I have, you may eventually come to an even bigger question that negates the first.
If they just stayed in prison, would a register even be needed?
You see, my argument would be: how is it that these people are allowed back into society at all? And before you human rights people jump up and down at that comment, first hear me through. There's a very simple thing that everyone seems to be forgetting when it comes to the way we, as a society, look upon repeat sexual offenders and paedophiles.
Just like you and I, they a living breathing biological beings. The Human, or Homo Sapien, are a species of mammal and part of the animal kingdom. Just like any other animal, the major driving force of the Human is to survive as a race. In case you weren't aware, to survive involves in simple terms the acts of eating, breathing and reproducing. For the purposes of this blog, it's that last one I'd like us to focus on... or at least the further verbs brought up when one thinks about that very innocuous verb, "reproducing."
Let's do an experiment. When I give the signal, there's something I'd like you to do. I need you to close your eyes and picture for me your favourite partner; the one person in your life that you have been most physically and sexually attracted to. It can be the girl you lost your virginity to twenty years ago, your current boyfriend, wife or lover, or some movie star that you've always secretly had a crush on. For me, it's my wife of 11 years. (That's why we got four kids, dude!)
Imagine that person standing very close to you; the lights are turned down, or off, with a soft moonlight flowing past the curtains and a gentle breeze caressing your bare skin. There's a low, rhythmic music wafting from the room next door where, after the last hour or so of flirting, talking and teasing each other across the dinner table, you have both now retired to the bedroom. As your partner wraps their body around yours, your skin pressing together, you draw a deep breath. Their scent surrounds you, as the tingling stroke of their fingers sliding down your body brings fire to your senses. Slowly, you both move onto the bed...
Okay, here's the signal. Close your eyes now and imagine all of that. Really get into it; imagine you are there right now with that person in that room.... I'll leave you two alone for a minute.
Done? Goodo. Now if you did it right, you may have found that your heart rate has just lifted slightly, breathing has increased and you're feeling just a little warm. A mirror may reveal a flushed expression with flared nostrils. Hormones are bouncing forth all over your body. If you have a FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine handy, quickly stick your head in it for a second and then have a look at the results. They may look like this:
Coincidently, I've heard that some people have a similar response to eating chocolate.
Now you want to hear something scary? When a paedophile stands across the road looking at a child playing in a playground, or a rapist is picking his next victim on a park walkway, he is having these same reactions. I've seen it in a documentary, so it must be true. While in no way do I condone that, I do recognise that it is a basic biological reaction called arousal, working the same way as in you or I. Only difference is, their biological reaction is sparked by the wrong thing. We are not naturally built to be aroused by a young child's appearance, no more than a tom-cat is going to be aroused by a kitten. But for some reason, in these people, things aren't wired correctly.
You see what I mean? That right there is the fundamental reason why we all need to open our eyes and recognise that a repeat sexual offender, especially a paedophile, is not just your average run-of-the-mill criminal. If a bloke steals a car and goes to prison, he can be educated, rehabilitated and given a purpose in life. In an ideal world, when that bloke is released he is free to lead a fulfilling life, without the stealing of cars. Same theory for a convicted fraud, drug addict or gangster. Even a murderer. Now, if the car thief gets a hard-on every time he lines up a BMW to steal, you may have a problem.
I'm absolutely no Neurologist, but from what I've heard and read in my meagre 30-odd years, I would think that a man's sexual urges and arousal triggers can't be changed too easily. Yes the brain is "plastic" and can be modified, but when it comes to the things buried very deep in our primitive brain, how pliable are they? I mean, can a person's neurological make-up be altered to, say, no longer need food to eat? I hear your argument, that it's not just the brain that needs food; it's the whole body which would eventually drive the fasting nutter to eat something. True, dear, but it's the same thing with sex. Your body needs that as much as your brain. Why do you think the Catholic church is having such issues? No person is naturally able to abstain from sexual interaction. It goes against everything that makes us a biological being. We may think we are all high, mighty and can control nature, but in the end Human's are still just a type of animal, subject to animal urges and needs.
With this view in mind, when I hear that the perpetrator in a serious sexual crime against a child has a history of such acts, but was released from prison previously with the aid of a Psychiatrist's advice that the offender had "rehabilitated" while incarcerated, I can't help but shake my head. The ignorant futility of it all is, at the least, frustrating.
For a game, let's say there is a law against eating chocolate. It's considered the worst crime known to man. I did it a few decades a go, got caught, and have been in prison for half my life, on and off a rehabilitation program. My parole has just come up. I'm not a bad liar (comes with being a story-teller), and I reckon with a bit of work I could convince a shrink that I had changed, seen the error in my ways, was born again, and from this day forth I was no longer going to eat chocolate. And blow me down if I wouldn't give it a bloody good go at staying away from it. But you know what? Eventually, and despite all the consequences, I'm going to give in to the urge and eat that chocolate again. Just once.
If society really wanted me not to eat chocolate, they should have just kept me in prison where I couldn't get my hands on the stuff.
Now, eating chocolate is not paedophilia. I have no intention of diminishing the abhorrent nature of such a crime, or belittling the hurt that such cases have caused the families involved. But I think you get my point. These people are not as much criminal as they are mentally ill. There is a condition you may have heard of called Object Sexuality, where a person can exhibit "a pronounced emotional, often romantic and even sexual desire towards developing significant relationships with particular inanimate objects." (Wikipedia)
While that's not considered a crime, it is not natural/normal, thus subject to clinical treatment. Could not the same be said for someone exhibiting "a pronounced emotional, often romantic and even sexual desire towards developing significant relationships" with under-age children? That is a crime, and should be severely treated as such. But from an initial pre-crime point of view, how is it any different from a man that is only ever aroused by a redhead woman? Or a woman turned on only by a short man with dimples and a bald spot? Or a person that has intimate dreams about their teacher, boss or a toaster?
In my opinion they simply need to be kept well away from society, indefinitely, hopefully until medical technology advances to the point where their brains can be re-wired at the touch of a button. In doing that, a Sexual Offender Register, and all it's related problems, would then never be needed. What do you think? It's a big deal, either way, but I reckon before governments go making any knee-jerk reactions after one of these cases, there needs to be some changes in common thought. We can't keep putting these people away, then letting them out in a few years with this naive view that they're all better for being behind bars, only to have them go out and victimise some other poor innocent child.
Fix it, people! The world is full of experts that know a million times what I know. Why haven't these incredibly learned people found a solution to this problem (and many others)????
Anyway, nothing I can do from my living room chair. But I do feel better for ranting. Feel free to agree or disagree, and comment to such ends below.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Recently here in Australia there has been a paedophile/murder case going through the courts subject to substantial media coverage and public discussion. Out of respect to the family involved I won't mention any names or even the specific case, but I'm sure that even if you live halfway to Timbuktu you would have caught a snippet of the case and results on your local world-news broadcast at some stage over the last week or so.
This particular case has sparked much talk about a proposed Sexual Offender Register, mainly fanned by the Australian "Human Headline" himself, Mr Derryn Hinch. (Google him; he's a tripper!) While I personally think that on the surface the idea holds merit, I believe that if one looks just that little bit deeper into the possible outcomes of such a register, you'd find something like that would quickly turn the society to mush.
Firstly there's the vigilantly factor. In every town there'd be some meat-head that would round up a posse and go around stringing these sick buggers up. While I wouldn't necessarily want to put a stop to that, I'm sure we all agree that is not the way a "civilised" society such as the one we think we uphold would want to act.
Then there are other issues like where does one draw the line for and define a sexual offender? Is the 17yr old fella that has sex with his under-age girlfriend in the context of a loving relationship considered a sexual offender? Should he be listed forever and shunned by society? And there's the not-in-my-back-yard thing, where these supposedly rehabilitated sexual offenders can't find a place to settle back into normal life because nobody will allow them to move in next door.
Now don't get me wrong. I've got four children, and if one of my neighbours was a released sexual offender, I'd want to know about it. However, it would create a conundrum. While it may allow me to protect my kids, it would also have me wanting to toss a half-litre of petrol over the fence, promptly followed by a match! I don't want someone like that living next door any more than you want him next to your house. But is knowing that they are there a help or a hindrance to a normal society? Is it both?
I just can't see how a register of sexual offenders would work. Really though, if you really sit down and nut it out like I have, you may eventually come to an even bigger question that negates the first.
If they just stayed in prison, would a register even be needed?
You see, my argument would be: how is it that these people are allowed back into society at all? And before you human rights people jump up and down at that comment, first hear me through. There's a very simple thing that everyone seems to be forgetting when it comes to the way we, as a society, look upon repeat sexual offenders and paedophiles.
Just like you and I, they a living breathing biological beings. The Human, or Homo Sapien, are a species of mammal and part of the animal kingdom. Just like any other animal, the major driving force of the Human is to survive as a race. In case you weren't aware, to survive involves in simple terms the acts of eating, breathing and reproducing. For the purposes of this blog, it's that last one I'd like us to focus on... or at least the further verbs brought up when one thinks about that very innocuous verb, "reproducing."
Let's do an experiment. When I give the signal, there's something I'd like you to do. I need you to close your eyes and picture for me your favourite partner; the one person in your life that you have been most physically and sexually attracted to. It can be the girl you lost your virginity to twenty years ago, your current boyfriend, wife or lover, or some movie star that you've always secretly had a crush on. For me, it's my wife of 11 years. (That's why we got four kids, dude!)
Imagine that person standing very close to you; the lights are turned down, or off, with a soft moonlight flowing past the curtains and a gentle breeze caressing your bare skin. There's a low, rhythmic music wafting from the room next door where, after the last hour or so of flirting, talking and teasing each other across the dinner table, you have both now retired to the bedroom. As your partner wraps their body around yours, your skin pressing together, you draw a deep breath. Their scent surrounds you, as the tingling stroke of their fingers sliding down your body brings fire to your senses. Slowly, you both move onto the bed...
Okay, here's the signal. Close your eyes now and imagine all of that. Really get into it; imagine you are there right now with that person in that room.... I'll leave you two alone for a minute.
Done? Goodo. Now if you did it right, you may have found that your heart rate has just lifted slightly, breathing has increased and you're feeling just a little warm. A mirror may reveal a flushed expression with flared nostrils. Hormones are bouncing forth all over your body. If you have a FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine handy, quickly stick your head in it for a second and then have a look at the results. They may look like this:
Now you want to hear something scary? When a paedophile stands across the road looking at a child playing in a playground, or a rapist is picking his next victim on a park walkway, he is having these same reactions. I've seen it in a documentary, so it must be true. While in no way do I condone that, I do recognise that it is a basic biological reaction called arousal, working the same way as in you or I. Only difference is, their biological reaction is sparked by the wrong thing. We are not naturally built to be aroused by a young child's appearance, no more than a tom-cat is going to be aroused by a kitten. But for some reason, in these people, things aren't wired correctly.
You see what I mean? That right there is the fundamental reason why we all need to open our eyes and recognise that a repeat sexual offender, especially a paedophile, is not just your average run-of-the-mill criminal. If a bloke steals a car and goes to prison, he can be educated, rehabilitated and given a purpose in life. In an ideal world, when that bloke is released he is free to lead a fulfilling life, without the stealing of cars. Same theory for a convicted fraud, drug addict or gangster. Even a murderer. Now, if the car thief gets a hard-on every time he lines up a BMW to steal, you may have a problem.
I'm absolutely no Neurologist, but from what I've heard and read in my meagre 30-odd years, I would think that a man's sexual urges and arousal triggers can't be changed too easily. Yes the brain is "plastic" and can be modified, but when it comes to the things buried very deep in our primitive brain, how pliable are they? I mean, can a person's neurological make-up be altered to, say, no longer need food to eat? I hear your argument, that it's not just the brain that needs food; it's the whole body which would eventually drive the fasting nutter to eat something. True, dear, but it's the same thing with sex. Your body needs that as much as your brain. Why do you think the Catholic church is having such issues? No person is naturally able to abstain from sexual interaction. It goes against everything that makes us a biological being. We may think we are all high, mighty and can control nature, but in the end Human's are still just a type of animal, subject to animal urges and needs.
With this view in mind, when I hear that the perpetrator in a serious sexual crime against a child has a history of such acts, but was released from prison previously with the aid of a Psychiatrist's advice that the offender had "rehabilitated" while incarcerated, I can't help but shake my head. The ignorant futility of it all is, at the least, frustrating.
For a game, let's say there is a law against eating chocolate. It's considered the worst crime known to man. I did it a few decades a go, got caught, and have been in prison for half my life, on and off a rehabilitation program. My parole has just come up. I'm not a bad liar (comes with being a story-teller), and I reckon with a bit of work I could convince a shrink that I had changed, seen the error in my ways, was born again, and from this day forth I was no longer going to eat chocolate. And blow me down if I wouldn't give it a bloody good go at staying away from it. But you know what? Eventually, and despite all the consequences, I'm going to give in to the urge and eat that chocolate again. Just once.
If society really wanted me not to eat chocolate, they should have just kept me in prison where I couldn't get my hands on the stuff.
Now, eating chocolate is not paedophilia. I have no intention of diminishing the abhorrent nature of such a crime, or belittling the hurt that such cases have caused the families involved. But I think you get my point. These people are not as much criminal as they are mentally ill. There is a condition you may have heard of called Object Sexuality, where a person can exhibit "a pronounced emotional, often romantic and even sexual desire towards developing significant relationships with particular inanimate objects." (Wikipedia)
While that's not considered a crime, it is not natural/normal, thus subject to clinical treatment. Could not the same be said for someone exhibiting "a pronounced emotional, often romantic and even sexual desire towards developing significant relationships" with under-age children? That is a crime, and should be severely treated as such. But from an initial pre-crime point of view, how is it any different from a man that is only ever aroused by a redhead woman? Or a woman turned on only by a short man with dimples and a bald spot? Or a person that has intimate dreams about their teacher, boss or a toaster?
In my opinion they simply need to be kept well away from society, indefinitely, hopefully until medical technology advances to the point where their brains can be re-wired at the touch of a button. In doing that, a Sexual Offender Register, and all it's related problems, would then never be needed. What do you think? It's a big deal, either way, but I reckon before governments go making any knee-jerk reactions after one of these cases, there needs to be some changes in common thought. We can't keep putting these people away, then letting them out in a few years with this naive view that they're all better for being behind bars, only to have them go out and victimise some other poor innocent child.
Fix it, people! The world is full of experts that know a million times what I know. Why haven't these incredibly learned people found a solution to this problem (and many others)????
Anyway, nothing I can do from my living room chair. But I do feel better for ranting. Feel free to agree or disagree, and comment to such ends below.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Thursday, 27 February 2014
First Time Home Buyer... Finally
Things are so exciting right now in the Malcolm household. After a decade of fighting for it, we have finally been able to purchase our first home. And the weirdest thing: it's the shortest move in human history. Why? Because we have bought the very house that we've been renting for the last 2 years!
It all started years ago, when I was still a part-time s*#^kicker at a local caravan park earning a measly $24,000 a year. May sound like a lot to readers living in a third world country, (or maybe even the USA as I hear proportionately your wages are low compared to ours), but ask any Aussie and he/she will tell you that, "that sort of dough ain't buyin' ya squat in Austraya, mate. Bloody oath, bonza ripper. Bar-B. That ain't a knife... this is a knife." E-hem, sorry about that. However, my wife and I both grew up in poor families, so when it came to money we are both as tight as a badger's sweat pore. Anything that came in, we saved.
Then, when I got laid-off from that job and took up a night shift gig at the local fuel servo, things got a little hairier. (Is "hairier" a word?) I was only working 3 days a week, pulling approximately $340, while my lovely wife was about to quit work to give birth to, and look after, our first child. Things were about as tight as they could get. We'd not long been married, at 21 and 22, we were still running two cars, and were about to move from a tiny two-bedroom flat into a tiny three bedroom house half a block up the road. That was quite funny actually, the move. We had the best removal vehicle our money could buy... a baby pram. Don't worry, the baby, only a couple of months old, wasn't in the pram at the time. That'd be irresponsible. She made him crawl behind on a leash.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, things were tight. But somehow, we still managed to squirrel away a little money every fortnight. Then I got asked to come back to the caravan park full-time. Apparently the crazy-lady they had taken a punt on when they chose who to lay off 8 months earlier was more crazy—and less of a lady—than they'd anticipated. So there I was back s*#^-kicking with a small pay-rise (about $6000 a year more than my previous employment there). That was around about the time that child number two was coming along.
Wasn't long into that stint that my wife and I started investigating the option of buying a house. There came a couple of times that our position in the current rental looked perilous, due to house sales and such, and the idea of having a house ripped out from beneath my family was not what I'd call good. Back then, house prices in our town were pretty low, around 145K, and we thought we may have been able to crack it. Apparently not.
Fast forward almost ten years and two more kids, and things were looking a little more rosy, financially. (What? So we've had 4 kids under 5. It gets cold where we live and there's not a lot to do of a night-time. And before you say, "get a TV", we had already tried that and it didn't make a pinch of difference. Maybe it had something to do with the way I sleep...[insert subtle throw-back to an earlier blog post]) A few years before we'd had a neat little nest egg saved up, just a titch over 12K, but when the forth kiddie was about to come along, we realised that we weren't all going to fit in the car we had at the time. Down goes the bank balance. But we'd whacked the loan and rebuilt a bit of savings again. We started trying the banks to test the water and see if they'd give us anything. "Just can't get the servicing to work", they'd all say. I hate that word now. No, not work; I've always hated that word. Servicing is the one I dislike.
So we gave up trying, just focusing on saving every cent we didn't have to spend. Around the same time, I had started my little handyman business, which to my surprise had taken off like a seagull and defied all expectations. I made a turn over of $43,000 in my first year. First year! Blew me away. And I wasn't ripping anyone off to do it, either. Just working bloody hard. The second year went up a little bit, then again the next year. I past with flying colours the two year threshold where they say half of all small businesses fail.
A couple of years later we had a nicer little nest egg stowed away, and we decided it was again time to try for a home loan. We had just moved from a squishy three-bedroom brick thing on a block of land big enough to run around forty-three times in under a minute, into a five bedroom (one for each kid!!!) ex-queenslander on 1300 square metres. Heaven. By the way, for non-locals, a "queenslander" is a mid-late 20th century Australian home design. Ask Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs. Anyway, I knew the owner; he was a customer through the business. To sweeten the deal for us, he took the house off the market, but said he was still dead keen on us buying it. Basically as an investment property, it was a bit crap. It had cost him a bit of money and was only likely to cost him more, so he wanted it gone. I said, "sure mate, we'd love it. I'll go down to the bank and see what they say."
It was a no go, still. Despite making more money running a business than I'd ever made working for someone else, ironically it was the running of the business that was stopping the numbers from checking out. I asked if he could just wait a little while until we saved some more and see what the banks said then. He said, "sure", waited six months then promptly put it back on the market. Thanks for the tiny bit of back-stabbing there, old mate. Real honourable. So we had to deal with weirdos wandering through our house, looking in our kids' cupboards and being asked to perform changes to make the house "more appealing" to prospective buyers. Blurgh. But luckily, the owner had far too much on it and it never actually looked like selling.
Until late last year.
A young couple came through, going on how they really liked it, planning where their dogs would sleep and which room she was going to do her hair in. They put it under contract, and it looked like my four kids, wife and I would be out on the street in less than two months. Wouldn't have been the first time for me, as I've been homeless before... twice. But with kids, that's a scary prospect. However, they asked too much of the owner in the contract, and he wasn't willing to come to the party. Then they wanted a lower price; he wouldn't come to that either. Like a miracle, the contract fell through and we were once again safe.
All while this had been going on, a mate of mine gave me a call out of the blue one day and suggested I waddle down to a particular local bank and have another go at a loan. He'd just got one, and by his calculations I was in a better state that him, so I was a shoe-in. So I did waddle down, and the young girl that was there filling in for the holidaying regular loans manager brought us in and went over our financials. She said she reckoned it'd go through at $150,000, with a weekly repayment of $208/week. I said to her as we were leaving the room, "if we don't get that at such a pathetic payment amount, I'm going to cry." At the time we were paying $280/week in rent.
We bloody got it, didn't we? I couldn't believe it. And the lady on the phone that gave me the pre-approval, said that the amount she had cleared was $170,000. I questioned the difference, and she explained that she thought 150 was too low, so she bumped it up to see what would happen! Amazing. Especially when only a few weeks before, we'd been in the loans office of another major Australian bank that have a name beginning with "Comm", and the woman on the tele-conferencing computer screen told us, "well, I'm not even going to bother telling you the number you qualify for with us. You can't do anything with that." Cold that was. Bloody cold.
So, after getting pre-approved for a purchase price of 200K, we spent a couple of weeks looking for anything with in our budget, thinking that pretty soon these peoples' contract was going to go through and we'd have to move. Do you reckon we could find anything that was going to fit our voracious brood? Not a chance. Small, small, tiny and cramped. Did I mention small? It was frustrating, to say the least. There we were with the first home-loan "possible yes" either of us had achieved in our lives, and there was nothing we could do with it. Our eldest son has Asperges, and there was just no way he (therefore us) was going to cope living in any of the houses that we looked through.
Christmas 2013 came and went, with us still floating in limbo an not knowing what to do. The contract for the other people had fallen through, but we were still lost. Should we buy a dump and try to make it work, or just let the pre-approval slide and keep renting? Until one day, I reported a small maintenance issue to the Real Estate and received a note that the girl was going to come around and have a look at it, and that the owner wanted to come too. We thought that was weird. Then the owner turned up ten minutes early, shook my hand and started the conversation with, "So, when are you going to buy my house?" "As soon as you drop the price to two hundred thousand, mate," I replied. He started stammering and mumbling something about two ten. I popped inside to get some photos of the house to show him, thinking I could bolster our case, and when I return my wife says, "We can do two five, can't we? Well, shake his hand then. We've just bought the house."
Bloody wow. The final approval on the loan came through, and now today six weeks later, I'm sitting on a couch writing this in the very first home I've ever owned. I've already been up and started painting the roof. It's fibro and needs a good covering to buy us time till we can rip it off. She's going to look sweet! We've got a few more changes to make, and the place is old, which means maintenance. But hey, guess what? I'm a handyman, so that bit's kinda sorted.
I still just can't believe it. I suppose it will feel more real when I hold our first rate bill, choking on bile through gritted teeth as I hand over a cheque for around $2500. Till then, I'm quite happy to be only half in reality. Nothing I have has been given to me by anyone, which is the way it should be. No value in a hand-out. I work for everything, both physically and mentally, and I'm ok with that. With that philosophy in mind, I look back to before I was married, when I was sleeping in the back of my car at a camping ground, and then peruse the journey between there and here... Well, it just makes me smile, really.
And the moral to this story: if you have a dream or goal that you've been fighting for, please don't give up on it, even when it looks like you'll never get there. Because just at that point when hope fades to fear and hopelessness, you too could be just six weeks away from holding the figurative key (spare key, in our case, obtained from the real estate because we already had the full sets) to your metaphorical first home. You'll get there. Just keep at it.
Thanks for reading. Till next time,
-Damien.
It all started years ago, when I was still a part-time s*#^kicker at a local caravan park earning a measly $24,000 a year. May sound like a lot to readers living in a third world country, (or maybe even the USA as I hear proportionately your wages are low compared to ours), but ask any Aussie and he/she will tell you that, "that sort of dough ain't buyin' ya squat in Austraya, mate. Bloody oath, bonza ripper. Bar-B. That ain't a knife... this is a knife." E-hem, sorry about that. However, my wife and I both grew up in poor families, so when it came to money we are both as tight as a badger's sweat pore. Anything that came in, we saved.
Then, when I got laid-off from that job and took up a night shift gig at the local fuel servo, things got a little hairier. (Is "hairier" a word?) I was only working 3 days a week, pulling approximately $340, while my lovely wife was about to quit work to give birth to, and look after, our first child. Things were about as tight as they could get. We'd not long been married, at 21 and 22, we were still running two cars, and were about to move from a tiny two-bedroom flat into a tiny three bedroom house half a block up the road. That was quite funny actually, the move. We had the best removal vehicle our money could buy... a baby pram. Don't worry, the baby, only a couple of months old, wasn't in the pram at the time. That'd be irresponsible. She made him crawl behind on a leash.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, things were tight. But somehow, we still managed to squirrel away a little money every fortnight. Then I got asked to come back to the caravan park full-time. Apparently the crazy-lady they had taken a punt on when they chose who to lay off 8 months earlier was more crazy—and less of a lady—than they'd anticipated. So there I was back s*#^-kicking with a small pay-rise (about $6000 a year more than my previous employment there). That was around about the time that child number two was coming along.
Wasn't long into that stint that my wife and I started investigating the option of buying a house. There came a couple of times that our position in the current rental looked perilous, due to house sales and such, and the idea of having a house ripped out from beneath my family was not what I'd call good. Back then, house prices in our town were pretty low, around 145K, and we thought we may have been able to crack it. Apparently not.
Fast forward almost ten years and two more kids, and things were looking a little more rosy, financially. (What? So we've had 4 kids under 5. It gets cold where we live and there's not a lot to do of a night-time. And before you say, "get a TV", we had already tried that and it didn't make a pinch of difference. Maybe it had something to do with the way I sleep...[insert subtle throw-back to an earlier blog post]) A few years before we'd had a neat little nest egg saved up, just a titch over 12K, but when the forth kiddie was about to come along, we realised that we weren't all going to fit in the car we had at the time. Down goes the bank balance. But we'd whacked the loan and rebuilt a bit of savings again. We started trying the banks to test the water and see if they'd give us anything. "Just can't get the servicing to work", they'd all say. I hate that word now. No, not work; I've always hated that word. Servicing is the one I dislike.
So we gave up trying, just focusing on saving every cent we didn't have to spend. Around the same time, I had started my little handyman business, which to my surprise had taken off like a seagull and defied all expectations. I made a turn over of $43,000 in my first year. First year! Blew me away. And I wasn't ripping anyone off to do it, either. Just working bloody hard. The second year went up a little bit, then again the next year. I past with flying colours the two year threshold where they say half of all small businesses fail.
A couple of years later we had a nicer little nest egg stowed away, and we decided it was again time to try for a home loan. We had just moved from a squishy three-bedroom brick thing on a block of land big enough to run around forty-three times in under a minute, into a five bedroom (one for each kid!!!) ex-queenslander on 1300 square metres. Heaven. By the way, for non-locals, a "queenslander" is a mid-late 20th century Australian home design. Ask Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs. Anyway, I knew the owner; he was a customer through the business. To sweeten the deal for us, he took the house off the market, but said he was still dead keen on us buying it. Basically as an investment property, it was a bit crap. It had cost him a bit of money and was only likely to cost him more, so he wanted it gone. I said, "sure mate, we'd love it. I'll go down to the bank and see what they say."
It was a no go, still. Despite making more money running a business than I'd ever made working for someone else, ironically it was the running of the business that was stopping the numbers from checking out. I asked if he could just wait a little while until we saved some more and see what the banks said then. He said, "sure", waited six months then promptly put it back on the market. Thanks for the tiny bit of back-stabbing there, old mate. Real honourable. So we had to deal with weirdos wandering through our house, looking in our kids' cupboards and being asked to perform changes to make the house "more appealing" to prospective buyers. Blurgh. But luckily, the owner had far too much on it and it never actually looked like selling.
Until late last year.
A young couple came through, going on how they really liked it, planning where their dogs would sleep and which room she was going to do her hair in. They put it under contract, and it looked like my four kids, wife and I would be out on the street in less than two months. Wouldn't have been the first time for me, as I've been homeless before... twice. But with kids, that's a scary prospect. However, they asked too much of the owner in the contract, and he wasn't willing to come to the party. Then they wanted a lower price; he wouldn't come to that either. Like a miracle, the contract fell through and we were once again safe.
All while this had been going on, a mate of mine gave me a call out of the blue one day and suggested I waddle down to a particular local bank and have another go at a loan. He'd just got one, and by his calculations I was in a better state that him, so I was a shoe-in. So I did waddle down, and the young girl that was there filling in for the holidaying regular loans manager brought us in and went over our financials. She said she reckoned it'd go through at $150,000, with a weekly repayment of $208/week. I said to her as we were leaving the room, "if we don't get that at such a pathetic payment amount, I'm going to cry." At the time we were paying $280/week in rent.
We bloody got it, didn't we? I couldn't believe it. And the lady on the phone that gave me the pre-approval, said that the amount she had cleared was $170,000. I questioned the difference, and she explained that she thought 150 was too low, so she bumped it up to see what would happen! Amazing. Especially when only a few weeks before, we'd been in the loans office of another major Australian bank that have a name beginning with "Comm", and the woman on the tele-conferencing computer screen told us, "well, I'm not even going to bother telling you the number you qualify for with us. You can't do anything with that." Cold that was. Bloody cold.
So, after getting pre-approved for a purchase price of 200K, we spent a couple of weeks looking for anything with in our budget, thinking that pretty soon these peoples' contract was going to go through and we'd have to move. Do you reckon we could find anything that was going to fit our voracious brood? Not a chance. Small, small, tiny and cramped. Did I mention small? It was frustrating, to say the least. There we were with the first home-loan "possible yes" either of us had achieved in our lives, and there was nothing we could do with it. Our eldest son has Asperges, and there was just no way he (therefore us) was going to cope living in any of the houses that we looked through.
Christmas 2013 came and went, with us still floating in limbo an not knowing what to do. The contract for the other people had fallen through, but we were still lost. Should we buy a dump and try to make it work, or just let the pre-approval slide and keep renting? Until one day, I reported a small maintenance issue to the Real Estate and received a note that the girl was going to come around and have a look at it, and that the owner wanted to come too. We thought that was weird. Then the owner turned up ten minutes early, shook my hand and started the conversation with, "So, when are you going to buy my house?" "As soon as you drop the price to two hundred thousand, mate," I replied. He started stammering and mumbling something about two ten. I popped inside to get some photos of the house to show him, thinking I could bolster our case, and when I return my wife says, "We can do two five, can't we? Well, shake his hand then. We've just bought the house."
Bloody wow. The final approval on the loan came through, and now today six weeks later, I'm sitting on a couch writing this in the very first home I've ever owned. I've already been up and started painting the roof. It's fibro and needs a good covering to buy us time till we can rip it off. She's going to look sweet! We've got a few more changes to make, and the place is old, which means maintenance. But hey, guess what? I'm a handyman, so that bit's kinda sorted.
I still just can't believe it. I suppose it will feel more real when I hold our first rate bill, choking on bile through gritted teeth as I hand over a cheque for around $2500. Till then, I'm quite happy to be only half in reality. Nothing I have has been given to me by anyone, which is the way it should be. No value in a hand-out. I work for everything, both physically and mentally, and I'm ok with that. With that philosophy in mind, I look back to before I was married, when I was sleeping in the back of my car at a camping ground, and then peruse the journey between there and here... Well, it just makes me smile, really.
And the moral to this story: if you have a dream or goal that you've been fighting for, please don't give up on it, even when it looks like you'll never get there. Because just at that point when hope fades to fear and hopelessness, you too could be just six weeks away from holding the figurative key (spare key, in our case, obtained from the real estate because we already had the full sets) to your metaphorical first home. You'll get there. Just keep at it.
Thanks for reading. Till next time,
-Damien.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
My take on the Social Media Circus
I've been using a couple of different social media platforms for a while now; long enough to have a reasonably good grasp on what's hot and what's not. If you're interested in my view, read on and feel free to leave a comment below.
Now first of all, allow me to clarify which minimal number of sites I use and have an opinion on. It may be obvious from the side bar to your right that I use the basics, Facebook and Twitter. (If you're not viewing this on the actual blog, then you can't see what I'm talking about. I took the liberty of placing a link to here below, as well as links to me on Facebook and Twitter. Bookmark them for endless streams of my brain-dribble.)
{ http://www.damienlmalcolm.blogspot.com }
{ http://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm }
{ http://www.facebook.com/WinchesterSeries }
{ http://www.twitter.com/damienlmalcolm or the handle @DamienLMalcolm }
Anywho, I mainly only use these two because, well quite frankly, nothing else measures up. And when I say "measures up", I mean exactly that. For me, Facebook ranks about a 9 on the usefulness scale, with Twitter toddling behind at around a 6. I'm also supposedly on Google+, which sits at more than zero, but less than one on my scale. I'd place you a link for my page on there, if I could find one. Like the rest of Google+, it's pointless trying.
In fact, while we're on the topic of Google+, may I state the obvious and say that I find it incredibly crap. Google, God bless 'em, really did try to drag themselves into the social arena. They just didn't cut it, I'm afraid. I signed up for a "+" page because all the experts said it was the thing to do when you're an author looking to make headway in the big wide world. Now I find myself wondering why I did it. I "circled" a couple of people, shared a couple of posts and "+1'd" a few things (Seriously? +1? Who the hell came up with that???) but it just never grew on me. Every now and again, I drop back and check the page, only to find a disjointed, odd-coloured stream of random things from various people I don't know; presumably things that are "trending" in the magical world of +es. I don't know. Just seems pointless.
Twitter on the other hand, does fill a small gap in a person's social media requirement quota. Though I'm not sure if I use Twitter in the same way as everyone else. To me, Twitter is a great method of speaking, in short sentences, directly with a person, whether it be someone you know, or a person somewhere up in the ethereal wonderland. It's almost like having a phonebook with the mobile phone numbers of anyone remotely famous. You can send little text messages to celebrities just like you would your best mates. I've tweeted to ABC radio presenters (they reply), movie stars and musicians (they don't reply) and even other authors (sometimes they reply). It gives me a little tickle when someone even mildly famous tweets back to me directly, favourites or retweets something I said. It shows their human, and respecting their audience, which is nice. Only a few years ago celebrities where sooo distant from us down here, and the only way you could contact them was to write to a fan club. On paper! Now the world of twitter brings many of them down out of that unreachable cloud, and allows an everyday bloke like myself to send small compliments and opinions to them, and have the sometimes respond. It's nice, and does a lot toward bringing us all together that bit more.
I made the mistake when I first signed up for Twitter of following quite a few people and re-following anyone who followed me, then treating the newsfeed the same way I treat Facebook. It was a big mistake because if I didn't check that newsfeed in a day, I'd have a stream of literally hundreds of tweets to scroll over. And they'd be everything from "I have a small spot on my left buttock cheek" retweeted from some cracker in the US, to a traffic report of a local car accident four hours ago, to a Youtube preview of the latest Dr Who episode, to the twenty-fifth repeat of a tweet about an author's kindle page, or a beautiful picture of the Aurora Borealis. The record on my feed for one 24hr period is 262 tweets, with a ratio of around 70/30 crap. You see, one vast difference between Facebook and Twitter is where the Facebook newsfeed sort of picks out the best things to show you from your various friends and liked pages, which means you may miss the odd thing, Twitter gives you EVERYTHING.
In other words, there was enough important or interesting stuff to keep me scrolling and actually reading, as well as enough rubbish to just make me want to close the account. I've since learned that apparently the way to truly use Twitter as a news facility is to have an app like Tweetdeck or something sitting open all day on your office computer so you can see the feed in real-time, as opposed to exhaustingly scrolling it on your phone while brushing your teeth at 11pm. In such a way, I can understand how Twitter is a massively useful service for news producers and media. Only problem with that is, being a mobile Handyman, I don't work at a desk all day. So using Twitter in real-time for me is unobtainable, even if I wanted to. Just means I get a tweet from an ABC Radio host saying, "an interview with [insert famous person or politician] is live on air right now", five hours after the interview occurred. But as I say, it is still very useful for chatting to people directly, which can be fun... if maybe a little annoying for the recipient. (Sorry Belinda. I tweet because I care. :) )
By the way, I once did a "Know Your Promotional Skill Level" quiz on the Interwebs, that basically asked me questions to suss out how good I was at selling myself and my books. I got most of the questions right, but one of the ones I got wrong was one relating to Twitter. It said something like, "How frequently should you tweet? A: Every hour? B: Once a day? C: 2 - 3 times a week?" I answered 2 to 3 times a week, because at the time I was completely over being bombarded with other people's tweets about nothing, and as a rule that's the rate I'm comfortable tweeting at. I was wrong. Apparently, the correct answer was A: Every hour.
Every bloody hour?? No wonder I was getting bombarded, if that's what the experts are telling people to do. There are people following me that have 25,000 other people that they follow. If every one of those nutters did that quiz and decided to ramp up their profile, that would amount to a total of 500,000 tweets a day! A bloke would do nothing else but sit at a computer all day reading tweets about how cold some lady's toes are because of the snow falling in Istanbul. That's not a life. And the bit that got me the most was, the thing gave me advice at the end saying that I should consider purchasing a third party app that can automate my tweets for me to "boost my market penetration". So I could send out a tweet saying "Buy my book here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/259889?ref=damienlmalcolm " over and over again, every single hour, 24 hours a day. Wow, I'm sure my followers are going to be right into that! I've had that sort of thing in my newsfeed before, and it sucks. In fact, now if I get that, I report it as spam. And I've since un-followed most of my Twitter-friends, the ones I actually don't find any interest in, and thankfully reduced my feed down to manageable levels.
Facebook, on the other hand, ticks every box. I keep my friends down to only people I actually know, I run a page for my first book, another for my local Handyman business which gets great response from customers, and I leave most of my private page open to the public as a bit of an author thing for followers. Facebook's newsfeed scrolls at a comfortable pace, allowing a busy bloke to just pop in once or twice a day for five to ten minutes at a time while hoeing down some lunch between jobs. I can whack up a photo easily (not of my lunch!) and it keeps me abreast of the goings-on. It's great for funnies. Of course the peaceful harmony I speak of can also be abused by some, which leads to addiction. The average young person seems to have around 800 friends on Facebook, and I once saw a profile of a fella that had 2,500 friends and liked 27,000 pages! What's the point in that? If I post something on my page, a bloke like that is never going to see it. My post would be buried under a mountain of who knows what, and unless he checks his feed literally every single waking minute of his day, he'd simply never keep up. Bloody nuts!
From a promotional point of view, Facebook is good in the way that I can rig up a small ad and target it directly to my audience, who then receive a small box at the side of their page with a pic of my book in it. The ads are, for the most part, unobtrusive but focused, meaning my meagre advertising budget is being spent efficiently and it's not going out to people who would only be annoyed by it. Like Twitter, Facebook also lets you talk directly with some people, though if it's a famous person you're wanting to chat to, chances are they're actually paying someone else to manage their page for them and you're not really taking to the stars themselves.
I've never tried out the other social networking sites that seem to be springing up like weeds in a farmer's paddock. There used to be Bebo, there are old narrow-band ones like Myspace and Linkedin, and there are all these new weird little chat things I keep hearing about. But really, there's no point me checking out any of them. Between having a family, running a business, writing books, keeping up with current social sites and occasionally scribbling out something on this blog, this bloke's just a little too busy to need any extra commitments right now. Speaking of which, it's time I nodded off.
Please feel free to let me know what social networks you use most, and what you think of them. Agree with my views? Disagree? Tell me how you feel in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Now first of all, allow me to clarify which minimal number of sites I use and have an opinion on. It may be obvious from the side bar to your right that I use the basics, Facebook and Twitter. (If you're not viewing this on the actual blog, then you can't see what I'm talking about. I took the liberty of placing a link to here below, as well as links to me on Facebook and Twitter. Bookmark them for endless streams of my brain-dribble.)
{ http://www.damienlmalcolm.blogspot.com }
{ http://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm }
{ http://www.facebook.com/WinchesterSeries }
{ http://www.twitter.com/damienlmalcolm or the handle @DamienLMalcolm }
Anywho, I mainly only use these two because, well quite frankly, nothing else measures up. And when I say "measures up", I mean exactly that. For me, Facebook ranks about a 9 on the usefulness scale, with Twitter toddling behind at around a 6. I'm also supposedly on Google+, which sits at more than zero, but less than one on my scale. I'd place you a link for my page on there, if I could find one. Like the rest of Google+, it's pointless trying.
In fact, while we're on the topic of Google+, may I state the obvious and say that I find it incredibly crap. Google, God bless 'em, really did try to drag themselves into the social arena. They just didn't cut it, I'm afraid. I signed up for a "+" page because all the experts said it was the thing to do when you're an author looking to make headway in the big wide world. Now I find myself wondering why I did it. I "circled" a couple of people, shared a couple of posts and "+1'd" a few things (Seriously? +1? Who the hell came up with that???) but it just never grew on me. Every now and again, I drop back and check the page, only to find a disjointed, odd-coloured stream of random things from various people I don't know; presumably things that are "trending" in the magical world of +es. I don't know. Just seems pointless.
Twitter on the other hand, does fill a small gap in a person's social media requirement quota. Though I'm not sure if I use Twitter in the same way as everyone else. To me, Twitter is a great method of speaking, in short sentences, directly with a person, whether it be someone you know, or a person somewhere up in the ethereal wonderland. It's almost like having a phonebook with the mobile phone numbers of anyone remotely famous. You can send little text messages to celebrities just like you would your best mates. I've tweeted to ABC radio presenters (they reply), movie stars and musicians (they don't reply) and even other authors (sometimes they reply). It gives me a little tickle when someone even mildly famous tweets back to me directly, favourites or retweets something I said. It shows their human, and respecting their audience, which is nice. Only a few years ago celebrities where sooo distant from us down here, and the only way you could contact them was to write to a fan club. On paper! Now the world of twitter brings many of them down out of that unreachable cloud, and allows an everyday bloke like myself to send small compliments and opinions to them, and have the sometimes respond. It's nice, and does a lot toward bringing us all together that bit more.
I made the mistake when I first signed up for Twitter of following quite a few people and re-following anyone who followed me, then treating the newsfeed the same way I treat Facebook. It was a big mistake because if I didn't check that newsfeed in a day, I'd have a stream of literally hundreds of tweets to scroll over. And they'd be everything from "I have a small spot on my left buttock cheek" retweeted from some cracker in the US, to a traffic report of a local car accident four hours ago, to a Youtube preview of the latest Dr Who episode, to the twenty-fifth repeat of a tweet about an author's kindle page, or a beautiful picture of the Aurora Borealis. The record on my feed for one 24hr period is 262 tweets, with a ratio of around 70/30 crap. You see, one vast difference between Facebook and Twitter is where the Facebook newsfeed sort of picks out the best things to show you from your various friends and liked pages, which means you may miss the odd thing, Twitter gives you EVERYTHING.
In other words, there was enough important or interesting stuff to keep me scrolling and actually reading, as well as enough rubbish to just make me want to close the account. I've since learned that apparently the way to truly use Twitter as a news facility is to have an app like Tweetdeck or something sitting open all day on your office computer so you can see the feed in real-time, as opposed to exhaustingly scrolling it on your phone while brushing your teeth at 11pm. In such a way, I can understand how Twitter is a massively useful service for news producers and media. Only problem with that is, being a mobile Handyman, I don't work at a desk all day. So using Twitter in real-time for me is unobtainable, even if I wanted to. Just means I get a tweet from an ABC Radio host saying, "an interview with [insert famous person or politician] is live on air right now", five hours after the interview occurred. But as I say, it is still very useful for chatting to people directly, which can be fun... if maybe a little annoying for the recipient. (Sorry Belinda. I tweet because I care. :) )
By the way, I once did a "Know Your Promotional Skill Level" quiz on the Interwebs, that basically asked me questions to suss out how good I was at selling myself and my books. I got most of the questions right, but one of the ones I got wrong was one relating to Twitter. It said something like, "How frequently should you tweet? A: Every hour? B: Once a day? C: 2 - 3 times a week?" I answered 2 to 3 times a week, because at the time I was completely over being bombarded with other people's tweets about nothing, and as a rule that's the rate I'm comfortable tweeting at. I was wrong. Apparently, the correct answer was A: Every hour.
Every bloody hour?? No wonder I was getting bombarded, if that's what the experts are telling people to do. There are people following me that have 25,000 other people that they follow. If every one of those nutters did that quiz and decided to ramp up their profile, that would amount to a total of 500,000 tweets a day! A bloke would do nothing else but sit at a computer all day reading tweets about how cold some lady's toes are because of the snow falling in Istanbul. That's not a life. And the bit that got me the most was, the thing gave me advice at the end saying that I should consider purchasing a third party app that can automate my tweets for me to "boost my market penetration". So I could send out a tweet saying "Buy my book here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/259889?ref=damienlmalcolm " over and over again, every single hour, 24 hours a day. Wow, I'm sure my followers are going to be right into that! I've had that sort of thing in my newsfeed before, and it sucks. In fact, now if I get that, I report it as spam. And I've since un-followed most of my Twitter-friends, the ones I actually don't find any interest in, and thankfully reduced my feed down to manageable levels.
Facebook, on the other hand, ticks every box. I keep my friends down to only people I actually know, I run a page for my first book, another for my local Handyman business which gets great response from customers, and I leave most of my private page open to the public as a bit of an author thing for followers. Facebook's newsfeed scrolls at a comfortable pace, allowing a busy bloke to just pop in once or twice a day for five to ten minutes at a time while hoeing down some lunch between jobs. I can whack up a photo easily (not of my lunch!) and it keeps me abreast of the goings-on. It's great for funnies. Of course the peaceful harmony I speak of can also be abused by some, which leads to addiction. The average young person seems to have around 800 friends on Facebook, and I once saw a profile of a fella that had 2,500 friends and liked 27,000 pages! What's the point in that? If I post something on my page, a bloke like that is never going to see it. My post would be buried under a mountain of who knows what, and unless he checks his feed literally every single waking minute of his day, he'd simply never keep up. Bloody nuts!
From a promotional point of view, Facebook is good in the way that I can rig up a small ad and target it directly to my audience, who then receive a small box at the side of their page with a pic of my book in it. The ads are, for the most part, unobtrusive but focused, meaning my meagre advertising budget is being spent efficiently and it's not going out to people who would only be annoyed by it. Like Twitter, Facebook also lets you talk directly with some people, though if it's a famous person you're wanting to chat to, chances are they're actually paying someone else to manage their page for them and you're not really taking to the stars themselves.
I've never tried out the other social networking sites that seem to be springing up like weeds in a farmer's paddock. There used to be Bebo, there are old narrow-band ones like Myspace and Linkedin, and there are all these new weird little chat things I keep hearing about. But really, there's no point me checking out any of them. Between having a family, running a business, writing books, keeping up with current social sites and occasionally scribbling out something on this blog, this bloke's just a little too busy to need any extra commitments right now. Speaking of which, it's time I nodded off.
Please feel free to let me know what social networks you use most, and what you think of them. Agree with my views? Disagree? Tell me how you feel in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Thursday, 15 August 2013
Nudey Rudey & A Little Dr Who
G'day,
I'm going to share something with the world that may come across as a little scary... or exciting, depending on what side of the fence you sit on. Are you ready?
I sleep starkers.
Yep. In the raw, naked, nude, bare, au natural. And while some of you may now be looking at my profile picture in the right column there and thinking such things as,
I feel I need to break it to you that it's not that unusual. According to Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs, 31% of men sleep sans clothing, and almost 14% of women. Apparently, sleeping in your birthday suit is even supposed to be good for you. Haven't read up on that theory, but Amen I subscribe! So now that I've let the rabid possum out of the bag and he's scratched your hand and bit a finger or two, allow me to help your visualisations by saying I naturally have little to no body hair and distinctly sexy white-to-brown transition marks where my sleeves and socks end. (Insert wolf-whistle here)
And after you've just come back from watching 15 mins of Nightmare On Elm Street 2 just to clear your mind's eye of those images, you're probably wondering why in the universe am I writing this down for the world to see. Well, this is kind of like all my other writing: I don't know yet because I haven't written it. Don't knock it; it's a good method, as it keeps the author on his/her toes at all times. Nothing forms suspense like never knowing what's around the corner. But I digress. What I can tell you is what got me thinking about this topic. It was hearing for only the hundredth time somebody say, "If you sleep naked, what would you do if there was a fire?"
What would I do if there was a fire? Get the bloody hell out of the house, of course! Who gives a flying bazzoo whether your wearing porky-pig PJs or not when you're about to get your butt-hairs singed? You're about to die in a raging inferno; you get out. Simple. So what if old Mrs Mable from across the road sees you in your nuddy. It's nothing she hasn't seen before... especially if she owns a good pair of binoculars and you never close your blinds. I think getting out alive is more important than your ego/pride/embarrassment, don't you?
Every other creature on this lovely world of ours goes around in the buff, and it's only our own "civilised" human attitudes standing in the way of a good open moon. I was actually typing away happily a few weeks ago with the TV on in the background for some mood noise, when I looked up for a breather (it was a heavy action scene I was scratching down at the time) and found three people, 2 blokes and a young lady, slogging away in their kitchen, totally nekkid. Apparently they run a vegan cooking blog where they posts recipes and photos of their culinary escapades wearing nothing but aprons, oven mitts and cheekily broad smiles. They do all of this to promote nudity as a conduit for young people to be proud of their bodies. Apart from the obvious reason, I think it's great. It speaks to a much wider issue too.
Somehow, my generation has come into this world with a warped sense of themselves. I'm not really sure if all the shinks in the world could explain it, either. Whether it be photo-shopped images in magazines, pornos and the internet (Notice I group those two together. What? You don't?) or maybe just the obesity crisis gripping the western nations, the human race has a giant collective self-esteem problem. For those not in the know, that's psycho-babble for we don't love ourselves. What's not to love. As the great Doctor says, "Humans are amazing!" And you know what? We are.
(For those of you that have no idea of who I'm referring to when I say "Doctor", I'm sorry. I truly am. You are missing out on only the greatest TV show to grace the airwaves. And if you do watch the show and still didn't pick up on it, shame on you! You call yourself a fan?)
So, moral of the story? Be true to yourself. And not just in the air-fairy way that they tell you to in those hippy camps. I mean really. Because if you can't love that roly-poly pasty-white skinny-dipping vessel of beauty, then how the heck can you expect anyone else to? I've never seen you naked, but I reckon you're a bit of alright, and so should you. I'm proud of my nud-sleeping every night, even when the temp outside drops as low as minus 10.... (just a bit harder to find little mate when I got to pee, is all.)
This world needs more starky-sharkers. And I'm doing my bit for the team. Tonight, why don't you don the rudey and make a stand. Nude is beautiful.
Till next time,
-Damien.
I'm going to share something with the world that may come across as a little scary... or exciting, depending on what side of the fence you sit on. Are you ready?
I sleep starkers.
Yep. In the raw, naked, nude, bare, au natural. And while some of you may now be looking at my profile picture in the right column there and thinking such things as,
- "So what? I didn't need to know that. Eew. It's completely put my off buying his books now.", or
- "Ohh, how exciting." (Snigger) "Now I'm going to buy every book this hot fella puts out!" (cough, splutter choke), or
- "Who gives a horse-riding S*&#?", or even
- "Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm never going to sleep again!"
I feel I need to break it to you that it's not that unusual. According to Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs, 31% of men sleep sans clothing, and almost 14% of women. Apparently, sleeping in your birthday suit is even supposed to be good for you. Haven't read up on that theory, but Amen I subscribe! So now that I've let the rabid possum out of the bag and he's scratched your hand and bit a finger or two, allow me to help your visualisations by saying I naturally have little to no body hair and distinctly sexy white-to-brown transition marks where my sleeves and socks end. (Insert wolf-whistle here)
And after you've just come back from watching 15 mins of Nightmare On Elm Street 2 just to clear your mind's eye of those images, you're probably wondering why in the universe am I writing this down for the world to see. Well, this is kind of like all my other writing: I don't know yet because I haven't written it. Don't knock it; it's a good method, as it keeps the author on his/her toes at all times. Nothing forms suspense like never knowing what's around the corner. But I digress. What I can tell you is what got me thinking about this topic. It was hearing for only the hundredth time somebody say, "If you sleep naked, what would you do if there was a fire?"
What would I do if there was a fire? Get the bloody hell out of the house, of course! Who gives a flying bazzoo whether your wearing porky-pig PJs or not when you're about to get your butt-hairs singed? You're about to die in a raging inferno; you get out. Simple. So what if old Mrs Mable from across the road sees you in your nuddy. It's nothing she hasn't seen before... especially if she owns a good pair of binoculars and you never close your blinds. I think getting out alive is more important than your ego/pride/embarrassment, don't you?
Every other creature on this lovely world of ours goes around in the buff, and it's only our own "civilised" human attitudes standing in the way of a good open moon. I was actually typing away happily a few weeks ago with the TV on in the background for some mood noise, when I looked up for a breather (it was a heavy action scene I was scratching down at the time) and found three people, 2 blokes and a young lady, slogging away in their kitchen, totally nekkid. Apparently they run a vegan cooking blog where they posts recipes and photos of their culinary escapades wearing nothing but aprons, oven mitts and cheekily broad smiles. They do all of this to promote nudity as a conduit for young people to be proud of their bodies. Apart from the obvious reason, I think it's great. It speaks to a much wider issue too.
Somehow, my generation has come into this world with a warped sense of themselves. I'm not really sure if all the shinks in the world could explain it, either. Whether it be photo-shopped images in magazines, pornos and the internet (Notice I group those two together. What? You don't?) or maybe just the obesity crisis gripping the western nations, the human race has a giant collective self-esteem problem. For those not in the know, that's psycho-babble for we don't love ourselves. What's not to love. As the great Doctor says, "Humans are amazing!" And you know what? We are.
(For those of you that have no idea of who I'm referring to when I say "Doctor", I'm sorry. I truly am. You are missing out on only the greatest TV show to grace the airwaves. And if you do watch the show and still didn't pick up on it, shame on you! You call yourself a fan?)
So, moral of the story? Be true to yourself. And not just in the air-fairy way that they tell you to in those hippy camps. I mean really. Because if you can't love that roly-poly pasty-white skinny-dipping vessel of beauty, then how the heck can you expect anyone else to? I've never seen you naked, but I reckon you're a bit of alright, and so should you. I'm proud of my nud-sleeping every night, even when the temp outside drops as low as minus 10.... (just a bit harder to find little mate when I got to pee, is all.)
This world needs more starky-sharkers. And I'm doing my bit for the team. Tonight, why don't you don the rudey and make a stand. Nude is beautiful.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Sunday, 4 August 2013
Religion? Science? Why not both?
G'day,
I was waddling down the street the other day back toward my work ute, when I ran into a nice lady, who was full of compliments about my Handyman business and writing career. She may have been interested because my ute looks like this:
Ahhh, pretty... Ehm, anyway, after complimenting me, which was nice, she then proceeded to invite me to the church that she was going to, located in an office building several metres down the road. I was on my way home at the time, so politely declined. However, I think she must have got the wrong idea, because she started trying to promote the Church and word of God right there on the street. She pointed out that my book was science fiction, and proceeded to tell me that science had it all wrong, the evolution from monkeys theory was poppycock and that my relationship with Jesus was all that mattered. Like, whoa ma'am, slow down.
Before continuing here, please allow me to outlay my own personal beliefs in a brief, hopefully non-offending way. Out the outset, I consider myself a science-minded person, but with an open awareness of things not yet explained by that science. I consider myself a spiritual person, NOT religious. And yes, there is a distinction. Being "spiritual", as I understand it means that you have a personal awareness and belief in a higher consciousness above oneself. Being in a religion means that there is a man-made and controlled institution relaying the rules of that belief, and giving guidance and community connection that aids a person in that faith. Nothing wrong with religion, per-say, it's just not for me. I have no interest in being "guided" by anyone, which is simply a quirk of my own personality. I don't drink, smoke or take drugs, the only woman I sleep with is my wife and I treat my fellow man/woman with respect, honour and equality. I don't need guidance to do any of that; it comes natural. :-) I place absolutely NO judgement on any religion, nor the people that follow them. In fact, when one ignores the continuous list of religious wars over the last 3000 years and considers that one primary role of religion throughout human history has been to keep developing societies on the straight and narrow as we grew, learned and expanded, it really has the capacity to do some good.
Now that's cleared up, back to the point. So when this nice lady was giving me the religious sales pitch, I politely held back all that I had to say, and simply left without giving away anything but an awkward smile. But afterward, it got me thinking. People like her are often so eager to berate the image of science because of its supposedly anti-God stance. Very true; science often does seem to disprove the majority of bible. However this is mostly just by accident, through the results that they acquire from their experiments and observations. While there are specific scientists we could mention that go out of their way to carp on religion (cough... splutter.... Dawkins... achoo!), I really don't think that science as a whole is out to prove there is no God. The role of science is simply to discover the world around us through practical application of proposed theories. No sinister plots there. I'm sorry if I sound mean when I say it, but the ignorance of this particular lady when it comes to such things like science showed up badly. And that's fine. I mean, I'm ignorant when it comes to flying a plane, so put me in a cockpit and I'm a-gonna crash! But the thing is, because I know I'm ignorant when it comes to flying that plane, you would not catch me in that cockpit. I stick to, and make judgements on, only the things I know about. Telling me outright, with no conversational back up that "science is pure nonsense, never amounted to anything substantial. God is the only REAL thing in this world, and your relationship with Him is the only thing that matters", is not accurate, informed or even slightly convincing. God, or your particular religion's version of Him, has never been proved, or disproved, by anyone. Not by me, her, you, that lady's pastor, the pope or ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING on this planet. No one can really argue with that. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes not one person here an expert on the matter. In fact, the only fella that is an expert on whether God exists, is God Himself. Anyone got His phone number? I've got free minutes; I'll give Him call and ask.
The only reason that anyone is in a religion is that they believe God exists. That word - believe - means that you have faith that something is, even in the absence of proof. By that very definition, that particular lady had no authority to say those things, no more than I have any authority to tell her that God doesn't exist, (which if you've been paying attention you'll know I don't feel that way. I'm easy either way) The about section of my personal facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm/about ) in the "Basic Information" section, pretty much sums up what I feel this whole thing. I've quoted the first part of it below:
"We are all interconnected and a part of this universe."
Does that not say it all? Isn't that the basic sum of the everything we have - and continue to - learn from science, as well as the teachings of every single religion? I know that is the main thing Jesus taught in his time on this world, as well as Budda and every other religious icon I could name. It's kind of simple, when you think about it, while at the same time being rather incredibly incomprehensible. Science tells us that the very atoms that make up our bodies, and everything around us, came from the heart of a star that died billions of years ago. We're all made of stardust. Romantic, no? Every religion has it's own story regarding our creation, but in a way they all boil down to a similar starting point. Heck, we'll never really know; nobody can ever go there to see for themselves. (Dr Who, where are you? We need to borrow the TARDIS for a mo, please.)
Though, if you will allow me just a little judgement, I think people that still believe the bible calculations - that this world and its people having only been around for 6000 years or so - are sadly still choosing blind faith over asking questions and learning new things. Faith is good; Blind faith is not. Does anyone honestly believe that massive natural structures like the Grand Canyon could really have been just conjured up in a few thousand years? Or fossils, have we got carbon and radio dating all wrong? Did dinosaurs walk the Earth only a few hundred years ago and we just missed it? Or maybe, it's all a hoax. I've actually had this exact discussion with a devout religious person before, and when he was unable to marry the facts, he simply fell back on old faithful: God works in mysterious ways. Sound familiar? That's because it's the Human way of ending an argument when no logical explanation is achievable. It's like when you tell your child off, they answer back and say "why", and you've got no real reason so you just come back with "because I said so". It's simply a cop out because we don't know. Compared to any higher power, be it God, a name-less ethereal presence or ancient planet-seeding aliens, we are too simple-minded to comprehend it. But one thing has been proven without a doubt: this world and the things on it are real, as is it's apparent age. That's true whether you or I believe it. The Earth has a history that stretches far back before the human race ever existed, or if you will, plonked here by God, and will continue on long after we are gone and have taken all our religious beliefs with it. Sorry everyone, but we are simply not that special.
So, getting back a bit, if we're really all made from the same stuff, and linked somehow because of it, why do we need to dwell on our differences? Why does science and religion have to be mutually exclusive? Crickey, why do religions have to be mutually exclusive from each other?! That lady that started my rant here was inviting me to a small pup-church. One that's been started up by a pastor and a few volunteers that doesn't have its own place of worship, so they hire out an office building on Sundays. Nothing really wrong with that, except that it's only one of at least four or five of those exact same things that have popped up in my small town over recent years. Why on Earth would Christianity need so many off-shoots from within itself on one tiny area? Are they not all praising the same Lord, pretty much the same way? If religion is supposed to be such a communal thing, why would they have such a desire to be separate? Maybe that is just the nature of the Human race nowadays, as we all continue to drift apart. Who knows? But, I do ask the question. Because if no one asks the question, we'll never get the answers. You're born asking questions; why should it ever stop?
I finish this long monologue by saying openly that I am sorry if I offended in any way with what I've said. If I have, that was never my intention. I simply try to look at and analyse life through a wide angle lens, which I feel would be a good thing for everyone to do. It generates respect for others and their beliefs, allowing you more patience and tolerance; two things this world as a whole is lacking, big time. They say in an interview, it's the first thirty seconds that sets the interviewer's opinion of you. Well, I don't know about you, but who I am as a person covers a whole lot more than you're going to see in thirty seconds. Look at me though a wide-angle lens and you see a whole different picture. It's the same for that person that you have five seconds of eye-contact with at the traffic lights tomorrow on your way to work, for that family member lying in bed asleep beside you, and your boss who's been more cranky than usual this week. Everyone has more to themselves than you see in your first thirty seconds. We all have our ups and downs, and our moments, but through all of that I will always strive to use that wide-lens and ask more questions. It's the least I can do. Can you?
Hey and by the way, it doesn't have to be a monologue; we can have a dialogue. I welcome comments, and feel free to ask questions or put forward you own opinion. Just please don't be offensive.
Thanks for reading,
Till next time,
-Damien
I was waddling down the street the other day back toward my work ute, when I ran into a nice lady, who was full of compliments about my Handyman business and writing career. She may have been interested because my ute looks like this:
Ahhh, pretty... Ehm, anyway, after complimenting me, which was nice, she then proceeded to invite me to the church that she was going to, located in an office building several metres down the road. I was on my way home at the time, so politely declined. However, I think she must have got the wrong idea, because she started trying to promote the Church and word of God right there on the street. She pointed out that my book was science fiction, and proceeded to tell me that science had it all wrong, the evolution from monkeys theory was poppycock and that my relationship with Jesus was all that mattered. Like, whoa ma'am, slow down.
Before continuing here, please allow me to outlay my own personal beliefs in a brief, hopefully non-offending way. Out the outset, I consider myself a science-minded person, but with an open awareness of things not yet explained by that science. I consider myself a spiritual person, NOT religious. And yes, there is a distinction. Being "spiritual", as I understand it means that you have a personal awareness and belief in a higher consciousness above oneself. Being in a religion means that there is a man-made and controlled institution relaying the rules of that belief, and giving guidance and community connection that aids a person in that faith. Nothing wrong with religion, per-say, it's just not for me. I have no interest in being "guided" by anyone, which is simply a quirk of my own personality. I don't drink, smoke or take drugs, the only woman I sleep with is my wife and I treat my fellow man/woman with respect, honour and equality. I don't need guidance to do any of that; it comes natural. :-) I place absolutely NO judgement on any religion, nor the people that follow them. In fact, when one ignores the continuous list of religious wars over the last 3000 years and considers that one primary role of religion throughout human history has been to keep developing societies on the straight and narrow as we grew, learned and expanded, it really has the capacity to do some good.
Now that's cleared up, back to the point. So when this nice lady was giving me the religious sales pitch, I politely held back all that I had to say, and simply left without giving away anything but an awkward smile. But afterward, it got me thinking. People like her are often so eager to berate the image of science because of its supposedly anti-God stance. Very true; science often does seem to disprove the majority of bible. However this is mostly just by accident, through the results that they acquire from their experiments and observations. While there are specific scientists we could mention that go out of their way to carp on religion (cough... splutter.... Dawkins... achoo!), I really don't think that science as a whole is out to prove there is no God. The role of science is simply to discover the world around us through practical application of proposed theories. No sinister plots there. I'm sorry if I sound mean when I say it, but the ignorance of this particular lady when it comes to such things like science showed up badly. And that's fine. I mean, I'm ignorant when it comes to flying a plane, so put me in a cockpit and I'm a-gonna crash! But the thing is, because I know I'm ignorant when it comes to flying that plane, you would not catch me in that cockpit. I stick to, and make judgements on, only the things I know about. Telling me outright, with no conversational back up that "science is pure nonsense, never amounted to anything substantial. God is the only REAL thing in this world, and your relationship with Him is the only thing that matters", is not accurate, informed or even slightly convincing. God, or your particular religion's version of Him, has never been proved, or disproved, by anyone. Not by me, her, you, that lady's pastor, the pope or ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING on this planet. No one can really argue with that. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes not one person here an expert on the matter. In fact, the only fella that is an expert on whether God exists, is God Himself. Anyone got His phone number? I've got free minutes; I'll give Him call and ask.
The only reason that anyone is in a religion is that they believe God exists. That word - believe - means that you have faith that something is, even in the absence of proof. By that very definition, that particular lady had no authority to say those things, no more than I have any authority to tell her that God doesn't exist, (which if you've been paying attention you'll know I don't feel that way. I'm easy either way) The about section of my personal facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/damienlmalcolm/about ) in the "Basic Information" section, pretty much sums up what I feel this whole thing. I've quoted the first part of it below:
"We are all interconnected and a part of this universe."
Does that not say it all? Isn't that the basic sum of the everything we have - and continue to - learn from science, as well as the teachings of every single religion? I know that is the main thing Jesus taught in his time on this world, as well as Budda and every other religious icon I could name. It's kind of simple, when you think about it, while at the same time being rather incredibly incomprehensible. Science tells us that the very atoms that make up our bodies, and everything around us, came from the heart of a star that died billions of years ago. We're all made of stardust. Romantic, no? Every religion has it's own story regarding our creation, but in a way they all boil down to a similar starting point. Heck, we'll never really know; nobody can ever go there to see for themselves. (Dr Who, where are you? We need to borrow the TARDIS for a mo, please.)
Though, if you will allow me just a little judgement, I think people that still believe the bible calculations - that this world and its people having only been around for 6000 years or so - are sadly still choosing blind faith over asking questions and learning new things. Faith is good; Blind faith is not. Does anyone honestly believe that massive natural structures like the Grand Canyon could really have been just conjured up in a few thousand years? Or fossils, have we got carbon and radio dating all wrong? Did dinosaurs walk the Earth only a few hundred years ago and we just missed it? Or maybe, it's all a hoax. I've actually had this exact discussion with a devout religious person before, and when he was unable to marry the facts, he simply fell back on old faithful: God works in mysterious ways. Sound familiar? That's because it's the Human way of ending an argument when no logical explanation is achievable. It's like when you tell your child off, they answer back and say "why", and you've got no real reason so you just come back with "because I said so". It's simply a cop out because we don't know. Compared to any higher power, be it God, a name-less ethereal presence or ancient planet-seeding aliens, we are too simple-minded to comprehend it. But one thing has been proven without a doubt: this world and the things on it are real, as is it's apparent age. That's true whether you or I believe it. The Earth has a history that stretches far back before the human race ever existed, or if you will, plonked here by God, and will continue on long after we are gone and have taken all our religious beliefs with it. Sorry everyone, but we are simply not that special.
So, getting back a bit, if we're really all made from the same stuff, and linked somehow because of it, why do we need to dwell on our differences? Why does science and religion have to be mutually exclusive? Crickey, why do religions have to be mutually exclusive from each other?! That lady that started my rant here was inviting me to a small pup-church. One that's been started up by a pastor and a few volunteers that doesn't have its own place of worship, so they hire out an office building on Sundays. Nothing really wrong with that, except that it's only one of at least four or five of those exact same things that have popped up in my small town over recent years. Why on Earth would Christianity need so many off-shoots from within itself on one tiny area? Are they not all praising the same Lord, pretty much the same way? If religion is supposed to be such a communal thing, why would they have such a desire to be separate? Maybe that is just the nature of the Human race nowadays, as we all continue to drift apart. Who knows? But, I do ask the question. Because if no one asks the question, we'll never get the answers. You're born asking questions; why should it ever stop?
I finish this long monologue by saying openly that I am sorry if I offended in any way with what I've said. If I have, that was never my intention. I simply try to look at and analyse life through a wide angle lens, which I feel would be a good thing for everyone to do. It generates respect for others and their beliefs, allowing you more patience and tolerance; two things this world as a whole is lacking, big time. They say in an interview, it's the first thirty seconds that sets the interviewer's opinion of you. Well, I don't know about you, but who I am as a person covers a whole lot more than you're going to see in thirty seconds. Look at me though a wide-angle lens and you see a whole different picture. It's the same for that person that you have five seconds of eye-contact with at the traffic lights tomorrow on your way to work, for that family member lying in bed asleep beside you, and your boss who's been more cranky than usual this week. Everyone has more to themselves than you see in your first thirty seconds. We all have our ups and downs, and our moments, but through all of that I will always strive to use that wide-lens and ask more questions. It's the least I can do. Can you?
Hey and by the way, it doesn't have to be a monologue; we can have a dialogue. I welcome comments, and feel free to ask questions or put forward you own opinion. Just please don't be offensive.
Thanks for reading,
Till next time,
-Damien
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Recent Book Results
Lately, I've just been blown away by the massive developments in my first book, Winchester: Saviour.
It all started last week, when I made the decision to put the first half of it up for free for 5 days on Amazon Kindle. When I first looked at the stats the first day into the promo, I was ecstatic to see 4 people had downloaded it. Then day two the number was 57, then 69, then 84!
Around about then, it dawned on this small-brained nutter that the report I was looking at was only for Amazon.com, as in the US, Australia and other countries without their own site. So I scrolled the drop menu and found that 20 people from Germany, same from the UK and even one person from Canada had also downloaded the free Part 1 ebook.
When it was finally over, on my 31st Birthday five days later, a huge 199 people had grabbed a copy of my book from all over the world! I couldn't contain my happiness. And from that 199, I hope that at least the majority like it and take a moment to place a review on Amazon, and Goodreads if signed up. Every little bit helps.
Then, only days after that exciting week, I happened to do a websearch for Winchester: Saviour, just to keep abreast of any happenings out there in the big wide inter-world, and what do I find? Ticking the "Expanded Distribution" box on my paperback publication set up with CreateSpace has paid off big time. Winchester: Saviour, in soft cover/paperback, is officially available in just about every single online book retailer known to man, word wide.
You can actually log on to your favourite book e-store from wherever you are on this planet and purchase a copy of my first published book to hold in your very own hands.
Please allow me to pause a moment and slap myself to make sure I'm not dreaming! And look, honestly, while I may never sell a single copy from any of these stores (though it would be great if I did!) just the fact that my writing has gone from an aging file on my computer, surviving with me through car crashes, relocations, job upheavals and family alterations for sixteen years, to being a published, 5 star rated (on Smashwords, by Cecil. Check it out.) paperback novel is just so, so amazing. In fact, despite being a writer, I find it difficult to really put words to the feeling.
Perhaps there's only one thing to say. Thank you. For the support, encouragement, faith in me... and Cecil, for your review, mate. Thanks a lot for that, whoever you may be.
Till next time,
-Damien.
It all started last week, when I made the decision to put the first half of it up for free for 5 days on Amazon Kindle. When I first looked at the stats the first day into the promo, I was ecstatic to see 4 people had downloaded it. Then day two the number was 57, then 69, then 84!
Around about then, it dawned on this small-brained nutter that the report I was looking at was only for Amazon.com, as in the US, Australia and other countries without their own site. So I scrolled the drop menu and found that 20 people from Germany, same from the UK and even one person from Canada had also downloaded the free Part 1 ebook.
When it was finally over, on my 31st Birthday five days later, a huge 199 people had grabbed a copy of my book from all over the world! I couldn't contain my happiness. And from that 199, I hope that at least the majority like it and take a moment to place a review on Amazon, and Goodreads if signed up. Every little bit helps.
Then, only days after that exciting week, I happened to do a websearch for Winchester: Saviour, just to keep abreast of any happenings out there in the big wide inter-world, and what do I find? Ticking the "Expanded Distribution" box on my paperback publication set up with CreateSpace has paid off big time. Winchester: Saviour, in soft cover/paperback, is officially available in just about every single online book retailer known to man, word wide.
You can actually log on to your favourite book e-store from wherever you are on this planet and purchase a copy of my first published book to hold in your very own hands.
Please allow me to pause a moment and slap myself to make sure I'm not dreaming! And look, honestly, while I may never sell a single copy from any of these stores (though it would be great if I did!) just the fact that my writing has gone from an aging file on my computer, surviving with me through car crashes, relocations, job upheavals and family alterations for sixteen years, to being a published, 5 star rated (on Smashwords, by Cecil. Check it out.) paperback novel is just so, so amazing. In fact, despite being a writer, I find it difficult to really put words to the feeling.
Perhaps there's only one thing to say. Thank you. For the support, encouragement, faith in me... and Cecil, for your review, mate. Thanks a lot for that, whoever you may be.
Till next time,
-Damien.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)