Or, I’m not looking for anything in particular.

I have been being, perpetuating, persisting, existing, graduating, not studying, working, earning, holidaying, planning holidays. I find myself not listening to music a lot. I find myself unintentionally forgetting to put music on when I could but also sometimes leaving it off in the car. Despite being on call for work I’ve had a very enjoyable non-writing period.

It is now that I’m wondering what part of anything that I have to say is worth pushing the ‘publish’ button for. Easily, I could instead write this somewhere else, just for me to reflect on. Let’s call this part of my identity for the time being.

I suppose what this medium really is for is for insight. If you’re not bored thus far by wall-of-text (albeit a modest wall) it’s probably because you know me and you’re thinking that I might have written something interesting. Maybe you identify with someone who doesn’t quite know what they’re doing. What insight I have to present the world with right now is: nothing.

I don’t think I’m without intuition. I probably consider it to be one of my greatest gifts. But what could I tell you? We have life and we are to enjoy it as we see fit. In a way, what I am insightful of is larger and more simple than previously. For me, this is very very good.

So yeah, nothing to see here folks, move along. Go on and have a lovely day!

Just me, two computer screens (that I’ve decided would be better arranged one on top of the other), Leah (my dog) when she decides to walk in and say ‘hi’ and an essay to research and write.

It’s getting a little bit colder I think. I’m wearing tracksuit pants, socks and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

The philosophy of Heidegger which I’ve been required to study for this essay has been the most illuminating set of ideas I’ve read since I first started thinking philosophically and looking up theories on Wikipedia. I can’t characterise his argument or even describe why it’s so significant for me, except to say that he’s the only person I’ve ever read who, on the face of it, appears to have given convincing reasons to believe in a god.

In other news, my boyfriend has a blog that looks as if it’s going to have mostly pictures on it. I’m all for content production / sharing, and it’s styled better than my site already, if you’re into design at all.

In other other news, I had a good night being cooked for and beaten in games at Martin’s house last night.

And just because we were talking about Kiwi’s for a time (and so that I can stop writing this and go and research some Heidegger) here’s how to prepare a Kiwi:

I’ve been haphazardly considering quite a few ideas lately. It’s what I do. It’s a part of who I am. I suppose they’re more like unanswered (sometimes unformed) questions than ideas, actually. Questions, such as ‘what am I doing?’, ‘what else could I be doing?’, ‘what can be known about this or that?’. There’s not really anything I don’t analyse once I decide it’s worthwhile.

What’s the point?

Well, the more I know about what immediately effects me, the less I don’t. The more things I consider, the broader my perspective becomes. However, I still miss a lot of really important things. As much as I’d sometimes like, my priorities are probably never going to include becoming all-seeing and all-knowing about my own mediocre getting about. Hence, I doom myself to ineffective musings, and occasional disappointments…

…but that’s not to say that I don’t work anything out, at least as far as something can be considered ‘worked out’ by my awesome, aforementioned, anthill, anorak, ageless methods (sarcasm leads to listing ‘a’ words, obviously).

Anyway (anyhow) attentive (apathetic) readers, working things out works for me, most of the time. And I’m desirous of sharing understandings that I’ve adopted as serviceable truisms for the purposes of just getting about, being me. So, here’s one:

Friends affirm who we are. (Awwww.)

It might as well be true, although there are a couple of conditions, which you can work out, which probably need to be satisfied. This musing goes along with my other caveman based theories. Basically, I heard someone say once that we’re social animals. Sounds like reason enough to believe that we’re somewhat dependent on each other for happiness. Case closed.

I’ll finish by saying that although it might seem like I just unravelled the universe, I didn’t. In fact, you probably already know more about humon (pronounced hew-mon) social behaviour than me. Such are the results of my reflections: being seldomly revelatory. I can’t help but feel though that I’m on to something, maybe; that by playing (insert pop culture investigator reference) and living according to my findings, I just might find something out. Something that transcends to beyond just me.

A catalyst for improved study habits? We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s a pikachu car:

My first ever short post that was just a little too long for twitter.

Today I was going to write about Uni and how it’s been starting a new course and what people have been like there. But then I remembered that the next thing I wanted to write about before anything else is feeds.

Feeds (aka RSS) are a way of keeping up with any websites you follow. Any website or blog or youtube channel you check every now and then (or frequently) has a feed attached to it that updates every time something new is posted. This allows me to get just about everything I’m interested in reading on the internet sent to me as it’s published: TV shows, new youtube videos, news from The Australian (breaking news and Arts news), gadget news from Gizmodo and new posts from other writers who are actual people.

I use Google Reader to manage my feeds.

Just thought I’d mention this and I’ll make the feeds for my blog more public for anyone interested in using this other thing that the internet does to keep up with my sporadic posts.

As I said, I’m writing for anyone who’s interested. It’d be interesting to know who actually reads this. Let me know in person, or in the comments if you feel so inclined.

Nathan.

P.s. I don’t read newspapers mostly out of how inconvenient I find them and I use Google Reader as a substitute for this plus all the other stuff it does. If you want a better explanation as to how to use feeds let me know and I’ll help!

I expect alot^ of the musicians that I listen to and I don’t think that this makes me snobbish.

I think that good music does something that you want it to do.
I think that the best music can leave you somewhere where you didn’t intend to be.

Popular music adheres to popular music conventions.
The best music exploits these conventions of language and of musical quality, rather than being exploitative of it’s audience.

Like the term ‘popular music’, our words for genres are sometimes helpful but altogether are very silly. Couldn’t we use colours instead? I would make Rage Against the Machine a shade of red, maybe brown. And Dizzee Rascal can be purple.

If you like a certain music, err on the side of being humble about your discovery.

I like conversations about music where whoever is talking comes across as authentic in their appreciation. Inordinately deep consideration of this or that band makes for a conversation I’ll particularly enjoy, even if that band is Oasis.

I would like the whole world to not settle for poor music; poor in lyrics, or; poor in the myriad elements that comprise it’s sound.*

I would like bands to exploit the instruments of production that they have available instead of genres (or listeners).

Music is sound, like language.
It’s requiring of literacy for comprehension.
I’d love to know what it is that you don’t like about any song that I do like, especially if you can offer a comparably better song. And to this end, here’s 10 songs which Last.fm says I’ve played alot:

1. Obstacle 1 – Interpol
2. The Pot – Tool
3. Viðrar vel til loftárása – Sigur Rós
4. Map of the Problematique – Muse
5. And I Was A Boy From School – Hot Chip
6. Please – Pete Murray
7. Details of the War – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Pussyole (Old Skool) – Dizzee Rascal
9. A Wolf At The Door (It Girl. Rag Doll) – Radiohead
10. Elephant Gun – Beirut

I think that there are too many well-meaning musicians and listeners in the world for music to ever come down from it’s lofty status as one of the wonders of the world. In a life where I’m unable to worship anything other than what I know to be real (insofar as what I can experience), music has a beauty and an unknowable quality that is, in my opinion, deserving of my considered adoration and contemplation.

Charcoal for Linkin Park?

Nathan.

^I have made ‘alot’ one word.
*Please someone teach me how to use semicolons!

Now that I’ve decided to write this I’ve reached one of those awful times where I can’t recall what the answers were or what it was I wanted wikipedia to tell me. Hmm…

I think I just wanted to know what the people who bother to edit wikipedia think love is because it’s not a terrible starting place for pretty much any topic.

Anyway, I had clever designs for how I was going to convey my message about the title in the rest of this blog but I’ve discovered something in the last however long I’ve been writing for anyone but myself. I’ve discovered that writing to impress or perhaps writing on topics which I’ve lost interest in requires effort which I don’t really want to give. This begs the question: why write in a forced way? Why write at all?

I do want to write. I won’t go into why just now but I’ll finish the rest of this rambling without any more comment about writing itself!

There are some things I don’t understand like love, but there are also things which are beyond comprehension or absolute knowledge (are these the same thing?) in my calculated opinion. I don’t know why or how we’re here. To a further extent, I can’t actually know that you are even real and not just a figment of my imagination, but that’s getting off-topic.

So this is a ‘just in case you were wondering’ entry to let you know what I think about God and religion, written because:

• You might know me and wonder what my opinion is
• You might not know me and wonder what an opinion to adopt might be
• Some people don’t think enough about why or how they’re here (I think it gives you a better perspective)
• I think that adopting or forming an opinion on God and religion allows you to get on with your life and avoid feeling lost or anxious

My opinion is this:

• It is impossible to know whether God exists, therefore I say that he may or may not exist.
• It is therefore also impossible to know whether God is nice, angry, well-meaning or evil.
• I see no reason to believe or assert that he does or doesn’t exist.
• I think it’s also impossible that anyone has ever known God to exist therefore I cannot rely on religious texts.
• I think that all of the world religions that are based on a ‘God’ were likely to have been made up by men or women of power and influence.

I think it’s likely that we actually only have each other and internet smiley faces

With love, Nathan.

My concern is with you: parents and future parents of the world. Some of you are missing the point and some of you don’t even care to know what ‘points’ are (or may in the future if you’re in the parent-to-be category). The degree to which ignorance can dictate your behaviour, relationships and (most importantly) your life is or may already be, for want of a better word, hideous, hurtful and in my view just plain wrong.

I identify a problem here though.
“How do I know what I’m ignorant of?” you might ask.

All I could ask of myself (and therefore anyone else) is perhaps to live with the view that I’m likely ignorant of many things given the limited scope of experience I have and my inherently poor ability as a human to correctly interpret the events and information I do experience.

So, dearest parents and parents-to-be, how is it that I propose you no longer miss points and correctly understand what a ‘point’ is? Hopefully, not by proposing any more questions in that style. No, no more of that. To ward off some of the atrocities that your own ignorance could present, I don’t even propose that you, by some stroke of fortune, miraculously uncover that which you are ignorant of and subsequently rethink your life/relationship/whatever. You as parents, in particular, have access to something which overrides, subsumes (?), negates and all but obliterates anything remotely resembling your own ignorance. You could avoid hurting anyone, ever and (if you were interested) you could transcend your own interpretative ability and be just super good, in god’s eyes or just your own (depending on your preference).

Parents of the world, consider this an impassioned plea:
Love your children.

Nathan.

And so I don’t forget to end what has been an acceptable blog with my point: Sometimes I sacrifice good form for getting to press the publish button because I can’t maintain energy for the topic.

I think it may be time to write those much more exciting topics that I can supply lots of writing energy to.

I read/heard once that ending a sentence with ‘to’ is poor english. Does english need a capital E?

You’ll never guess what I want to study next.

Nathan.