Bartholomew, you must listen to me!
You would stand in the way of science Jeremiah?
I would stand in your way if you truly wish to bring that creature here. To allow that thing within a hundred miles of civilisation? You must see reason! It is a vicious monster that-
-Will open up our understanding of biology, evolution, folklore and our own history! We finally have the basis, the catalyst, of a thousand myths and legends!
Then study it in Romania! Keep it there, in the countryside where it can’t bring woe to anyone!
We both know that it simply isn’t possible Jeremiah. It has to come here. This is where I can study it and later dissect it. I have made preparations. All of my equipment is here. The wine cellar has been converted and the cage I’ve had installed could hold in a lion.
That thing is not a lion, Bartholomew. I’ve hunted lions. That thing is not some simple beast. I saw its intelligence. Even once it was sedated it was still fighting. Did you not see what happened to our guide?
That was unfortunate… but he is not the first to be lost in the pursuit of great things…
…And surely won’t be the last!
At least lions EAT what they kill… Ripped into pieces. It was playing with him… You can’t bring that thing to London!
AS I SAID it will be contained. There is no risk and it has to be done! The things we can learn! Only God knows how long they have lived in those hidden caves in the mountains. It’s obvious from their large eyes and pale skin they have lived down there for millions of years. Perfectly adapted to the dark. The one you captured is a simply beautiful specimen.
It’s an un-godly abomination!
Well its appearance perhaps aided it’s descent into legend. Would we have that great horror novel Dracula by Stoker if these beasts had looked like kittens? Most probably not. It’s easy to see how the uneducated peasants would view it as a demon rather than a fascinating scientific opportunity when they wandered from their mountain homes.
“Wandered from their homes” yes, and then they wandered into the homes of those villagers. You don’t have to be uneducated Bartholomew to see that that creature is from the depths of Hell! I spoke to the locals and they told me tales to chill your bones. Livestock torn up such that they were spread over three fields. People taken in the night. Children, Bartholomew! They told me it PREFERS children…
Ridiculous nonsense! Myths and legends! Yes it does possess very powerful forelimbs and so can… tear flesh with ease but from what I have learnt it has such powerful limbs so that it can climb around its subterranean home. Its diet consists of bats, rats and insects that it hunts in its caves. It may also catch the albino fish that live in the underground lakes. I must try to construct some form of tank to test its fishing abilities…
You’re mad Bartholomew. Totally mad. Test it? It’s far too clever for that. One slip up and it will paint the walls with your guts.
I’m growing tired of your opposition Jeremiah! It is coming here and it will reside in the wine cellar! It is decided and you can’t stop me!
---------------------------
You don’t have to be here Jeremiah and the gun is totally unnecessary.
I can’t, in all good conscience, allow you to interact with that… thing and not take steps to protect the people of this city. One wrong move from that monster and I’m going to fill its brain with lead.
Fine. You sit there. Now don’t interrupt me. If you don’t mind, I shall now take my notes describing its general appearance. Facial features not unlike those of Pteropus vampyrus though perhaps with a shorter snout. Larger eyes than Pteropus vampyrus most probably due to cave dwelling. Large, pointed ears. Pale skin. Very little colouration. Little body hair. Male. Approximately seven feet tall though walks and stands with a bent gait at approximately five feet tall. Uses front forelimbs for locomotion not unlike the gorilla. As observed in its natural habitat, very adept at climbing…
Hung upside down on the cave ceiling tearing strips out of that poor man…
Quiet please! Arms thin but muscular, five feet long ending in five fingered hands. Fingers around six inches long with long claws…
I’ve seen what those claws can do…
Jeremiah be quiet! Shorter legs with five toes… also long claws.
Look at it… It’s watching us. Smelling us. It’s waiting for us to let our guard down.
I will not ask again. Quiet! Now we shall offer it some different foods and see what interests it. We have vegetables, fruit, fish, an assortment of different insects and then some raw beef. If my hypothesis is correct it should be most interested in the fish, the fish being the most common protein source in its cave environment. Ok and in through the slot… ah… well… that is unexpected. I suppose it is an opportunistic hunter and the greatest source of protein here is the beef…
It’s a blood thirsty killer. We already knew that.
Yes, it did attack us, but as you said yourself Jeremiah it didn’t actually EAT the guide. I still believe it was merely frightened and acted in self-defence.
What it did to him was not self-defence Bartholomew. Self-defence doesn’t last half an hour while your attacker screams the entire time. The screams echoing around in that cave… Look! It’s watching us. It’s listening.
Jeremiah, enough! It is an animal. It is not some malevolent hell spawn it’s a new undiscovered species.
It’s a demon!
Demon…
Oh my God…
Bartholomew… It can talk…
This is incredible! It can talk! I wonder… Is this just unintelligent mimicry or is it actually capable of speech? Does it have its own language? What sort of social interactions is it capable of? If only we had captured two we would have been able to see its interactions first hand…
Dear God Bartholomew! This monstrous creature shows it’s capable of speech, of some intelligence, and you wish you had another one! This thing is unholy! It is blasphemous and has even recognised itself as a demon from the pit! I beg of you, we must destroy it and leave them well enough alone. Leave them to rot in their caves!
Caves... Home...
…Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…
Shut up Jeremiah! Pathetic! I am a man of science! I see a whole new vista of knowledge opening up before us, of untapped knowledge, and you are content to run and hide behind your Lord?! Fool! My name will echo through the ages. My work will be exulted. I will bring this creature from the darkness of ignorance and… and… What is it doing? What are you doing?
It’s trying to break out! Oh Christ!
Home….
It can’t get out.
It’s trying to get out! I have to kill it!
No! Don’t! That cage is steel! It can’t possibly get out!
Kill…
It’s too strong! It’s going to get out! It’s going to kill us all! *Bang*
You buffoon Jeremiah! You’ve shot out the lights! It’s pitch black now! It can’t possibly escape anyway. Like I said, the cage is steel! I have some matches and candles somewhere in here. Hold on I’ll find them.
I’m sorry, Bartholomew. I must of panicked and the gun fired.
Look. It’s ok. I understand. It is rather monstrous to behold it’s true but, you know, nature is red in tooth and claw. I imagine that when man first saw the tiger it was much the same. You’ve filled your mind with the stories and legends attached to this thing. Vampires, demons, monsters… It’s all simple folk tales to explain what they couldn’t explain. Now we can study it for what it is. Where are those blasted candles?
Yes… Vampires, demons, monsters… I prefer this dark. The light is always so bright. It hurts my eyes.
Really? I was under the impression that the experience in the caves had somewhat… affected you. I have no business prying but I have noticed that you always return home from the club before the sun has set… I’m… I’m sorry about what happened. It was horrible to witness. I’m not as cold as you think I am. I am a man of science. I do not put stock in emotional outbursts but… I am also human. I… I was also affected. I have had nightmares. I see it over again. The dark… Those caves… Where are those candles!?
The caves… yes. Home…
I’m sorry...? What did you say?
I said… Home….
Oh… Oh no… Jeremiah…?
Kill…
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Friday, 22 July 2016
Test Number 41
The man woke with a start. As he shook the haze of sleep
from his head, he dimly became aware of his surroundings. He looked around the
spotless apartment. Everything was neat, modern and ordered. He had a weird
metallic taste in his mouth. “It might be blood” he thought out loud though he
had no idea why he would be bleeding and it seemed to be slightly off from the
taste of blood. He swung his legs over the side and rolled out of bed. He
stumbled the short distance to the pristine white bathroom and stared into the
mirror above the basin. Pulling at his lips, he checked round his mouth and
along his gums but there was no blood. He brushed his teeth, checking his spit
for red which he didn’t see, but even with sparkling teeth and fresh breath the
metallic taste wouldn’t leave him. Anyway, the man had no time to ponder
unexplained tastes, he had to get to work. The bus would be arriving at the end
of the road in 20 minutes and he wasn’t changed yet. He threw on his clothes,
tossing the shirt he slept in onto the smooth, dust-free floor. Quickly
collecting together everything he needed for work (apple for lunch, wallet, watch,
keys, phone), the man fell out of the door and ambled down the street. He could
see someone already waiting at the stop. A blonde haired woman holding a
shopping bag was staring around the left hand corner of the street looking out for
the coming bus. The road was empty and the surrounding houses were quiet and
bland. The man reached the stop and stood waiting for the bus exchanging no
words with the blonde haired woman.
Some minutes past and the bus finally crawled its way around the corner. The man watched the bus come to a standstill and the door slid open but the blonde woman hadn’t moved. She continued to stare down the road and seemed oblivious to the bus that had just arrived. The man hesitated then slipped past her and onto the bus, fishing some change out of his pocket as he stepped up. The bus driver turned and fixed the man with a stare that wasn’t particularly warm but wasn’t really all that cold either. “Two fifty.” The bus driver’s voice was clipped and nasal. His stare never faltered. The man plonked his change down on the little tray (which came to exactly 2.50) and tried to avoid the bus driver’s eyes as he waited for the machine to spit out his ticket. He took it and hurried to a seat near the back of the bus. There was only one other person on the bus and he appeared to be talking to himself. He was a well-dressed businessman in a suit and tie and he seemed to be having a conversation with an invisible person. Trying to ignore the businessman, the man looked down at his watch but it seemed to be broken. The little LCD screen simply read 00:00. He thought this was strange but was soon distracted by the businessman who was still happily chatting away with the empty air. The businessman was sat 4 rows in front in an aisle seat, the seat next to him, by the window, was completely unoccupied which didn’t seem to have any effect on the flow of the conversation. “Really? For that long? That is unbelievable. He was never like that around me... Yeah I suppose you are right. So did you ever hear back from that place up in the North? Where was it again?... Oh yeah that was it…” and so it continued.
The man watched in fascination as this half conversation played out. He could still taste metal on his tongue and it seemed to be getting stronger. At this point something quite unexpected happened. The talking businessman changed seats. That is, he didn’t get up and walk to a new seat he simply… ‘jumped’. Moved. Phased. One moment he was 4 rows in front and suddenly he was only 3 rows ahead. The half-conversation continued with no interruption. The man’s jaw had dropped and his hands were clasping the seat in front of him. How was this possible? How had the businessman teleported like that? It was at this point the man realised the bus still hadn’t set off from the stop, the door was still open and the blonde woman was still looking out for the bus that had already arrived. The metallic taste stung his throat. Everything felt wrong. He looked out the window at the bland, identical houses. The man’s breathing came quick and shallow. Where was it that he worked again? The lights on the bus were too bright. The seat in front of him that he had been clutching felt like play-doh. His hands sunk into the material as the incessantly droning businessman jumped back another row of seats. The man tried to scream as the walls, floor and ceiling of the bus, including the houses and street outside began to distend, melt and distort but the metallic taste filled his mouth to choking. Everything was melting into blackness, into a void now except for the seats of the bus and the businessman. He jumped back another row. He was now only one row in front of the man. One more jump and he would be right next to him. The man was now gagging on the stinging burning metallic taste that refused to dissipate and instead was getting stronger and stronger. The seats of the bus melted away to nothingness and the man, eyes bulging, mouth frothing, felt a chill run up his spine as the businessman that wouldn’t stop talking despite the collapse of reality around him, appeared next to the man and said in pure, soft tones
“End of Test. Catastrophic Immersion Failure. End of Test.”
The man woke up in a blinding white room. He was strapped into an upright pod and was facing a large mirror that almost covered an entire wall. He had a large metal pipe in his mouth and down his throat which he could see was attached to the bottom of the pod. He tried to reach and pull it out or move his head away but he was strapped down tight. His throat burned. A man and woman wearing lab coats strolled into the room through double doors behind the pod. They were deep in conversation as the man tried desperately to call out to them.
Lab coat man: Well at least we got the mirror perfect. Remember that time the subject woke up screaming because his face was all mangled?
Lab coat woman: Oh yeah that was test 15 right?
The woman in the lab coat delicately pulled the metal tube out of the man’s mouth and took a small torch out of her top pocket and shone it down the end.
Lab coat woman: No blockages. Looks like the antiemetic is working finally. Did you hear what happened in Copenhagen by the way?
Lab coat man: Oh yeah the cock-up with the cat. I told them they were crazy trying to put animals in but they never listen. I dread to think how much time they wasted on that code. Anyway I’ll check the report.
The man blearily watched the guy in the lab coat walk over to a small panel on the wall and press a few buttons. A screen appeared in the wall and various numbers and statistics flickered up.
Lab coat man: Yeah it was definitely Talking Man 2 that set him off with his jumping again. Talking Man 1 failed to render completely! Still can’t get rid of that metallic taste. Ok, well, we really need to sort out the bugs with the Talking Men and… maybe add a few animations to Blonde Woman just so she doesn’t look so creepy? I mean we can if we have time.
The lab coat woman popped her torch into her top pocket, pressed a few buttons on the side of the pod and then turned to leave.
Lab coat woman: Sounds good to me. Do you know where Jerry’s been all week?
Lab coat man: Flu I heard…
The pair continued talking as they left the room, completely oblivious to the wheezing, choking man in the pod struggling to call for help. He heard the click of the door, locking as it closed and, after a few seconds of silence, a soft whirring sound started up. He felt something slither against his leg which turned his blood cold. He saw in the mirror that the metal pipe was working its way up to his head. It hovered in front of him like a striking cobra. The man was still disorientated and confused but he guessed what was coming next and shut his mouth tight. A sudden strike to the back of his ribs, a short pipe firing out, jabbing him and then retracting back into the pod, made the man cry out. The serpent-like pipe had been waiting for this and shot forwards into the man’s mouth and down his throat with surgical precision. The same soft, pure voice of the talking businessman that had informed him of the catastrophic immersion failure now echoed around the room.
“Run Memory Wipe. Begin Test Forty-Two”
The man woke up with a start. He looked around the spotless apartment. He had a weird metallic taste in his mouth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
More creative writing! I wrote this ages ago but then forgot about it then remembered it and thought I had posted it on a social media site already. Turns out I wrote it the old fashioned way with paper and one of those things with the grey stick in it? One of those things. Anyway I finally typed it up and here it is!
I really like the way this turned out and I do hope you found it as creepy as I did while I was writing it. I hope that creepiness came across. With the rise of VR (virtual reality) games and the way modern media is designed to suck people in and hold them there for as long as possible I thought it would be interesting to revisit the old philosophical question of how you really know you are experiencing true reality? Are you in the Matrix right now? Would you notice mistakes like our protagonist and what would be the consequences of knowing the world was fake?
Some minutes past and the bus finally crawled its way around the corner. The man watched the bus come to a standstill and the door slid open but the blonde woman hadn’t moved. She continued to stare down the road and seemed oblivious to the bus that had just arrived. The man hesitated then slipped past her and onto the bus, fishing some change out of his pocket as he stepped up. The bus driver turned and fixed the man with a stare that wasn’t particularly warm but wasn’t really all that cold either. “Two fifty.” The bus driver’s voice was clipped and nasal. His stare never faltered. The man plonked his change down on the little tray (which came to exactly 2.50) and tried to avoid the bus driver’s eyes as he waited for the machine to spit out his ticket. He took it and hurried to a seat near the back of the bus. There was only one other person on the bus and he appeared to be talking to himself. He was a well-dressed businessman in a suit and tie and he seemed to be having a conversation with an invisible person. Trying to ignore the businessman, the man looked down at his watch but it seemed to be broken. The little LCD screen simply read 00:00. He thought this was strange but was soon distracted by the businessman who was still happily chatting away with the empty air. The businessman was sat 4 rows in front in an aisle seat, the seat next to him, by the window, was completely unoccupied which didn’t seem to have any effect on the flow of the conversation. “Really? For that long? That is unbelievable. He was never like that around me... Yeah I suppose you are right. So did you ever hear back from that place up in the North? Where was it again?... Oh yeah that was it…” and so it continued.
The man watched in fascination as this half conversation played out. He could still taste metal on his tongue and it seemed to be getting stronger. At this point something quite unexpected happened. The talking businessman changed seats. That is, he didn’t get up and walk to a new seat he simply… ‘jumped’. Moved. Phased. One moment he was 4 rows in front and suddenly he was only 3 rows ahead. The half-conversation continued with no interruption. The man’s jaw had dropped and his hands were clasping the seat in front of him. How was this possible? How had the businessman teleported like that? It was at this point the man realised the bus still hadn’t set off from the stop, the door was still open and the blonde woman was still looking out for the bus that had already arrived. The metallic taste stung his throat. Everything felt wrong. He looked out the window at the bland, identical houses. The man’s breathing came quick and shallow. Where was it that he worked again? The lights on the bus were too bright. The seat in front of him that he had been clutching felt like play-doh. His hands sunk into the material as the incessantly droning businessman jumped back another row of seats. The man tried to scream as the walls, floor and ceiling of the bus, including the houses and street outside began to distend, melt and distort but the metallic taste filled his mouth to choking. Everything was melting into blackness, into a void now except for the seats of the bus and the businessman. He jumped back another row. He was now only one row in front of the man. One more jump and he would be right next to him. The man was now gagging on the stinging burning metallic taste that refused to dissipate and instead was getting stronger and stronger. The seats of the bus melted away to nothingness and the man, eyes bulging, mouth frothing, felt a chill run up his spine as the businessman that wouldn’t stop talking despite the collapse of reality around him, appeared next to the man and said in pure, soft tones
“End of Test. Catastrophic Immersion Failure. End of Test.”
The man woke up in a blinding white room. He was strapped into an upright pod and was facing a large mirror that almost covered an entire wall. He had a large metal pipe in his mouth and down his throat which he could see was attached to the bottom of the pod. He tried to reach and pull it out or move his head away but he was strapped down tight. His throat burned. A man and woman wearing lab coats strolled into the room through double doors behind the pod. They were deep in conversation as the man tried desperately to call out to them.
Lab coat man: Well at least we got the mirror perfect. Remember that time the subject woke up screaming because his face was all mangled?
Lab coat woman: Oh yeah that was test 15 right?
The woman in the lab coat delicately pulled the metal tube out of the man’s mouth and took a small torch out of her top pocket and shone it down the end.
Lab coat woman: No blockages. Looks like the antiemetic is working finally. Did you hear what happened in Copenhagen by the way?
Lab coat man: Oh yeah the cock-up with the cat. I told them they were crazy trying to put animals in but they never listen. I dread to think how much time they wasted on that code. Anyway I’ll check the report.
The man blearily watched the guy in the lab coat walk over to a small panel on the wall and press a few buttons. A screen appeared in the wall and various numbers and statistics flickered up.
Lab coat man: Yeah it was definitely Talking Man 2 that set him off with his jumping again. Talking Man 1 failed to render completely! Still can’t get rid of that metallic taste. Ok, well, we really need to sort out the bugs with the Talking Men and… maybe add a few animations to Blonde Woman just so she doesn’t look so creepy? I mean we can if we have time.
The lab coat woman popped her torch into her top pocket, pressed a few buttons on the side of the pod and then turned to leave.
Lab coat woman: Sounds good to me. Do you know where Jerry’s been all week?
Lab coat man: Flu I heard…
The pair continued talking as they left the room, completely oblivious to the wheezing, choking man in the pod struggling to call for help. He heard the click of the door, locking as it closed and, after a few seconds of silence, a soft whirring sound started up. He felt something slither against his leg which turned his blood cold. He saw in the mirror that the metal pipe was working its way up to his head. It hovered in front of him like a striking cobra. The man was still disorientated and confused but he guessed what was coming next and shut his mouth tight. A sudden strike to the back of his ribs, a short pipe firing out, jabbing him and then retracting back into the pod, made the man cry out. The serpent-like pipe had been waiting for this and shot forwards into the man’s mouth and down his throat with surgical precision. The same soft, pure voice of the talking businessman that had informed him of the catastrophic immersion failure now echoed around the room.
“Run Memory Wipe. Begin Test Forty-Two”
The man woke up with a start. He looked around the spotless apartment. He had a weird metallic taste in his mouth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
More creative writing! I wrote this ages ago but then forgot about it then remembered it and thought I had posted it on a social media site already. Turns out I wrote it the old fashioned way with paper and one of those things with the grey stick in it? One of those things. Anyway I finally typed it up and here it is!
I really like the way this turned out and I do hope you found it as creepy as I did while I was writing it. I hope that creepiness came across. With the rise of VR (virtual reality) games and the way modern media is designed to suck people in and hold them there for as long as possible I thought it would be interesting to revisit the old philosophical question of how you really know you are experiencing true reality? Are you in the Matrix right now? Would you notice mistakes like our protagonist and what would be the consequences of knowing the world was fake?
Tuesday, 5 July 2016
Waste Not, Want Not
Come on everybody! Those trees aren't going to hug themselves! No but seriously today's subject is important I feel and it's going to be waste. Not in the "Your a waste of space and I hate you" way more the "Why are you throwing out perfectly good stuff?" way. Please do enjoy!
"Got a disposable income for disposable goods,
Got a hold of my paycheck don't know if I should,
A disposable partner I suppose it's alright,
I'll just just go get a new one every time we fight,
I got a disposable model, I ain't chosen no wife,
I'll dispose of these women if they don't swipe right,
Got disposable friends, they drive disposable cars,
Cause we ain't built to last, nah nah, we built to go fast!"
The King Blues - Opposable Thumbshttps://thekingblues2016.bandcamp.com/track/opposable-thumbs
Now I could write multiple posts about this song. I could write one about how good this song is and how good the album it comes from is. I could write one about it's critique of the way people treat women as disposable and how our culture builds this idea of women as playthings to be thrown away once they are "used up" or don't abide by society's rules and how it directly impacts and influences violence against women. I could write a post about how it confronts you with the notion of "disposable friends", how friendship has been influenced by modern technologies and the idea of friendship being watered down to a simple number on a Facebook page. I could write a post at just how nice it is to hear some proper political punk music in a time when we really need it. But I'm not going to write about those subjects. Well not today at any rate... I'm going to talk about the main subject the song deals with: waste. As the chorus so succinctly puts it:
"(We throw it all away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!"
Two weeks ago, we went to take the bins out. Just your general biowaste, cardboard, glass and landfill stuff. I went and opened the landfill bin and it was almost completely empty except that at the bottom were a load of old textbooks and various DVDs. The text books were in pretty decent condition and the DVDs were also fine if slightly dusty. The textbooks were all business and computer ones so not really worth anything and probably not all that useful to anyone. The DVDs though: Fight Club Special Edition, the Michael Caine classsic Zulu, a documentary about The Doors and the star-studded Lucky Number Slevin. What the Hell? Why would someone throw out perfectly fine DVDs? Not only that but perfectly fine DVD's of some really pretty damn good films? What gives? Fishing them out of the bottom of the bin, we've given them a new home, saving them from the landfill and saving the environment from them, at least for a little while.
Last week we went to take the bins again and AGAIN perfectly usable, perfectly good condition stuff that had no reason to be in a bin! Right next to the glass bin, a number of glasses and mugs, all unchipped and clean. In the landfill bin, cloth shopping bags (perfectly usable and some STILL WITH TAGS ON) full of plastic shopping bags. We use all of our plastic shopping bags as bin bags which meant this collection we found in the bin is around 6 months worth of bin bags I would say at a guess. It's insane! Why weren't the DVDs from before and the glasses from this time given to a charity shop? Why weren't the plastic bags used for bin bags? Why weren't the cloth bags just used?
This idea that things we don't need or want should just be thrown away is toxic, quite literally. Throwaway culture is destroying our planet, poisoning our seas, poisoning the very air we breathe. It really doesn't have to be this way. For my entire childhood my parents hoarded plastic bags, bits of string, plastic cable ties and even just straight up rubbish. The bags for bin bags, the string for a million different jobs, the plastic ties to hold effectively entire bikes together and the rubbish could be used for a myriad of different creations from junk monsters to spaceships to masks. These ideas of using as much as we can and wasting as little as possible are not new at all. When finding evidence of prehistoric people living in an area do you know what is usually found? Shards of bone, bits of burnt material and maybe a few flakes of flint. People used the entire animal, the whole plant, the whole tree. Very little was wasted because you couldn't afford to waste a single potential resource. Now, with our industrial processes and easy access to resources, this has gone out the window. I say bring it back.
So what can you do? Give old stuff to charities. Put an advert on Facebook. Ask your friends and family. Rethink the objects purpose. Search for things to use stuff for on the internet. Dig through the bins! Well ok so maybe don't do that but if you do see something in the bin and it isn't all nasty and it's safe to take it I say take it. People throw out a hell of a lot of stuff and sometimes it is worth checking out exactly what they consider trash. It could well be treasure.
"Got a disposable income for disposable goods,
Got a hold of my paycheck don't know if I should,
A disposable partner I suppose it's alright,
I'll just just go get a new one every time we fight,
I got a disposable model, I ain't chosen no wife,
I'll dispose of these women if they don't swipe right,
Got disposable friends, they drive disposable cars,
Cause we ain't built to last, nah nah, we built to go fast!"
The King Blues - Opposable Thumbshttps://thekingblues2016.bandcamp.com/track/opposable-thumbs
Now I could write multiple posts about this song. I could write one about how good this song is and how good the album it comes from is. I could write one about it's critique of the way people treat women as disposable and how our culture builds this idea of women as playthings to be thrown away once they are "used up" or don't abide by society's rules and how it directly impacts and influences violence against women. I could write a post about how it confronts you with the notion of "disposable friends", how friendship has been influenced by modern technologies and the idea of friendship being watered down to a simple number on a Facebook page. I could write a post at just how nice it is to hear some proper political punk music in a time when we really need it. But I'm not going to write about those subjects. Well not today at any rate... I'm going to talk about the main subject the song deals with: waste. As the chorus so succinctly puts it:
"(We throw it all away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!
(Away, away, away, away!)
Look how far I've come with my Opposable Thumbs!"
Two weeks ago, we went to take the bins out. Just your general biowaste, cardboard, glass and landfill stuff. I went and opened the landfill bin and it was almost completely empty except that at the bottom were a load of old textbooks and various DVDs. The text books were in pretty decent condition and the DVDs were also fine if slightly dusty. The textbooks were all business and computer ones so not really worth anything and probably not all that useful to anyone. The DVDs though: Fight Club Special Edition, the Michael Caine classsic Zulu, a documentary about The Doors and the star-studded Lucky Number Slevin. What the Hell? Why would someone throw out perfectly fine DVDs? Not only that but perfectly fine DVD's of some really pretty damn good films? What gives? Fishing them out of the bottom of the bin, we've given them a new home, saving them from the landfill and saving the environment from them, at least for a little while.
Last week we went to take the bins again and AGAIN perfectly usable, perfectly good condition stuff that had no reason to be in a bin! Right next to the glass bin, a number of glasses and mugs, all unchipped and clean. In the landfill bin, cloth shopping bags (perfectly usable and some STILL WITH TAGS ON) full of plastic shopping bags. We use all of our plastic shopping bags as bin bags which meant this collection we found in the bin is around 6 months worth of bin bags I would say at a guess. It's insane! Why weren't the DVDs from before and the glasses from this time given to a charity shop? Why weren't the plastic bags used for bin bags? Why weren't the cloth bags just used?
This idea that things we don't need or want should just be thrown away is toxic, quite literally. Throwaway culture is destroying our planet, poisoning our seas, poisoning the very air we breathe. It really doesn't have to be this way. For my entire childhood my parents hoarded plastic bags, bits of string, plastic cable ties and even just straight up rubbish. The bags for bin bags, the string for a million different jobs, the plastic ties to hold effectively entire bikes together and the rubbish could be used for a myriad of different creations from junk monsters to spaceships to masks. These ideas of using as much as we can and wasting as little as possible are not new at all. When finding evidence of prehistoric people living in an area do you know what is usually found? Shards of bone, bits of burnt material and maybe a few flakes of flint. People used the entire animal, the whole plant, the whole tree. Very little was wasted because you couldn't afford to waste a single potential resource. Now, with our industrial processes and easy access to resources, this has gone out the window. I say bring it back.
So what can you do? Give old stuff to charities. Put an advert on Facebook. Ask your friends and family. Rethink the objects purpose. Search for things to use stuff for on the internet. Dig through the bins! Well ok so maybe don't do that but if you do see something in the bin and it isn't all nasty and it's safe to take it I say take it. People throw out a hell of a lot of stuff and sometimes it is worth checking out exactly what they consider trash. It could well be treasure.
Tuesday, 31 May 2016
It's Perfectly Natural
NOVEMBER 2015!? Jeez, I knew it had been a long time but crikey. I'd like to say I've been busy since my last post but truly I've been lacking subjects and I'm a very lazy person. Now luckily (depends on your opinion of my writing but anyway) I'm back and have an all new topic to shout at the internet!
Recently I've been partaking in a Sexology course (ooh err missus!) and I can say with much confidence that it's been fascinating, eye-opening and really very informative. One of the most interesting things about the course has been fellow student's reactions to certain topics. The class is made up of people from all over the globe, mostly Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns but also Finnish-speaking Finns, Russians, Eastern Europeans and people from almost every corner of Africa. This diverse mix of people and backgrounds has led to quite the clash of cultures on occasion (although it's remained really quite civil which I have to say came as a surprise, I was expecting full on World War III, especially considering how strongly people believe in certain aspects of sexuality and gender) and it's been fascinating to hear other people's experiences and get to hear about cultural beliefs first hand.
I could well do an entire post (Hell, multiple posts spanning several years) on the discussions and debates we've had already (keep in mind we have currently had two lectures...) but I'm actually going to focus on one very, very specific argument and actually open up this argument past sexology and look at it generally as an argument. And then I'm going to explain why I think it's stupid. Let's get into it! (I feel I haven't put enough sex jokes in this but I've written the sexology bit now and don't want to go back and add stuff.)
More conservative thinking members of the class when confronted with the phenomenon of transgender, non-binary and gender fluid individuals (sorry I'm not explaining all of those terms I simply don't have the time to go into it right now so Google it or something) as well as other subjects that fall under the banner of sexology such as homosexuality and certain sex acts put forward the question of whether these things are actually natural, implying that they believed them to be unnatural and therefore wrong and/or immoral and/or sinful implying that people who identify as those things or do those things are wrong and/or immoral and/or sinful and/or mentally ill. In this post I am not going to go into whether those things above such as being transgender or homosexual are natural or not (THOUGH THEY BLATANTLY ARE AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN) what I am going to focus on is that specific part of the argument where it's implied that things that are natural trump those things that are unnatural.
To quote myself (Wow the ego on this one...), as I stated in the class in response to someone suggesting that being transgender was something unnatural:
"This pen is unnatural (Note: I was holding a pen of at the time just in case you didn't guess), this table isn't natural (I was sat at a... do you know what just go with it), my clothes are not natural, the food I eat isn't natural, this building isn't natural, planes aren't natural, my laptop isn't natural. Cancer. That's natural. Volcanoes are natural. Famine is natural."
Everyone in the class quickly got my point and I hope you have too.
It seems so pervasive in society this idea that "natural=best" and "natural=healthy" and frankly it's just not true in any way shape or form. Also half the time the label "natural" isn't even accurate. Take health foods. I still find the irony of "natural" foods being sold in cardboard and plastic hilarious and that's not even taking into consideration the fact that the vast majority of foods are made out of ingredients that have been selectively bred over thousands of years and that's just to get them even halfway to tasting nice. Bananas are not "meant" to be yellow and sweet and large, their natural counterpart is green, bitter and a third the size. Also carrots. Carrots are only orange because particularly patriotic Dutch farmers bred them to be orange and it caught on elsewhere. Carrots weren't even originally grown for their roots, so dinky and insubstantial they originally were. What you are eating is not natural. At all.
Before you start protesting outside your local supermarket, please take to heart my argument that just because something is not natural does not in any way mean it's bad for you. Thanks to very artificial plants that have been developed in labs, crops that can survive arid conditions have been created and brought food to millions that would have starved. Thanks to all those artificial things I mentioned in class, we live and thrive in a modern society that gives us the opportunity to write, to have something to write on, to keep warm and covered, to keep sheltered, to allow us to travel the world at speeds deemed unthinkable by our ancestors, to access information of all types from any and every corner of the globe and communicate with people we've never even met face to face instantaneously.
In short, natural is great but it's not by definition the best. Plenty has been achieved by creating and using unnatural things. Of course there is also the argument that as humans beings are "natural", we have grown and evolved just like every other living thing, then whatever we create is also natural. Think on this: we never say ant hills or beaver dams are unnatural.
If this long (not even that long compared to a lot of my rambling posts...) blog post has failed to convince you of the flawed logic of the "natural is best" argument then all I ask is for you to be consistent in your logic. Leave all of your earthly possessions behind, undress yourself, remove your glasses if you have them, take off your shoes, throw your phone and computer and electronic devices away, go and live in the depths of nature (good luck finding a forest or natural environment that hasn't been influenced by humanity by the way) and then see how you fare. No cheating and making wood or stone tools either! That would be hideously unnatural...
Recently I've been partaking in a Sexology course (ooh err missus!) and I can say with much confidence that it's been fascinating, eye-opening and really very informative. One of the most interesting things about the course has been fellow student's reactions to certain topics. The class is made up of people from all over the globe, mostly Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns but also Finnish-speaking Finns, Russians, Eastern Europeans and people from almost every corner of Africa. This diverse mix of people and backgrounds has led to quite the clash of cultures on occasion (although it's remained really quite civil which I have to say came as a surprise, I was expecting full on World War III, especially considering how strongly people believe in certain aspects of sexuality and gender) and it's been fascinating to hear other people's experiences and get to hear about cultural beliefs first hand.
I could well do an entire post (Hell, multiple posts spanning several years) on the discussions and debates we've had already (keep in mind we have currently had two lectures...) but I'm actually going to focus on one very, very specific argument and actually open up this argument past sexology and look at it generally as an argument. And then I'm going to explain why I think it's stupid. Let's get into it! (I feel I haven't put enough sex jokes in this but I've written the sexology bit now and don't want to go back and add stuff.)
More conservative thinking members of the class when confronted with the phenomenon of transgender, non-binary and gender fluid individuals (sorry I'm not explaining all of those terms I simply don't have the time to go into it right now so Google it or something) as well as other subjects that fall under the banner of sexology such as homosexuality and certain sex acts put forward the question of whether these things are actually natural, implying that they believed them to be unnatural and therefore wrong and/or immoral and/or sinful implying that people who identify as those things or do those things are wrong and/or immoral and/or sinful and/or mentally ill. In this post I am not going to go into whether those things above such as being transgender or homosexual are natural or not (THOUGH THEY BLATANTLY ARE AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN) what I am going to focus on is that specific part of the argument where it's implied that things that are natural trump those things that are unnatural.
To quote myself (Wow the ego on this one...), as I stated in the class in response to someone suggesting that being transgender was something unnatural:
"This pen is unnatural (Note: I was holding a pen of at the time just in case you didn't guess), this table isn't natural (I was sat at a... do you know what just go with it), my clothes are not natural, the food I eat isn't natural, this building isn't natural, planes aren't natural, my laptop isn't natural. Cancer. That's natural. Volcanoes are natural. Famine is natural."
Everyone in the class quickly got my point and I hope you have too.
It seems so pervasive in society this idea that "natural=best" and "natural=healthy" and frankly it's just not true in any way shape or form. Also half the time the label "natural" isn't even accurate. Take health foods. I still find the irony of "natural" foods being sold in cardboard and plastic hilarious and that's not even taking into consideration the fact that the vast majority of foods are made out of ingredients that have been selectively bred over thousands of years and that's just to get them even halfway to tasting nice. Bananas are not "meant" to be yellow and sweet and large, their natural counterpart is green, bitter and a third the size. Also carrots. Carrots are only orange because particularly patriotic Dutch farmers bred them to be orange and it caught on elsewhere. Carrots weren't even originally grown for their roots, so dinky and insubstantial they originally were. What you are eating is not natural. At all.
Before you start protesting outside your local supermarket, please take to heart my argument that just because something is not natural does not in any way mean it's bad for you. Thanks to very artificial plants that have been developed in labs, crops that can survive arid conditions have been created and brought food to millions that would have starved. Thanks to all those artificial things I mentioned in class, we live and thrive in a modern society that gives us the opportunity to write, to have something to write on, to keep warm and covered, to keep sheltered, to allow us to travel the world at speeds deemed unthinkable by our ancestors, to access information of all types from any and every corner of the globe and communicate with people we've never even met face to face instantaneously.
In short, natural is great but it's not by definition the best. Plenty has been achieved by creating and using unnatural things. Of course there is also the argument that as humans beings are "natural", we have grown and evolved just like every other living thing, then whatever we create is also natural. Think on this: we never say ant hills or beaver dams are unnatural.
If this long (not even that long compared to a lot of my rambling posts...) blog post has failed to convince you of the flawed logic of the "natural is best" argument then all I ask is for you to be consistent in your logic. Leave all of your earthly possessions behind, undress yourself, remove your glasses if you have them, take off your shoes, throw your phone and computer and electronic devices away, go and live in the depths of nature (good luck finding a forest or natural environment that hasn't been influenced by humanity by the way) and then see how you fare. No cheating and making wood or stone tools either! That would be hideously unnatural...
Monday, 23 November 2015
Don't Panic!
I remember really very clearly one particular lesson of A level psychology I had at college. The topic was stress; causes, treatments, risk factors, all that stuff. Our teacher got us all to do a stress test which asked about various factors in your life and gave you a stress score, I think it was out of 10. We all did the test and were sharing what scores we got and then our teacher wanted to say a few words and sum up the lesson. She said:
"This test is very informal and you shouldn't be worrying about these scores it's just a bit of fun and is just to make a point about the different factors that can affect stress levels. Some of you have quite high stress scores, some of you have quite low stress scores, like Joe, perhaps a bit too low..."
I had the lowest level of stress, according to the test, in the class. I had the lowest possible score of 1. That was about 4 years ago.
Two months ago I had a panic attack. Two weeks ago I had a second panic attack.
If you are a bit confused by this information, believe me, you're not as confused about it as I am. I decided after the second one, I should go see a head doctor which I have now done. Luckily for me my school has their very own "Study Psychologist" which is rather delightfully free to visit so I went and had a chat with them and basically said "Me. Doesn't often feel stressed. Two panic attacks in two months. Why?"
It was a very good chat. She was very friendly and nice and had lots of ideas as to why this might be happening. I shared a few theories of my own and I felt it was very productive. I enjoyed it so much I'm going back in two weeks. That and she recommended I go back in two weeks because she didn't feel the root cause had been teased out yet. But yeah. It was good. It was useful. I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't somewhat nerve racking beforehand but it was good. It was slightly emotional, I mean I was basically saying to a complete stranger "Something isn't quite right" which is strange. But it was good and I'm glad I did it.
Before we go any further, please don't worry about me. I'm actually feeling pretty good over all, which is why I'm finding this all so strange. After the first panic attack I truly felt it was a one-off, I mean I'm me! I never get stressed! Then I had another one. I still feel fine though so please don't worry yourselves. Also for the love of all that is holy no one even dare say anything like "Thinking of you! xxx" or "Keeping you in my thoughts!!1!!1! XxXxOxOXO". Please. Just don't. I don't have cancer. I'm not dying. Also if anyone says they're praying for me I'll unfriend you from Facebook. This is not a hollow threat. I'll do it.
So why did I decide to share this rather personal thing with all of the internet? I'm studying to be a nurse and recently we've been talking more in classes about mental health and well-being and sadly a lot of stigma and irrational fears still colour any type of discussion about mental health. There are people in this world that still believe mental illness is caused by demons possessing you or think that diseases like schizophrenia are contagious. These beliefs are wrong. Mental illness is widespread and affects almost everyone at some point or another in their lives but people don't want to talk about it. They keep it hidden. They feel ashamed, weak, damaged. This is also wrong. People that have these conditions don't go and seek help because they think it's a waste of time or they don't think it will improve anything, they don't want to tell their private business to a stranger, they think they'll be laughed at or that they're fears and worries will be dismissed. They might think that some shrink will try to change who they are. This is all, also, wrong.
I've said in class many times and when discussing these issues with other people that the stigma of mental health should be thrown away, that people should feel open and free to talk about their feelings and emotions and fears and worries and anxieties and problems and difficulties with no restrictions or taboos or cultural pressures put in place to keep them silent. Now I have the opportunity to practice what I preach and I truly think it's important particularly as I fall into the category of "young adult male". Just recently The Guardian newspaper reported that the rate of male suicides in the UK has increased and is three times as high as the female rate. Three times. The UK isn't the only place that has this problem either. All around the world the male rate for suicide is higher and one factor that has been suggested as a reason for this gender difference is that men aren't supposed to express their emotions. Boy's don't cry. Men don't talk about their feelings. Men don't show weakness. They are supposed to suppress all of these problems, which they do. Then they kill themselves.
I don't want to be like that. I want to talk openly about how I feel and I want people to feel open to talk to me. I want to set a good example. When I saw the psychologist I didn't hold anything back, I was honest and clear and tried my best to describe my life currently, what has happened and why I think it's happened. It felt good. I don't feel weak or "girly" or "gay", I feel slightly better.
So the whole point of this post is to show that there is no shame in being in a bad place or feeling like something is wrong or not working properly. If you feel like you need help or just want some answers, go and talk to someone. Don't keep it all bottled up inside, festering away, ready to blow up at any moment. Talk. Be open. Be honest. If you ever need someone to talk to, come talk to me, go to your doctor, talk to a helpline (a few of which I think I might link down below just in case). You don't have to tell the world about your problems in blog post form if you don't want to but please tell someone. The statistics for suicide are truly horrific. Please don't contribute to them. Ask for help.
Samaritans: 08457 90 90 90 (24-hour national helpline) (UK)
http://www.mielenterveysseura.fi/en/home/support-and-help (Finland)
"This test is very informal and you shouldn't be worrying about these scores it's just a bit of fun and is just to make a point about the different factors that can affect stress levels. Some of you have quite high stress scores, some of you have quite low stress scores, like Joe, perhaps a bit too low..."
I had the lowest level of stress, according to the test, in the class. I had the lowest possible score of 1. That was about 4 years ago.
Two months ago I had a panic attack. Two weeks ago I had a second panic attack.
If you are a bit confused by this information, believe me, you're not as confused about it as I am. I decided after the second one, I should go see a head doctor which I have now done. Luckily for me my school has their very own "Study Psychologist" which is rather delightfully free to visit so I went and had a chat with them and basically said "Me. Doesn't often feel stressed. Two panic attacks in two months. Why?"
It was a very good chat. She was very friendly and nice and had lots of ideas as to why this might be happening. I shared a few theories of my own and I felt it was very productive. I enjoyed it so much I'm going back in two weeks. That and she recommended I go back in two weeks because she didn't feel the root cause had been teased out yet. But yeah. It was good. It was useful. I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't somewhat nerve racking beforehand but it was good. It was slightly emotional, I mean I was basically saying to a complete stranger "Something isn't quite right" which is strange. But it was good and I'm glad I did it.
Before we go any further, please don't worry about me. I'm actually feeling pretty good over all, which is why I'm finding this all so strange. After the first panic attack I truly felt it was a one-off, I mean I'm me! I never get stressed! Then I had another one. I still feel fine though so please don't worry yourselves. Also for the love of all that is holy no one even dare say anything like "Thinking of you! xxx" or "Keeping you in my thoughts!!1!!1! XxXxOxOXO". Please. Just don't. I don't have cancer. I'm not dying. Also if anyone says they're praying for me I'll unfriend you from Facebook. This is not a hollow threat. I'll do it.
So why did I decide to share this rather personal thing with all of the internet? I'm studying to be a nurse and recently we've been talking more in classes about mental health and well-being and sadly a lot of stigma and irrational fears still colour any type of discussion about mental health. There are people in this world that still believe mental illness is caused by demons possessing you or think that diseases like schizophrenia are contagious. These beliefs are wrong. Mental illness is widespread and affects almost everyone at some point or another in their lives but people don't want to talk about it. They keep it hidden. They feel ashamed, weak, damaged. This is also wrong. People that have these conditions don't go and seek help because they think it's a waste of time or they don't think it will improve anything, they don't want to tell their private business to a stranger, they think they'll be laughed at or that they're fears and worries will be dismissed. They might think that some shrink will try to change who they are. This is all, also, wrong.
I've said in class many times and when discussing these issues with other people that the stigma of mental health should be thrown away, that people should feel open and free to talk about their feelings and emotions and fears and worries and anxieties and problems and difficulties with no restrictions or taboos or cultural pressures put in place to keep them silent. Now I have the opportunity to practice what I preach and I truly think it's important particularly as I fall into the category of "young adult male". Just recently The Guardian newspaper reported that the rate of male suicides in the UK has increased and is three times as high as the female rate. Three times. The UK isn't the only place that has this problem either. All around the world the male rate for suicide is higher and one factor that has been suggested as a reason for this gender difference is that men aren't supposed to express their emotions. Boy's don't cry. Men don't talk about their feelings. Men don't show weakness. They are supposed to suppress all of these problems, which they do. Then they kill themselves.
I don't want to be like that. I want to talk openly about how I feel and I want people to feel open to talk to me. I want to set a good example. When I saw the psychologist I didn't hold anything back, I was honest and clear and tried my best to describe my life currently, what has happened and why I think it's happened. It felt good. I don't feel weak or "girly" or "gay", I feel slightly better.
So the whole point of this post is to show that there is no shame in being in a bad place or feeling like something is wrong or not working properly. If you feel like you need help or just want some answers, go and talk to someone. Don't keep it all bottled up inside, festering away, ready to blow up at any moment. Talk. Be open. Be honest. If you ever need someone to talk to, come talk to me, go to your doctor, talk to a helpline (a few of which I think I might link down below just in case). You don't have to tell the world about your problems in blog post form if you don't want to but please tell someone. The statistics for suicide are truly horrific. Please don't contribute to them. Ask for help.
Samaritans: 08457 90 90 90 (24-hour national helpline) (UK)
http://www.mielenterveysseura.fi/en/home/support-and-help (Finland)
Thursday, 1 October 2015
My Personal Renaissance
SOOOO it's back. Did anyone miss it? Probably not. I did. A bit. Anyway shall we get on with it?
Recently I've been very busy. I've been a very busy bee. I've been making stuff ya see. Making stuff left right and center. As is my nature, I couldn't just keep making stuff without stopping and asking "Why? Why am I making stuff?" Well after some thinking I think I know why...
About two years ago, a little while after moving to Finland I was browsing through the website Tumblr (if you don't know what it is then Google it. If you don't know what Google is then I'm kind of amazed you found this blog) and I stumbled upon the ancient board game Hnefetafl. No it really is a thing. It was played by the Vikings. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Anyway, I saw this game and I thought to myself "I could totally make the board and pieces for this game". Why did I think this? I don't know. At least I had no idea why at the time. So I made the board. I made the pieces. It turned out pretty well. It was fun making it. Great.
Then for a bit I was satisfied. I made a thing and it was great. But then...
I made a Cthulhu statue. And then I made another one. And another one. And then a few more. And I made some other stuff. I have now become a person that makes stuff. Like regularly. I have a list of 16 things (and I'm sure the list will grow in no time) that I am planning to make. I have 3 to 4 things currently in production. I am now a maker. How has this happened?
As a child I did make things, I had Lego and K'Nex and I made monsters and spaceships out of junk, but I have never thought of myself as a creative person particularly. I was ok at writing and most of the time the "stories" I wrote for English lessons went down well and I got fairly good marks for them but I still didn't ever think of myself as the creative type. I couldn't draw and paint and art lessons both bored and embarrassed me (mostly bored). Now at the age of 21 I find myself painting latex onto the leg bones of a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and trying to shape cotton so that it resembles a calf muscle. Once it's ready I will then spend a ridiculously long time painting it (along with the rest of the skeleton) to resemble a mummy. Why? What the hell has happened to me?
Here is my theory. I have now lived in Finland for 2 years. The Finnish language is hard. Really hard. Like super hard. Like really really hard, especially when you are English and you've never been taught how to learn a language and really only just know the basics of your own language. And everyone speaks English with you. And you're lazy. So yeah it's hard. Now I have (despite not thinking of myself as being creative) have felt somewhat proud of my vocabulary and my ability to express myself verbally (in English). Now that I've moved to another country with a very foreign language though, I perhaps have not been able to use English in the same way I would in England. Couple this with my level of Finnish being nowhere near as good as I would wish it, leaving me completely unable to express myself using Finnish, and I think we might be heading slightly closer to why I suddenly want to create things with my hands, things that interest me or based on things that I enjoy (at this point H.P. Lovecraft and spooky weird stuff. Why I like these things may well need more psychological evaluation...).
Perhaps this personal Renaissance has come about because I've felt hemmed in verbally. Words aren't working so my brain has gone in a bold new direction and chosen objects as the prime medium to express myself. Of course it would be a bit simplistic if it came down just to language. Maybe moving to another country, away from my parents, friends and the city I called home for close to 16 or so years, has had some effect. Having lost a lot of things (gained as well but undeniably also lost) I might sub-consciously be looking for physical objects to "hold onto". Maybe moving into a more adult stage of my life is another factor, reaching back and bringing forward the childhood past time of "making monsters out of junk", trying to regress to escape the reality that at some point I'm going to have to grow up for real and start paying bills and taxes and ohgodpleasedon'tmakeme.
Really, the last two years have brought so many changes to my life (amazing wonderful changes that I wouldn't take back for all the tea in China [and believe me I freaking love tea]) that it's kind of surprising that it took this long for something to manifest. Any sane person would have had much more immediate reactions to such seismic changes, surely. In any case out of all the things that I could end up doing, making stuff is quite possibly the most tame, inoffensive, innocent, harmless thing that I could do so really I should be thankful I'm not a raging alcoholic or a sky diver or something.
Now I should say here that no-one should start worrying about me. This post might have you thinking I'm not happy with my life right now and quite frankly you couldn't be more wrong. I'm happy and contented. Well as contented as one can be when one does not have a flat of one's own and still struggles with a language seemingly devised to be as different from one's native language as possible. But yeah overall I'm damn happy. My life is great. The fact that I have the freedom to ponce about making stuff and considering the psychological reasons behind the things I've made should indicate that I'm doing pretty bloody well and I will be the last person on this Earth to start complaining about the opportunities and resources that have not only been handed to me on a silver platter but have also been drenched in a high quality dressing of luck and undeserved kindness. So yeah worrying or sympathy is the last thing I need. Actually what I need most at this point is a heat gun. Or maybe you could get me some more liquid latex. Actually if you have any spare acrylic paint lying around I can take it off your hands. I mean just if it's going spare...
It would seem that my creative streak has yet to end and the end is not yet in sight. I do hope it doesn't end for a long while yet because I am really enjoying it. Like a lot. The satisfaction of a well-constructed plan that comes together in a finished object is only beaten by the satisfaction brought by a well-constructed plan changing or falling apart and something even greater than you originally envisaged rising from the ashes. It's really great. I encourage everyone to make something. Go find something you like. Anything. Go make one of them. Don't know how to make it? Learn how. It ends up being crap? Better try again then. Go on.
So read this as post as a sort of "This is what I've been thinking about myself recently do you think I could be on to something here?" sort of a thing and also a "You should totally go make stuff" sort of thing. Bit short. No real concrete conclusions except for half-baked introspection and a last minute splurge of motivational nonsense. Very few people will actually be interested in reading it.
The blog is back on top form!
Recently I've been very busy. I've been a very busy bee. I've been making stuff ya see. Making stuff left right and center. As is my nature, I couldn't just keep making stuff without stopping and asking "Why? Why am I making stuff?" Well after some thinking I think I know why...
About two years ago, a little while after moving to Finland I was browsing through the website Tumblr (if you don't know what it is then Google it. If you don't know what Google is then I'm kind of amazed you found this blog) and I stumbled upon the ancient board game Hnefetafl. No it really is a thing. It was played by the Vikings. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Anyway, I saw this game and I thought to myself "I could totally make the board and pieces for this game". Why did I think this? I don't know. At least I had no idea why at the time. So I made the board. I made the pieces. It turned out pretty well. It was fun making it. Great.
Then for a bit I was satisfied. I made a thing and it was great. But then...
I made a Cthulhu statue. And then I made another one. And another one. And then a few more. And I made some other stuff. I have now become a person that makes stuff. Like regularly. I have a list of 16 things (and I'm sure the list will grow in no time) that I am planning to make. I have 3 to 4 things currently in production. I am now a maker. How has this happened?
As a child I did make things, I had Lego and K'Nex and I made monsters and spaceships out of junk, but I have never thought of myself as a creative person particularly. I was ok at writing and most of the time the "stories" I wrote for English lessons went down well and I got fairly good marks for them but I still didn't ever think of myself as the creative type. I couldn't draw and paint and art lessons both bored and embarrassed me (mostly bored). Now at the age of 21 I find myself painting latex onto the leg bones of a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and trying to shape cotton so that it resembles a calf muscle. Once it's ready I will then spend a ridiculously long time painting it (along with the rest of the skeleton) to resemble a mummy. Why? What the hell has happened to me?
Here is my theory. I have now lived in Finland for 2 years. The Finnish language is hard. Really hard. Like super hard. Like really really hard, especially when you are English and you've never been taught how to learn a language and really only just know the basics of your own language. And everyone speaks English with you. And you're lazy. So yeah it's hard. Now I have (despite not thinking of myself as being creative) have felt somewhat proud of my vocabulary and my ability to express myself verbally (in English). Now that I've moved to another country with a very foreign language though, I perhaps have not been able to use English in the same way I would in England. Couple this with my level of Finnish being nowhere near as good as I would wish it, leaving me completely unable to express myself using Finnish, and I think we might be heading slightly closer to why I suddenly want to create things with my hands, things that interest me or based on things that I enjoy (at this point H.P. Lovecraft and spooky weird stuff. Why I like these things may well need more psychological evaluation...).
Perhaps this personal Renaissance has come about because I've felt hemmed in verbally. Words aren't working so my brain has gone in a bold new direction and chosen objects as the prime medium to express myself. Of course it would be a bit simplistic if it came down just to language. Maybe moving to another country, away from my parents, friends and the city I called home for close to 16 or so years, has had some effect. Having lost a lot of things (gained as well but undeniably also lost) I might sub-consciously be looking for physical objects to "hold onto". Maybe moving into a more adult stage of my life is another factor, reaching back and bringing forward the childhood past time of "making monsters out of junk", trying to regress to escape the reality that at some point I'm going to have to grow up for real and start paying bills and taxes and ohgodpleasedon'tmakeme.
Really, the last two years have brought so many changes to my life (amazing wonderful changes that I wouldn't take back for all the tea in China [and believe me I freaking love tea]) that it's kind of surprising that it took this long for something to manifest. Any sane person would have had much more immediate reactions to such seismic changes, surely. In any case out of all the things that I could end up doing, making stuff is quite possibly the most tame, inoffensive, innocent, harmless thing that I could do so really I should be thankful I'm not a raging alcoholic or a sky diver or something.
Now I should say here that no-one should start worrying about me. This post might have you thinking I'm not happy with my life right now and quite frankly you couldn't be more wrong. I'm happy and contented. Well as contented as one can be when one does not have a flat of one's own and still struggles with a language seemingly devised to be as different from one's native language as possible. But yeah overall I'm damn happy. My life is great. The fact that I have the freedom to ponce about making stuff and considering the psychological reasons behind the things I've made should indicate that I'm doing pretty bloody well and I will be the last person on this Earth to start complaining about the opportunities and resources that have not only been handed to me on a silver platter but have also been drenched in a high quality dressing of luck and undeserved kindness. So yeah worrying or sympathy is the last thing I need. Actually what I need most at this point is a heat gun. Or maybe you could get me some more liquid latex. Actually if you have any spare acrylic paint lying around I can take it off your hands. I mean just if it's going spare...
It would seem that my creative streak has yet to end and the end is not yet in sight. I do hope it doesn't end for a long while yet because I am really enjoying it. Like a lot. The satisfaction of a well-constructed plan that comes together in a finished object is only beaten by the satisfaction brought by a well-constructed plan changing or falling apart and something even greater than you originally envisaged rising from the ashes. It's really great. I encourage everyone to make something. Go find something you like. Anything. Go make one of them. Don't know how to make it? Learn how. It ends up being crap? Better try again then. Go on.
So read this as post as a sort of "This is what I've been thinking about myself recently do you think I could be on to something here?" sort of a thing and also a "You should totally go make stuff" sort of thing. Bit short. No real concrete conclusions except for half-baked introspection and a last minute splurge of motivational nonsense. Very few people will actually be interested in reading it.
The blog is back on top form!
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Designation: Human
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Primates
Hominidae
Homonini
Homo
Sapiens
That is you. And also me. I mean unless you are a robotic A.I. in which case congratulations! You're sentient! Or maybe your a super intelligent animal that has gained your incredible reading abilities through a genetic experiment gone awry... If that's the case I heartily recommend reading. Great fun. Personal favourites are Paradise Lost and anything by H.P. Lovecraft, just be sure to not take on board the religious convictions of John Milton or the astounding and disappointing racism of Lovecraft (future blog topic by the way).
Of course it could be that I'm the A.I. or the genetic experiment...
But back to the humans. That is your scientific classification. That is who you are. Homo sapiens for short or you could just use Homo for shorter but be aware of the context that you use it in.
Am I the only one that thinks it's quite nice that we have a little title? We have our own little name tag. Adorable. Of course such broad name tags can be problematic. I mean not all human beings look exactly alike so how different does someone have to be to stop being human? How do you decide who is human and who isn't? Are some people closer to being "real" humans than others?
(For those worried I'm about to go all Nazi-pure-blood-half-breeds-Aryans-social-cleansing crazy, fear not. Hopefully by the end you'll see that actually my philosophy is so different to Hitler's, if he were alive and had a computer and read this blog post he would be all like "NEIN!")
Well to understand exactly why we have a name tag to begin with we have to look at human psychology. I believe I've mentioned numerous times on this blog before (and if I haven't then I have missed out something pretty major...) that humans, like myself and yourself, like patterns. We strive to find patterns in everything. Look up pareidolia. Fascinating and also explains why people see Jesus in their toast or Elvis in a tea stain on a scatter cushion or all sorts of bizarre visions. Humans have evolved to see faces in random objects because it's helped us survive. Being able to quickly take in information about someone's face can help us to assess how to react in certain situations. It's made us the social animal we are! Our pattern recognition skills also lead to people seeing figures and shapes in the clouds and constellations and also help us recognise situations we have been in before and react in an appropriate manner to survive. It's kept us alive but also given us the potential to develop phobias so there are pros and cons but really the pros win out which is why we've kept these abilities.
So you see humans are built to try and find patterns in things. We like things organised not just chaotic information we don't know how to react to. This is why species are classified. We want little boxes that each and every species neatly fits into.
"Ok!" You say. "Let's get started! If we start off simple... So how about things that live in the sea. They can all be fish..."
Ah no what about whales and dolphins and all them? They are actually pretty closely genetically related to stuff that doesn't live in the sea but other stuff that lives in the sea like plankton are way different. Also can you really call plankton and deep sea angler fish BOTH fish? They are super different.
"Ok... So where things live and what they look like aren't going to cut it because we have genetics and stuff... Hey! Why don't we use genetics to classify animals?"
Hey that's a grea- No wait a minute. Subspecies.
"Subspecies?"
Subspecies. Subspecies are way hard to classify. When does a species become a subspecies? When does a subspecies become an entirely new species? Where do we draw the lines? If one group of animals gets separated from all of their little animal friends for a long enough period of time then that group can end up entirely different to how they originally were, but at what point are they different enough to be considered a new species?
There is a famous thought experiment that gets you to imagine a heap of sand. It asks, if you were to take a grain of sand at a time off of the heap at what point would it stop being a heap? When would it become, say, a pile of sand? Now really what this thought experiment is meant to illustrate is the vagueness of language, a lot of the common everyday words we use without considering it are actually incredibly vague. It's surprising we've made it this far quite frankly...
Now considering this experiment in regards to species and particularly classification using genetics we come to a stumbling block. If you were to take an individual and remove one exon (a piece of genetic material that codes for a protein (my A-level in biology has not gone to waste)) at a time, at what point would they stop being a human being? Remove a few genes, yeah ok, still basically human. Maybe the person will suffer some genetic problems like cystic fibrosis or something similar. Would anyone here suggest that someone with a genetic disorder like cystic fibrosis isn't human? I certainly wouldn't and if you do don't ever speak to me again.
Ever.
So if only a few changes isn't enough what about removing half of a human's genetic material? It would be basically impossible for anyone to say that the end result of such an experiment would be a human being. We share 50% of our DNA with bananas so it could well be that if you chose which genes you were taking out the result would be indistinguishable from a collection of banana DNA. More than 50% out and no longer human but what about 75% or 86.5%? Are they still human?
Now the tree of life is looking a bit complicated isn't it. The barriers between species are breaking down. If you can't decide if an individual is definitely one species how can you say that that species even really exists?
Example. There are 3 different species of zebra. 2 of those species have 8 subspecies. One subspecies of the Plains zebra (Equus quagga) is Burchell's zebra. Now it was believed that Burchell's zebra had gone extinct until it was found that another subspecies of zebra that lived in the same areas as Burchell's zebra had lived (the Damara zebra or Equus quagga antiquorum) was actually... the same zebra. Yes, the zebra that everyone thought had gone extinct didn't actually exist. Well it did but it wasn't some other different species that went extinct, it was still wandering around under a different name. Everyone thought there were two subpopulations of zebra until 2 guys looked at some old skins of the extinct "Burchell's zebra" and found they were the same as the Damara zebra. Now because the name Burchell's zebra is older than the Damara zebra, the Damara zebra is now called Burchell's zebra and the species that was called Burchell's zebra... well it still is called Burchell's zebra but it isn't extinct. Hooray?
Yeah the classification system isn't so rock solid. When was this mix-up of species discovered? 2004.
You must be asking yourself at this point "But why am I bothering to read all this? I'm a very busy person and the capitalist society we live in abhors wasted minutes that could be spent either producing or consuming. I haven't got time for internet words!" and in response I'll say "Don't worry, botched together, feel-good, bite-sized philosophy is just around the corner!"
The whole point of this post is to get you to consider that actually the whole idea of species classification is really very shaky. Science still isn't really exactly sure where the lines lie. If you base it on genetics you can run into problems like the heap of sand. It's been suggested we use reproductive capabilities but then again we have people that physically can't reproduce because of their genes and then people that choose not to reproduce. Do these individuals fall out of the classification table into a separate group labelled Misc.? It's also been put forward that no one parameter of classification will ever be good enough. The "Tree" of Life is more The "Headphones-Tangled-In-Your-Pocket".
Of Life.
I am inclined to agree with this latter idea. As said in a previous post, we are all merely growths of the same original biological organism (as far as we know). Every living thing can follow an ancestor down to a point where we all converge. Humans are just differently organised bananas and bananas are just differently organised plankton. All of us are living beings and in the grand scale of things are really pretty indistinguishable. We tend to forget that when we are walking through a forest, the trees aren't just a background landscape, they are just as much living things as the squirrels and birds that call them home just as much as we are living things. They may not behave or act or react in the same way as us but they are alive. What sort of ramifications can thinking like this have? Does being aware of the fact that we are surrounded by other living beings that are a mere few lines of coded proteins away change how we think of the world and of ourselves? Does it compel us to act and think differently? I'll leave you to think on that.
Hope I didn't lose you during that zebra stuff. I had the sources in front of me and it was a bit of a mind bender... And I told you I wouldn't go all Hitlery...
Chordata
Mammalia
Primates
Hominidae
Homonini
Homo
Sapiens
That is you. And also me. I mean unless you are a robotic A.I. in which case congratulations! You're sentient! Or maybe your a super intelligent animal that has gained your incredible reading abilities through a genetic experiment gone awry... If that's the case I heartily recommend reading. Great fun. Personal favourites are Paradise Lost and anything by H.P. Lovecraft, just be sure to not take on board the religious convictions of John Milton or the astounding and disappointing racism of Lovecraft (future blog topic by the way).
Of course it could be that I'm the A.I. or the genetic experiment...
But back to the humans. That is your scientific classification. That is who you are. Homo sapiens for short or you could just use Homo for shorter but be aware of the context that you use it in.
Am I the only one that thinks it's quite nice that we have a little title? We have our own little name tag. Adorable. Of course such broad name tags can be problematic. I mean not all human beings look exactly alike so how different does someone have to be to stop being human? How do you decide who is human and who isn't? Are some people closer to being "real" humans than others?
(For those worried I'm about to go all Nazi-pure-blood-half-breeds-Aryans-social-cleansing crazy, fear not. Hopefully by the end you'll see that actually my philosophy is so different to Hitler's, if he were alive and had a computer and read this blog post he would be all like "NEIN!")
Well to understand exactly why we have a name tag to begin with we have to look at human psychology. I believe I've mentioned numerous times on this blog before (and if I haven't then I have missed out something pretty major...) that humans, like myself and yourself, like patterns. We strive to find patterns in everything. Look up pareidolia. Fascinating and also explains why people see Jesus in their toast or Elvis in a tea stain on a scatter cushion or all sorts of bizarre visions. Humans have evolved to see faces in random objects because it's helped us survive. Being able to quickly take in information about someone's face can help us to assess how to react in certain situations. It's made us the social animal we are! Our pattern recognition skills also lead to people seeing figures and shapes in the clouds and constellations and also help us recognise situations we have been in before and react in an appropriate manner to survive. It's kept us alive but also given us the potential to develop phobias so there are pros and cons but really the pros win out which is why we've kept these abilities.
So you see humans are built to try and find patterns in things. We like things organised not just chaotic information we don't know how to react to. This is why species are classified. We want little boxes that each and every species neatly fits into.
"Ok!" You say. "Let's get started! If we start off simple... So how about things that live in the sea. They can all be fish..."
Ah no what about whales and dolphins and all them? They are actually pretty closely genetically related to stuff that doesn't live in the sea but other stuff that lives in the sea like plankton are way different. Also can you really call plankton and deep sea angler fish BOTH fish? They are super different.
"Ok... So where things live and what they look like aren't going to cut it because we have genetics and stuff... Hey! Why don't we use genetics to classify animals?"
Hey that's a grea- No wait a minute. Subspecies.
"Subspecies?"
Subspecies. Subspecies are way hard to classify. When does a species become a subspecies? When does a subspecies become an entirely new species? Where do we draw the lines? If one group of animals gets separated from all of their little animal friends for a long enough period of time then that group can end up entirely different to how they originally were, but at what point are they different enough to be considered a new species?
There is a famous thought experiment that gets you to imagine a heap of sand. It asks, if you were to take a grain of sand at a time off of the heap at what point would it stop being a heap? When would it become, say, a pile of sand? Now really what this thought experiment is meant to illustrate is the vagueness of language, a lot of the common everyday words we use without considering it are actually incredibly vague. It's surprising we've made it this far quite frankly...
Now considering this experiment in regards to species and particularly classification using genetics we come to a stumbling block. If you were to take an individual and remove one exon (a piece of genetic material that codes for a protein (my A-level in biology has not gone to waste)) at a time, at what point would they stop being a human being? Remove a few genes, yeah ok, still basically human. Maybe the person will suffer some genetic problems like cystic fibrosis or something similar. Would anyone here suggest that someone with a genetic disorder like cystic fibrosis isn't human? I certainly wouldn't and if you do don't ever speak to me again.
Ever.
So if only a few changes isn't enough what about removing half of a human's genetic material? It would be basically impossible for anyone to say that the end result of such an experiment would be a human being. We share 50% of our DNA with bananas so it could well be that if you chose which genes you were taking out the result would be indistinguishable from a collection of banana DNA. More than 50% out and no longer human but what about 75% or 86.5%? Are they still human?
Now the tree of life is looking a bit complicated isn't it. The barriers between species are breaking down. If you can't decide if an individual is definitely one species how can you say that that species even really exists?
Example. There are 3 different species of zebra. 2 of those species have 8 subspecies. One subspecies of the Plains zebra (Equus quagga) is Burchell's zebra. Now it was believed that Burchell's zebra had gone extinct until it was found that another subspecies of zebra that lived in the same areas as Burchell's zebra had lived (the Damara zebra or Equus quagga antiquorum) was actually... the same zebra. Yes, the zebra that everyone thought had gone extinct didn't actually exist. Well it did but it wasn't some other different species that went extinct, it was still wandering around under a different name. Everyone thought there were two subpopulations of zebra until 2 guys looked at some old skins of the extinct "Burchell's zebra" and found they were the same as the Damara zebra. Now because the name Burchell's zebra is older than the Damara zebra, the Damara zebra is now called Burchell's zebra and the species that was called Burchell's zebra... well it still is called Burchell's zebra but it isn't extinct. Hooray?
Yeah the classification system isn't so rock solid. When was this mix-up of species discovered? 2004.
You must be asking yourself at this point "But why am I bothering to read all this? I'm a very busy person and the capitalist society we live in abhors wasted minutes that could be spent either producing or consuming. I haven't got time for internet words!" and in response I'll say "Don't worry, botched together, feel-good, bite-sized philosophy is just around the corner!"
The whole point of this post is to get you to consider that actually the whole idea of species classification is really very shaky. Science still isn't really exactly sure where the lines lie. If you base it on genetics you can run into problems like the heap of sand. It's been suggested we use reproductive capabilities but then again we have people that physically can't reproduce because of their genes and then people that choose not to reproduce. Do these individuals fall out of the classification table into a separate group labelled Misc.? It's also been put forward that no one parameter of classification will ever be good enough. The "Tree" of Life is more The "Headphones-Tangled-In-Your-Pocket".
Of Life.
I am inclined to agree with this latter idea. As said in a previous post, we are all merely growths of the same original biological organism (as far as we know). Every living thing can follow an ancestor down to a point where we all converge. Humans are just differently organised bananas and bananas are just differently organised plankton. All of us are living beings and in the grand scale of things are really pretty indistinguishable. We tend to forget that when we are walking through a forest, the trees aren't just a background landscape, they are just as much living things as the squirrels and birds that call them home just as much as we are living things. They may not behave or act or react in the same way as us but they are alive. What sort of ramifications can thinking like this have? Does being aware of the fact that we are surrounded by other living beings that are a mere few lines of coded proteins away change how we think of the world and of ourselves? Does it compel us to act and think differently? I'll leave you to think on that.
Hope I didn't lose you during that zebra stuff. I had the sources in front of me and it was a bit of a mind bender... And I told you I wouldn't go all Hitlery...
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