Shouts From Down Under

Going all Googley Eyed. The misjudgement game we all play..

Have you ever Googled stuff that seems guaranteed to compel the authorities to set up a perimeter around your house, and carry your kicking and screaming person away in the night?

I asked Grandma Google this lumpy looking question a while back.

"Suburb of Moscow most likely Kremlin staff would live?" and she provided a very helpful link.

http://intermarksavills.ru/services/rent/moscow/moscow-districts/

Sometimes there are strange things to be learned that come up on Google.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/thesaurus?s=t

https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Google-named-Google

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol

And last night while lying in bed unable to get back to sleep, I asked Siri a few questions, trying to trip up the robot voice. Of course, there's probably not many questions people haven't asked. While doing this I decided to search for something. So I put into Google, Define such and such. I got that from our young people, sons and daughter, a few years ago when they were still at home. They said, Dad, when you look up stuff just type Define into the address bar and it'll find stuff on it for you.

Anyway, you know how you look stuff up and then things other people have searched come up too, like a sort of suggestion list. Someone had looked up "Define define". I mean Really?



Humans do that don't we? Sometimes we do things that move others to tears. It can be accidental. Cute things. Heart String pulling. Tears come that we are unashamed to show. It's not like you think, ooooo, someone might see my tears. You don't even think about the tears at all. You are too fascinated by whatever it is another human is doing or saying. Or filming.



I enjoyed a video from 2012 by Nick Vujicic, a guest speaker at a school, who has no arms or legs. (Apart from a chicken drumstick). He's what I'm talking about with the tears thing. I like how frank he is about his beliefs, without making people feel pressure to do what he does, or change to his beliefs. That's because he's real. He doesn't have to push people to do anything. He lives what he is.

"Tears clean the windows of your soul. That's why it's healing to cry. That's why you feel better after crying".



Recently, I've felt very down and discouraged. Mostly my own mind playing tricks and bluffing me into feeling out of control. It can be an excuse. Other times, and you know what those times are, don't you? Other times it's not an excuse for stuff, for failures etc, other times it's the real deal. It is really you at the end of your tether.

When you have those storms that Nick talks about looming over your at home or work or where ever, and you are hiding from your fears, from your health problems, and from the things said to you by others that sap your confidence in yourself, or something terrible you said to someone else, sometimes it just seems impossible to go on. It's not that you feel sorry for yourself. If only it was that you could kick yourself in the mental backside, get up and go on. Man up.
But sometimes, it isn't that simple.

I wonder how many times Nicola Tesla had to attempt stuff before he realised the discoveries he found. When we write it's like that. Drafts seem so hopeless don't they? At times, the thing we are trying to get across sounds stupid, fake and implausible.

If we wrote about plausible real normal sensible stuff, then who would read it? And if we wrote about ordinary life, with the pain, the heartbreak, the broken homes, the self harming, the political and religious differences, the environmental disagreements or gender confusion, the stuff that IS life, unless we find that edge, originality and freshness, then it will just be plain old ho hum. That stuff doesn't sell, not much anyway.

So what we write should be extraordinary shouldn't it?

But we can write plain old stuff and if written in an interesting way, with unique perspectives, one-off experience, individual viewpoint, then it WILL sell. It will be worthwhile. Even if we just write it like those tears. We'll feel better, even if NOBODY who reads it understands our view of the events written about.

Here's an example of a tiny speck of my unique view. I was brought up on country music, and we lived on a 5000 acre farm in the middle of the Pilliga scrub, in NSW Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilliga_forest

In fact, this is the same Pilliga Forest that is in world news at the moment because of protests by farmers alongside environmentalists (unheard of cooperation) against the ruination of groundwater due to gas / fracking. Slim dusty songs remind me very much of home, back on the farm, and some of the heart breaking losses, and griefs that happened in the years since. Some things I don't feel able to write about, no not even talk about. But this one I can.

The same Pilliga scrub that Eric Rolls wrote about in his book, A Million Wild Acres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Wild_Acres

My favourite song by Slim Dusty (Gordon Kirkpatrick) is Family of Man. Out of what must be hundreds of songs he wrote and sang, this one appeals the most. This song gives a voice to an easily overlooked achievement. And a race horse can't exactly talk. But you can listen to the story in your mind as you read it in these links. And hear the song. The song summarises the life and adventures of this "big bay stallion". Inspiring stuff!

http://www.slimdusty.com.au/
http://www.musicme.com/Slim-Dusty/titres/Family-Of-Man-t221372.html
http://www.racingandsports.com.au/racing/displayMessage.asp?mid=243305&sum=1&ord...
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19800721&id=qgxiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6-...

Nick Vujicic: www.attitudeisaltitude.com

Sparky