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| Autumn Tree |
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| Autumn Tree Closeup |
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| Basketball Court Graffiti |
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| Abandoned Bench |
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| Abandoned Leaves |
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| Please Don't Feed The Birds |
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| Bony Fish |
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| Ghetto Door |
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| Road Closed |
Monday, April 29, 2013
Autumn colours in the ghetto
I went out to the local public housing estate here (Prahran - near Dyeworks Park) to take a few shots of the graffiti and the autumn colours. Unfortunately the light wasn't great today, but here are some things I thought worth posting:
There are some much more spectacular places for both urban decay exploration as well as good shows of autumn colours around Melbourne, but I thought I'd start around my block - because I'm lazy and it's close.
Friday, April 19, 2013
"Just Friends"
Few things irk me more than the phrase "just friends"...
This phrase is usually used in the context of comparing friendship to a romantic relationship in some way - and implying that a romantic relationship is "higher" and more valuable than a friendship. I couldn't disagree with this mentality more. To me there is nothing "more" than friends. If anything, "just lovers" makes far more sense to me than "just friends" - even though I have no interest in that kind of relationship.
One of the effects of being demisexual (or whatever I am) is that I'm essentially blind to the appeal of sex for the sake of sex. So this means that the likes of casual hookups, fuck buddies, FWBs and the like make absolutely no sense to me. Add the entire sex industry in there for good measure. The point should be quite clear anyway - there are a lot of people out there for whom "just lovers" certainly means something. I don't really get it, but I have to just accept that it exists, since it seems to be a part of human nature for many of us.
So why is "just friends" so aggravating?
This phrase is usually used in the context of comparing friendship to a romantic relationship in some way - and implying that a romantic relationship is "higher" and more valuable than a friendship. I couldn't disagree with this mentality more. To me there is nothing "more" than friends. If anything, "just lovers" makes far more sense to me than "just friends" - even though I have no interest in that kind of relationship.
One of the effects of being demisexual (or whatever I am) is that I'm essentially blind to the appeal of sex for the sake of sex. So this means that the likes of casual hookups, fuck buddies, FWBs and the like make absolutely no sense to me. Add the entire sex industry in there for good measure. The point should be quite clear anyway - there are a lot of people out there for whom "just lovers" certainly means something. I don't really get it, but I have to just accept that it exists, since it seems to be a part of human nature for many of us.
So why is "just friends" so aggravating?
"Marry Your Best Friend"
Most people seem to agree that your Significant Other relationship should also be your best friend. After all, this is the person you'll be spending a lot of time with, so you have to get along as friends - during that 99% of the time you're around each other when you're not having sex, or even having romantic Kodak Moments for that matter.
Despite this, the pop culture "language of love" seems to imply that romance needs to be something completely different from friendship. Of an entirely different quality, over and above "just friends". I think this is incredibly damaging. I think all it does is lead to a lot of people marrying for romantic passion and lust rather than marrying for real love - the kind of love that truly respects and accepts a person as a person. This kind of love isn't only very similar to friendship, it is friendship.
There is nothing "just-" about it at all. On the other hand - there is in fact a lot of truth to "just lovers" being something fleeting, superficial and hollow. And I think a lot of people get carried away by these romantic notions rather than stepping back and looking at what's underneath it all, what actually matters. People marry knights in shining armour or princesses instead of marrying their best friends, and then they wonder why it doesn't last.
Monday, April 15, 2013
New Toy
I've been thinking how cool it would be to take a real camera along with me on walks and such lately. Sometimes I just see something that I'd love to get a picture of, but my mobile phone camera can't do it enough justice to even be worth bothering. Not that I'm thinking of treating Photography as a serious hobby mind you - just something to do to sink some time while I'm unemployed.
So anyhoo, here is it, bought it at BigW this morning:
Yeah, just your pretty basic point-and-click beginners digital camera. Nothing fancy.
Apart from taking a few pics of my apartment, I've played around a bit with the free software that came with it. It's not particularly advanced, but it lets you do some basic image manipulation. So far I've come up with this - using a highly exposed image of my Buddha statue:
So anyhoo, here is it, bought it at BigW this morning:
Yeah, just your pretty basic point-and-click beginners digital camera. Nothing fancy.
Apart from taking a few pics of my apartment, I've played around a bit with the free software that came with it. It's not particularly advanced, but it lets you do some basic image manipulation. So far I've come up with this - using a highly exposed image of my Buddha statue:
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| Original |
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| Manipulated |
Yeah, I know, pretty lame. But I think this could be a fun little time sink, and I might be able to get some interesting effects with autumn colours and other such scenery.
Better than going back to World of Warcraft anyway (RIP 2006-2012). That was the other time sink I was looking at signing up for this morning again. This is better - it might get me out of the house more.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Career Epiphany
So I've had a bit of a "reverse brainfart" over all my career-related issues ...
Last Thursday evening, I was out getting a casual dinner at a little diner on Chapel Street, and saw some office workers walking around on their way home from work. Suddenly I was reminded of the days when I was one of them - and how in context it doesn't have to be so bad.
Initially I felt like a total tool. Like these last two years and three months have been all for nothing. But then it quickly hit me that it's not the case at all - it was all part of a journey. The realisations could never have happened in the state I was in back in late 2010. If I had tried to face it down - I simply would have ended up stewing more and more, potentially going nuts in the process.
I think a lot of it comes down to accepting a situation you're in emotionally, rather than purely intellectually. ie It's easy enough to intellectually understand that a "job is just a job" for example - and not take it personally when it's not a little slice of heaven every day. But if you don't emotionally grasp that, you can slowly dig yourself into a hole which leads to burnout. I can see that now, and know when to fold in future. Though I suspect that now I'd do a lot better - and last a lot longer and be more productive - even in jobs which I find incredibly mind-numbing.
So where to now? - I'm not 100% sure yet. I've re-done my CV. Created three versions of it for different types of jobs in fact. But mostly I'll be looking in an IT specialisation which I haven't directly worked in before (although I'd been in that kind of role informally at times - as part of jobs which were officially something else).
I'm not expecting to get something in a hurry. I've got a career gap on my CV now which will probably take some serious selling. But we'll see how it goes.
Last Thursday evening, I was out getting a casual dinner at a little diner on Chapel Street, and saw some office workers walking around on their way home from work. Suddenly I was reminded of the days when I was one of them - and how in context it doesn't have to be so bad.
Initially I felt like a total tool. Like these last two years and three months have been all for nothing. But then it quickly hit me that it's not the case at all - it was all part of a journey. The realisations could never have happened in the state I was in back in late 2010. If I had tried to face it down - I simply would have ended up stewing more and more, potentially going nuts in the process.
I think a lot of it comes down to accepting a situation you're in emotionally, rather than purely intellectually. ie It's easy enough to intellectually understand that a "job is just a job" for example - and not take it personally when it's not a little slice of heaven every day. But if you don't emotionally grasp that, you can slowly dig yourself into a hole which leads to burnout. I can see that now, and know when to fold in future. Though I suspect that now I'd do a lot better - and last a lot longer and be more productive - even in jobs which I find incredibly mind-numbing.
So where to now? - I'm not 100% sure yet. I've re-done my CV. Created three versions of it for different types of jobs in fact. But mostly I'll be looking in an IT specialisation which I haven't directly worked in before (although I'd been in that kind of role informally at times - as part of jobs which were officially something else).
I'm not expecting to get something in a hurry. I've got a career gap on my CV now which will probably take some serious selling. But we'll see how it goes.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Thoughts on Glamour Photography
I have a few friends on Facebook who are photographers and make-up artists. So virtually every day, some of their glamour work comes through on my feed.
The other day, when coming across the umpteenth glamour pic of a young female model, the following thought popped into my mind: "Man, what's with all the chicks? I wanna see some ripped shirtless dudes too!" - That thought made me smile, both for how "queer" it would sound if I actually said that in a comment, as well as for how completely innocent it actually is. This is basically a demonstration of why I think of myself as "demisexual". Despite being at war with that label internally, I don't have a better word to describe this phenomenon at the moment.
In short: I simply have no sense of seeing anything sexually appealing in anyone upfront. Glamour photography of women versus similar "beefcake" shots of men have exactly the same effect on me. I can appreciate the beauty, health, and fitness of people as people, and nobody manages to get me going in any kind of sexually titillating way. In both cases, the though is something like: "Wow! Props to your genes, diet, and exercise regimen!" - and this is essentially all that I get out of "people watching" of any kind, regardless of the genders of the people I see. It's totally sex-neutral. So why did I get the thought of wanting to see dudes as well? Variety. Simple variety. The gender one-sidedness of the glamour genre simply bores me for being one-sided.
All that said, I am hetero-romantic. Meaning that I never feel any sense of romantic attraction to males. So on some weird level (which I can't even really explain), glamour shots of cute girls can sometimes mean something to me which images of men never can. It's totally non-sexual though, and in fact, it's usually something that I can only see in images which are not particularly "sexy", but mostly elegant or "cute". It's like there is some kind of subconscious trigger in them of memories of innocent puppy love, rather than anything sexual - since sexual attraction is something I simply don't feel for strangers anyway.
It's interesting to imagine sometimes what other people must be seeing in these things. For the longest time I thought of it as some sort of hype. It was like I could see something in it, but couldn't quite put my finger on what all the fuss and excitement is about. Why certain highly "sexy" poses get so many more likes, attention and "OMG UR SO HOT!!!!1!111!!one" comments than more neutral poses do, etc etc etc.
At the end of the day, it's not a big deal I suppose. But it does make me smile when people erase and invalidate demisexuality, because I highly doubt that most heterosexual men really see no sexually meaningful difference between glamour and "beefcake" pics. That both are in fact mostly "just beautiful people" to their mind.
The other day, when coming across the umpteenth glamour pic of a young female model, the following thought popped into my mind: "Man, what's with all the chicks? I wanna see some ripped shirtless dudes too!" - That thought made me smile, both for how "queer" it would sound if I actually said that in a comment, as well as for how completely innocent it actually is. This is basically a demonstration of why I think of myself as "demisexual". Despite being at war with that label internally, I don't have a better word to describe this phenomenon at the moment.
In short: I simply have no sense of seeing anything sexually appealing in anyone upfront. Glamour photography of women versus similar "beefcake" shots of men have exactly the same effect on me. I can appreciate the beauty, health, and fitness of people as people, and nobody manages to get me going in any kind of sexually titillating way. In both cases, the though is something like: "Wow! Props to your genes, diet, and exercise regimen!" - and this is essentially all that I get out of "people watching" of any kind, regardless of the genders of the people I see. It's totally sex-neutral. So why did I get the thought of wanting to see dudes as well? Variety. Simple variety. The gender one-sidedness of the glamour genre simply bores me for being one-sided.
All that said, I am hetero-romantic. Meaning that I never feel any sense of romantic attraction to males. So on some weird level (which I can't even really explain), glamour shots of cute girls can sometimes mean something to me which images of men never can. It's totally non-sexual though, and in fact, it's usually something that I can only see in images which are not particularly "sexy", but mostly elegant or "cute". It's like there is some kind of subconscious trigger in them of memories of innocent puppy love, rather than anything sexual - since sexual attraction is something I simply don't feel for strangers anyway.
It's interesting to imagine sometimes what other people must be seeing in these things. For the longest time I thought of it as some sort of hype. It was like I could see something in it, but couldn't quite put my finger on what all the fuss and excitement is about. Why certain highly "sexy" poses get so many more likes, attention and "OMG UR SO HOT!!!!1!111!!one" comments than more neutral poses do, etc etc etc.
At the end of the day, it's not a big deal I suppose. But it does make me smile when people erase and invalidate demisexuality, because I highly doubt that most heterosexual men really see no sexually meaningful difference between glamour and "beefcake" pics. That both are in fact mostly "just beautiful people" to their mind.
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