New Job!

I started a new job yesterday!

Technically, it's actually the same job (kitchen steward), and I'm still working for the same company. But now, instead of doing random shift work in different kitchens all over the place, I'll be on set hours, in one kitchen. I've also moved from Casual basis to Fulltime, so now I'll get sick leave and annual leave entitlements and the like. Also: my hours will mostly be 10:30am-6:30pm, with some variation in future possibly, but probably not much. The outlet I'm working for is a hotel lobby bar/coffee shop, and the kitchen is only open from 12noon to the early evening.

The last time I worked fulltime was way back in early 2011. So after six years of random odd shift work hours, it feels oddly luxurious and exotic to be on relatively "normal" hours again (although I'm still working weekends). Work doesn't start super early either, so it's about the best of both worlds for what I want at the moment.

It'll be interesting to see how my perception of the advantages and disadvantages of this move change over time. I think I'll definitely start to feel like I've got "more money than time" at some point, when it sinks in how it's just not always easy to take a few days off and go on a random little mini-holiday somewhere, or something.

Still, I'm happy I've made the move for now. It's especially awesome to have some off time in the evenings as a given.

On Call Photo Walk

I've had to be on call with my work quite a bit recently...

Being on call doesn't really suit my temperament. I'm not a naturally "spontaneous" person. I dislike disruption. I prefer getting up in the morning and basically knowing what I'm doing that day - so a relatively big thing such as not knowing if I might work all day (or all evening/night, more typically) tends to trigger a strong sense of frustration...

I think it mostly comes down to a sense of not having control. But of course, when I think about it, I know that it's not really the lack of control itself which is the problem - the problem is with the desire to have that control. Attachment. Letting go of that desire, and just going with the flow, would make things much easier....

So today I decided to do just that. Did some basic house chores, a bit of reading, and then headed out for a very long photo walk - in the general direction of work. And right up until 6pm - which is the cutoff until I could theoretically be called in - I was ready to be called in.

It ended up being a pretty epic walk - from 4pm to almost 7pm. A big circle up St Kilda Road, along Southbank and South Wharf, and back home through South Melbourne. Those who know Melbourne know that this doesn't quite need to take three hours - but I spent a lot of time faffing around with my photography.

As for the photography itself - I was mostly just taking things in, not on any particular mission. Must say though - I'm quite impressed with the hand held capabilities of my EM5! Even at as low a shutter speed as 1/5 of a second, quite a few of the night shots turned out pretty clear.

At the end of the day, I didn't get called in to work, and that's totally fine. I get to have a quiet evening in instead!

The Grass is Greener in the Evening

It's funny how people get used to things. When I started my kitchen stewarding job last year, I wrote about being on the "inverted routine", and how it's sort of luxurious to be able to wake up whenever you feel like for work instead of forcing yourself up early in the mornings, etc etc.

Now, after a year of nothing else but evening/night shifts, the opposite actually feels luxurious! It actually feels exotic and privileged to me to be able to come home from work and have a relaxing evening off! And on the flipside, the few hours of free time that I have at the moment before work during the afternoons feel a bit pointless.

No matter how aware I am that this is just hedonic adaptation at work, it's still hard not to feel this way - that all these people working during the day and having evenings off are having an easy and relaxing time of it. And I should know better: I've spent 10 years working as a 9-5 office drone, as well as had past jobs which included very early rises, on "factory hours" such as 7-3.

Still, I've taken steps to try to get off night shift, at least for a couple of days per week. It's hard to organise an ongoing fixed roster which is anything like "normal" daytime business hours in hospitality, but at least this coming week I've got a couple of day shifts. And if they work out, they might become a permanent thing for a couple of months. There'll still be evening/night shifts on the weekend, but only daytime during the week.

This will be the ultimate test I suppose: having some of each in the same weekly routine. I'd like to think that being on day shift will be a huge relief, and feel very easy and relaxed to be on - mainly due to these exotic, rare and precious things called "free evenings"! But I'm pretty sure that it'll soon feel "normal", and like nothing special. And that I'll see the disadvantages of it as well as the advantages very quickly.

Graveyard Shift

Well, after nearly a year in a job where 24-hour rosters are the norm, I've finally ended up on graveyard shift for the next three nights. That's Midnight to 6am! The last time I worked graveyard shift was some 15 years ago, and it was in a similar kitchen stewarding job to what I do now.

After nearly a year of working almost nothing but dinner shifts (around 6pm to around 2-3am), I'm actually finding this prospect refreshing. Unlike the dinner shift, graveyard shift actually overlaps a bit with "normal" sociable times, such as dinner time and evenings-after-work for most people. So it's quite possible to - for example - meet up with someone for dinner and then go to work. On the dinner night shifts on the other hand - you're only really overlapping with people who on the "normal" routine at silly times like early mornings, from ~3am until they wake up and go to work. So even if you're living with someone, you can't really see each other properly on working days!

Given my solo lifestyle, and that I'm not exactly the most sociable person in the world, it actually doesn't matter too much which shift I work. Of course, it's nice to be more available at "normal" sociable times than not - just for the opportunity value of having casual availability in your life routine to catch up with friends and family and such.

Furthermore, and oddly enough - despite seeming more "extreme" than the dinner shift - I actually think the graveyard shift would be better even with a family home life! ie The free time of your day is the late afternoon and evening, when kids and partners and such come home from school and work, so you can spend time with them. Unlike on the dinner shift where you're generally well and truly on the way to work by the time they're coming home. And the only "overlap" you have with them is a rather useless time - the wee hours of the morning when you come home and the household is asleep, and just wakes up and runs out the door in the morning while you're trying to sleep.

Well, one thing I haven't fully experienced yet - since I'm only starting my first shift tonight - is what working graveyard shift will do to my sleep patterns. I've had a lot of late finishes and sleeping in until past midday on the dinner shift, and that has been pretty easy to beat and get back on day schedules for days off. Maybe graveyard will be more difficult, since it is even further from the norm, but I guess the next three days will tell.

One thing seems to be certain though - at least from what everybody who has worked this shift has been telling me - it is very very easy. They all say that there is "nothing to do", that it's boring. And of course, as I wrote nearly two years ago, that's just fine with me.

Relationship Anarchy Revisited Again

It's been a while since I've blogged about this topic - which is a bit odd perhaps - considering that I've actually been involved in my first RA-based relationship in real life for the past few months! It started in October 2013 with a woman I met on OkCupid (let's call her "T"), and has been going awesomely well from day one and ever since!

I suppose the reason why I've had nothing particular to say is exactly this - the fact that it's been going very well! Theory and practice coming together in such a seamless way that there's been nothing much to say except - "Yes! This is working great! Just as expected based on theoretical RA precepts, and experience with Internet-based long distance relationships."

This relationship is totally stress-free and drama-free, and I think the main reason for that is that there are no expectations of it being anything "more" than it actually is. I'm convinced that this is where almost all relationship drama ultimately comes from - people having mismatched expectations of some sort - and then hanging obligations and demands on each other which are aimed at fulfilling those expectations. But when you keep these to a minimum and just go with the flow of what's actually working well between the two of you - it works well with minimal "work".

That said, it certainly helps that both T and myself are extremely independent people. Neither of us is keen on typical relationship "progression", in traditional relationship escalator type terms. Or finding a traditional "life partner" and "settling down".

Oddly enough, certain details of what's been happening lately actually mimic some of that relationship progression behaviour (eg. Staying over and cooking together, having our first weekend away together last weekend, etc) - but there's still no stress. And again, it all comes down to having no particular expectations. These things don't "mean" anything that measures up against some external notion of where the relationship is "going". It just is what it is. Everything is measured relative only to itself.

You can probably see now why I've had nothing particular to say about all this ever since it started. It's just been exactly what it's been, and it's been great! I suppose the only generalised lesson is that Relationship Anarchy WORKS! And it works very well.

Harder to Think than to Do

I've had some rather rough shifts at work lately, finishing well after 2am in the morning, that sort of thing...

Just today I was reminded of something I read once about Ajahn Brahm. I think the story was that he was a young monk in Thailand, pushing a wheelbarrow while building a monastery. He complained to another monk how hard it was to push a heavy wheelbarrow, and the monk replied: "Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy, thinking about it is hard."

It's amazing how true this actually is. Especially when it comes to mindless manual work where there really is almost nothing to truly get "stuck on" mentally. This concept probably goes a long way to explain why I ultimately find the stresses of manual labouring type work much easier to tolerate than the stresses of "knowledge work". After all, you can't really avoid thinking about the work when the nature of the work is almost entirely mental.

Something to remember I guess. Every time one gets stressed over how "hard" a certain mindless chore or errand is going to be. It's easier to just do it than to think about doing it. ie Just go through the motions and find freedom from it on the other side.

Inverted Routine

So I've been at my new job for almost a month now...

My current daily work routine is almost completely inverted in comparison to "normal" working  hours. ie I go to work when others are finishing up for the day and I finish in the middle of the night, and by the time I'm in bed it's almost time to get up on the "normal" routine - for people on very early starts at least anyway.

The thing that didn't occur to me until recently is that not only are my working hours almost exactly the opposite of the norm, but that the "free" portion of the day comes at the opposite stage of the proceedings. For people on usual office hours - it's typical to wake up, go straight to work, come home, and then relax in the evening for a few hours before going to bed. For me it's the opposite: wake up, have lunch, have a few hours off to relax, then go to work - and then go straight to bed right after work.

Of course, this means that the "free" portion of my day has work hanging over it, meaning that it's potentially not as relaxing as it should be. Then again, it also means that you get to "sleep in" every day and wake up around lunchtime, which feels strangely luxurious in a world where having to force yourself out of bed in the mornings to go to work is such a near-universal "thing".

At any rate, it's interesting being on this new routine. When I'm trying to function on more "normal" hours during my days off, it feels a bit like being jetlagged, but it's not too bad. If I tried to shift my "free" portion of the day to after the work stage, then I'd definitely be completely screwed for functioning on the off days. This way I'm managing to (more or less) get back to normal on my days off.

Conditions vs Meaning

I had an epiphany the other day regarding something I wrote almost a year ago in these two posts: Good conditions can totally "make" a job. To the point where they can even override what you actually do on the job.

As I mentioned in the previous post - a couple of weeks ago I basically took a relatively lowly kitchen assistant type job over a software engineering one. Now granted, I'm not exactly super passionate about clawing my way back into the software development profession in the first place - but the feel of the office space at the place I interviewed certainly gave me a bad vibe too.

So the choice was basically this: a BoH kitchen job in a five star resort complex where I know the conditions are going to be awesome, versus a software development job in a place which may very well turn out to be a bit of a codemonkey sweatshop.

I suppose it comes down to what I wrote before about "alienated labour" versus "meaningful work". If you love certain work so much that it aligns with your sense of career fulfillment even when you're doing it for someone else for an external reward - that's great! But when you don't, then it's actually much easier to just step right away from trying to find any real meaning in your work, and truly treat it as just a job.

To some extent I envy people who can do that. The whole problem with me and knowledge work is that I have trouble "whoring out my brain". If an intellectual exercise doesn't truly inspire me, on a personal level, my patience with it goes out the window before it was even in the room. Of course, with jobs which let you keep your head - this isn't an issue at all. The only "challenge" is to put up with a certain level of repetition and boredom, which is in fact relatively easy once you've got some basic meditation techniques down.

Still, it's interesting to think about this from the point of view of "equivalent" jobs too. I never gave this much thought before. But there's definitely a reason why companies like Google are considered great to work for, while your average corporate cubicle codemonkey job is considered to be a burnout-waiting-to-happen. It largely comes down to conditions.

Sure, the content of the work matters too - it's generally more interesting to work on cool cutting-edge technologies than to maintain boring obscure business systems that were designed in the 1990s - but good conditions are what really makes it. And when conditions get past a certain extreme (good or bad) threshold, then even the underlying occupation involved can be overridden by them.

NYRs 2013 - Revisited

I was just looking over some old posts, and noticed my old New Years Resolutions post for 2013...

I totally forgot about it. And whoaaaa! A couple of those have severely "failed", but also not really - there's a context behind it. The context of "going with the flow", which I mentioned in the post itself.

The main thing which "failed" is the Lazy Evening Routine. When I initially looked over that, it looked pretty bad, but now when I think of it - relaxing in the evenings is justified, as life stands right now. I'm waking up very early and doing relatively productive things during the days, back at the end of 2012 I wasn't.

Looking back on where I was at earlier in the year, I'm certainly better at mindfully living in the moment, and going with the flow. There isn't much point stressing about not doing enough with your evenings, for its own sake. Relaxation and wind-down time are totally justified, especially when you're actually doing quite a bit of productive stuff during the day.

This is one of the pitfalls of New Years Resolutions I think. If you get too specific and overplan things, and then get very attached to those rigid plans, they just become a source of stress. And it's better to be results-oriented than routine-oriented. So for example: A goal like "get a truck license" would be a result-oriented goal, while a goal like "don't be lazy in the evenings" is too routine-oriented and subjective. And depending on how your routine evolves, it might make sense to break. Since you're not really being "lazy" if your routine evolves into something where relaxation in the evenings is justified. And besides, I'm not even being that lazy with my evenings - most of the time I do things such as catch up on emails or do some reading.

Something to think about for 2014, if I even bother with NYRs for it.

Incoherent Pre-Election Rant

Given that I'm on a mainstream media blackout, I'm not actually reading much about the upcoming election this weekend. But of course, I still occasionally see snippets of information here and there, via Facebook and Twitter and general chats with people.

A few unrelated thoughts have been bouncing around my head lately however - just some psychological observations about people and politics - so I think I'll try to put them down in writing. Not sure this will make much sense - but what the hey.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the whole idea of ideology and identity politics. Not just in ideological political terms, but even the likes of personal relationships. But I digress...

Years and years ago, when I first read "Escape From Freedom" by Erich Fromm, it hit me how authoritarianism seems to come in cycles (eg. Feudalism -> Fascism -> Communism). And I think this snippet explains it well:

"In the process of becoming emancipated from an overbearing authority/set of values, Fromm argues, we are often left with feelings of emptiness and anxiety (he likens this process to the individuation of infants in the normal course of child development) that will not abate until we use our 'freedom to' and develop some form of replacement of the old order. However, a common substitute for exercising "freedom to" or authenticity is to submit to an authoritarian system that replaces the old order with another of different external appearance but identical function for the individual: to eliminate uncertainty by prescribing what to think and how to act. "

This quite neatly explains why rigid identity politics tends to bug me. Having grown up in a true authoritarian system - which ultimately crashed - coming of age I often had a sense that there really is no such thing as a "good" fixed ideological system. One that's worth setting in stone and using as a permanent road map forever. It seems like the best we can do is have some sensible general framework in place, accept change as a constant, and always leave details up for re-evaluation and tweaking. Most importantly - allow for an ongoing competition of ideas.

To torture the metaphor further: Yes, keep the road map, but make sure you're in a 4WD! And be ready to go offroad at times!

Control Freaks rise to the Top

I think pretty much every hierarchy on Earth takes the following form: Loud-mouthed control freaks and sociopaths who know how to manipulate people and get their own way rise to the top, while honest hard-working people tend to labour quietly behind the scenes.

It's not a universal explanation of course, but I think it's common enough that in big enough systems - you'll almost always see relatively unpleasant and self-serving characters in higher positions. The reason why I often bring this up is because I believe this psychology transcends the usual political divides. It isn't really a "progressive vs conservative" issue, per se, because as noted above - when a seemingly "progressive" authoritarian system gets its way, it'll almost invariably become "conservative" - after a generation or so.

These days, I often think about the history of Yugoslavia, especially how - during the 1960s - it was often touted as a positive example of communism in the West. Some aspects were of course (at least relative to some other parts of the Eastern Bloc), but on the whole the above is basically what happened: control freaks rose to the top, there was no way to remove them - and the entire system became almost as regressive and scary as what came before it. Barring some overall global improvements in the human condition of course (which were happening universally in every semi-functional society at the time anyway).

But worst of all - society in general was high on ideology. Many people were relatively comfortable and didn't see much need for change. Even though there was plenty of evidence around that things were beginning to fester and rot. But most just treated politics as an elephant in the room, and didn't get involved in uprisings or dissent - it was simply easier and safer to remain a "faithless follower". And I saw the tail end of this personally, growing up there in the 1980s.

The events of the "Croatian Spring" were the culmination of all this I think. The very generation that smashed Fascism and modernised the country now had control freaks in higher positions who were afraid of taking the next step - and loosening the Party's grip on the country, potentially allowing it to transition towards becoming a Western European style social democracy (that extent of possibilities is possibly a pipe dream, but this bit is just a pointless revisionist rant anyway - so I'm entitled to speculate :P).

Ideology and Voting

I generally think of myself as progressive/left-wing, leaning towards Nordic-style democratic socialism as a theoretical ideal (for now). But on the other hand, I've got a libertarian streak too, which in some ways clashes with this. I suppose it's a mix of believing in solid foundations while giving as much freedom as possible at the same time. Not much is carved in stone though, which is what makes voting rather difficult at times.

When I go to the ballot box, I suppose these days I'm just happy that there is a ballot box - and that whichever control freak ends up in power and screws things up - four years later (or less) they will probably be replaced. If we're lucky, they'll do a good job, and they might get an extra term. But on the whole - the ability to kick them out is what seems to make democracy a winner over every other system that's been tried. Which isn't unusual when you think about the psychology of hierarchies.

Meanwhile, here I am trying to work out which minor parties have the best individual policies on various things. And of course, it's impossible to find anyone who speaks for all of my views on everything consistently.

Now I just have to make sure that this lack of fixed ideology doesn't become an authoritarian ideology in itself! Both in my political views as well as personal life (but that's a topic for another rant).

"Introvert Cave" days

I'm in one of those moods today where I really just can't face the "social world" at all. Not in real life anyway. I'm still perfectly fine with online communication such as emails and forums - but if anyone tried to make me go out and do something social tonight - I'd probably just say I already have plans - even though I don't really have "plans". Other than a quiet evening in, chillin' alone. But that's not really something you can (generally speaking) truthfully say to people - without sounding quite odd and possibly somewhat selfish.

But I really don't like pulling that whole "pretend plans" excuse - it's guilt-inducing because it's a "white lie" (and I'm usually a stickler for brutal openness and honesty) - so lately I've actually been quite truthful about being in such moods. Family and old friends know this about me well enough to accept it anyway.

Back in the day (especially when I used to play World of Warcraft), I used to call this spending the day/weekend in the Man Cave. But little did I know that the term Man Cave actually has some quite unfortunate heteronormative (and somewhat sexist) implications. And really, this has nothing to do with being a "man" at all, it's to do with being human and being an introvert. So from now on I'll call this mood (and the associated quiet time in) "spending the day in the Introvert Cave".

I used to think that such moods correlated with being on a bit of mental health low of sorts, but I don't think that's the case at all. Whatever sense of slight anxiety or depression I had about such days in the past, it was only there because of social conditioning - and the peer pressure to "do stuff". The social world is geared to (and generally measured by) the "successes" of the extroverted experience after all, meaning that time spent alone at home is generally equated to time "wasted", time "doing nothing", or even time "being a loser" who has no plans for a Friday night.

It seems like it doesn't matter what you're doing - so long as you're not at home alone. Going out for dinner with family, going out for dinner and drinks with friends, dating, catching a live music act, getting drunk till you puke, chasing tail - anything is better than being a "loser" and spending the evening at home. That's what the cool kids keep telling you right through high school, and it never really ends, until you "settle down" I suppose. But then, that lifestyle comes with a whole new set of predictable social expectations and stereotypes. More than likely completely untenable for this particular introvert altogether! But I digress...

So yes, I get the feeling this entire weekend will be dominated by this mood. There's no particular reason for it that I can work out, it's just something that comes and goes. On Sunday I've got my last Melbourne International Film Festival film to watch, but other than that, much of this weekend will probably be completely unapologetic "scheduled downtime" around here.

Relationship Anarchy Revisited

This post is mostly going to be some musing and expanding on what I said back in January - in the Carnival of Aces post "My Relationship Anarchy". Mostly clarification of some terminology and a re-framing of certain things.

I suppose you could say I've got a clearer image in my mind now of what the problem was with how I was explaining my version of Relationship Anarchy back in those days - mostly with how confusing it was when presented to people who roll with a relatively mainstream and conventional relationship model.

The two main things I'm going to discuss are 1) how what non-monogamy means to me is "inverted" by mainstream standards, and 2) how the word "romance" is extremely problematic when applied to what it means with me. And how I'm possibly better off not being overly concerned with classifying my relationships as romantic or non-romantic altogether, to an extent anyway.

"Inverted" Non-Monogamy

This is by no means universal opinion - but for the most part - when people think non-monogamy (especially "open relationships"), the first thing that springs to mind is sexual openness. And the most common model people imagine is something like this: A committed core relationship in which the partners have agreed that they have an automatic "hall pass". In other words: the relationship is emotionally committed and probably fairly typical and conventional otherwise - other than that (usually relatively casual) sex is allowed outside of it.

Other forms of non-monogamy, especially the various combinations of polyamory, revolve around very different emotional commitment models, but that is the most common assumption in the popular imagination when it comes to "non-monogamy" - casual sex being allowed outside of an otherwise fairly standard committed relationship. The focus is on sex, at any rate. Usually relatively casual sex, while the core relationship is emotionally committed and otherwise might look very "normal" and mainstream.

My personal Relationship Anarchy ideals regarding "non-monogamy" practically turn this model on its head! Due to my demisexual issues, and generally being quite mindful and cautious about sex to boot - what I envisage for myself is a model which is more along the lines of the opposite: A (potential) core "primary" relationship which may be sexually exclusive, but then with openness to highly emotionally intimate friendships outside it. Intimate friendships which might never get sexual at all, even though they're highly emotionally intimate and may involve more affectionate physical contact than is usual for friendship.

So effectively - the emotional and sexual aspects of "openness" are reversed!

What's the point of this? Most "sexual" people might ask...

I think I can understand, at least intellectually, why this probably doesn't make much sense to most people. Most people can feel casual sexual attraction to random good-looking others. So the idea of casual sex is at least theoretically appealing, and might seem like a tempting "perk" of opening up their relationship in that sense, regardless of their morals and such and whether they'd actually personally ever do it or not. But probably more significantly - most people automatically associate "romantic" emotional bonding with sexuality, so it just doesn't make sense to them to have deep emotionally intimate relationships without sex. There's usually a fairly fixed sense of a relationship being firmly "romantic" versus "platonic" out there in the mainstream, and the presence of sex is pretty much a giveaway to which which type of relationship it is.

Of course, this all falls to pieces spectacularly when applied to people on the asexual spectrum. And I'll try my best to explain how it's all a horrible mess when applied to my own thinking on relationships - this annoying Romantic vs Platonic dichotomy.

The Problem With "Romance"

"Romance" is essentially completely disconnected from sexuality to me. I've definitely got an affectional orientation which is hetero, since I can feel that special "spark" for females, and can only develop crushes and limerence for females. But the link between this and sexuality (as well as any particular plans for how a relationship should look - in a way that would solidly differentiate it from close friendship) is ridiculously abstract - to say the least.

This has gotten to the point where I'm starting to think that applying the term "romantic" to myself is downright misleading. When I feel those feelings, it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to make that person my "girlfriend", in the usual sense. And it definitely doesn't mean that I want to have sex with her! Not immediately, and potentially not ever. It's probably better framed along the lines of - I care about her and am drawn to emotionally bonding with her. And if she ends up being a close friend whom I can open up to and talk about anything with and be affectionate with and cuddle with - that would be a totally fulfilling form of "special friendship" in itself!

But is a special friend whom you cuddle with and can talk about anything with really a "romantic" relationship in any real sense? I don't know. When I sit back and think about it, I actually confuse myself with where that line is now. If we were living in a highly cuddly culture where it wouldn't be weird, I'm pretty sure I could be "cuddle buddies" with just about any close female friend - and I'm not sure that the feelings of love and closeness in that situation would be qualitatively very different to what I used to think "romance" was. So it's like - I could easily think of all of my close friendships with women as "romantic" to a certain degree, or else think of myself as an aromantic who simply has a highly emotionally and physically affectionate response to females.

No, I'm not going to go with the latter there. I don't think it would be honest - but it's very tempting sometimes to throw away the term "romance" altogether when applied to my views on emotionally intimate relationships. Because the way it comes with so much sexual and relationship-traditionalist baggage completely ties my mental model of emotional bonding with women up in knots. It simply isn't such a clear and simple dichotomy in my mind. And trying to conform myself to it artificially leads to more problems than it solves.

Affectionate Friendship

My latest "thing" is something I call affectionate friendship. This isn't a term I invented of course, but I've come to the conclusion that this is the most intuitive way of connecting with me.

It can't really be said to be either a "proper" romantic relationship, nor "just" a friendship - but in Relationship Anarchy thinking - that doesn't matter. What matters is that people are on the same page and are connecting on a level that makes sense to them, as individuals. Regardless of how it conforms to mainstream ideas about what different "kinds" of relationships are "supposed to" look like.

And affectionate friendship is the most intuitive way to connect with me. I'd say around 90% of the time I feel affectional attraction to a girl - getting an ongoing and committed affectionate friendship out of the connection feels like it would be the most wonderful conclusion. It's not incomplete or confusing to me at all. Nor any more competitive nor exclusive than any other friendship.

Unfortunately, by "normal" standards, this is in a weird twilight zone. Not quite "just" friendship, and not really a proper "romantic relationship" either. Have something like this with someone else when you're in a conventional monogamous relationship - and you're definitely held to be "emotionally cheating" on your partner. Have it when you're single, and you're told that you're not in a "real" or "complete" relationship. Funny how that works. Still, it feels good to finally have something that makes sense to me. Something that I can actually offer up as a way of connecting that doesn't make me feel compromised and demented - the way standard "dating" does.

And as I've often said before, I strongly believe that love is love. The different "flavours" of love really don't have to dictate that a relationship has to be shoe-horned into a certain socially accepted "category". So in conclusion: affectionate friendship will be the common baseline of all my future relationships. And it's a wonderful form of ongoing relationship that can exist for its own sake, non-exclusively.

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.

Moments of Clarity

You know what I mean - those moments when suddenly something that used to be all blurry and confusing suddenly makes perfect sense.

When something that you were telling yourself for a long time suddenly either crystallises into focus, or else gets turned completely around, and you understand why.

When even though nothing special occurred as such, you feel like you've just lived through some big life-changing moment.

When it feels like part of you will never be the same again ...

I'm not actually sure what happened tonight qualifies, but I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow, after sleeping on it. No huge revelation really, just a bit of a shift in how I'm perceiving the value of work, "career", and the meaning society assigns to it - and how it relates to my own journey over the past two and a bit years.

The Paradox of Choice

I just finished reading Barry Schwartz's "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less".

There are a lot of things in here which overlap quite a bit with certain ideas about materialism and simple living which I've already had in place for a while. Either from socialistic aspects of my upbringing, Buddhism, or general study of philosophy.

From my interpretation - much of the problem with too much choice comes down to the "hedonic treadmill", and how even though this is something nearly everyone can understand in theory, it's very hard to fully grasp and put into practice - learning to stop these mind habits from stressing us out.

It's very easy to think "If only I could have such and such, then everything would be awesome". But then when we get the thing and get used to it, there is always another "such and such" to strive for. Rinse, lather, repeat. Meanwhile we're just stressed and depressed and not enjoying the simple moments of our everyday life.

"Satisficing" and Balance

Of course, there's nothing wrong with having goals and ambitions, but when you're in a mindset where they cause almost nothing but constant stress - maybe with the occasional high for a short while when we "get" something - maybe it's time to step back.

Many of the arguments in the book essentially come down to cultivating a mindset of "Satisficing": just choose what's good enough for a given purpose, and then forget about it - don't question it again. Don't stress about other paths you could have taken if only you did just that little bit more legwork - it almost inevitably leads to more stress than it's worth. Not because any one given decision you made was necessarily objectively good or bad, but because the sum total of all the decisions we make all the time is just so overwhelming these days, that the process of "maximising" all of those decisions adds up to a life of stress, subjectively. Potentially even spiralling down into a feeling of total loss of control, if not clinical depression.

One of the key suggestions the author makes is that we should think of important decisions as irreversible. eg. When you buy a car, don't stress about other makes and models that might be slightly better, and that you might have bought instead if only you did a bit more research. Just enjoy the car you have for what it's worth. 

I would take this a step further: think of ALL decisions as irreversible.

Irreversible Decisions

Not literally.What I mean by this is a bit more subtle, and captured by Impermanence. Every moment of every day is unique, never to be repeated again. So in a sense, by definition every decision we make is irreversible. And even the tiniest decisions can have knock-on effects which change our lives, if only we are mindful enough to see it at the time.

But of course, this doesn't mean that we have to keep doing things which are obviously going in a very bad direction (eg. Just two weeks ago I started and then quit a job 3 days later - because it turned out very unsuitable). It's more about not nit-picking and second guessing all the time when things are in fact good enough (there's that "satisficing" mindset again). As well as learning from "bad" decisions in a way which is mentally channelled into feeling like a positive life lesson rather than a negative nagging feeling of regret. 

In short: with the right attitude, I think all our decisions and experiences can actually be made to feel like reasonably positive life lessons, rather than an endless treadmill of hedonic failures and dissatisfaction.

Anyway, these are the main things I got out of it. A highly recommended read.

Driving - why context is Everything

I got asked a couple of weeks ago why it is that I'm trying to get into a driving-based job, considering that I've been quite vocal in the past about how much I "hate driving" - back when I was living in a suburban sprawl-based situation and having to drive everywhere. It's a reasonable question I suppose...

The answer is: Context.

The problem with driving for me was never the driving itself. It was the overall context of the situation. I disliked the idea of being in the Middle Of Nowhere in suburban sprawl, and having to waste heaps of time each day driving to uni/work to another Middle Of Nowhere in suburban sprawl. The act of driving acted as a time waster, one that always seemed irrational and pointless. ie. Why not live more sensibly? Somewhere where my "daily life routine destinations" are more conveniently close by? "And why are Australian cities built so stupidly and suburban sprawly dammit!"

Of course, life can't always be set up so neatly, and there isn't much point getting angry at things you can't change. There are logical factors which might make long commutes necessary at some stages of life, for whatever reason. But the general point stands - it wasn't "driving" in itself that was ever the problem for me. It was the context in which I had to waste a lot of time on it. Time which was essentially my own private time, which I would rather have spent doing something else.

The truth is, I actually enjoy driving, when it's done in a recreational context - or else a professional one. And doing it as a job, where all that time is paid for by the hour, is a totally different experience that way - compared to being "forced" by circumstance to drive everywhere every day and waste a lot of my own time and money on it. I guess it could be said that commuting is part of the job - but when I was younger, I guess I was less patient, and it was harder to think of it that way, but now even that bothers me a lot less - though I would still try to avoid it if at all possible - which is a big part of why I live in the inner city.

So yes, it seems like a contradiction at face value - "hating driving but wanting a driving-based job". But it's not really. The "hate" was never for the driving. It was for the context of time wasting, and for the irrationality of low-density suburban sprawl, which is what leads to so much car-dependency (and easily being "forced" into life situations where you have to routinely drive a lot) in the first place.

Procrastination blues

Some days I just can't get anything done. Today was one of those days...

I got up, checked my email, checked Facebook and Twitter, checked AVEN, checked The Age website..........REPEAT, again and again!  Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, and then after lunch - even though I told myself I'd make the afternoon more productive than that - pretty much the same routine ensued. It is now after 5pm, and I've literally accomplished nothing all day. Oh, except that I went for a little walk after lunch and bought some grape tomatoes at the shops, as an after dinner snack for later.

All this would even be okay if the day had been marked in advance in my head as a lazy weekend day, but today was actually a normal weekday on which I actually wanted to accomplish something. I suppose the trouble was that it was all very vague, and the "plans" were all in my head. So I'm going to turn this around tomorrow - I've written down a list of things to do, on paper, and I'll actually put a line through each item on the list after each task is done.

For someone who got right through school and uni without ever keeping a formal diary or ever making todo lists, this actually feels slightly pathetic. I thought I had the mental discipline lately to not get myself into this kind of rut with my daily routine. But I guess in the last few days I've been feeling a bit de-motivated. I suppose it's a combination of the slow summer job market (for applying for trucking jobs) and a lack of hours these days in my casual hospitality job.

This kind of procrastination is a funny beast. It seems to cause a weird spiral of hopelessness and depression: you don't start doing anything because it feels like it would be pointless to do it. Of course, nothing gets done, and then you feel bad about not doing anything all day. Vicious circle.

But anyway - enough whining, more list-making! I'll do my best not to overdo the list, because that will just give me an excuse to start removing things from it. But gotta make it big enough to really feel like tomorrow is some kind of non-trivial accomplishment!

True Sources of Happiness

I went to a Kadampa Buddhist talk and meditation session on Friday. For the most part it was an introductory session for people who are new to meditation and Buddhism, but one particular detail stuck out quite memorably - the idea of "true sources of happiness".

As defined by the nun (paraphrased from memory):

"A true source of happiness is something that always leads to happiness, and cannot possibly cause pain or suffering."

The example she gave was having dinner at your favourite restaurant with your favourite person, say your partner: At first glance, that event (in and of itself) seems like a source of happiness. But then, what if the flow of conversation drifts into some topic which leads to an argument? Your entire evening now turns into one long uncomfortable passive-aggressive silence. A source of suffering, no longer a source of happiness. So what this means is that the event of "going out to dinner to your favourite restaurant" isn't actually the source of happiness in itself, but rather the mental state that you expect from the event is. And if the mental state shifts for whatever reason, the happiness is shattered, and can even be replaced by downright awkwardness and suffering.

So what all this means is that the only true source of happiness lies in cultivating states of mind which aren't dependent on external circumstances. If you can maintain a happy state of mind despite external shifts in circumstances, you can remain happy. On the flipside, no amount of seemingly "good" external circumstances can guarantee happiness - though of course it's certainly better to have a certain basic level of security and physical well-being than not.

It's amazing how simple and true this is, and yet how difficult it can be to truly grasp. It's so easy to think - "If only I could accomplish XYZ, life will feel good and complete!". And this mostly comes in the form of some kind of worldly material goals, or accumulation of more and more Stuff.

The talk finished with the nun suggesting that the biggest New Years Resolution for 2013 (for everyone present) should be simply this: to learn to cultivate states of mind which will be causes of happiness despite external circumstances. Makes a lot of sense to me, but I know enough now to understand that this is an ongoing process, and not something that will ever be "complete".

Spontaneity and "social laziness"

I really hate surprises. Any kind of surprises. Especially social plans that are sprung on me last-minute...

Last night my parents called me up asking if I want to come over for dinner - this was just after 6pm when I already had food just about to go into the oven - and plans to watch Return Of The Jedi on DVD and have an early night. So technically I had nothing very special "on" last night, but still, I'm not really the sort of spontaneous person who likes sudden changes of plans like that. Even when there are no special plans in the first place.

What's really interesting is that - given enough notice - I'm not a socially lazy person at all. I'll happily make plans to fly to the other end of the country for a casual reunion with old friends in Perth for example. But the key is: these things are planned ahead. I know what's happening weeks or months in advance. It isn't something for which I have to drop everything and rush out the door within 30 minutes when I was expecting to do something else (or even nothing particularly special) that night.

Maybe it's an introvert/INTP thing. I certainly need some level of "mental preparation" when it comes to dealing with people. A sudden assault of any kind of human interaction tends to leave me mentally reeling a bit.

Long story short: I'm not a spontaneous person. I'm actually rather boring. I hate any kind of social surprises. But I don't think that necessarily makes me socially "lazy". Give me enough notice and I'll be up for anything. Don't give me enough notice, and I'll prefer sitting on the couch watching a DVD I've seen a thousand times over suddenly coming out with you.