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Sex is a taboo topic, right? But what makes a topic taboo in the first place?

Growing up as an average Aussie kid, I’d say I was in the same situation as most. While it’s not as though I would get in trouble about talking about sex, it would just be plain awkward, and obviously you don’t want to actually talk to your parents about it. That then extends to friends and other people you come across, and as you grow up you end up talking to maybe a close group of a couple of friends about it. Throughout your childhood you are “protected” from it and it is always just implied that it’s not something that should be spoken about. Going to a Catholic school probably didn’t help this either!

But why? I know us Gen Y’s are meant to be a really “out there” generation, but are we really? Everyone has sex in some way shape or form, and it’s human nature, so why is it such an issue?

Humans are sexual beings, and looking at ancient times it is obvious that they used to embrace that, rather than hide it in their closet. Sex was considered to be an important part of humanity’s existence on planet earth. Greek paintings show young men and women naked and having sex, the Romans had their festivals, releasing their inhibitions and abandoning their shyness, while the Egyptian women wore at most a transparent cloth, their slaves only wearing beads! The Egyptian men usually wore a short kilt.

It’s such an interesting thing, sex. Talking to friends about it can be eye opening, shocking, or just plain hilarious, so once again, why the taboo?

I don’t consider myself a sexual deviant in any way (though I’m probably a deviant in other respects), but it does trouble me as to why things such as sex are so off limits. At the end of the day we are all on this earth to procreate, and not do much else. We spend so much time worrying about our money, our image and so on, but never the core aspects of our life.

Freedom in life is something that is becoming increasingly important to me. Part of this freedom is the ability to be able to talk about anything to anyone. I rarely hold back when talking to most people, and it’s still obvious how certain comments can shock some people, even what that is not the intention – I’m just making conversation.

Embrace life, and embrace sex. Both of them are here to be enjoyed, not cause grief.

On the way to work this morning I saw a traffic cop pulling someone over, no doubt for something trivial. It reminded me of a few years ago when my friends I were all into our cars  – modifying them and drive them regularly. Nowadays I have given up on that game, since driving a nice car in Australia just makes you a target for the Police to pick on.

Police are always under scrutiny, and at the end of the day it’s not the copper that makes the rules, but those higher up. Thinking of it all from a larger sense though – their resources are unjustly skewed towards policing law abiding citizens that break petty laws. The number of people I know that have been fined or defected for driving a car too low, doing 66km/h in a 60km/h zone, even jaywalking.

I realise that this is just one big controlling force of people. Obviously you can’t just go out there in the world and start killing people because it’s “what you believe in”, but what is the harm in people having a low car? There is no danger to the public by doing this, in face modified cars are typically much safer and well maintained than your average car on the road. Keep in mind this is only an example.

Cops “walking the beat” head out and bash some drunks and get a pat on the back for protecting the public. Aren’t the drunks that they just bashed part of “the public”?

Day to day policing is merely just keeping the general public in line. It’s just like growing up as a kid. There is the majority, and then those few “geeks” or “freaks” or whatever small minority. They are given a hard time because they are different to the majority. To me, traffic cops and general duties cops are doing the same – picking on those who don’t conform to society’s perceived views as to “what is right”.

It’s my personal view that we are living in an over policed society. Common sense is overlooked, and everyone is now a target. I know how fast I can drive a car down the road – I know what is safe. I know that stealing is wrong. Murdering someone is clearly wrong. The people breaking any of these laws to the extreme, are going to break them whether the law is in place or not. If anyone should be targeted, it’s them.

I have met many well respected cops in my time, and they all say the same thing – it’s a very frustrating job. Catch the true bad guys and they walk free after passing through the legal system. After a lifetime in the police force the job role has shifted from catching the bad guys to catching those who you can actually throw the book at – honest taxpayers that are committing petty “crimes”.

You can fail when fighting organised crime. You can’t fail when tackling speeding motorists. All you do is recruit more traffic cops and your nice statistics will come flowing in!

What a crazy world we live in…

After doing a lot of riding this week, I decided to catch the bus in today. It’s a cool and overcast day in Adelaide, but beautiful nonetheless. Even just the short walk along the river to the bus interchange put a smile on my face to start the day.

Doing some research on the net this morning I have found that I’m not the only one that believes spending time outside makes you happy. It’s always been something that puts a smile on my face. Doesn’t matter if it’s the rain drops falling, looking at the clouds on a summers day, or bush walking and coming across interesting cliff faces or plants. There’s always something out there that makes me happy, as obscure as those things may be.

It’s well documented that in order to live a healthy life, you should try and get a good dose of sunlight and fresh air each day. Many believe that when you are outdoors, you get an endorphin high, which makes you instantly happier. When you spend a good deal of time outside, it is more likely that you will sleep better that night too, and better sleep means that the next day you will feel more refreshed.

In nature, most people realise their purpose. It’s hard to clear your mind in an urban environment surrounded by darkness, pollution, electronics, and all sorts of other stress. When you are closer to nature, you can clear your mind and feel connected to the world surrounding you. Like any other species, we are “just living our lives” too.

I don’t believe in any higher meaning, I believe that we are on this earth to eat, sleep and procreate. This is very hard to see sometimes, especially when you are planning for a 3 o’clock meeting, need to reply to a stack of emails, and then pick the kids up from school afterwards. Escape to nature and it becomes so much more obvious that the “something more to life” is actually less. Less stress, less frantic living, and so on. This is hard to escape at times, but the simplest escape is to spend a small amount of time outside.

Plants flourish outdoors, put them indoors where they can’t get any light and they will die. We eat these plants, and we are meant to live in the same environment as them. It’s no wonder we are so negative sometimes, we need our dose of outdoors too.

If you do one thing today, go outside and find something interesting. Look up at the clouds, look at the green grass, close your eyes and breathe in the fresh air or listen to the birds.

Minimalism seems to be a word that is used predominantly with art or design, but I’m beginning to think it’s a good way to describe a lifestyle.

While I’m still a considerable hypocrite with most things I say on here, I feel as though one day my life will be quite simple.

A few years ago my fiancee and I decided to get a joint bank account. Financially we were the one entity – neither of us kept tabs on money spent on each other, so it made sense to join the accounts. All of a sudden I realised how much easier it was for the both of us. In the process I got rid of my Visa card, my high interest account, my normal account, and an account that I used to use for business and never bothered to close. So much less paperwork, so much less hassle!

Next up I decided to start cleaning up my old email accounts and other internet accounts. You know, the ones that bug you from time to time about coming back to a forum or that someone has replied to a post from two years ago. Took a while, but I sorted it out. Even just by removing these small annoyances from my life I feel more relaxed.

Since then I have been slowly selling small things from my spare room on eBay. I have a ridiculous amount of bike parts, car parts and computer parts just wasting space and driving me nuts every time I walk in there. It’s taking time, but I’m slowly getting rid of the gear that I don’t need.

I’ve mentioned my bike before that I ride to work on. It’s a single-speed. One gear. Pure simplicity! You’re never in the wrong gear, and there are no derailleurs to break and leave you stranded at 8am in the rain. It’s mentally so much more enjoyable to ride than my geared bikes. All I have to do is pedal and not get hit by a car. The rest of my brain is free to ponder the topics that end up on this very blog.

“Less is more.”

- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect.

While I do love minimalist design, and believe that the house that my family will live in will incorporate lots of these principles, I believe minimalism to be a term that has such a broader meaning than what it is usually used for. To me, a simpler life quite plainly means much less stress. Without stress, life is pure fun. What more could you want?

I’ve been watching a lot of The Sopranos lately. I love the show, and to be honest I don’t know why. The life that they are leading is one that would just never interest me. For those that don’t watch the show, it follows the life of a mob boss, and everything that goes on around him in his day to day life. Long work days, carrying the pain of killing people (often loved ones), and stress about work and the consequences of his exploits (being arrested or killed). His family has every possession they could want, yet so many problems as a result.

Walking to the bus interchange today I noticed that someone had spray painted “Life?” on the path. It wasn’t like the usual graffiti that I see around there. This was written more like one of those “No Milk” or “Go Vegan” tags, which aims to make people think. It made me think for sure. I don’t know what it was meant to mean but to me it seems as though it’s asking me, as I walk to the interchange to catch a bus to work. Is this life? Am I living? Or am I merely just “getting by”? Doing what everyone else does and calling it life..?

It also reminded me of a radio show called “Hack” that I was listening to a few weeks back. On this particular show they were talking about death and all things death. One of the people they spoke to was a freestyle motocross rider who “flirts with death” for a living. When asked about life, he says that a lot of people are nowadays just living and working 9 till 5, and he’s more scared of that than dying. For him it’s all about feeling life and “being alive”.

Incidentally this morning as I was thinking about all of this, I played a song called Entertainment by Rise Against. The line that struck me was “We’ve all made petty fortunes but we can’t afford a life”, and I really think it rings true in a lot of people’s lives. Why do so many of us earn decent wages, but never seem to have enough to really enjoy life? I’ve spoken about it before – working to live or living to work. For most it’s a very fine line, unable to shake the expectations of friends, family, colleagues and so forth. For others it’s easy to just leave the life that is expected of them, in order to live the life that they will enjoy.

After just having four days away from work over Easter, I’ve had a good break to catch up with my fiancee. Yesterday we just laid on a rug and lied in the sun for an hour or so, just talking about everything and enjoying the outdoors together. That, to me is living. I’ve realised that in order to enjoy life I only need a handful of things, very few of which have anything to do with money. Today I’m in an office surrounded by people still trying to get a big enough hit of coffee to wake themselves up at lunch time.

This ain’t living.