r0dman.com

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.

So I’m at a crossroads.

I have a lot of free time.. too much probably, and in that free time I like to read websites. Alternative media, whatever you want to call it, so I actually read the news that I want to find out about, not what the papers write just to make money.

Over the past year I’ve really been into the Global Financial Crisis and the housing bubble. When I started delving deeper though, I started to see the cracks in the stories and began to read up on related conspiracy theories, to get a better idea as to what is really could be going on in the world. The problem is that now I just don’t know what to believe and what not to believe. Have these sorts of stories been around for hundreds of years, or has each generation had these sort of “scares”? Have our parents heard this sort of bleak news when they were younger and everything has worked out for them, or is this just a new thing? Do I really pay attention to this information or do I ignore it?

Ignorance is bliss no doubt, I believe that on so many levels. Finance, diet, lifestyle, and so on. I know corruption is rife worldwide, and often it’s so rife it’s actually unintentional in a lot of cases. But organised corruption on a massive scale – do I just keep on riding my bike and push it out of my head?

I’m so stoked with life on so many levels, but just so lost went it comes to what I should believe in.

I’ve finally made one decision – I’m over religion. Growing up as a kid with an atheist father and a true Catholic mum (by true Catholic, I mean one that doesn’t go to church), and being sent to a Catholic school, I had religion in my life but never forced upon me. I’ve always had the option to believe in something but the option to believe in nothing. Nowadays I see religion for the ponzi scheme that it is. Good luck to those that have found God and choose to believe though, I have no issues with it. That’s out of the way now, but there’s more to decide on.

Do I choose to believe that the New World Order plans to create a global government, and make our countries states. Is the Global Financial Crisis an engineered crash by the Global Elite? Is population control a reality? Who really attacked the twin towers?

Obviously not every conspiracy theory is true, but why are we always so quick to assume that they are false? There are a lot of truths out there once you start to look into them. What is crazy and what isn’t?

This is where I’m at.

New World Order is everywhere at the moment, just check out Google News. It’s as though something that has always been labelled as crazy is now actually happening. This video abbreviates some info into a more professional presentation.

[pro-player width='490' height='230' type='FLV']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHvTy_fVdJ8[/pro-player]

Ugh, I don’t want to be going insane. What should I believe in?

So I was just on a car forum that I regularly talk on to kill my days at work. People were talking about “cheating” in a relationship and what they consider to be ok and not ok. I told a comical story from a few years back where I ended up in a less than ideal situation with a girl from a party that I was at. I didn’t do anything that I considered as “wrong”, although probably pushing the boundaries a bit, and my girlfriend didn’t see it as an issue either. The point that I was trying to make, was that everyone has differing opinions, and what works for some won’t work for all.

I think the biggest mistake that some people make is pretending to be someone who they aren’t, just to make a relationship work. If you are your true self 100% of the time, there’s nothing to lose. Your partner knows what you are like, who you really are, and what to expect. This in my opinion is how quality relationships are formed.

Anyway, I copped a barrage of abuse. Closed minded sheep that are set in their ways. The comical thing was that the majority of them posting abuse at me had never had a decent long term relationship. By the sounds of it, most don’t communicate when in a relationship and try to conform to the rules that society set for their relationship, only to end up failing each time they try.

The point that I then brought up was whether or not they would dump someone for cheating, or try and work things out. Literally all except one of them said they’d dump the other person.

Now I hate talking about this crap, but it is interesting. I think it’s a perfect example of people getting hung up on small things in their life, rather than just living it an experiencing it for the journey. I’m not suggesting that people let their partner walk all over them, but I just believe that people are too quick to break things off nowadays. Fact of the matter is, life won’t always go your way.

I was talking to my fiancee the other day, relaxing down by the river on a Sunday afternoon. After talking about her niece and nephew, she said “imagine if we couldn’t have kids”. In the past I’d have thought that she would be devastated, but after asking her what she would do she just said “that’s life, you’ve gotta move on”. For sure, I’d be disappointed for a bit too, but it’s not as though my life would be over. I think some people place too much emphasis on too few things. To me, life is a journey. Ups and downs, good times and bad, but ultimately every time there is a good or bad occurrence, it just opens a new door.

I get annoyed or unhappy from time to time like everyone does, but I really think you can make a conscious decision to “look on the bright side of life”.

When we talked about the possibility of not having children, I realised that although at first we’d be disappointed, it would mean a life of togetherness. Most parents I speak to say that the time before they had kids was the best time in their relationship. I could handle living my whole life like that!

Being a kid, life is just fun. You roll with the punches and keep on going. You don’t hesitate, because nothing can stop you. If you fail, you just get up and try again. As we get older, we lose this carelessness. We get hung up on the small things and let life beat us down and stop us from living the life that we really want.

If you take a step back and think about life, it’s amazing. Embrace it for what it is and enjoy as much of it as you can. It’s the best journey you’ll ever experience.

I caught the bus in to work this morning. It’s an hour and ten minutes by bus, and 35 minutes by car, but I prefer the bus. Less stress for me. When I drive I am just in disbelief of how terrible people are at driving, how inattentive they are in the mornings, and really, I just feel like a sheep when I’m in that car on the way to work.

Now granted public transport isn’t much of a step up from driving. It just makes me a sheep that is either too broke to drive, or cares about the environment a bit more than the next sheep. Ideally I ride my bike, but I’ve been lazy lately. When I used to work in the city it was a 35 minute ride to and from work, and I literally rode every day of the year. It’s not so easy when your commute is an hour and a half. It probably doesn’t help that I ride a single speed though.

This morning my connecting bus left before mine got to the interchange. At first I was a bit annoyed but I realised that if I caught the train I’d only get to work 5 minutes later. No biggie. I waited for the train while it was raining lightly and it was actually enjoyable. A few minutes to myself, in the rain. Nice! When I arrived at work though, people think I’m crazy. “An hour and 15 minutes to get to work? And you’re jacket’s wet! As if you don’t just drive!”

What I can’t get over is just how people are unable to think for themselves. The majority of people that I know just follow what the TV tells them to do, or what the sheep next to them is doing. I knew if they asked them why they drove a car they wouldn’t know. You get answers like “Because that’s what you do, you drive to work in your car. Everybody does it.”

I got started with a dude the other day that was telling me how bad alcohol is, and how awesome he was because he didn’t drink alcohol. Pity he drinks three or four cups of coffee every morning, and is one of those “I can’t function without my coffee” people. So I told him…

Caffeine is the most widespread drug on the planet. It is more addictive than alcohol. Served to children at all ages, and has huge range of negative effects.

Granted, alcohol is not good for you, however, think about when caffeine is taken. Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Every day?

Think about when alcohol is taken? Once a week? Once a month?

Obviously the amounts vary per person, but caffeine is a socially accepted drug. You can chug it all morning at work and no one bats an eyelid. If anything, you’re the odd one out when you don’t drink it. Try having a scotch at 9am. I doubt it would go down well with your boss/wife/etc.

So you can be addicted, and be on a drug during work, or while living your “normal” life.

This guy is happy to be told by the newspaper (and I use the term loosely) that alcohol is so insanely bad for everyone (and don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating how good it is for you), but he’s in a little dream world that tells him that his excessive coffee drinking is fine. The same guy drinks a few litres Pepsi Max every day and refuses to believe that people can be “in shape”, and eat a diet with more than 8 carbs per week in it.

Why do people need the latest fad? You only have to read your local paper to know what I’m talking about. New diet, the latest phone, new cars, etc. They don’t know what else to need. How often are people told that they should go for a walk outside and enjoy life? Told to look up at the sky and be amazed by the clouds? Told to go for a ride on their bike with the kids? No one benefits financially from those activities (except for the Government, but they are too blind to plan for long term benefits of people being fit and healthy and are happier for the short term benefits of claiming tax from TV sales and other crap), and after all, a newspaper is just an advertising medium. The paper is just doing what they do to make money. Same with the TV station.

All I’d like to see is people thinking for themselves. Believing in what they TRUELY believe in, not what they are being told to believe in. Fat chance though. In this last year I’ve learned what it feels like to be in a minority group. Only thing is my group isn’t due to my race or hobbies or orientation, it’s because I’m happy to think for myself.

Do you think for yourself? Or do you just follow the other sheep? Once you open your mind up to the possibilities, it’s hard to become an ignorant sheep again.