Change Myself 365 day 6

So what, I’m a slacker… I’ve been busy… not had too much time to do any tumbling recently. I’ve had some big jobs on and moving house too but things will settle down again in a week or so and I might be able to spend some more time writing.

If I could change anything about myself, I’d probably be an inch taller. Its bloody annoying when things are just that inch out of reach. I’m 5’10” on a warm day so I’m not short, I’m definitely not tall either. I’m not upset that I’m not tall but I struggle to find anything else that I’d like to change, it’s not something one should dwell on too much. If there is something you’d like to change because you’re overweight or unhealthy, then go for it, otherwise, don’t think about it too much. You’ll get a complex and it’ll eat you up. 

Change the World 365 day 5

Something you would change about the world.

If I could change absolutely anything about the world, I would change the people. I would give everybody 2 gifts, perspective and compassion.
If we lived in a world where we could see things from another’s perspective and were compassionate about their problems, we wouldn’t have to deal with capitalism, war, famine, corrupt governments, insurance companies, lawyers, estate agents, traffic wardens, soap operas, reality TV, internet bullies, murderers… etc etc etc… All the worlds ills would be eradicated if we would only wake up and CARE what we are doing to other people.

Even natural disasters wouldn’t affect people so badly if we cared about each other. Nobody would have lived in the lower 9th ward of new orleans because its unsafe. The levees wouldn’t have been built so low to save money, if we cared about each other, nobody would be putting profits in front of human life.

Achieving dreams… 365 day 4

How do you think your life would change if you achieved your dream?

I know I haven’t really been taking this little thing seriously and making sure I post every day, like one or two others bloggers on tumblr, I have a life that isn’t based on the internet and I sometimes don’t get time to blog and some days I just choose not to. It’s not healthy to be on here all day everyday… hint hint… go outside… open the curtains… there is more to life than “vintage” pictures of jared leto and gifs from mean girls…
Like a lot of the blogs on here, I think the answer to the question is steeped in self indulgence. I’m getting a bit bored of self indulgence, I’m finding it harder and harder to stomach, not as a concept but as daily ritual. People have written journals for years and years but the major difference between a tumblr and a journal is that a tumblr is public. There are too many people who claim to live their life through their tumblr and they say things like ‘my tumblr knows me better than my parents’. When you make your thoughts public and receive responses based on those thoughts, the responses can all too easily become a validation for your thoughts. Your blog posts become less and less about you and more and more about getting validation. You start to reblog things from others because thats what’s in right now and slowly but surely, your personal journal which details your thoughts and intimacies becomes a standardised carbon copy of everybody else’s tumblr. 

Hmmm… I feel as though I’m digressing a little here. I like to start with a heading and just see where the writing takes me, bear with me. I’m getting to a point…

Yeah, thats it… I knew it was round here somewhere… Just as your blog becomes a copy of everyone else’s, your dreams become the same washed out versions of pale insignificances that everyone else wants too. How will things change if everyone is trying to achieve the same thing?
I try and keep it simple when it comes to dreams and aspirations, I have the same dream I’ve had since I was 10. When I grow up, I want to be a stuntman. Dreams are the fabrications in our mind that we all need, if we achieve our dreams, we quickly get new ones. 
There are many things that I have achieved that used to be dreams, so how has my life changed? What has happened is that my life has progressed down its path. I can’t ever switch paths and live a different life, I can only make my path change direction, the changes that happen aren’t necessarily quantifiable. I can’t say how my life has changed, I can only guess as to how it would be different had I not achieved some of the things I wanted to do.

If I had never learned to dive, I wouldn’t have worked at the London Aquarium, I wouldn’t have had a huge passion for the oceans that I do now.

If I had never learned to snowboard, I would never have travelled as much as I have, I wouldn’t have met some of the most amazing people alive, I wouldn’t spend as much time in the mountains.

If I never get to be a stuntman, I wont be too upset, I have achieved so much already and I know I have more to come.  

What is your reason for being here? 365 day 3

I have NO idea what my reason for being here is. That might be reason enough. My reason for being here is to have no idea what my reason for being here is.

I like the Douglas Adams approach. In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, it is suggested that as soon as somebody finds out what the universe is for, it will cease to exist and something even more strange and inexplicable will appear in its place and that this may have already happened.

I like the idea that we aren’t supposed to know what we are here for, I like the idea that knowing would negate existence itself. We have no need to know what we are here for but every single one of us has an urge or curiosity to find out. To use hitchhikers’ terminology again, its the ultimate question.

Who says we have a reason for being here anyway? Who needs a reason? You have to be a very closed minded person to be certain that there is OR isn’t a reason. I know that sounds a little self contradictory but there are so many incomprehensible ideas and questions unanswered that to be certain of anything beyond our little realm is a fools game.

In 1999, Kevin Smith asked us to suspend known reality for 150 minutes and take a leap when he wrote and directed a little movie called Dogma about a lapsed Catholic trying to save the world in spite of her beliefs. She is taught about responsibility and love but most importantly for me, she is taught not to believe in anything anymore despite having proof of fact. The movie talks about having good ideas and not letting them get carried away and morphed into beliefs. What we think we know may not necessarily be. Our understanding is fatally flawed because we need an explanation or evidence before we are willing to commit to something, some things are beyond understanding. We just don’t have the mental capacity to even begin to start to understand such things as the nature of the universe, the existence of God and ultimately, the reason for it all. Quantum mechanics is child’s play in comparison.

At the base of it all in my head are my Christian beliefs. I’m not a ‘fire and brimstone’ catholic or a happy clappy anglican, I have my own ideas based on my own personal relationship with God. If the Bible has taught me anything in my lifetime, its taught me two things.

1) Being a Christian is not about what the church thinks or does, it’s about your own personal relationship with God.

2) Don’t rely on what you think you know. Just trust that everything will be. Prov - 3v5 “trust in God with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding” pretty much sums it up.

In summation, Albert Camus once said “I would rather live my life like there is a God and die to find out that there isn’t than live my life like there isn’t a God and die to find out that there is.” 

I don’t know what my reason for being here is but I’m going to live my life like I have a purpose and some good ideas.

Robert Hodgon - A scholar, a gent and a bit of a twat :D

On this very day in the year of nineteen hundred and eighty four, there was a thunderclap that blew across the plains to serenade the birth of the baby that was to grow up to be the twat that is, Robert Hodgon.

He came from humble beginnings, he was born to a poor arabian gnome farmer and his peruvian wife in the deepest darkest parts of mexico. The first years of his life were spent standing very still next to the garden pond with his other ‘brothers’ until he was rescued/abducted at the age of 13 by a group of travelling salesmen peddling wilburys and to a rock n roll beat.

He was made to sing in their travelling band even though he wasn’t really much of a vocalist and knew his forte lay in sales and marketing. Answering phones was his dream. Growing up in deepest darkest mexico, Rob had only ever once seen a telephone but had always remembered that moment with great love and passionate yearning.
This love developed as he grew older and by the time he had spent 4 years travelling with the band, Roy Orbison died and rob knew it was time to move on and fullfill his dream as a phone jockey in a telesales commune.

He left the travelling wilbury salesmen at handy cross roundabout in high wycombe, with so many choices for lanes to be in, he knew he could lose them there if he was going to lose them anywhere. He trundled through town and was picked up by a vagabond/teacher called Paul who took him and made him breakfast. Rob said “do you speaka my language?” Paul just looked and gave him a vegemite sandwich.

Paul explained to Rob that if he were to go and live with the telesales people, he would develop cankerous sores from sitting on his fat arse bothering people all day, his exact words were “Roberrrrrrrrrrt”… but Rob knew what he meant. Rob baulked at the idea of cankerous sores from telesales. He didn’t like anything that cankered. Cankering was a fools game. Cankering was dangerous. Cankering would get a brother killed in the ‘hood.

Paul suggested that he should go to college and study Animal care and the closest place he knew was Berkshire College of Agriculture, Paul agreed to put the young hobo up in exchange for making toast and walking the dog. The dog loved Rob and Rob loved the dog.
When the day came for Rob’s first day at college, he made a choice and got on the wrong bus to the wrong college. When he realised that he was at the wrong place, he made his way to the right college and thats where we met.

I’m pretty sure thats what happened before we met…
 
Happy Birthday you old goat! I love you like a brother… 

Something that is Illegal but shouldn’t be… 365 day 2

There are hundreds and hundreds of health and safety laws in the United Kingdom, designed to protect idiots from themselves.
This goes against evolution and is slowly but surely creating a nation of moronic, homogenised, self righteous, lazy, vitriolic, opinionated arseholes with a massively inflated sense of entitlement.

Idiocracy, a movie by mike judge, shows what will happen to the world if we keep letting the idiots win. Please click on that link, you’ll appreciate it :D
We now live in a time where children are wrapped up in sterilised cotton wool and dumped infront of the TV/internet/Games Console and never get to experience life because ‘the government’, ‘the media’ and ‘the corporations’ (I hate using those terms) have taught us to fear the outside world and keep buying.

“Don’t go outside, there are rapists, paedophiles and death out there!! Just stay in… whilst you’re at it, do your grocery shopping from Tesco online, buy some more inane stephanie meyer books from amazon and teach your kids the value of killing those who oppose you and your government by giving them ultra realistic war games to play on the computer. Everyone loves a bit of C.O.D.
No climbing trees, No swimming in the river, No ball games, no running in the playground and no rough and tumble! Dont go outside, you’ll hurt yourself and then you’ll die and then you’ll sue!!”

We have lost the common sense that separated the village idiot from the rest of us. We aren’t allowed to make mistakes and so we never learn. We aren’t allowed to make our own decisions anymore for fear that we might kill ourselves and not be able to buy stuff. The more idiots we have on the planet, the more damage we do to it, the worse off we all are.
There is no conspiracy theory, there is no such thing as ‘the man’. We do it to ourselves. We are the media, the governments and the corporations. We, as a collective, run tings… We as a collective have become so fearful of the outside world that we choose to create laws preventing us from experiencing it. We have become the savages pointing spears at the sun.

We don’t need a law preventing you from walking out onto the ice… if you fall in and die, thats darwin in action. Survival of the fittest. Our greatest asset as a species is our ability to make choices. If we are constantly told which choices to make, our species will never progress. The fittest will be slowed down by the weakest and we will all perish as a product of our own idiocy.
So, what is illegal that should be legal? Anything that is potentially dangerous and could remove you from the gene pool should you be stupid enough to try it… as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.

Like the Bandwagon Junglist I am… 365…

Day 1 : Hopes, Dreams and Plans for the next 365 days

- Hopes -

To see my daughter more and more. 

To make a mark on the world with my Djing.

To set myself up working on the mountain self employed instead of working for ‘the man’.

To spend as much time on standing sideways on as many boards as possible.

- Dreams - 

Ummm… not a dreamer, im a do-er, or at least I’d like to be. Its nice to have ideas and plans, but better to try and see things through than spend time thinking about it.

- Plans - 

I’m moving down to Exeter in a few weeks.

Buy a van as soon as I can afford it.

Get as many gigs as possible.

Spend winter in Canada or France but hopefully Canada.

Spend more time making more music.

To keep dancing!
 

Hobnobs and Tea - Commando Gods

Everyone knows the hobnob is the commando of biscuits and tea is the drink of the Gods. 
Today I’ve been fueled like some sort of Commando God whilst helping my ma with some manual labour. I haven’t had a hobnob in years. I think I’m going to make some sort of habit out of this.