Where are the whales now Mummy?

Greenpeace are currently asking for ideas for an anti-whaling campaign. It worries me that people should come up with answers such as ‘kill the whalers’ and ‘ram the whaling ship’. That these people are young doesn’t signify – surely even a teenager would realise these are nonsense answers of no help.

I have met grown men who thought in a similar vein – the only answer being to fight fire with fire, according to them. Fire does work pretty well against fire, but their logic is flawed. To use fire against the people who support whaling you need to use economic argument. A change of sentiment to being actively against whaling in the general population is important too. Destroy, figuratively speaking, any customer base or reason to justify continuing.

Work on the fringes as well – look at the chain of people and industries supporting or supported by whaling. With logic and marketing, find ways to take them out of the mix, one by one. Where are whaling ships built – these people lose economically when you take that custom away so what can it be replaced with? Is an appeal to a ship-builders better nature likely to work when they think in terms of their business survival or are they successful enough to lobby? How do you go about making sure whalers don’t have ships?

Take that thought down to the smallest thing that they need. Find a supplier who supplies something essential to a whaling ship, but it wont hurt them financially to stop supplying it, and convince them (with logic and lobbying) to end their contract. The ship will find someone else, but do this often enough and it might be another straw to the camel’s back.

Stopping whaling, like climate change, requires massive restructures in society. It appears a daunting task to those undertaking it and the sheer magnitude of what is being asked of people who don’t want to change is going to cause confrontation, which is why, like all good changes, it has to be constant, unrelenting but gradual. Like a good diet, this needs to be taken up by people as a lifestyle choice forever and not just as a fad.

http://whales.greenpeace.org/global

Mondayitis

I already feel overwhelmed... been here a full 50 minutes. I don't like work much at the moment.

Observations on drugs

Drugs, obviously, are good. They are so good that I like to stay away from them. I’ve never tried heroin – I believe it’s very good. People are happy to go to rack and ruin for it so it must indeed be fabulous.

Speed, I know, is too fabulous. (I am told cocaine is better than speed – so that’s a definite no-go area). If I took speed on a regular basis I could be everything that I dreamed – everything I ever wanted could be at my fingertips. If I had taken it when I also had youth on my side there is the distinct possibility that I would now be very successful either as an artist or a graphic designer.

Speed would make me a social person with the ability to think on her feet and network. I still wouldn’t be beautiful, but the chances are I would be thin and have nice skin - for a while anyway. Ten, maybe five, maybe three years down the track my skin might not be so good. My hair might not be so good; my nerves might not be so good; my brain might not be so good. It’s a risk.

I know lots of people who have used speed to study or to work or to keep up a rigorous schedule of partying and work – or just partying. I know lots of people who are social users and have maintained that without a great deal of harm for years. I know people who are so thin they look anorexic and people who have *tinnitus and can’t keep a conversation logical….

I know some people who have used heroin and led normal lives - never stolen or forgotten to pay their rent. I know people who have turned grey in colour; people who have stolen from friends; people who have no teeth left. I knew other people who are now dead.

Pot isn’t one of the fabulous drugs. It makes you paranoid, causes memory problems and an increase in bad temper as well as being bad for your lungs if you smoke it. Some people seem to like it excessively, but I can’t see why, but as a drug of choice it seems no more harmful than smoking or excessive cola.

Headache tablets are also fabulous – there is nothing better than relief from pain. Why suffer any pain at all when you can just pop a pill? Well, depending on type, you could get liver or stomach lining damage or constipation. Every drug or chemical you take - cola, coffee, herbal medications, synthetic sugars, illicit substances – they all have an effect that you should be aware of.

We live in a society that encourages us to pop pills every time we feel any pain or other symptom – is it any wonder that some people don’t understand why they shouldn’t take a bigger, better drug that makes them feel great. Really there is no difference.

Dare I say, yet again, we need to change the way we think to change society…..

*(I had written ‘tintinitus’ – but that was not right although it might be an extremely rare disease that involves an aversion to Tin Tin)

And, yes, I know that calling it ‘speed’ shows my age.

On friendship

I think friendship is about the sharing your everday experiences with someone. Mostly I have that with my sister, because most of my friends don't share their everyday with me, but the other day B asked me what I thought about peeling eggs....

You don't know how gratified I was.

Is incommunicado even possible now?

It’s easy to see why I haven’t embraced mobile phones. I don’t even like landlines much sometimes. A useful tool and an evil necessity often ignored. I don’t like that I’m always available to friends, foes and family….

I would like a button on my phone that sends a message saying I am here. This is not personal, but I just want to be incommunicado for a while….

Yesterday was my birthday and I was probably quite rude to people I like. I don’t have many friends and I can’t afford to rebuff them when they are offering me happy wishes, but I don’t think I view birthdays quite the same way as everyone else.

For a start I believe a birthday is a day for you. You don’t go to work whatever the motivation. It’s a day where you should be able to choose what you want to do. I lacked both the freedom to do what I would have chosen and the ability to define my choice, but by default I decided to stay home and be alone, to meditate upon my life and try and sort some sense out of the tangle.

It was unfortunately just like being at work, without a moment’s peace – phone calls and emails and interruptions until you can’t think. At the moment I can’t stand the frantic, busy nature of my life and I’ve been screaming inside for weeks at the futility of it all. Even minor responsibilities seem to weigh like lead. Frustrated, feeling sick and at wits end I wanted the whole week off but could only take one day with the excuse that it was my birthday. People then assume you have some merrymaking project in mind. Escape was my project and it failed mostly.

Half-assed it turned out to be. I didn’t succeed in getting some quiet tranquillity, I didn’t achieve anything and I rebuffed the few people who bother to continue to know me, which makes me feel guilty and completely counteracts any relaxation I might have had. What a winner of a day. Things can only look up I suppose.

Birthday blues, greens and other sombre tones

Yes I have achieved ‘old’. I may in fact be half-way through my natural life. It’s weird to think about. I suppose other people have survived it. Really it’s the attention that’s annoying – I just want to hide, but then, I generally do….

Dad always said to use elbow-grease (I never knew where to buy it)

It’s official*. Genius isn’t born – it’s created through a synthesis of encouragement, mentoring and hard yakka. No longer can some of us slack off in the pure knowledge that we were not born smart.

How anyone, in this modern world, would be able to find the time and quiet to practice anything enough to achieve excellence, is the big question.

*New Scientist 16 Sept 06

The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance