The nexus of Cause and Effect.

Time

Time, at least how we perceive it, is an everflowing causal pathway that leads from the past through the present and beyond, to the future. Seemingly like gravity, it is a force that we cannot control, or resist. It binds us to it's strong current until we can no longer swim above her surface and we drown within.

It is precious these moments that we all experience right now. Our existence, our thoughts, our ideas, our conflicts. They mean nothing in comparison to the entire length and breadth in space of the universe multiplied by the absolute expanse of time. We are conveniently presented with opportunity with our past developments, and recent enlightenment to further ourselves in knowledge, society, and civilisation itself. These moments in time are ours to embrace and cherish, and to push ourselves to provide better worlds for Earth.

We all have our time to perish. We never see it coming, if we can be so lucky. But, it is a time that we all must experience at some point; our shared fate that binds all life on this Earth. Some are just waiting for it to arrive, knowing that it'll happen one day. Most still are healthy unlike certain people who may have terminal cancer, or other medical issues that will destroy them in the end. Others are just fine, still waiting for the inevitable. A wasted day equals a wasted week.

Our perception of time tells us that we don't have long, at least in the whole scheme of things, and we try so hard to spread our wings like angels and achieve all our dreams. It is, perhaps, a case of having dreams too big for our lives to accommodate and we try to juggle the entire world, but end up with just a piece of the puzzle. And we stare at it wondering where does this even go? Where do I put my piece? It doesn't fit anywhere. And sometimes we never find its space.

Life is not positive or negative, good or bad, or anything like that. We are the ones who put that misnomer to products that we deem for those to be true. We often destroy our own experience of our time by seeing the world for what it's not. And hence, that takes form. Instead of building a future, we press the self-destruct button thinking that there is no future.

As far as I know, there will be time and space for a very long time after I die. I accept one day that I will no longer be able to conceive thoughts and act as I do now. But, it is for good reason; as time continues, others become. And although we are gone, they prevail. Without us, they may not have existed at all. And without them, we existed for nothing. The positivity is that we can exist yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We can use our moments now to create a better platform for those of tomorrow to build upon.

As a the Science Fiction writer, Ray Cummings, wrote:

"Time... is what keeps everything from happening at once".

We have all of our existence; why throw it away for nothing? There's so much to look forward to in the future. So much unseen that only imagination can crack open. Don't throw away today because yesterday was bad. Tomorrow can be better if you try! Grab the opportunity and make it your own. Make your future bright; don't let anything turn it out. And once you're there, don't cast a shadow. Bring light to everyone around you. Perhaps we will see a future with open eyes.

Life

'Existing in chains is no life'.

Isn't it funny how life goes on? Sorry to open with an ambiguous question. But that's the entire basis of this post. You're at one point in your life, and then before you know it, you're suddenly years down the track reminiscing about that time when that thing happened.

I have the realisation that as you get older you accumulate more and more memories and moments that you have to look back upon. Depending on your outlook that may or may not matter. But, I'm sure we've all spent nights laying in bed, bedroom lights turned off with maybe the street lights streaming in a little, and you're thinking about those moments you experienced previously that had a profound impact on you. Or maybe they didn't have a profound impact on you at the time, but now that you look back you think that those were the times of your life. That of course isn't true! The time of your life is NOW! The present. That's for another blog entry, I reckon.

Furthermore, what sort of life would you live if you never had those memories? Pretty bland. Great life experience and memories are sort of like scars on your mind. These are things that affect you greatly, whether for good or bad, and they travel with you for the rest of your life.

The past is great to reflect on, and to cherish. After all, it is what makes us who we are today. But, somehow more importantly, the present is the most important. The 'now' is the time where we can make action. You cannot change the past or dictate the future. But, you can accept who you are, and strive towards a better tomorrow.

I'll leave you with the quote above to elicit some thought; What is life if you don't live it? There are plenty of things in our life that we perceive holds us back. That prevents us from reaching our goals. This just isn't true. Your greatest enemy is yourself. Your own self-doubt and fear can stop you from achieving your dreams, if you let it. Break free of your self to soar further than you ever imagined. Never let any dreams fall through your fingers! You'll never get them back if you do..

So now, apparently, I'm signing off!

Until next week,

J.D.

New song

RAWR!

I've been working on a new song, which I have just recently completed. At least the main parts. I've completed the lyrics, and how I want the piano to be. I think it's sounding very good; although, I still need some constructive criticism. I haven't had the chance to record it. But, it'd be great to have someone hear it in person. I can gauge what people think honestly that way! :P

If I ever want to put the effort in bringing the keyboard to the computer, or vice versa, I'll record it! hahah

Time to work on the next song! To the drawing board..

When the War Began...

I saw 'Tomorrow When the War Began' earlier this week. It was a very good movie! Extremely good; the books are even better, so I'm told. It is primarily a young adults book, so it illustrates the teenage angst that is prevalent in youth. And all the emotional things they face, exacerbated by an fictitious invasion from an unknown military power. Which results in a very interesting movie, if not a little grating with the whole emotional skew. But, I suppose it's required for a compelling teenage book. So, what I was more interested in was the invasion of Australia and how it was undertaken and how they dealt with it. Some of the decisions the characters made wouldn't have been my personal first choice; But, it still got the job done within the confines of the story, so, that's all that matters.

I'd like to assess the likelihood of an invasion. So, first up, to invade Australia you would need plentiful resources at your disposal. Including people and equipment. Secondly, there needs to be a political or economical purpose for the invasion. Simply, if you aren't going to get anything out of it, they're not going to try and take it! And thankfully for us, we're on an island, a big island, and there's plenty of resources, but nothing that nobody wants to take, yet.

Looking at all the major players in the pacific region, nobody really has any punch to pack currently. Indonesia, India, Papua New Guinea, The phillipines, China. Those are probably the closest nations to ours, but all of them, apart from China, don't really have the capacity for invasion yet. And all of them definitely don't have reason to. As far as China goes, I don't think we're high on their list of reasons to worry, or of any interest for that matter.

Furthermore, the entire logistics of invading an Island. To get here, from whereever else, you need to travel over the ocean. This means you're supply lines are going to be long and open. Whether by truck, plane, or boat you still need to transports food, weapons and ammunition, medical supplies and ALL of the things that your army requires. After you've reached Australian shores, you have to transport troops and supplies to the other parts of the country to take territory. Australia is huge, there's no doubt about that, it takes around 12 hours from Brisbane, to Sydney, to Melbourne. That's time, money, and petrol! Not to mention having to defeat any resistance you encounter along the way. This means that it all gives the Australian military time to prepare defences. It would not be easy.

I often think 'how would I do it?'. If I had the supplies, and the people; the power to invade Australia. What would I do first?

I would have a definite structure; A plan designed to achieve specific goals.

1. Neutralise Enemy Resistance - Using the element of surprise, attacking before they (we) have a chance to prepare strong defences. Using the false sense of security as a sword against us. As I suggested before, an army is only ever as strong as their supply line. Causing extreme damages to air and sea capabilities will ensure that safety of your lines, and also of your 'beach-heads' which can be difficult to maintain if you're constantly being attacked.

2. Secure points of entry - This is a natural progression from #1. You want to take the ports of the country; Airports, seaports etc. These are places built specifically for the modes of transport you utilize and have the capacity to accommodate your vehicles. Your boats can off-load on the docks which will be able to deal with the equipment you're deploying, just as if you were a cargo ship. And airports would act similarly (With the exception of military airports which may or may not have had their facilities destroyed doing the initial attack).

3. Acquire topical resources - A small point after securing your hold, in my opinion, would be the gathering of local resources in the areas that you take, or have taken. The life of war is measured on the bellies of the soldiers that fight it. As a developed nation, Australia will have a plethora of sources of food, water, and other such items which can be utilized by an invading force, further decreasing their dependency on supply lines specifically. As a rule, anything you can take and use from the territory you're invading, do it!

4. Spread out - This is the more important part of the entire exercise: Obtaining territory. This is the part where you're achieving your major and minor goals. Whether that be to take national resources like oil, gold and other minerals, uranium, etc or entirely political goals as in a coupe d'tat. Either way, this is where that shit gets done. When you start encroaching on new territory that is where you start to engage more and more of the enemy, including insurgents and such. Following my structure, using surprise, ideally you won't have much of a military response (not taking into consideration the ANZUS treaty).

And yeah.. I think that's practically it. After #4 you're practically taking, and maintaining, territories and seeking out your particularly military goals for the exercise. War won. But, for that to work you would need so much money, people and equipment that you would need to have some kind of economic win in it, otherwise the cost is barely worthwhile.

Right now Australia is a country of multi-culturalism, mostly, and a place that alot of people identify with and almost love. Nobody will be invading Australia any time soon, no matter how much fear mongering people put into the media. But, of course, this might be always be the case.

Signing off.

Epiphany

"Love is not blind. It sees more, not less. And because it sees more, it is willing to see less."

So, the title is 'Epiphany', but it only really relates to my introduction. I've come to the conclusion that if I really want anybody to read these blog updates, I'm actually going to have to start writing them regularly. Otherwise, it'll just sit here for a few months and then i'll update it when I'm bored. Or when I'm extremely drunk.

I'm not surprised at all that I would feel the urge to sit at my computer (desktop PC, not a laptop! I'm too lazy to go up to Dicksmith and buy a laptop so I could blog in bed!) and type out a new blog entry! (I think I'm addicted to exclamation marks. Oh my!).

So, this evening I had a wonderful discussion with my mother about the book that was featured this morning on Channel Seven's morning show 'Sunrise' about if America never existed. I'm not sure what the name of the book is so I cannot link you to it. (I was asleep!) So, if anyone has this knowledge leave a comment for someone who cares!

Moving along. We talked a bit (In other words, I rambled on) about the implications of the USA not taking part in WW2 and then somehow got talking about Korea, and how when her friend visited over there that he was amazed about the propaganda (It being the opposite of what we would have had here, naturally!). Which didn't surprise me at all. But, I do often think about how much propaganda Australians receive in a hour news cast and that people just take it all in. Accept it. And never question what they're being told. If the media told you that Beef is bad for you and if you ate it you would DIE!!!!!! (Excuse the exclamation marks, I think they like me too) then I bet you 10 schillings that somebody would believe it!

The media, even today, is a horrible propaganda propagating machine! (I didn't have a word that meant the same as 'machine' but started with 'p'). Consider the usage of words like 'Terrorist', 'Digger', and other sort of big terms which elicit emotional reacts from viewers. From one point of view, someone is always the good guy, and the other always the bad guy. But, in reality, the good guy and the bad guy are just guys. Deep, I know! But true! They're both just fighting for what they believe. And in the end, is that so wrong?

People these days are surprisingly intolerant of anybody that isn't like them. I have a saying, which has probably been said many times before, but is true:

"We are all different, yet we are also the same".

It goes along those lines anyway! In case you don't understand; That's okay. Let's investigate it a little further.

We are all different. This is the easy part! We all realise this! Some people have light skin, some people have dark skin. Blue eyes; brown eyes. Tall; short. Big noses; Little noses. This is the whole basis of racism. We're different so I don't like who you are! I figure it'd be the same if robots were intelligent. People would have a hard time adjusting to that. But, those robots would just be another species to live happily beside. I just hope those robots don't learn their life lessons from those who sustain ignorant beliefs, significantly those we're touching on.

We are all the same. This is the hard part that people have problems dealing with. No matter where you come from, who you are, what you look like, how you feel, what you believe, etc! We all feel the same kind of emotions, we all think about life and death, we all love our families and friends, we all make connections with those around us, and can be sentimental at times. Whatever you think or feel; I assure you, someone probably thinks or feels the same somewhere else in the world. We can take this further!

All life has similarities to us; we aren't special. We simply have different ways of coping with the environments that we reside in. All life is life! And I'm sure when we create robots that think, feel, move and live for themselves that they should have the equal amount to live their lives just as freely as any other creature on this planet. Okay, I just want a robotic vacuum cleaner!

'Sea' you later Crab steaks!

Uber-ness

"Sadness falls everywhere, but it's only where sadness lies that hope grows!"

I felt like I should probably write a new blog post! This isn't really a formulated essay; It is simply me blurting out words in a somewhat organised fashion. So at some random point in the future, maybe, someone will come along and read this and enjoy some insights.

I've been thinking alot lately, like I always do, and I've come to the conclusion that silence truly is golden. People rarely listen to reason and even if your logic is apodictic. And is it right for you to try? Life is about experience! So let them go! Let them live!

Okay. I'm really just typing and not really thinking! I should probably leave it at this! =]

Til next time, squidders!

Jeremy. Signing off! Over.

'The Government and You: A guide to contentment'

Vote now!

So, I'm going to tell you guys now. This will be a short blog post. But, I'm asking the question. What are your opinions on voting? Now, I seriously want to see comments for this one guys!

Do you think compulsory voting is the right way to go? Or should Australia change to a voting system similar to that of America? *shudders* Or possibly some other version of democratic voting.

What are your thoughts about the different political parties in Australia? Is voting even that important considering that both leading parties are more or less the same? How are they different?

So, let it all hang out on my comments here and help me discover everyone's opinion!

J.D.