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Sexy People

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The dreamer not the dream

Oh man - what a rough few nights I've had.

Sleeping in a new strange bed - and even though I now have my sheets on it - I know I'm not at home. I've not slept very well for a few days now - and yesterday - Oh My Lord - was i grumpy - I sent almost no emails just so I didn't accidentally start WWIII due to unconscious snarkiness that would have crept into my text.

Last night - exhausted - and the air-conditioning on - I went to bed as early as I could without feeling silly - after a relaxing glass of wine and sitting in my spa talking to my new house mate.

(Though the conversation was about refugees and asylum seekers - she works at a refugee centre as a resettlement officer it's very interesting trying to create a community of peope in a new and strange place for them - it was still more relaxing than it might sound).

So after a quick "chickeny thing and salad" dinner - off to bed to read my India book and sleep. (I'm reading The Ramayana at the moment - or a version of it interwoven with another person's story...it complex. The Ramayana is to India as the Iliad and the Odyssey are to Greece.).

So...I did sleep - but oh my god the stress - I think I was more stressed asleep than I was awake.

I've read several books by Freud and one by Jung. It's in the Dream analysis that a) Freud gets wackier than he does anywhere else and b) he and Jung really started to divide and get snarky at each other.

In short I know my Oedipus complex from my Jungian archetypes. (Yeah I know that neo-Freudians have pretty much re-written everything- but it's still good to go to the source text.)

Dreams are funny old things.

We've been trying to analyse them for a billion years, they're in the Bible as a hotline to God, and have sent many a crazed gunman to the Post office thanks to the very clear message to do so from Jim Morrison.

I like that we have the same sort of dreams - I decided to split the focus of a meeting today - just to ask about everyone's different versions of the "Teeth falling out" dream. Apparently mine are more graphic - as my subconscious will have my teeth falling out - but it still has to have it happen in a logistically possible way (Mine dissolve at the roots and fall out as a solid "teeth mass" all at the same time. i can then feel the sharp edges in my gums where the cut off point happens - I then remove what's left myself. ew)

So last night was a Jungian archetype fiesta, with everyone who hated me in High school making an appearance. I think deep down I think I'm going to have to go back there one day and face everyone again. In my dream apparently i did something terrible to everyone but I couldn't remember it. It was coming back to me as the drama progressed - i just apologised a lot to everyone. I probably ran off with their wives or something.

I'm the assistant regional manager for an government department. I have (head up from desk to do a quick count) around 9 people reporting me, and a few more indirectly. I'm secure in my job and don't worry about not being able to eat next week. However...one simple dream about high school - and I'm 16 again. Magic.

When I woke up I was about to be attacked in the manner of going to the laundry room in the Shawshank Redemption. That's pretty awful. and my own subconscious came up with it. (If you can find it - I can't the clip from the Seth McFarlane Calvalcade of Comedy "A Scotsman Who Can't Watch a Movie Without Shouting at the Screen"  is funny but the part where he's watching Shawshank is even better. "Dinna go doon to the laundry room - they're gonna rape ya in da boom!")

Anyways...what I was thinking about is the way the stories form a collective unconsciousness, the way a story like the Ramayana in in so many cultures, especially in Asia, and it has become their version of their Archtypes, but we don't know about the story over here. It's one of the reasons I'm reading it instead of reading up on the local polotics and things. The stories would have formed so many peoples ideas, and concepts and paved the way for communications. We have such a young culture we just don't have them other than crappo stories about Jesus.
The Ramayana is great because the same story is told through out Asia, but different version have a different charicter as the protagonist. In one Rama has is wife kidnapped by the Evil Ravana. In other versions he's actually protecting the South of India from these upstart invaders. Same story, same people, different ways of thinking. Fantastic.

I wonder if the sort of common dreams we have like our teeth falling out work cross culturally. If you all loose your teeth to Beetle Nut at the age of 12 - would you really associate them falling out as anxiety? or would it feel more like a coming of age? Would it be possible - through a manipulation of a Santa Claus type myth, to have a dream about a mytersious shadow be a positive thing?
When you talk about yourself you tap your chest, how cultural is that? If you were trying to re-seat where we thought our sense of self lived - we should probably tap out Liver - it's the biggest organ, or a cup out genitals like an Italian car salesman. Why that part of our sterum has become the tapping place is strange. I need a society to experiment on.

I don't think we have enough stories as old as these other cultures do - so as a result we don't have enough of a shared collective unconscious, instead we just exist in shared archetypes like "I don't like foreigners". Our stories are too brief and are more lessons rather than the epics that are in other cultures, I've read that that was what Tolkien was trying to do with his world that Lord of the Rings is in. He was trying to create a HUGE canvas for these things to play out on, and was a bit annoyied when the hippies latched on to his stories instead. Poor dude. Even dead he makes more money than some small countries every year...so they can deal with the dissapointment.

Anyhow. I'm heading to another contry. I'm not going to understand a lot of things, and I'm not going to have a trite experience where I discover religiosity.
I am hoping to just maybe have a moment where I recognise something from some of these tales, and maybe, just maybe, have the story seep into my unconscious.
Dream safely.
KFS.

oh Darwin!

For those of you that think women's rights are progressing too fast....I give you - Bikini Bull Riding at the Beachfront.

Their Mum's must be so proud.

You said it princess!

Home again home again, jigerty-jig

4 days of being out bush, close to a thousand kilometers driving, but I am now king Simon of the Daly region.

I've been on the road since Monday morning at 6am. I spent the weekend packing up my house - so now I am a man without a home, sleeping at a friend’s house until I leave for India. I have bags all over the place and a storage shed that is about to burst.

I have very much been a man out place with his surroundings.
I'll detail a few things about the whole experience of being the government guy out bush when I get a few more minutes...


The stand outs are always the jerks. There are so many people trying to work to make things better - but there are always these speed bumps on the road to progress. The little tiny men who are in positions of power and run these places like their own fiefdoms. I am so bored of them after doing this sort of work for 10 years. Just....exhausted. I tipped my cap to them anyway while I was in their turf so as to stroke their egos, and to just get stuff done.
When the intervention hit - there was an increase in the people on the community who are coordinating the work of government and how programs are rolling out.
Since the 1970's there was a huge migration of people back to their land - called "The Homelands Movement" (link to article here) some of these places grew to be communities and so community councils were set up as part of the local government.

(Sadly most of the people who were moved off their land to get access to resources can now not claim an "Unbroken connection to the land" so they can't claim land rights - how frustrated must they be?)
Anyhow, these local councils became essentially a magnet for dodgy wheeler-dealers, not all of them mind you - but a fair percentage. Things got done - I'm not arguing that point, but they got done in the way a child will collect more and more Tonka toys so his part of the sand pit looks more impressive. The roads may have gotten graded - but things like.. Education, health, literacy, employment, setting up a local economy didn't. The invisible benchmarks of a communities sustainability were ignored.
Many of the dodgy CEOs also had a few "side businesses" if you've ever heard of the "carpet bagging" (link to article here) ( and here ) that happens with indigenous art.

The thing is - the worst of it is that it's actually the policy of stopping at 4 that is annoying me - not the missspelling.

It's the practice of buying art at a fraction of it's price from Indigenous people. Easy to justify if you want as it's a sale of a commodity from on person to another, and you aren't doing anything technically wrong. Except it's just plain out evil. You can even set up a shop front where artists work and pay them for their art - but then you charge them for the food and drink they have consumed while they were "working for you", so what the artists get is minimal. Perfectly legal as well.

Anyhow - my point being that I met (another) ex-CEO who also has a side line in selling art this week as well. Pure Satan.
I was going somewhere...oh yeah. Since the intervention there is now an increase in whities on community, who STAY on community, and who aren't accountable to these local power brokers. They don't like it. They don't like it at all.
On top of this the NT government decided that the local council were just a bad idea in the modern world so they dissolved them all. They created Shires instead. Some of the guys who had had their own way nearly died. They just didn't actually think they were accountable to anyone. I know of at least two places where they set fire to records rather than hand over information. The amount of money that probably disappeared would be in the millions - but no one will ever know.
In some places the Community CEO became the "Shire Services Manager" and just kept on trucking. I met one of those this week as well. there is some sort of Tick analogy, but at least we know how to remove those....

it's really hot outside.

blah

My loyal, loyal team.

Bored Meetings and Mass Dancing Hysteria

I'm on a few dysfunctional Boards for NGOs in the Arts
I'm not sure exactly what the situation is.
(more exciting action after the link)

Yippee yi yoooooo, yippee yi yaeeeeee, It's Friday!

Hooray - Friday.
Today so far:

• I've had to insist that I'm not as charming as an on-line personality indicator said I was 3 years ago (having a blog means you are accountable - forever!!)..though I probably am.
• I realised that if I laugh at my desk my staff get worried
• I've had 2 cups of coffee (9.55am)
• I made a Zombie reference in a phone hook up about cancelling services
• I had a conversation about Ninjas with the head of another section
• I have "Ghost Riders" in my head - now you do too!
• I've signed off on $96,000 worth of funding releases
• I've got a new monitor - so now I have 2 on my desk - even though it takes up much space, it looks like you are doing so much more (always be looking concerned at your monitor when poeple walk into your office - it's like alwasy carrying around a piece of paper - you just look that much busier)
  

The Princess Leia Slave Girl Outfit.

Link: 20 awesomely hot Slave Leia costumes (slightly NSFW)

Having learnt absolutly nothing from my first marriage....

I think I will marry any girl I met who owns a Princess Leia Slave outfit.

Ch-ch-changes.

You may notice a some changes - just updating and re-bonding with my blog.
The biggest change is that the page will now adapt to the width of the screen you're on. It seems to be working ok - if it gets buggy I'll change it back - but on my widescreen laptop it looks great. (I'm actually really happy with the look of it now I've move all the furniture around).

There is a "Read More" function now - so only the first few paragraphs are on the splash page. I have to entice you in now... beware of misleading opening paragraphs.

It means there is more on the page to look at though.

I added a search function - but it doesn't seem to work very well - so I'll see if that stays.

I'll now hide all the good stuff after the break that says:

Oh the comedy. The awful, awful comedy.

I have like, $25 for the rest of the week - it's pretty bad, especially for someone my age - but I emptied out all my savings and then spend huge wags of money on Air tickets to India, and a back pack, and...Immunisations.
I am immune to....everything. Seriously, I'm firing up the Tardis and heading back to Athens in 430 BC just to laugh at death. I'd go to laugh at Black Death, but it sounds to much like a Dutch heavy metal band for me to take seriously. I can't wait to get overseas and passionately kiss anyone who looks ill. I think if I don't I'm really not getting my money's worth. That and getting a tattoo from an unsterilised needle - I'm totally doing that now.