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Archive for the ‘from the living room’ Category

How to make a zombie

Posted in from the living room on April 6, 2007| 3 Comments »

The Classical Method
This method was most effectively developed by the Romans – they called it “Bread and Circuses”
It involves two elements – bread, and, yes, you guessed it, circuses! It was a satirical comment on the political strategy of the ruling class in Rome which was to provide the masses with enough food so that they wouldn’t be hungry. This element of the strategy is about meeting the basic needs of people so they will not be motivated to the point of desperation to do something to get what they want. If the basic needs of the populace are not met, then they will not be so compliant.
But meeting their basic needs was not enough to make them compliant, you had to subdue them with mindless entertainment. The key here is distraction, which holds the attention without stimulating growth, energy or creativity.
Here’s the magic formula
Meet the basic needs + provide mindless entertainment = zombie culture (a compliant pliable populace)

The Traditional Method
This is the Haitian method employed by voodoo witch doctors.
It involves two elements – drugs and rituals.
The drugs involved are of two types. First the victim is sent into a state of paralytic coma with toxins allegedly from Bufo toads and Pufferfish. In this state they appear dead. They are then buried for a few hours, exhumed and fed drugs from the Datura family of plants – “zombie cucumber”. This induces both memory loss and a psychotic dulled state where they have a condition of altered consciousness with the features of loss of free will and disconnectedness from reality.
Here’s the magic formula
Numbing, paralysing drugs + ritual + psychosis inducing drugs = zombie slave (a compliant pliable automaton)

The Modern Method
This is the method widely employed in contemporary society.
It involves two elements – meeting basic needs and entertainment (with the optional inclusion of drugs)
Poverty becomes a relative concept as the basic food, drink and shelter needs of the population are met. Then through mass communication media mindless entertainment which holds the attention without stimulating growth, energy or creativity is delivered. The drug option is available through both legal (alcohol, nicotine, prescription mind-altering medication) and illegal (“recreational” drugs) channels.
Here’s the magic formula
Meet the basic needs + provide mindless entertainment + liberal supply of numbing, paralysing and psychosis inducing drugs = zombie masses (compliant populace of automatons)

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How to be creative

Posted in creativity, from the living room, from the reading room on April 6, 2007| 1 Comment »

I’ve just read a couple of books about creativity and it’s interesting to compare what they say. The first one I read was “The Creative Brain” by Nancy CAndreasen. (ISBN 0-452-28781-2). Nancy Andreasen sounds a really interesting person. Not only is she an MD who has specialised in brain research, but she is a PhD in Renaissance literature. Sometimes I think all doctors would be better doctors if they also studied a Humanities subject. Her final chapter is “Building Better Brains” and here she gives creativity exercises for adults and for children. Here are the paragraph heads –

  • Choose a New and Unfamiliar Area of Knowledge and Explore It in Depth
  • Spend Some Time Each Day Practicing Meditation or “Just Thinking”
  • Practice Observing and Describing
  • Practice Imagining

and for children –

  • Switch Off the TV
  • Read Together, Interactively
  • Emphasize Diversity
  • Ask Interesting Questions
  • Go Outdoors and Look at the Natural World
  • Get Them Interested in Music

The second book I read was “Window Seat. The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking” by Julieanne Kost. (ISBN 0-596-10083-3). This author is a photographer and “evangelist and trainer for Adobe Photoshop software”. She took 3000 photos from the window seats of commercial aircraft as she travelled on business over a five year period. The 150 photos in this book are stunning and inspirational but what makes this an incredibly different photography book is that it is in three sections. The first section is “The Art of Creative Thinking”, the second section is the photographs, and the third is an appendix of the techniques she used to make the photos. Here are the paragraph heads of her first section on creativity –

  • Master your tools
  • Listen to what your life is trying to tell you
  • Be open to whatever comes your way
  • Share what you know and learn from others
  • Collaborate with other creative people, especially the quiet ones
  • Be flexible. Learn to negotiate
  • Fix whatever you complain about the most
  • View every challenge as a possible discovery
  • Take 15 minutes for yourself every day
  • Figure out what you need to do to reach your “zero point”
  • Integrate work and art; both will benefit
  • Take up an interest in something you know nothing about
  • Look at new stuff – and at what you already know – with a fresh perspective
  • Keep a journal
  • Visualise first, Photoshop second
  • Replace your thoughts with intuition
  • Play! Play! Play!
  • Know when you’re done

Even although I’m not writing about the detail of any of these paragraphs here you can see a large potential consensus. Both of these authors write clearly, simply and are very down to earth. There’s nothing “airy-fairy” about them.
Having read not only these two books but many others on the subject of creativity here are the practical steps I think lead to becoming more creative in your life –

  1. Take some time each day to think and reflect – you might call this meditation, you might go over something in your head, or write down your thoughts – but however you do it, actually take some time each day to think.
  2. Notice more. Actively try to observe more consciously.
  3. Explore. Be curious. Find out more about something every day
  4. Be passionate. If you have a passion for something, pursue it!
  5. Share. Spend some time talking or playing with other people – adults or children – every day.
  6. Accept challenges as opportunities to grow
  7. Focus on difference. Seek diversity and variety
  8. Create your own rhythms. Certain habits or disciplines are not constraining but instead they release – this is one of the bases of poetry which is not just words which rhyme but is words chosen within certain disciplines of pattern.
  9. Capture something every day – either write in a journal, take a photo, record a video or audio clip. What you capture will be your treasure chest!
  10. Schedule. I don’t just mean schedule what needs to be done, I mean schedule in some periods of time just to pursue creativity

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Writing as jo(e)

Posted in from the living room, from the viewing room on April 3, 2007| 1 Comment »

Moonlit sheep, originally uploaded by bobsee.

Amy drew my attention to this beautiful blog. One of the key qualities of a hero’s life is to be aware of the environment in which he or she lives. Not just to be aware of it, but to be aware of our interactions with it. We are sensing creatures, with such a great range of sensory organs. We can appreciate light and colour and movement. We can appreciate smells and tastes and textures. We can appreciate sounds and vibrations and temperatures. But we can also appreciate a lot of influences that we don’t seem to have sensory organs for – mood, atmosphere, and, as jo(e) writes in this post, the moon.
I think its sad that so many people these days are not aware of the phases of the moon and how it affects our lives. Jo(e), you know it, you feel it, you respond to it.
Take a look at jo(e)’s blog. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Beautifully observed, finely written, a real hero’s page.

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Zombie Day

Posted in from the living room on April 1, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Today, April 1st, and, no, this is not a joke, is the Brisbane Zombie Walk when Australians dress up as zombies and stagger through the city! Of course, they have their own website and the organiser has a few wise words for any zombies who are intent on taking part. This particular piece of advice is wonderful –

Just because you’re undead doesn’t mean you can’t die

Becareful of traffic, obey the traffic lights as stringently as possible –
even if you think you can make it across before a car comes do not cross.
If you see anyone else doing this, please call out and stop them or at least
make sure it’s only them, a zombie mob knows how to work as a team.

Isn’t that great? Asking zombies to be aware of the traffic? A prime characteristic of the zombie lifestyle is being unaware of surroundings, so the organiser (desperately trying to prevent the undead from dying!) is quite right to be worried about this! However, another characteristic of a zombie lifestyle is obeying rules. In fact, that’s probably one of their strongest characteristics because they don’t do much thinking for themselves. So, I think traffic lights are NOT the zombie’s most vulnerable issue. They’re much more likely to just simply wander off the edge of the pavement!

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