Opposite Ends of the Muslim Spectrum…or Were They? August 20, 2008

Mooby suggested I leave the bar as it was getting late and the only people left were drunk men and prostitutes waiting to pounce. Boody was standing nearby smiling at me relentlessly. Mooby and Boody didn’t know each other and the only thing they had in common was that they were both Muslim. 

 

While speaking to each of them I was particularly interested in their relationships with females – Muslin or otherwise. I was curious to know more about their culture having wondered about the many women I saw that day wearing burkas. Some covered from head to toe (including face) and some in ‘normal’ attire with only a head scarf. What did all this mean? It was done for the men as they are the ones who would look at them. So I asked said men about their thoughts on the opposite sex…and sex.

 

Mooby’s family was Pakistani. Mooby’s father had two wives and they all lived together. He said you have to have a good reason to take an additional wife, such as the first wife was only producing females. This is what happened in Mooby’s family and he was the first son from the second wife. I joked that he was the golden child and he agreed. He said if he gets home late and is hungry he will wake one of his many sisters up who will then have to cook for him. He said his father by far favoured him and his mission was to get him married (arranged as they last longer) so he too would produce sons, but not before Mooby ‘enjoyed’ what life has to offer before marriage.  He was 28 and had told his father he’d let him know when he was ready. I asked him when he would be ready.  He said he enjoyed drinking and the ladies too much.  Both of which would be inhibited by the responsibility of marriage.

 

Boody’s family was Lebanese.  Boody’s father only ever had one wife at a time but has had nine. Boody advised that his father was a bit of a player back in the day, but not in to multiple wives.  Boody did not wear the traditional dress and wasn’t terribly au fait with the Islamic way.  He expressed that if he did have a girlfriend or wife, she would be the only one as he didn’t agree with multiple wives. He believed women should not wear burkas and was partial to a non-muslim style of relationship – the opposite of what Mooby spoke of and truly believed.

 

I asked Mooby straight out what sex would be like after he was married (with his wife of course). He said he would never see her stark naked because he would get bored of it and that could make him stray.  I asked why he wouldn’t want to have naked sex with the light on and look at the woman he would grow to love. He merely said it wasn’t the way things worked.  I found this interesting as one would assume he’d get bored of not seeing his wife and that would in fact cause him to stray if anything? To look elsewhere for some skin perhaps. Why is it acceptable for Muslim men to take up to four wives? Do they get bored? He said they had needs like any other man and they do look at all women but the act of sex is mostly just functional after marriage.  I posed that if, like other men they had needs, why didn’t they fulfill all these with their wife (her included)? It would be so much easier. That must be what the ‘prostitutes’ are for.  I feel very sorry for his future ex-wife. I said his wife will also be like any other female and have needs etc. I didn’t get much response.

 

There were no prostitutes there that night. I know this. I didn’t argue though as it would have been futile. There was a mix of males and females left, some drunk some not. Behaviours were contained and it was like any bar I have been to in Australia. Most of the patrons were ex-pats. The irony in this is that Mooby obviously hung up his traditional dress to come out and drink that night. He was talking to me for hours (I was like any other female in that bar, was I really a prostitute?) and he was behaving like any other man. Who was in the wrong in his eyes? He or I? Don’t get me wrong, he was very pleasant and hospitable otherwise I wouldn’t have been speaking to him. We both respected each others different views too. He reluctantly left me after I assured him I could look after myself among the kafir.

 

I had other fish to fry. I had been trying to maintain Boody’s attention for 1 hr now and he too was waiting for an ‘in’. It was nice to talk to him because it restored my own faith. One of hedonism, openness and genuine respect. Boody had quite the opposite view on the opposite sex and sex. He recognized that times have changed and like with any religion, things evolve and one cannot afford to live in the past. Mainly because the reasoning behind doing things a certain way becomes defunct, no longer relevant. That’s the beauty of humanity and evolution. Or so he seemingly thought so…

 

Who will ever know if both Muslim men were being true to themselves. Is it plausible that Mooby was passively resisting? And, was Boody aggressively resisting as a front? Where they resisting (purely by being there?) for their own intrinsic desires? Anyway, doesn’t matter because one can’t truly figure out the answer while on holiday! Good time, not a long time.

 

I am just saying that precedent and tradition are poor excuses for non-progressiveness.

Who am I? Caprice and Consistency. August 20, 2008

OK… so when does a ‘life changing decision’ redeem itself?? I am sitting quietly… reflectively, as those who have had a more than a passing taste of glorified ethanol tend to do… and I have happened upon a conundrum. When are we genuinely, sincerely, unreservedly in our right minds?

My current dilemma is driven by some recent emotional information my brain has afforded me, that I am in fact NOT over the girl from my past who recently came to visit. That her declaration (in spite of the committed relationship she is now in) of a longing… a yearning for what we might have had has permeated my consciousness and left me considering my options, my morality and my sanity.

I think the world of the aforesaid individual. Please don’t mistake this. But such a sudden insight into the cavernous depths of my own soul is a little unsettling. However it’s not a pioneer moment.

Coffee, exercise, sleep quality, alcohol, interpersonal interactions, weather, football, food… almost anything can affect my mood and perspective. Am I some kind of ideological puppet, ready to accept under the right light that a notion as ridiculous as invading an underarmed country incapable of broad regional influence could bring peace and prosperity to the western world? No. Chiefly, this is due to the fact that my core values remain the same, regardless of narcotic and other influences. Yet my view on a person, a situation, a circumstance can change… and change again.

Many of history’s greatest decisions were made on a whim. Was it wonderful timing, the Aristotelian gift of self knowledge or luck of the proverbial draw? I can’t answer that. I know I won’t have the courage to call this beautiful girl I think I may love not only for fear of rejection and reprisal but also a Cartesian suspicion of my motive and certainty … however I suspect that’s my bad.

I am just saying that we may never know exactly where we stand in life, but what we FEEL could and should be without qualification. It should be irresistible

A Song For The Ladies July 24, 2008

Twice this week I have heard this.  The real problem isn’t oil, the real problem is women.  Cedric and my own uncle. Both are talking about women understanding their own bodies and having control over them.  One about was about rape the other about population control.  In contrast most Australian women have the ultimate control over what they do with their body and have apparent equity at work.

I would like to write another paragraph about this but I don’t even no how to start arguing with this – it’s an infinite loop with power in the wrong hands of the wrong people and both of those resources oil and women being used as pawns in the play.  If eveything is just a reflection of all the little pieces of me is it possible to understand the how the powerful are weak?

I’m just saying that to me sometimes the closer you look the less you see.

Anyway here are some fun links to lift your spirits:

• Post-its
• Cakes
• Stupid

Freedom of Song July 19, 2008

Goodness: until maybe six months ago I put this concept in a box.  Contents labelled: ethics, morality, kindness, consideration etc.  And Anita, I’m pretty sure this concept of goodness is the same as the one you illustrate with your Vietnamese driver.  Whilst I’m sure that your driver is pretty harmless I’m not sure I see his innate goodness either.  Anyway this basically got me thinking about other situations where the line between good and bad is blurred.  Some of the issues I’ve been thinking about in terms of this changing view of ‘goodness’ are copyright and pay.  I’ve been thinking about the statements below:

It is bad to steal.  Maybe

Girl Talk is the sort of artist that divides people.  He steals other peoples work and makes money from it.  No questions.  But on the other hand his work opens the doors to many to express their creativity in different ways.  Now I tend to think of creativity as a precursor to innovation and innovation as good.  So stealing is good?

Money is a good way of rewarding someones efforts. Maybe

The video that I found on Vimeo is produced by someone who probably wasn’t getting paid for it.  It’s beautiful, it’s inspiring others.  I wonder if the comments on his post are enough to keep him going.  I think somehow they’d come close.  I love that this is going on in our world.

World Youth Day is full of goodness.  Maybe

The Pontiff would disagree with the sentiment of this post – that there are no absolute truths.  And yet I find it interesting that at the edges of all the goodness of WYD there are things like pro-pope graffitti.  On the one hand it is a very public display of affection, someone putting themselves on the line for their religion on the other hand they are breaking the law.

In conclusion

I read an interesting quote “Moral judgment is pretty consistent from person to person,” says Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of Moral Minds. “Moral behavior, however, is scattered all over the chart.”  (What Makes Us Moral, The Times)  I wonder if our code of moral judgement is changing or staying the same.  I wonder what it takes to affect deep change in our code.  I wonder whether it’s possible to move the code to something more ambiguous.

Im just saying maybe if we look again we will see that we get it wrong on both counts more often than not.

What Makes Someone Good? July 11, 2008

Let me tell you what service is. It’s anticipating someone’s needs before they do and it’s being reliable and available 100 % of the time. Tim epitomises this. Tim knows what to do, knows what to say and has not let me down. Tim is my driver.  I found him when I used to travel a lot more and now thank my lucky stars for it. There is nothing worse than standing in a cab line after a flight. Nothing. Now, I saunter past these lemmings and wonder why more people aren’t on to this. This thing called a ‘driver’.

 

This is how it works: I text Tim my flight number and time. He confirms. I am greeted with a text when I land to advise he is waiting. I walk out of the airport. He takes my bag. We walk to the car which is parked 50m away. He opens the door to the comfy leather seats. My light soy latte is sitting in the drink holder. Did you get that? My light soy latte! He then puts my bag in the boot. He asks a few conversational questions to assess if I want to talk or not, if I want the heater or air-conditioning on or if I want music or talk back. Sometimes there’s a paper. He is good.

 

Anyone that’s ‘good’ at anything fascinates me. I wonder why they are good? How have they become to be good? Maybe I can understand better if I know more about them. I wanted to know more about Tim. I was so curious as to why he was a driver, what he’s really like, where he lives etc., so I investigated.

 

Tim is Vietnamese and lives in the west with his family. He was born in Vietnam, grew up in Tokyo and lived in France for four years while waiting for a visa to come to Australia. He is a very centered, down-to-earth family man. He owns the car and the business. He’s a one man (car) band. He works six days and has mostly regular corporate clients. He spends his weekends ‘eating’ with family. They all go to the one person’s house and feast. It was his turn this Saturday. He said it like it was a chore but you can tell he wouldn’t have it any other way. He is not looking forward to World Youth Day. He speaks French beautifully. He has an amazing work ethic. He truly loves Australia.

 

Now I was beginning to understand Tim. He is good because his work defines him. It’s his life, his life here in this country. He’s genuine and sincerely enjoys and prides himself on what he does. He is good because he is unique. You cannot manufacture or teach the things that make him good.

 

I am just saying that we should take the time to understand [some] people.

Mirror Mirror Off The Wall July 8, 2008

Whilst Grieta the girl we met in our research for this site is the embodiment of our collective dream for satisfaction, pretty, self-assured, wholesome, giving etc she also embodies (through no fault of her own) the striving ambitions that move so many away from their dreams.  A quick Google search on her reveals one of the top result is a website called Thinspiration, a website helping young girls stride confidently on their death marches to anorexia.  Not only this, but Grieta who seems to be the embodiement of what any natural healthy person is, made me a pretty confident 30 year old feel a bit wistful for a simpler more beautiful life. This did make me think:

• Why do we believe we are entitled to exist in a certain way?
• Why do we beat ourselves up about not achieving things that are clearly out of reach?

This constant rubbing up against each other of human life is just how things happen, from babies to boardrooms, and however hard we try to convince ourselves that the people on this train are just fellow passengers, the truth is we are constantly in messy entanglements with them.  Without people (real or in magazines) to help us imagine our destiny we probably wouldn’t get out of bed.  But as this study over at PsyBlog suggests that we are likely to measure ourselves as further away from reaching our goals when we compare ourselves to others and that this can cause us to feel bad.

Maybe this is because we are drones who believe the social messages that tell us we must achieve, maybe it is because of our innate ego driven madness that tells us we are somehow special and entitled to everything. All this means that our achievements end up being a witchhunt instead of a dance in our underpants.  Never bringing us closer to anything resembling a good time.

The point is that we do need to look to each other for inspiration but we also need to recognise there is all this other stuff going on that is either limiting or expanding our worlds – so we are never going to get it right.  I don’t know if we can ever set anything even resembling a proper goal for ourselves, things change, we do the best with whatever we have on hand.

I visited this site called HowYouDoing and interestingly of the people who visited the site the aggregated emotion was usually a somewhat happy or not so happy for the current period.  I wonder if this is impacted more by the world around us or more by the feelings we have about ourselves.  Now don’t decide just yet, it’s a more complicated question than that.

I’m just saying if you hold a mirror to your face do you like the image that you see, does it bring you happiness?  And is it you or the world reflected back?  Add your stories to the comments below – thanks.

Latvian Model vs World July 7, 2008

Everyday after she woke up the maid would come in around 10am to make up her room. The bathroom would be scrubbed, the bar fridge re-stocked and the bed would be made to stiff perfection. The maid would then carefully leave a line of the purest cocaine on the bedside table. Pleased with her efforts, she’d lock the door behind her until 10am the following morning when she’d start the routine all over again.

This is known as narcotic dreaming. It never actually happened. Well I don’t think it did. I met somebody today and asked why they thought the Bali Nine seem almost forgotten. Grieta, I quickly discovered, did not know a thing about the Bali Nine as she had only been in Australia for one week. Grieta was a Latvian model who insisted I explain what this Bali Nine thing was. After my explanation she could barely contain herself as she woke up just half an hour earlier and had been dreaming about drugs. Not in the longing romantic sense, but in a scared weird way that made Grieta question if she actually did have an addiction. Was the hotel maid hooking her up? In her thick accent she innocently said, ‘I have never had narcotic dreams before, I am worried’. She had that strange feeling of doubt that is often caused by such vivid dreams. I found this both funny and intriguing. I wanted to talk to Grieta more. I later found that she was just a normal kid which is why drugs scared her. She loves dogs, enjoys roller-skating and wants to be a musical therapist. She is only modelling so she can help her parents finance their new home in Latvia.

Grieta became mute to me at this point. She continued talking with her exaggerated expressions but there was just no sound coming out of her mouth. I was too preocupied wondering what her life would be like if she was a drug addict? What if she got caught smuggling her cocaine (for personal use only) in to a country that carried the death penalty? Would she throw on a burka and play the sympathy card? Or would we think that it wasn’t her fault she was in those circumstances, but concede that it was inevitable and she was asking for it? I broke my stare and realised that Grieta appears to have no idea how her looks impact her everyday life. All 179cm of them. A ‘mule’ she is not.

I am just saying that it absolutely does make a difference how people look.

PS: She actually asked if I know anyone who needs their dog walked. Post a comment if you’re in the market for a walker.

Freeganism Anyone? July 7, 2008

Freeganism they’ve dubbed it… Oprah said so. It’s the hip, hybrid, infectious moniker used to describe a new way of living that’s sweeping the States. In reality it’s a post modern take on a theme dating back to the birth of consumerism, that we’d all be happier if we escaped the commercial rat race and learned to live more simplistically, more organically, more… naturally.

 

For freegans this boils down to a life free of work, obligation and most importantly expense. A dedicated freegan is also a committed tip-rat. Everything from food to furniture is fleeced from the wasteful companies and corporations a freegan devotee so despises. Sounds liberating doesn’t it?

 
They really had me at hello these spiritual minimalists… there’s something about the idea of not working and not paying for anything that I find genuinely spiritually fulfilling. I was prepared for the moment to overlook the prospect of eating out of date cevapi found in the garbage outside my nearest delicatessen whilst I fully absorbed the other ramifications of retreating from ‘normal’ life.

 
Upon initial consideration I realised that I was a lot closer to freeganism than most. I have no mobile or landline phone, I don’t drive, I do not own a blackberry, an ipod or a digital camera and I prefer to think of paid work as something one does intermittently for amusement and travel money. Wow… I concluded, I’m a stolen couch from the back of Freedom furniture away from full membership to the freegan fraternity. Then my internet dropped out without warning. Not to worry, Foxtel was just metres away, a rerun of West Wing was due to start. Martin Sheen’s latin aphorisms and staunchly left wing ideals were sure to tide me over until my worldwide web woes could be resolved. Then it confronted me in gold mocking text… ‘please call 131999 to update your subscription’. My cable had been cut. Evidently in the process of my wonderfully unstructured, romantically emancipating lifestyle I had neglected to pay a couple of bills. My world unraveled in record time. No sooner had I completed the ceremonial self congratulation that came with my freshly acquired freegan freedom than I discovered, ever so starkly that I was a dependent like everyone else… a FoxWeb junkie. Yes, I could live without telecommunication, private transport, music on command, even genuine warmth (my lounge room heater only recently resumed functioning to its full capacity following a prolonged intervention), these were ‘luxuries’. But if I couldn’t watch Living Lohan and then Google the Adam Levine impersonator featured in the aforementioned show to confirm his age, and my overwhelming suspicions he may be engaging is pseudo pedophilic flirtations with the shows 14 year old star Ally, I was lost.

 

What’s the moral? I don’t know… I don’t do fables or allegories.

 
I am just saying that it’s more difficult to live life on your terms quietly and without fanfare than it is to point out the folly and foible in the way others go about theirs.

Tough Times July 6, 2008

I’m sorry, but this week’s just been really hard. I’ve been going through a divorce……with starchy carbs. They want custody of my sanity with no visitation rights. Not to mention the volatile relationship I am trying to avoid with sugar!

 

I saw Sugar for the first time today since the break-up. He looked so smug sitting in the window of Club Sandwich. He had his best mocha-bun on. I thought I would be ok but it brought all the feelings back again. Maybe I do still love him…maybe we are meant to be? Is the grass really greener with Equal and Sugarine? I haven’t found it to be. He was with jam donut. F**k I hate her. He says they are just friends because they have so much in common. Blah blah blah. He didn’t even look like he was hurting. It was like he was better off because a huge weight had been lifted and he didn’t feel under pressure to have just the right amount of icing and the perfect bun consistency. Soft but dense with sultanas. I wasn’t that demanding was I? All donut’s interested in is being pumped full of jam every morning, she’s so superficial – everyone can see her hole.

 

Anyway back to starchy carbs I can’t talk about sugar anymore. It’s getting nasty. I think there will be lawyers. I had a potato thrown through my window last night and this morning I found pasta shoved up my exhaust pipe. I don’t know what to do.

 

I am just saying that we should take high GI foods a little more seriously. They’ll make a hard (wo)man crumble.

 

 

 

Liver vs Self May 21, 2008

I’ve been given a written warning. I knew I was going to get spoken to sooner or later and I guess I can only be grateful that he waited until after the long weekend…which was consequently the straw that broke the camel’s back. My liver has been really understanding up until now and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t received three verbal warnings since December. I thought it was a gross overreaction at the time. What…? It was just a Mojito here, a Kaprioska there. Admittedly I knew something wasn’t quite right when I walked in to a friends on Saturday night holding a bottle of champagne, liver in tow, and my friend said ‘is that going to be enough for you? Maybe you should drive down and get another one before you have a drink.’ Don’t get me wrong this was very considerate and only based on observations exacerbated by none other than yours truly.

I was told that if this continues Liver is going to find the quickest route out of here (via my lower intestine) and I would be left liverless! He even threatened me with bile however I said ‘ no you don’t Liver, keep that bile where it belongs!’. That’s where I draw the line. I don’t care what bile does for my digestion. There was yelling and screaming then I wondered what kind of a life would I have? Liverless! It took threats like that to make me stop and think, who will process all my toxins? Who will synthesise my plasma protein? These jobs aren’t going to do themselves and I can’t find any other competent organs that are willing to multi-task. Just getting my kidney’s to do the minimum requirement is hard enough, you know, ‘if it isn’t in my job description I’m not touching it’. Basically, we (Liver and I) need each other. I am really going to try and redeem myself by not abusing him anymore. He was at his wits ends on Monday. So last night I took him by the hand which was shaking and shriveled up like a prune (but hard as a date) and promised to be better.

I am just saying that there comes a time when enough is enough.