Freedom (I won’t let you down)

On my way home to the farm on Friday afternoon – I had the MP3 player plugged into the stereo and was very merrily singing along to my fav tunes.

 

Then I noticed that the ones I really enjoyed had a clear theme:

They all talked about the idea of freedom. Now I have thought about freedom quite a lot – and of course it (just like power) is an illusion.

But what if we 'reframe' our idea of freedom – and make it the freedom to be the person your truly believe yourself to be. That freedom is actually the description of that moment you feel like you can truly breathe.

 

So then freedom can be your own house, or a drive to a favourite place, being safe in someone's arms, a paragraph in a favourite book, in that moment in a dark cool cinema before the movie starts or even just a memory.

Surely when we start saying we are searching for freedom – we are really searching for ourselves.

 

(that sounded more intelligent and a lot less wanky than that in my head)

 

This is just an idea that is being formed at the moment – so I will keep working on it.

 

Philosophy – Why not?

I have just put my application in to commence the Graduate Certificate of Philosophy at Murdoch University.

Although it is only a Grad Cert and Murdoch probably isn't a uni necessarily associated with philosophy – I am excited about studying something that I love, by distance education, with other students who are doing it because they love it too.

 

Hopefully in the longer term I could transfer to a Master of Arts (Philosophy) at UQ – and should get credit for this – so it is a start.

I had a look at the courses on offer and found this one – Film and Philosophy. I am excited because it is as though someone just designed the course just for me.

Film! Philosophy! Having to watch films for uni! Commentary! I am very excited. And I get a postgrad qual to study something I love. Excellent news!

But why philosophy?

It may come from all those long hours whiled away in coffee shops – smoking Marlboro Lights (back in the day when you could still smoke in coffee shops) with a group of like minded souls, trying to make sense of the world. It may come from reading Sophies World when I was 18 – and seeing that it really answered a lot of questions for me – as well as reframing some others. It may be because I am a ardent listener of The Philosophers Zone. It may come from still needing to make sense of the world and not really believing in a divine being.

But I think it is just because I need a challenge.

 

What is your new years challenge?

There’s water in them thar Hills

So, we went to the farm on the weekend, to see exactly what havoc the flood had played on the place.

 

The bridge is gone.

 

The flood fences are also gone.

 

So we had an adventure including the four wheel drive, chainsaws, the bulldozer and my new best friend "Conqueror".

We cut down tobacco bush, poisoned blackberry, and went for a dip in our very own plunge pool. And during the time that we were doing slightly foolish things, Pat McMahon didn't turn up once!

 

Love it.

 

 

Completely Devastated

You may have heard by now that the floods that have plagued Queensland for the past 19 days reached Toowoomba.

It is really very strange - after all we are located on the top of a mountain. But the scenes are like something out of a far flung South American village, not the 2nd largest inland city in Australia.

Our house is up on a hill, but the gullies and creeks all around us were really raging torrents.

So strange.

My boy is stuck in Roma, he was out for a one day course - and it looks as though he may be stuck out there for the next 2 weeks.

And Killarney is underwater again. My lovely sister and her boy Paul are up for another clean up, and the river peaked at 7.2 metres which is higher than the 2008 floods.

And when I see the images of people on the television - and they have lost their homes, they look somehow..... smaller.

I have been reading the lovely Architecture of Happiness by Alan de Bottion.

He says that what makes a building truly beautiful (in an indivduals eyes) is that the building (and the personal belongings therein) is a reflection of that individuals true selves.

The place where the individual can be the person that they ultimately see themselves to be.

So - when you lose your home you truly do lose part of yourself. You would lose that thing, that place that truly defines who you are.

So - whilst it is true that "They are only belongings - they are replaceable", the fact that each thing you have lost each thing that has been chosen by you, to be kept and treasured, to remind your self of who you truly are, also deserves to be mourned.

You will never be the same again.

(If you have any worries about your friends and family in the Queensland Floods - please contact the flood hotline 1300 993 191)