Every now and then you come across someone who’s inspiring words of wisdom, whether they be advise, questions or down right bitchy opinionations, enter your soul and tell you that this person has the right of it…

I have discovered such a guru in the wilds of Washington, USA. Laura of Drunk in the Morning’s life observations are not only inspiring, they are enjoyable to read, and leave you wondering if she might have read your mind before putting digit to keyboard.

I highly recommend that you read Drunk in the Morning, and contemplate the wisdom of Laura, a guru of life observation and entertaining writings.

Is it really a conspirousy of monumentus proportion? Or just my paraniod mind taunting me into thinking so… Do business and governments actually support the need for everything to cost money? Not only that, do they actually support it by helping companies and big business to over charge for simple services? I’ll give you simple examples and let you decide.

The Australian Tax Office’s E-tax software… It’s Windows only, 2000 or XP… Fair enough you say, most of the population use Windows. But why do they use Windows? Is it because there aren’t any free alternatives out there? Can’t be that, there are plenty of free and easy to use alternatives. Why not make it a platform free solution, such as Java or some other solution that doesn’t require Windows specifically? The ATO say that it will run on a Mac, if you have Virtual PC 7 and windows installed… Hmmm Are they promoting windows again? Why? Think about it. ;)

A friends Sub-division… A mate of mine decided to sub-divide his property so that a member of his family could build a house. With all of the fee’s and contributions to the Water Board, and council, and everything that the council have told him he needs to do, so far the sub-division has cost over 25% of the property value, and so far all he physically has to show for all of that money (And it isn’t a little sum either), is a small section of concrete driveway. The driveway mind you was done rather cheaply concidering other family members are in the landscaping industry. 80% of the money spent so far has been in paperwork and contributions, money spend to get a signature, or a stamp… Why? Think about it. ;)

In this modern world, we are governed, managed and manipulated by money. Cash makes the world go round. And where does all of this cash end up? Ultimately? Is it in your hands? You the general public? I’m thinking not… Rich people say they made their money by hard work, and determination. I believe them, but how do these rich people spend their money? They buy investment properties, do them up and then rent them out for more than market value. They buy other businesses, incorporating those businesses into their portfolio, usually stripping out what they don’t want. They all do alot of things that are detrimental to a larger and larger number of people. Sure, they probably give back about 10% of what they make to charities, but what are they doing to make that 10%? Is it all good?

The thing is, people are just people, and very very few people are 100% good. How much publicity to rich people get when they give to charity? How much publicity do they get about their companies making millions, and paying their employee’s minimum wages? What percentages of their employee’s are paid fairly for what the company is earning? How many companies these days provide bonuses if they make large amounts of money? How many of those that do provide bonuses equally to all staff?

These are all just questions, one which I’m not willing to answer for you… Ones which I think we all need to ponder. I have thought about them, and I have my opinions, but My opinions aren’t your opinions, and you need to come to your own conclusions. ;)

Or just a simple overhaul of the Syridian.com website.

Seems to me that the site is getting a little old… Might be time to expand, clean up, re-invent, and generally spice up the web real-estate, providing you the reader an exciting change to your Syridian.com experience.

Will it still be all dark and mysterious? Yes.
Will it still use the same Logo? Yes.
Will it still have all of our comments? Maybe.
Will it still be the same mind churning digital dribble? Sure will.
Will you Syridian actually find your sanity in the cleanup? Probably not, cause I actually think I lost that years ago, some place other than here.

So stay tuned.

And in the mean time, check out River on Mirror for some mind expending readability. ;)

Do I perceive perchance that particular perception of popular people is puzzling? Do popular people perceive the same perspective I peruse? Is empathy to another person’s perspective particularly unpopular these days?

Seems to me that these days we all (myself included), perceive that other peoples perspective’s are irrelevant to the way they deal with ourselves. We tend to be intolerant of people because they react a certain way to a perceived situation. The fact is, they probably have a different perspective, and perceive the situation differently. These in turn causes unexpected reactions from those we perceive to be the correct course of action. Should we impose our perception on these people? Is their perception wrong? Is yours?

The fact is, it’s usually just different. People have different ways of dealing with different situations. We can try our best to make our intentions clear, and our desired outcomes obvious, but unless we specifically outline how we expect things to work, then we must expect individuality and different perceptions to make things happen differently to the way you expect.
Communication is a huge part of this… Providing clear instructions or polite, but detailed requests for tasks. Talking to the person involved finding out their perceptions of what happened. Understanding also, that when someone asks you about something, they are trying (In my case usually unsuccessfully) to assertion your perception of a given situation. Also it’s best not to assume what other people maybe thinking, or perceiving, and talk to them about it, instead of just thinking you know them.

Do I practice what I preach here? Hmmm… I try to, but most of the time it’s unsuccessful, due to my inadequacy in getting people to understand my perspective…

I know… my opinions are at times very vocal, and very ummm… opinionated. Even critical and questioning of others… The thing is… it seems to me that people seem to take others expressions of opinions too personally at times. Voicing ones opinions doesn’t mean that you intend for everyone to agree, and follow suite. If that happened, I would be so bored with life, as everyone would just be the same.

It sometimes bothers me that that simple question of “why are you doing it that way?”, can be taken as an insult, or as a “Your doing it wrong!”. When more often that not, someone just either wants to know, or might have a better idea of a way to do it. But in true fence-sitter form, I believe everyone has a right to express their opinions, and to express them to the world if they so choose, and if that expression takes the form of being insulted, then so be it. Everyone is an individual, and has a right to their own opinion. More often than not, even similar opinions differ slightly. It’s my opinion that a differant opinion is just that, differant… So please don’t be insulted if I don’t argee with yours, but please feel free to express them to me. :)

It can’t just be me who firmly believes that a large portion of the world live blindly following faith of some kind because it’s easier, surely? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t see the benefit for some people to believe in what ever god they choose to, or that I don’t respect them as human beings, part of this wide and diverse world… It’s just that well, it kind of bothers me how devoted some of these people get… how fanatical… and how easy it is for them to give up their freedom, and fall into a state of being lead, or controlled by a faith which has been created specifically to control the masses, to subdue them.

These people can still live by the beliefs of their faith without comprimising their mental freedom. There are valid points in every religion, and people should live by some form of moral control. But surely it is possible to do that, while not being totally under the control of a particular faith that teaches stories that are thousands of years old, and more than likely have evolved over that time to be more in tune with that faith.

Now I understand some of you readers will be saying, “Oh you’re only saying that because of the ‘Da Vince Code’ and stuff like that”. Well, yes and no… That book and other have provided a focus, for an enlightenment that has been brewing for years. You see, my mother insisted that I go to Church and Sunday school… yet the only thing that Sunday School taught me, was that the stories that make up the bible are nothing but badly interpreted points of view from a particular person, who had a particular perspective… and all of these stories are tainted with a bias for a particular religion. I’m not saying they are lies… I’m not saying they are exaggerations… I’m saying that they were written by one person, on one side, of one point of view, and they were written to spread the word, the Good word… They are nothing but ancient sales brochures.

Am I anti-religion? Yes I am. Why? Because religion is designed as a form of control over the masses. Because religion relies on belief as opposed to fact. It’s an easy way out, “Why is is so? Because God made it, now pray to him.” The simplist explaination is that it’s a cop-out. However if you think more into the reasons why, you can see that it’s a means of control. Give the people something to occupy their time, give them an easy answer they understand, drum it into them constantly, provide reminders that everyone believe this, and that if you don’t then you aren’t normal… Logic rules out in the end, but religious people would rather you didn’t use logic.

If you are happier believing in some God, and don’t want to know how life works, then I will repect you for that, I may even discuss it with you, as long as you don’t actually think you can convert me. ;) I don’t doubt the stories in the bible, in fact some of them outline a great and moral way to lead your life… I just doubt religious interpretation of those stories.

During a conversation with a friend the other day, the topic of luck or random events came up, and what followed was a philosophical discussion on the existance of randomness. You see… I don’t believe in luck, good bad or otherwise. Strangly enough however I do believe in Fate. ;) More on Fate in a later article.

My friend insisted that events happen randomly, and that a bad turn of events can just be put down to bad luck. I however find this assumption a little nieve, not that I am saying that my friend is wrong with his beliefs, just that my beliefs differ. I believe that everything in life happens through cause and effect, so in effect I believe in the “Butteryfly Effect” The chaos theory that states if a butterfly here in Australia flaps it’s wings, that has the potential to be part of an equation that may eventually cause a heatwave in England. Generally I doubt that the events would be that extreme, but it is an exaggeration that serves a purpose. The way I see it is, that everything happens as a reaction to something else, and this chain of reactions can and does span the world in millions of billions of tiny little equations.

Luck, or chance as a random event, I believe is just lazy way to ignore these equations, to generalise down to an everyday level, giving those who aren’t really interested a means to dismiss. It’s easier for some to believe in Luck, than in the fact that a chain of events caused something to happen. I’m not hear to explain why other believe in luck though, I’m here to explain what I believe in to share it with all of you, my readers.

So how does this work? This chaos theory? Well, in simple terms, think of a domino chain, you know, all the dominos standing on end… Think of multiple chains, criss crossing each other, merging, going around in circles… think of hundreds of these… all set up, all merged, crossed and entangled just waiting for something to tip one of the dominos. Now think of walking into a room (a Larger one) with all of this set up, you have just walked in, and all you can see is dominos standing on end, millions of them, at times you can see distinct chains, in other places it just looks like the dominos are stacked randomly. The fact is each one was placed there, the person who did it knew the intended pattern of it falling. Now think of a mouse on the hunt for food… it inadvertantly knocks one of the dominos before you have had a chance to look closely at the full setup. And the reactions start… domino’s fall… chains head off and start multiple other chains, and in a matter of 30 seconds the whole thing is over. There are still patches of dominos standing though… Ones that didn’t fall.

How does this explain Chaos Theory? Well, the person who set the whole thing up, knew almost exactly what would happen when he tipped the right domino. But! I hear you say, that mouse was a random event that triggered it incorrectly!!! Wrong… The mouse had a purpose, a goal. It was after food, why look for it in that room? Maybe that room, or warehouse floor was previously used to store foodstuffs. the mouse lived locally on those food stuffs previously, and was just out shopping for another meal. Just because the mouse was not part of the equation that the original domino setup guy thought out, doesn’t mean it was a random event.

Think of all the chains of domino’s… They were setup with a specific goal in mind, however when the mouse triggered them to start falling, they did not fall as they were originally calculated to. Some fell against their indended route, and the flow of events flowed backwards. Some cut off other events from happening. the fact is though, if you had the time, and the inclination, you could have calculated exactly what would have happened when that mouse bumped into a domino or two… Domino’s are easy… however physics and biology in life are far more complicated, but that by no mean negates the validity of the equations.

If you had the time and the inclination, you could work out the future. But! Remember the mouse… The event that wasn’t calculated, another equation in itself that externally effected the domino’s… Life has SO many criss-crossing equations running every which way, and ANYTHING will affect the equation you might be trying to work on… So, next time you think of something as random, think of what caused that so called random event to effect your life equation.