Incomprehensible Beauty.

I came across this quote recently, and I absolutely love it.

"I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder." - Ansel Adams

And it got me thinking a little. Because I completely agree with this line, which is why I love it so much. It just expresses what I already think in such a lovely way. Everything that I see, I see it in a lens of beauty and wonder. Rather than every cloud having a silver lining, it's seeing every cloud as silver, with a grey lining. Or something like it.

But most people don't see the world that way. Particularly these days - there is so much that people can be afraid of, get frightened by. So much that people see sorrow and loss and heartbreak in. And that's true - but they get so swept up by this that they don't see the beauty, and the wonder, and the incredible things that are still here. They don't see the magic that is present in every moment.

And I guess that's something that I want to help people see. I want to help people to see the beauty and wonder in this world, even while everything seems to be crashing down. In the eternal words of Samwise Gamgee;

"But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something....That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

I'mma just leave this here, to show off a little of the world's beauty. There are still a few stars shining yet.

Changing The Game.

Sorry, folks, this is going to be another emotional post. Well, not actually sorry. More just giving you a heads-up if you're tired of me posting that sort of thing. All good? Okay.

I've posted a few times before on here about having a season where I'm not pursuing anyone romantically. I've also posted on here a couple of times my thoughts on being single, notably here. And honestly, folks - I'm not doing well. I'm kind of an emotional wreck sometimes. I mean, I have good days and bad days, and I do realise that this is probably just a bad day. I guess I'm just being tossed around by the emotional tides rather a lot more than I'd like.

It doesn't help that there seems to be increasing pressure to be in a relationship, both internally and externally. I go to church - pretty much everyone my age (and younger, even) is in a serious relationship, or engaged/married (including my sister, now! Engaged, that is, not married. One thing at a time! But big congrats to her :) ). When I'm at home, if my family are around, I'm feeling pressure from my parents to be in a relationship; if I'm by myself, then I'm feeling shit because I'm alone. (Hopefully, I can move out before too long. Because it's healthier for me when I've got my own space/place. But kinda need money for that. Fun stuff.) Then I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time on the interwebs, particularly the good ol' book of faces, where I either see photos of people in relationships (oh yay) or photos of people that part of me would rather like to be in a relationship with (double yay). Not sure if I just happen to know an inordinate amount of beautiful people, or there's a lot of beautiful people in the world, or I just have low standards for 'beautiful'. Whatever.

At this point, you might be thinking - hey, it's not working, just stop. It's okay to be in a relationship, it's not a bad thing. Maybe that's what you need right now.
Problem is - as much as I hate to say it - that's probably the worst thing I could do right now. As much as part of me is aching to be in a relationship, I know that I am in a terrible emotional state to be in one; and it was just be a trainwreck for both parties involved. I don't wish that on anyone, particularly not anyone I care about.
Before I embark on a relationship - which I'm really, really, praying and hoping isn't in the too distant future - I need to be ready for that. And yes, I'm more ready now than I used to be. But I'm still not ready. I'm still not in the place that I need to be.

And, damn it, I want that to change. I want to be actually getting somewhere with this, not just turning over the same soil repeatedly, hoping for something to happen. So I'm going to be doing something a little bit radical, for me.
I'm going to be heading off Facebook for a while.
Not completely, because I use it for communication way too much. But from now on, I won't have it as one of my constantly-open tabs. I won't be going back to check it regularly, scrolling through my feed to see what new photos people are putting up. And, yes, I might miss a few things. But - I'm hoping - I might also gain a few things as well.

So, for a while, you won't really see me much on Facebook. If you do want to get my attention, feel free to send me a message or something, always happy to talk :) But I need some space to make this work. Because this is something that I can't afford to get wrong.

Living in the In-Between.

This is my post about this year. It's rather overdue.

Towards the end of last year, I was starting to wind up pretty much everything that I was involved with. Work and church being the big two, really. But I was pretty busy with a lot of things. Too many things. So God asked me to stop, and take some time. So that we could focus in on the important things. I talked about it a little in this post.
So, I finished up with everything, and I had my week away in the Blue Mountains. It was a really nice retreat time. Really relaxing, and a great time to draw closer to God.
But it didn't give me any clarity on the year ahead.

And so, because I had no work, I've been living at home again. Pretty much everything I have is now in the garage, because I never planned to be here for long at all. I thought I'd finish up with last year's stuff, then God would tell me where I was going this year, and then I'd go do that. Seemed like he has other plans.

At first, I was pretty uncomfortable with that. I didn't particularly enjoy the idea of living back at home for a while, when I'd put so much into moving out, and making that work for all of last year, even on so little. But I didn't have a lot of choice. I had no money, and no car. I wasn't planning to just couch-surf or sleep in the streets. So that's where I was, in the in-between place, wondering what on earth God had in store for me. I wasn't too happy with it all.

But God started showing me that - actually, this space is okay. My parents have been providing for me a bit - I help my little sister get ready in the mornings for school, and they pay me for that, which helps. And since I have time on my hands, I can focus a bit more on my own creative projects, like my albums, or writing a musical. (Yeah, I'm doing that, just casually.) Which has been really nice.

I do find the lack of work hard, though. I'm rather terrible at self-motivation a lot of the time, and so keeping myself busy is actually how I get things done. It's tricky when there's....not so much to get busy with. I mean, there is. I have so many projects I could work on, and there's plenty to do around the house. But when you actually have work to do for someone, it's a bit different. I did have an interview the other day that went quite well, but even if I did get that job, it wouldn't start until the end of next month. Which is rather farther away than I thought.

So yeah. That's what I'm struggling with at the moment. Having time is nice, in a way. But being terrible at self-motivation means that I wind up doing nothing too much of the time. And...yeah. Some work would be nice. Finding a job is annoying.

From horizontal to vertical.

At some point, I need to talk about this year. Because I haven't really done that yet. But that's for another post. This one is about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, for those of you who aren't aware/forgot/didn't want to be reminded, is Valentine's Day. I'm doing this post early for three reasons: firstly, because I feel like writing something; secondly, so that you can read it and process it before the day; and thirdly, to be a little nudge to the guys who have forgotten again.

I've done a couple of posts over the last year talking about how I'm in a season at the moment where God has asked me not to pursue anyone romantically, and the difficulties of that, and how I generally failed at it last year. Funnily enough, I'm continuing on with it this year. Not because I'm a sucker for punishment, but because this is important. And I want to get somewhere with it. Yes, part of me wants to be in a relationship. But I don't want to be if I'm not ready for it - because that's just going to make things worse for both of us (whoever the other person happens to be).

And, as I talked about in the second post I linked back there that I did at the end of last year, it's not about just trying to stop. Because that really never works. With anything. Seriously. Rather, it's about refocussing, and doing something better. Going from the horizontal - person-to-person - to vertical - person-to-God. Which is weird, and hard. But I'm getting there. And it doesn't mean not connecting with people. If anything, it means the opposite! We are, after all, the image of God - if you want to see and understand God, and know what he's like, look at people. Of course, there are issues with that, because we're rather changeable and flawed. But God rather likes working through that anyway, and doing incredible things there. Over the last six days, I had catch-ups with people every day - most of which were spontaneous, people getting in touch with me and wanting to catch up, which is crazy, because that basically never happens for me.

But I think God is trying to show me something through that. Reminding me that when I am loving people - I am loving him. That each person is precious to him. That I am precious to him, and loved by him incredibly. And the more that I dive into that, and embrace that - the less that I feel the need to have a romantic relationship with someone. Oh, it's still there, he isn't done with me yet. But slowly - slowly - I'm getting there.

So for the couples tomorrow - have a great time, but also remember that God romanced you first. And for those singles out there - don't get too down. Because there is one who romances you like you wouldn't believe. He knows your name, and will always chase after you. Always.

Not in La La Land.

The other evening, I went to see La La Land. I had pretty high hopes for it going in. It had been recommended by a number of friends, and also by Adam Savage (whom I hold a lot of respect for), and had been nominated for a heck of a lot of awards. I wasn't let down in the slightest.

This movie is beautifully done in so many different ways. The way it is shot is reminiscent of films from an older time, particularly the song sequences. There are so many little nods here and there to various older works and tropes - yet also, to the modern-day world. The characters are loveable, yet flawed. The story is the classic of dream vs reality. And also - which dream? The career dream, or the relationship dream? All those questions are asked, and sometimes answered, sometimes not. But it takes you for a beautiful ride along the way.

But, most of all, the music is amazing. Incredible. Fantastic. Justin Hurwitz (composer) has done a beautiful job, as have Benj Pasek and Justin Paul with the lyrics. You will have Mia and Sebastian's theme stuck in your head from the start, and the little times that earlier songs are reprised instrumentally in the background is masterfully done. If you see it a second time, you may find yourself singing along to a few of the songs - which were all written for the movie!

If you haven't yet seen this movie, do yourself a favour. Go and see it.

A word of warning, however - the ending may take you by surprise, and is my only gripe with the movie. I see why they did it the way they did; but it does seem to end rather suddenly. But that's my thoughts!

Being Aussie.

Well. We've got Australia Day coming up. There's always a bit of discussion about whether we should be celebrating Australia on this day or not, but I thought I'd talk about something else in this post. Basically, the phrase, "That's just un-Australian." Usually applied to someone who perhaps, isn't fond of meat pies, or isn't much of a swimmer, or doesn't drink beer, or doesn't watch AFL or State of Origin, or isn't a big 'snag on the barbie' fan.

And there are some - well, many, really - people who can get quite passionate about this. Who will really take a bit of offence if you call yourself Australian, but haven't had pavlova. But really - all these things don't actually matter that much. And to me, really don't define what being an Australian is. It's not about shortening every second word, or cussing like a sailor, or having an accent as broad as the Nullarbor.

But there are, to me, a few things that do define being Australian.
Firstly - sharing. "For those who've come across the seas, we've boundless plains to share." We have one of the most multicultural societies you'll see. And I think that's something to be insanely proud of, and something we should keep pushing to grow, not stamp out or be afraid of.
Secondly - friendship. Being there for your mates, your friends, is something distinctly Aussie and awesome. Let's keep doing that.
Thirdly - comedy. We love to laugh. Even though I'll admit we're as likely to laugh at you as with you (which is something to work on), we do it with a good heart. We're good at still being able to have a laugh in the worst of things, and that's pretty great.
Fourthly - stories. We are a nation of stories and storytellers; and this goes back long beyond us whitefolk. We're not the first folks here by a long shot! So many tribes and tongues have been telling stories under these stars for thousands of years before we got here.
Fifthly - freedom. As much as we'll complain about this or that, there are so many freedoms that we have in this country, and opportunities that would be impossible anywhere else.

I think these are things to celebrate, and perpetuate, much more than beer and meat pies. I think these are things that anyone can understand and connect to, and things that I love about this country. And I hope that these will stay true for many a year to come. These are what it really means to be Aussie.

On Lateness, and Wasting Today.

As in, the late Dent Arthur Dent. Okay, bad joke. Had to attempt to start this off with something light.

I've just heard that my cousin has died.

I didn't know him that well. He lived on the other side of Australia, and we typically went over every second Christmas. This Christmas was one of those, and everyone went over. Except me. I stayed back, because I had my week-long retreat straight after Christmas, and wanted to focus on that. I can't even remember the last time that I saw him. He was about my age.

My experience with funerals and death has been very minimal, particularly compared to what most people my age would know. When I was a fair bit younger, I went to the funeral of my great-grandmother. (I still have one alive. She's quite a fighter.) I was young, and didn't know her much, or understand it that much. A few years later, our dog died. That was pretty sad. The only other time I went to a funeral in the family was for my uncle's Dad, whom I had never met or known before then. More recently, I went to the funeral for a friend's Dad - I knew the friend very well, and their Dad a bit. That was a little closer to home, but still, rather different. So this is - yeah. Kinda my first experience with this. I haven't ever had a friend die before, to know what it's like having someone pass away who's about your age. It hits you pretty hard.

Of course, things keep going through your head. Wishing I had known him better. Wishing that I had chosen to go over for Christmas, had a chance to see him. And then, wondering about how short and sudden life can be. Because it is. There isn't any certainty of tomorrow, for anyone, no matter what your circumstances.

I think that's the thing hitting me most at the moment. Because I tend to dream big - think about things that unfold over years and longer, think about how one day this or that might happen, and my 'big chance' might come around. (Typical Four.) But I think this really says to me that that needs to change. It doesn't mean that I can't dream big - but it means that I need to start acting in today, not tomorrow. Because tomorrow might never come.

And so, each day, I want to try and do one thing. Just one thing - where I can go, if I died tomorrow, or tonight, I'm glad that I did this one thing. Whether it's something to help someone; to make the world a better place somehow; to start a snowball rolling - doing something. And right now, I don't really know what that's going to look like. But I know I need to make a change. Because right now, I'm too busy trying to live in tomorrow, and wasting today.

On a very different note. One thing that I am glad of, is that one day, I'll get a chance to see my cousin again. I don't know when that will be, or what that will look like. But I look forward to that day very much.

UBImania!

For this one, we are going to dive into the future! Not sure how far, but a little ways at least. Maybe in our lifetime - maybe not. The idea we're looking at is something that I've heard a few people talking about lately, so thought that I'd give it a look. It's called a UBI - or Universal Basic Income. The basic idea is that everyone (that's the universal bit) gets a set amount of base (that's the basic bit) money (the income bit), no questions asked, regardless of whether they work or not, etc. Everyone. Now, various people have talked about how this might decrease people working; some countries have done trials, with good results; and as we look towards a time when more and more jobs are being done by machines, this may well become more and more needed.

But I don't so much want to look at the why of it all, the reasons for and against. Other people have done that extensively, and if you want to look that up, go ahead. Instead, I want to provide one suggestion as to how it could work. I'm not saying that this is the best way to do it; this may well not work at all. I don't know. It's just one thought that I've had, that I think is interesting to ponder.

So!

In this example, I want you to imagine that there is no other pay apart from the UBI. The UBI is the only way to get money/currency, unless you want to go into bartering. The UBI might be paid per day, per week, per month - it doesn't really matter. Let's say per week, for this instance.
So, each week, every person in this country gets two units of money. Before you say that that's a tiny amount - a unit could be anything. It could be $1000. It could be less. It could be more. For now, let's just assume that one unit is enough to get the average person through the week relatively easily. So when you go to buy something, it's measured in fractions of that unit - your rent might be 1/3 of a unit, or something. Now. I said you get two units.
One unit is keyed to your ID, some sort of unique identifying number or something. Only you can use it. The other unit, however, is the opposite - you have to give it away to someone else. And the same is true every week. There's probably a website you can go on, where different people show the work they're doing, and talk about why you should donate to them; and each week, you choose which one to donate that unit to. A person can never have more than a certain number of units (five, for example), and there might be some rule against repeatedly giving one person a unit each week.

Of course, you could try this with more than two units - say, keeping one unit and donating two if you have three, or maybe being able to donate fractions of units - but I like this idea. The idea that everyone has this basic income - but then you can still go and do a creative project, or a scientific project, etc, and essentially get other people to fund that. Now, I have no idea how things like businesses and such would work with this - but I think it's an interesting idea to consider.

Would love to know what you think :)

On Retrospect and Release.

As I believe I've mentioned a couple of times, this year has been pretty hard. Since I'm coming towards the end of it, I thought I'd use the 20/20 vision of hindsight to look back at it and see what happened.

So there were two big things that have really made this year difficult. Amusingly, the crash isn't one of them. It was annoying, but I think it's actually been helpful, in many ways. And I'm not saying that these two haven't been - there's been a lot of good that's come from these - but they are really what have made this year hard.
The first was moving out, and the second was a challenge to go for an intentional season without pursuing anyone romantically. I talked about it in this blog post, if that isn't ringing any bells for you. Go on, give it a read. I'll wait.

Done? Good. Now.

Moving out has been awesome, don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed so much making my own food, and setting my own diet. It's meant that I've been able to go pretty much vegetarian, which I've wanted to do for ages. I've also met some great people, started some fantastic friendships, and had some memorable times. And it's definitely a step forward that I needed to take, and that I hope I'll be able to continue with.
But it's also been difficult, moving from a six-person house, that's rather noisy most of the time, to living in a five-person apartment where often I'm the only one at home, or people will just do their own thing for the most part in their rooms. (Which, admittedly, still happened back at my family's house.) It's made me feel more lonely, which is something that I always struggle with anyway. And that then served to aggravate the second one.

Taking an intentional season where I didn't pursue anyone romantically was something that I needed to do. (And am still doing.) But it certainly wasn't something I was particularly excited about. I knew why I needed to do it (see the other post linked above for all of that), but it was still pretty shit. Because I'm a Four. The Tragic Romantic. It was pretty much how I defined myself - and that's a problem.
Thing is, I'm an emotional person. That's a given. I can't just not be emotional, or not have emotions. They happen. If they're not directed in this way, where's that going to go?
This is where I think I went wrong, because I didn't make any plans for this. I just tried to bottle it all up the best I could - attempting to not have too intense conversations with people that I could be romantically interested in, trying to tone down the flirting (I act like I don't know anything; but really, I'm terrible, I'm doing it all over the place), and even taking music out of my iTunes and CD collection that were 'love songs', or likely to get me in that frame of mind. That's most music, folks! But in particular, it was a couple of artists that were my favourites, and that I really identified with - Owl City and Brendan James (no, not me, look him up). Pretty much all of their songs fit into this category. So I was denying myself all of this music, denying myself the ability to actually express this emotion and release it in a healthy and safer way.

Is it any wonder that I've been doing terribly with it? :P Ha.

I mean, I've been struggling more this year with porn and fantasy than I have since Valiant Man. I have abysmally failed in not pursuing anyone romantically, though thankfully I haven't done too much. But you could also easily put that down to my shyness around romance in general.

*sighs*

So yeah. I've still got a long way to go. I'm hoping that next year I can do this a little better next year - removing myself from everything, and actually allowing myself to vent some of this emotion in a healthier way, rather than just attempting to contain it all and being surprised when it overflows and spills out uncontrollably. Time will tell, I suppose.

Four Days.

It's winding down towards the end of the year - and doing so rather quickly. It's now less than four weeks until Christmas. *shivers* December is tomorrow. Or is when I'm writing this, anyway. It's....yeah.

I've been getting a bit emotional about the end of this year, because it's when a lot of things are winding down for me. Well, pretty much everything, really. I'm finishing up my lease at the place I'm staying. I'm finishing up my work at BOE. I'm finishing up with my internship, and even finishing up at my church. I mentioned it briefly as part of this post a while back.
Essentially, God's asked me to do two things. Firstly, finishing up and leaving basically everything that I know, everything that I'm familiar and comfortable with, and going somewhere new. Hard part is, I've got no idea where that 'somewhere new' is. (Reminds me a bit of the story of Abraham.) So the second part is taking a week or two at the end of this year/start of next year as a retreat, rest and re-focus time, using that as an opportunity to talk to God about what he wants me to be focussing on in this next season of life - however long that happens to be, whether it's a year, a few years, or some more general things that I can focus on for most of my life going forward. I don't really know. It's all a bit up in the air at the moment! And kinda super-scary.

But it's also really sad, particularly in finishing up at church. I've been there for most of my life now, and it's been like a second home for me. Particularly considering I've been there longer than in any house! It's something I've been involved in in so many different ways - music, sound, creative bits and pieces, communion, even preaching now and then. And yeah, there have been ups and downs, but that's true of any family :)
But yeah. I realised the other day that there were only four weeks left until Christmas - and then I did a bit of a double take. Because Christmas Day will be the last service I have at church. So that means that I've essentially got four days - four Sundays - with those friends left, until I don't know what. That's a bit - crazy. Particularly because these are really the closest friends I have, and the friends I've really grown up with and known for the longest time. So it's strange to think that soon, I'll be leaving to go who knows where. Yeah.

There have been some incredible memories I've had in that place. From Oasis, to Dinomight, to SWORD, to the camps we've been on, to playing songs with Alan's sermons, to Youth Group, to the Creative Team, to the internship this year. And all the incredible people - some of which have moved on to other places, some that are still around, some that have only recently moved in. You are what makes these times and this place special, and it's going to be you guys that are so hard for me to leave. But thankfully, the internet makes the world a smaller place, and I'm always only a message away :) So do say hi now and then. I'd like that.

I don't know what next year is going to look like. I really have no clue. But I do know that God is taking me on an adventure. That he's going to be testing me and stretching me in ways that he hasn't before. And you know what?
I think I'm quite ready for another adventure.