Tag: Opinion

Daily Prompt: Absolute Beauty

Absolute Beauty

image boats on Huon river
The tranquility of the Huon River at Franklin

We’ve all heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Do you agree? is all beauty contingent on a subjective point of view?

I think that it probably is. No two people see anything exactly the same way. I find many things in nature beautiful, scenery, plants, and many living creatures. I find a lot of our built landscape beautiful too but by no means all of it. For example I strongly dislike a lot of modern architecture. Here are a couple of examples:

federation square melbourne
Federation Square, Melbourne -http://freeaussiestock.com/free/Victoria/Melbourne/slides/fed_square.htm
http://www.arquinauta.c
SAHMRI Building Adelaide

I am sure that many people would say they are stunning examples of modern architecture. The SAHMRI Building is listed as one of the 7 Wonders of Adelaide. I agree with my sister that it looks like a kitchen scourer. I have to admit that I hate this building all the more because my old workplace, the Adelaide Railcar Depot was demolished to make way for it but I would hate it wherever in the world it was because to me it is just plain ugly. On the other hand I like the Sydney Opera House although at forty years old perhaps it’s not that modern any more.

The Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House

As far as the human form is concerned I think beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. Western culture celebrates certain physical features and body types especially in the media. But what we are told to believe is beautiful is not attractive at all to many people. Anorexic looking female models and muscle-bound men are the ideals of some but not all of us. Other cultures and people throughout history have other ideas of beauty some of which look hideous to us. Piercings, tattoos, body builders muscular, shiny bodies and the tight faces of people who have had cosmetic surgery are all features that I personally don’t find attractive but that’s just my opinion and others have a right to theirs.

It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, especially when we behold someone or something that we love. However another old saying that we should keep in mind is “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Daily Prompt: Overload Alert

We all need “Wombat Days” sometimes

 

A235, Ballarat Wildlife Park, Ballarat, Australia, wombats, 2007.JPG
“A235, Ballarat Wildlife Park, Ballarat, Australia, wombats, 2007” by Brian W. Schaller – Own work. Licensed under FAL via Wikimedia Commons.

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” — Gertrude Stein
Do you agree?

I don’t know about our common sense but I do often feel that I just don’t want to hear any more bad news and forsake watching it on TV for reruns of “Time Team”.

I don’t suppose that the world is any worse now than it ever was but we hear more about it. All day long we’re bombarded with information. Television, radio, social media, emails we just can’t get away from it. Well, not very easily anyway.

During the past year I’ve often felt that those in government have lost their common sense if they ever had any. I know that most politicians don’t live in the real world but I’m baffled by some of the decisions that have been made and can see no common sense in them at all. I think that it’s good to be able to access information that will help you make a decision or form an opinion but so much of what we get is not helpful. The news media is often biased in one direction or another and a lot of what people read as fact is actually opinion. It’s hard to know what the truth really is when instead of facts we get slogans and soundbites, personality politics and scare tactics. No wonder people are confused.

We also get overwhelmed with trivia to the point where the real news is just a tiny fraction of the information that we get thrown at us every day.  I screen most of it out as I don’t feel that I need to know the latest celebrity gossip, fad or luxury holiday destination. I can only take so much of war, famine and injustice in one day too. I know it’s  happening and I do care but I can’t be thinking about it all the time or I would never be happy.

The other day my sister and I were talking to a lady who told us that sometimes she had “Wombat Days” where she would drive out of  town to a lonely spot where there was no phone reception just so that she could be completely alone to recharge her batteries. We understood what she meant. While it’s good to know that we can travel but still instantly talk to family and friends, call for help if we need it and keep up with the news it does mean that we can’t as easily escape the things that annoy or upset us.

Great Lake, Tasmania.jpg
“Great Lake, Tasmania” by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I do still think that the internet is a marvellous means of learning more about the world and accessing news quickly but I think that we all need to be careful to geta balanced diet of information. We should investigate the claims that our leaders make by reading what the real experts in the fields of science, education and economics have to say. If we read a right-wing article let’s seek out something that gives the opposing view. Too much gossip is as bad for you as too much cake. We should take the time to learn about what’s going on elsewhere in the world but not to the point where it makes us too miserable to get out of bed. And every now and then have a Wombat Day.

My First Year As A Blogger

I Made It!

My first post to “My Other Blog” was on 30 May 2013. It was about a month after I wrote my first post for Dolls, Dolls, Dolls. I’d decided that I wanted my doll blog to be exclusively about dolls but I was feeling the urge to write about other stuff so “My Other Blog” was born.

200 Likes April 2014
1 Year of My Other Blog May 2014
100 Posts,March 2014

It’s undergone a few changes in twelve months as I’ve experimented with different themes and I recently decided that although I will write about whatever I feel like writing about I will focus more on featuring photos and articles about Tasmania. I love living here, I think it is a beautiful state and I enjoy sharing photos of places I’ve been. It’s not quite a travel blog but when I visit a gallery, museum or event I try to give the practical details of what there is to do as well as my personal opinion.

This blog is still a place where I can sound off about the things that annoy me and as I get older there seem to be more of them so I guess I’m becoming a grumpy old lady! It’s also become a place where I can sometimes reminisce about things I’ve done and talk about my daily life, my home, family and pets.

Sometimes I have lots of ideas for posts, some of them don’t make it past draft stage because I get hung up with checking the facts or because I just can’t get the words to flow the way I want them to.  Other times I go a week without really writing anything at all. That’s something that I have to work on.

I’m not always sure if anyone has read what I have written but I know some people do so to those people thank you for taking the time. I hope I’ve entertained you for a few minutes. Here is a sample of some of the things I’ve posted about in the past year.

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Signs Of The Times

#marchinmarch Hobart

Images from today’s march in Hobart.

I first heard about the March in March when reading Victoria Rollinson’s blog. I decided to find out if there was to be a march in Tasmania and although I’ve never attended any kind of protest in my life I felt that I must go. My recent pessimism about the future has been brought on largely by the actions of the current federal government since taking power last year as well as my fear that a right-wing conservative state government would make matters worse.

I’m not a member of any particular party and don’t believe any one of them has all the answers but I do want a kinder, more compassionate government than the one we have now. And by the way where is the spare planet Tony? (see last photo.)

image Not In My Name #marchinmarch Hobart
Or mine Tony.

image Not Happy Jan #marchinmarch Hobart

Image Give Us Our Country Back #marchinmarch Hobart
One of the larger and more colourful signs.
Image "Dog's Breakfast" #marchinmarch Hobart
I wouldn’t feed them to a dog.
image Parliament House
Rally at Parliament House
image Nick McKim #marchinmarch Hobart
Face In The Crowd. Greens Leader Nick McKim.
image media conference #marchinmarch Hobart
After rally press conference.

Daily Prompt: Never Surrender

Stubborn as a Mule

https://i1.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/2010-07-20_Black_windup_alarm_clock_face.jpg

stubborn

adjective

  • 1Having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good reasons to do so: you’re a silly, stubborn old woman

    More example sentences
  • 1.1Difficult to move, remove, or cure: the removal of stubborn screws

Are you stubborn as a grass stain or as easy going as a light breeze on a warm day? Tell us about the ways in which you’re stubborn — which issues make you dig your heels in and refuse to budge?

Although I’m generally an easy going person and tend to go along with what people around me want I can be extremely stubborn at times. Sometimes this can be a good thing, for example if I am trying to do something with a computer I’ll worry away at it until I get it to work the way I want. I just hate to let it beat me.

It also means that once I form an opinion I don’t change it very easily. I won’t say I never change. Politically I’ve changed from the Right to the Left but it took over ten years.

If I decide I’m not going to do something it’s very hard to move me. I resisted when my cousin tried to persuade me to join the Girl Guides with her. I had made up my mind that it was not for me and nothing she could say could change it. She also tried to persuade me to go to the same high school as her and didn’t succeed in that either. I was more interested in the subjects being taught at the other high school in town and peer group pressure wasn’t going to change that.

On the other hand I can be very stubborn about things that really don’t matter at all.  For example, in the early 1970s when I was a teenager Daylight Saving Time was introduced in South Australia where I lived . Like many people at the time I wasn’t impressed with the idea, not because I thought that my chickens would stop laying or my curtains would fade. I just thought that it was messing with the sun and that if people wanted to have more free time to go to the beach after work they should all just start work an hour earlier. I often used to get up at 5:30 a.m. in those days and couldn’t see why others couldn’t do the same. Well, as I was too young to vote my thoughts counted for nothing and we got Daylight Saving anyway. I was having none of it though. I decided that the rest of the state could do as they pleased but there was no way I was putting my watch forward come October. I didn’t either, I can’t remember how long I kept it up for but it was at least a couple of years. I never put my watch forward or my alarm clock so for half the year I was out of sync with everyone else. If anyone asked me what time it was I told them the time by the sun. It didn’t change anything but I felt I had scored a point over the stupid Daylight Saving supporters. I think that in the end I realised that Daylight Saving Time wasn’t going to go away so I bowed to the inevitable. I actually don’t mind it now but only since we’ve lived in Tasmania where the climate is better and the extra hour of daylight doesn’t mean an extra hour of extreme heat.

Further Reading:

How To Be Stubborn

DP Challenge -Golden Years

Gravestones

Why I Wouldn’t Want To Live Forever

Would I want to live forever and never age? No. I don’t believe I would. I have to admit that the never aging part sounds tempting. It’s no fun to find it uncomfortable to kneel, to put your back out cutting your toenails, and to feel generally more creaky and slow than you used to. However what would it be like to be the only one who didn’t age when everyone around me did? What would it be like to outlive everyone I’d ever known? No. I don’t think I would like that at all. I think that I would always feel like a fish out of water never quite fitting in with anyone. Perhaps I’d  be afraid to become too close to anyone because they would get old and die  while I stayed the same age.

Imagine if there were drugs that kept you alive forever. Only the rich and powerful would be able to afford them. Wars would be fought over them and society would be more divided than ever as the long-lived would organise things to suit themselves. Maybe it’s a sign of approaching age that I’m cynical about this. Instead of imagining a world where humane and enlightened leaders try to find ways to share their good fortune with everyone I worry about leaders who would want to stay in power and would not be concerned about the needs of those people who were not going to live as long. I don’t think I would want to live in such a world.

And what if we could all live forever? Well I can’t see that working either. Unless we stopped reproducing we’d overpopulate the planet and if we did stop having children we’d stagnate.  On the whole I think one good lifetime is enough. Threescore years and ten plus a few more as a bonus ought to be enough time to do what you want to do and to see the changes each new generation brings.

I am not afraid to grow old but I do find as I get older that I’m thinking about things that I didn’t worry about before. I have always enjoyed reflecting on the past but I’ve also looked forward to the future. Now when I look back I sometimes feel a sense of loss, perhaps that comes with age, regretting the good thing that are gone. When I look forward, instead of thinking of things I hope to do, I sometimes find myself thinking about what might lie ahead for us both personally and for the world. Hubby and I have no children so a time will come when we will have to make arrangements for our future if we become unable to care for ourselves. I never used to worry about that before but now I do sometimes.

I’ve always thought that Australia of all places really was the lucky country and compared with many places it still is but I worry it might not be in the future, that there will be  a bigger gap between rich and poor and that it will be harder and harder to achieve the things we’ve taken for granted, like owning a home and earning a wage you can live on. I worry that we are becoming more short-sighted, greedy, selfish and  shallow and less compassionate towards others.

I am not usually pessimistic about the future but having passed the half way mark in my life, I’m fairly certain I won’t live to be more than 112, I do think more about it.  There are still good times ahead I’m sure and good people but yes, maybe my golden years do have a little tarnish round the edges.

Why I Hate the WWE

The other day Hubby was watching WWE on television for a couple of hours. I had to leave the room, it annoys me even more than “Pawn Stars” and that’s saying something!

In the adjoining room I could still hear it and in my opinion being forced to listen the ranting of professional wrestlers is like living next door to a quarrelsome dysfunctional family.

I posted about how much this annoyed me on Facebook but I still felt irritated. I don’t wish to put down people who like watching WWE as apart from Hubby I have at least one friend who likes it  however, I feel the need to rant about what I don’t like about it.

First of all I don’t enjoy watching fighting. I don’t like boxing either; boxing is probably more dangerous than wrestling because the fighters really are trying to hurt each other. As far as I’m aware it’s not fake. Even as a child I remember that wrestling matches on TV had an element of comedy while boxing was deadly serious. However wrestling matches seem somehow dirty to me. I walked in yesterday to see one wrestler stomping on another’s head and kicking him when he was down on the ground. They grab each other’s hair. It’s ugly! I fail to understand how anyone can enjoy seeing that. If you saw it in a real fight you would say it was wrong. I know it’s not real but I don’t want to see it.

Second, these shows are scripted, there are relationships between the characters. These guys don’t just fight each other, they go on and on endlessly about why they are doing it.  Everyone has a grudge against someone else. It’s like a bad soap opera!  If they just came on, fought and left I could handle it a lot better. I think I find the talking more annoying  than the fighting. There is not one likeable character. In a TV series I need at least one person in the show I can feel sympathetic towards but I don’t feel anything for this bunch of ego maniacs. Yes, it’s acting and yes nice guys probably wouldn’t bring in as many viewers as mean ones. I’m just saying I don’t watch characters I don’t like, same reason I don’t watch Two and a Half Men.

Third, there appear to be no rules, or they operate on the “rules were made to be broken” theory. Yesterday’s episode ended up as what looked like a free for all. If there are rules in a sport I expect to see them adhered to even though certain cricket commentators who go on about the laws of cricket can be very irritating too.

Fourth, I find these men very unattractive. Grown men running around in budgie smugglers and not much more looks ridiculous even if they are very fit.

Some years ago Louis Theroux featured wrestling in one of his “Weird Weekends” documentaries. It was very interesting and I certainly don’t dispute the fact that these people train very hard and could be considered real athletes. It’s a commercial enterprise though, the top performers are very well known and they help the company sell a lot of merchandise while no doubt getting rich themselves. It is competitive but it is not a sport as far as I’m concerned.

These are my reasons for disliking  the WWE Universe. You may agree or you may not. I will continue to not watch it and I will continue to complain about it although not necessarily on this blog because it might start to sound like a broken record. At any rate my purpose in writing this was blow off some steam and I have. I feel better now. Thanks for reading.