More than half full----- if you study things properly

Young People in Australia have a choice. Either they follow the views of the Yvonne Walter’s and the Lisa Neville’s of this world  and try to preserve the dying in museums ,or they can study and support full cycle ecology on the land.  They can follow the blinkered picture or the full picture.  They can keep trees standing up till they fall on someone, or they can study the ecosystem fully so we give the older things  a decent burial and keep the baby with the bathwater ; still have everything from seed to old age, young phases fully integrated with the old. 
Our young people have the choice of letting the ants, termites and fungi eat their way through our great opportunity to sequester the carbon and improve our water quality or, they can sit on their hands in fear- locking the gate.   
Readers in Corangamite area can visit their water supply reservoir wall at Forrest and study the health of three generations of timber harvested forest in its catchment.  Those closer to Warrnambool can wonder at how, with a tiny bit of recycling of iodine, molybdenum and copper, soil nutrients and calcium lost by tree based acidification of water and soils in the Heytesbury can now support higher functioning soils and exports of the best cream products to the world.  It’s more than just taking a glass half full view of the world. It’s moving on from ignorance and fear ; to the sound long term territory of really understanding and caring for all the components of the eco family. 

What we know is

......that we know less and less about more and more?
Einstein said we only have 2 choices, "Either the world is a miracle or it is isn't ".
Susan Neiman in our own day says "Common wonder is too common to cause reverence."

..that we live a in a  forest dark and light places with  growth , death and new life  .
...that we should be learning,  unless of course we know .all there is to know .......

Explore the world of Tolkien and Middle Earth and you'll discover there is good and bad everywhere,  including at home , Unresolved tensions . Watch Frodo , Sam and the ring you'll see no one is exempt from temptation and the need to deal it and real failure using recognition ,repentance and by retracing your steps.
................For it is by grace you are saved ..it is the gift of God.
-- if you don't accept the real way of moving on, you may walk the way of denial - thinking you know , when,  in reality, you not only don't know , but refuse to go where you may learn to know;

Unsure whats really in the glass near you and where all the goodness and grace comes from.

Full as a Goog

Stubbsies (774 ABC radio) attempt to get to the bottom of the egg expression yesterday got me thinking .
It maybe just that the connection to "full as a boot" in Australia conjures up the picture of a man egg shaped and about to fall over .He may be satisfied but he's about to fall over .The king of Denmark . Not a animation but a picture with animation implications .  Did we not call the difficult boiled egg on the table before us a "goog"? Unstable
Unstable - that's the scene in the Kings court in Hamlet . The place is fulla words and its hard to tell whose the most unstable.

But there is more . I personally love the picture created in Psalm 23 of a cup running over .Not a animation but a picture with action implications .

Half empty is often how we feel and see our condition. To have the glass filled to overflowing is the idea of grace .By ourselves we seldom get there, but we can be places where the sense of grace is overwhelming . Outside and outside of ourselves. There was a feeling of empty words in the kings court
 We are at best , two people;  The best and worst of us is in there . Which means at the best of times we are lucky to be half full.
Our literature and language can carry the best and worst of life... especially when they condense it or even give what appears to be static action implications .Not a animation but a picture with future action implications .

"Full "carries the idea of complete or end . Overflowing is a good followup phase and so is ditching the whole lot if it doesn't make sense . Somehow you know when people are pasting over crap to make their logic look good . Yet Eve did it so well as did the Devil so we need to watch out .  The problem is we seldom see it when we are doing it so it "never happens" .   Love the way in Hamlet the author is always taking of seeing things and not seeing things  . Keep it simple or entirely pointed OR we will rightly call you fulla ........as Hamlet said of Polonius ( his castigation by Hamlet was edited out of the recent short versions)

So, WHY do we  put up with the long winded or worse; those who love the sound of words so much they daily try to fill us up ( overfull as it happens ) with them .Hamlet knew the words of court were a cover and remained angry - the place was fulla crap.and that crap kept many from seeing through it .  We called them snow jobs when i was working
The Greeks and modern media pedants will cut the discussion before it completes itself  or the honest one goes another rage ( Hamlet wants empty, not full ) ---The paradox with our Colosseum concerts is that we get indigestion -  fulla than we can bear but no closure. Sometimes the audience have the strange satisfaction of seeing some apparently ignorant person crucified .( reality TV seems to B the popular choice for many in the evenings ) The media pedants  move us on and yet we must be mad; .. we pay them to do it.  Get your poly to move them on so we have some choice .We may not have history classes on the ABC ( significantly), but we most certainly have Colosseum gatherings at the Emperors expense everyday.Progressives don't believe the past matters but they play old games -Trouble with any faith is----- it puts the blinkers on
.Sound  proverbs on the other hand can carry us forward and help us reflect backward without getting lost in the pile of words . We of the information age should know this;   that simple phrases are our best recreation .

Richard Stubbs is aware of this, but here's a rarity in his neighborhood . We love words; (Everyone on connect at the ABC)  We just hate a pile of words. who can tell the difference . Hamlet can but the court thought he was the one whose words were mad .The court had madness in mind but Hamlets mind focused on the short and sweet ( not that there was much of that ) Sometimes the best view is by looking both ways - "takes one to know one".
Promoters of this word flooding problem are a little harder to pick cause we pay them to fill us up . Polonius was the paid wordsmith in the Kings Court and Hamlet told him to piss off. We should do the same, as should polys .ABC now gets switched off quite commonly --
Love  the term "Fulla shit". It means an end to the filling process ; whatever good words and ideas the medium contains,  its not complete - so I'm off . we're off -the pile stinks even though to the owner well spoken , with good accent and good discretion ". Somebody paid for it and I am quite clear we should cut some of them off ."You have to watch the watchers ".   they do go but for us --real  life  no only must go on- makes more sense that a tirade of words.

His line today " as full as a goog" is one of those images that carries weight because it carries the perfect weight . Its a picture of completion . Its common use may be to do with the condition of a full stomach but I have a feeling its more not about % empty space . To gain common use at the table of our forebears I reckon is has to be a compliment as well as a condition . We have had enough - just the right and perfect amount..  In our house it was used to describe the condition of satience- the right amount of soup,sweet and whatever . It was a message to the cook who wanted to hear yes , not I'm full "( which is crass and thick just like the pedant might be at this point)  but i'm talking feeling here "I have had enough; just enough" - her /his purpose .

There is just enough inside the shell to complete it . The size does not matter . The contents though are good and in the old word, complete and perfect.
Which comes first ?no which comes last ? the egg she is perfect ,More complete even that  the seed or the ova . A perfect marriage that is the only way to really produce something really new .
So complete ( Most of us see children, however broken physically and genetically)
No amount of courtiers and words in the rational court of the rich chattering class will  add to or explain away this picture reality of completeness . The perfection of a new life born from this shape,  this space .
As David Attenborough harps on about why the sudden appearance of Tribolities should surpass any interest in the Trinity,  I have a feeling that he might still be puzzled by the egg . AS students of biolog over the last 30 years alone know there are now  too many eggs in his basket of eggs and rotten egg arguments to not wonder about both the egg and chicken maker and His purpose.Unlike out computers - it works; Its good :Its perfect.( not the way pedants use this word )

Always look on the bright side of life

Theme song from "The Life of Brian "---If it's a song of somebody in the world  does it really work-?--Of course it doesn't - Its not even remotely "natural". Its completely one sided .

As Chesterton said nearly 100 years ago in "Orthodoxy ', to talk positively about everything is to drive yourself insane.


Yet ABCTV is doing a bit of it . You don't play that game to people you love

, so why do ABC presenters think we are going to go somewhere if we never get serious.

Jennifer Byrne, playing with envy in that way,( seven deadly sins)   is playing to burn -

If everything works for good ( The faith taught at Abcchurch ) there is no such thing as evil ; we can take everybody at face value, teaching our children they have nothing to fear .

 If there is danger out there ,you can't see it or warn well because you don't believe in it ;;

It may exist in the universe but because you can't see it ;  temptation, self deception and disguise  are tricks the universe plays on you - the blind leading the blind .
 Bullying for example is often best understood and addressed as an outcome of envy ( kids get it-- why don't we ?)

The culture of dependancy too  is a modern heresy introduced to us by the glass half empties .

No they say from the pulpit "God did not give you that gift , you earned it and if you haven't got what the other blokes got, you deserve it" . Without it you're disadvantaged and need state sponsored help .
The Fabians can only hope this unsustainable mental illness lasts till they retire . 

Why choose the devil when the deal is smoke and mirrors 

In the richest country on earth we have people imprisoned in their own thinking; thinking they don't have enough and what they do has isn't a special gift specially for them to develop. How the devil reduces everything ( even what is good) to nothing - even the good bits get broken into pieces so they never fit together again - even if you happen to get everything available on the board . 

If only life was simple

Well,,,,, it was when we were younger . We were carefree and cocooned . So why do we rebel against the great comfort zone provided by our parents ? The answer is basic and rational enough - our parents don't know everything and most importantly,  they didn't always practice what they preached .
Interestingly most of us hold onto the preaching bit even though we hate it in others ( another story in itself) . Even my reactionary colleagues who think we have moved on from the past :. those who like to make their logic simple when life and its challenges are best faced with all of your brains -- not just a tiny bit of logic and a heart full of hormone . To listen to most determinists you would think that hormones superseded the need for a head .Not real balanced;  Head should be on top - even a child can tell you that !

As a scientist I know partly why the blinkers- the ageing reactionaries are getting defensive and fanatical  ; they  worship reason but they are afraid of it ; deep down they know that there is no end to argument and no real reason as "the reason for life" : All that machinery and we still don't know its real purpose ( eg good or evil or indifference) Knowing some of  the means of life is not to know to the meaning of life . To focus on natures harshness doesn't help us again a foothold on some nice stuff .( Monty Python knew the problem BUT that didn't mean they had a better answer than the bloke who was crucified)

Many people worship science and rationality because they don't understand it and its limits - they don't understand that its not complete and doesn't help us with our most earnest questions . See other posts here . If we had good parents maybe we should review what they tried to teach us and themselves.

Come fall in my hole - there is no way out

Take this response to Justin Bubber concert
Parents all going on about how this puppet is a clean sweet role model for the stupid generation. Get some Sex Pistols into them. Dunno if you've noticed but life isn't all sweetness. Kids need exposure to the grimy side of life, because that is what life often is.

The west can still make a difference to those with real disasters

If its stops reimagining its own .
Our Prime Minister and her deputy Mr Bob Brown are worried and lead a group of wooriers to announce their solution to impeding doom yesterday . Need to get in early with things you know . If only they would stop worrying about non issues in Australia and help Asia and Africa get planned out of the real distaers they face.
YES we in the west can solve problems - we just don't believe we can ( at least a few wannabes anyway)

Why country people are now less worried than the city about the environment

The city worries about sustainability because, within the confines of its two column ledger world, it would have nothing within a few days of supply failure. The modern accountancy driven  myopia of the city makes the majority of modern urban cultures very vulnerable to fear and fanaticism on environmental issues (and a form of arrogance about just how easy it is to cream off a percentage ?). 

The country, on the other hand, is not in such a panic about the amazing world we live in , and for good reasons based on their close experience of it . Its credentials include being able to cope with bothscarcity and abundance in ways the cities only dream bad dreams about.  

By living with the amazing  reality of elastic strength within the solid structure of the created order, rural people learn to respect the mazing resilience of the sensitive world in which they make their home and their living .  Copyright Emperor's Academy 

This doesn't mean rural producers do everything right.  But it does mean to even to be there and stay there  ,they have to be sensitive and therefore have a lot to contribute to any discussion on resilience . 

The consensus answer for Parliament : Instead of having the lead chicken little Greens telling us all their fears, ( or farmers avoid any criticism at all)  lets have some resilience experts advice us  by applying science and big picture thinking  to the questions of living within limits. 
Confidence in these complex matters can and should be based on a commitment to the sort of objective scientific assessment outlined  and its application to planning and public administration in a sensitive, but not sentimental, manner.

We don't need more panic merchants - there are enough of those around.