"Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams."

- that's from a quirky (actually, trippy) but interesting novel i am reading at the moment called "hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world" by japanese author haruki murakami. if u come across the novel "dance dance dance" by this author, i highly recommend it!

the above quote also reminds me of the opening lines of bob marley's redemption song, "emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds"

i think i've got a bit of mental slavery going on lately, predominantly self-imposed! i gotta remove the shackles .... ;-D

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OK:
confession time
i gotta come clean with u all
no point trying to hide it, no point tryin to live a lie any longer
time for me to spill the beans.

i’m back on the stuff!
after more than a year of having very little of it
not complete cold turkey – but close to it!
probably only about 20 times i did it last year
which is not many at all, relatively speaking.

but it all starred again for me a couple of months ago
“just a few times, for a few days” i told myself – yeah, right!
i should have known; since then, up until now, it’s been a 2-a-day habit.
sometimes more: last wednesday i’d had four by early afternoon (although that’s exceptional circumstances!). i look forward to it – i can barely keep myself from it. can’t wait to consume it, get it into my bloodstream. and if for some reason i go without, i miss it; crave it. i almost don’t quite fell right without it, although luckily it’s not quite at the stage of withdrawal symptoms yet – but i’m afraid it’s not far from that stage!

now i wonder how i got buy with so little of it for so long. i admire myself for having done so – but I wonder, and kinda doubt, if I could do that again?
at least i guess i should be thankful that i can still limit it to 2 per day, for the most part.
but surely my intake may increase before long?

the other worrying thing is this: no i’m taking it straight, without mixing it with anything. i used to wonder how people could do this – used to think it was hardcore. but now it’s my intake of choice; it almost seems silly to dilute it. and when I’m done with my second for the day, it’s always a let-down. seriously.

fuc#! what am I gonna do about this? i’d really welcome your suggestions, your support on this issue. don’t hold it against me or judge me, please; just offer your recommendations and support. i’m surely in the grip of this stuff right now – i think firstly i need to manage it, maybe try to cut it down to one per day; then hopefully cut it back further from there. but cold turkey? i just don’t think i can bring myself to do that now. i just don’t seem to have the required discipline …




the brown stuff – it’s seriously habit-forming! do yourself a favour; don’t get hooked

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steer clear of lex luthor & kryptonite! ;-D

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fergal can experience less dissatisfaction and stress if he can worry less about what other people might think of him, and further suppress his ego

surely i can work on this, as well as more constant mindfulness & equanimity ;-D

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i often feel down on mondays ... but really, i've barely got anything to complain about! in the great scheme of things ...


anyhow, i was driving to work a couple of weeks ago. it was a relatively bleak morning, by brisbane standards; rainy, and the first touch of autumn-like lack of heat in the morning atmosphere. i was coming to my office from an early meeting at a different place, and came to a set of traffic lights which usually take a while to get through.

the message on a sticker on the back of the otherwise-ordinary car in front of me prompted me to take this picture with my phone:

i'm not talking about the "rip curl" sticker but the one above it, which read:

INNER PEACE

WORLD PEACE

now, i think that this message is one worth bearing in mind .... do u?

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hi, i'm back from a brief trip away to tropical central queesnland (where it was very HOT & humid!). had a great time catching up with family & a few school friends, drank too much one night, and visited the coast a couple of times. i'm quite bummed to be back at work today, and am very busy for thge rest of this week with many things ... but will aim to post again soon with more news from the fergal perspective

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hiya

yeah, a particular period of my life was focused predominantly on traveling & experiencing new places & things. that isn't an active focus (which i act upon) right now in my life, except for brief work trips; but it probably will become a focus again sometime in the future.

there have been a lot of highlights but overall it is hard to beat the six-month trip i was doin 10 years ago through indonesia, thailand, laos & vietnam. i did that before moving back to brisbane, after 4.5 years of living/traveling in other places, and then gradually starting to 'settle down' a bit.

i'm not trying to make anybody jealous here, and in focusing on travel i sacrificed numerous other things - mostly material things - in the process. i don't regret that! i guess i've spent a total of about three years of my life traveling/living abroard, outside of australia. i've been fortunate enough (or in some cases, crazy enough) to travel in 18 different countries so far. seven of those countries i have visited more than once.

but the last non-work, international travel i did was over 5 years ago! that was with my wife, before i started my current job & before we had kids.

now, i wonder which is the first country to which we'll one day take our kids? for financial reasons it'll probably be somewhere in the asia-pacific region (which is relatively cheaper to get to and to travel/live in). any suggestions? ;-D

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hi, seems that quote in my last post struck a chord with many of the people who commented - and that's nice because i recall that it struck a chord with me the moment i first read it (and that iS why i noted it in my journal at the time).

that is a great, informative (bot not over-the-top) book that the quote came from; check it out if/when u get a chance. that particular quote nicely sums up some key things about buddhism - although that's just good perspective/philosophy i think, we don't necessarily have to tie it to buddhism. there are other good quotes too which i'll plan to post here sometime.

i think i could benefit from more consistently losing self-consciousness & being immersed in the present moment & action.



and one more 10-year-anniversary-type observation: the past weekend was the anniversary that my two friends & i first crossed the mekhong river from thailand on the west bank & entered laos on the eastern side. this is a beautiful, serene country which really touched my heart. i took the above picture in luang phabaang, the peaceful former royal capital of laos. we spent a month there (pretty much the maximum visa length at the time) and i went back with my wife (then girlfriend) a couple of years later.

more reflections on laos later ...

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from my journal, from a little over 10 years ago, when i was in northern thailand - about to go to laos & vietnam - traveling with a couple of friends:

(it's a quite from a book called "what the buddha taught")

"real life is the present moment - not the memories of the past, which is dead & gone, nor the dreams of the future which is not yet born. one who lives in the present moment lives the real life, and he is happiest.

" all great work - artistic, poetic, intellectual or spiritual - is produced at those moments when its creators are lost conmpletely in their actions, when they forget themselves altogether, and are free from self-consciousness."

good book, i recommend it sometime - by walpola rahula

welcome to new visitors -u'll have noteced their was no passport control at the gate.

sit back, relax & enjoy your trip. ;-D

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