Grateful / Fate

I haven't posted anything up in a while, but that's not due to a lack of discovering or experiencing memorable things over the last few months.  I've just been lazy.  Yup.

I thought I'd post some frames from A Softer World that I came across a few days ago.  They're both pretty awesome.

I think this one is called "Grateful":

And I think this one is called "Fate":

The first one makes my heart ache.  The second one makes my heart race.  I don't know if these are too good for my cardiovascular health.

G.

Mid-winter Christmas feast

On Friday night I went to my first ever mid-winter Christmast feast, hosted by my good Laidlaw friends Anna and Mitchell. It was amazing. Good company, good food, good cider - all the ingredients of a fantastic night.

There were about 20 of us gathered at Anna and Mitch's place, and they had managed to get some extra chairs and tables from the College to have us all seated and eating at the same table. Everyone brought something to share in potluck fashion, and there was nothing on my plate that wasn't delicious. Green bean casserole, kumara mash balls, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and cheese sauce... Dessert was equally as wonderful. Peanut butter fudge, chocolate cake, homemade apple tart (made by a man, the one and only Josh, who is going to be a great homemaker husband soon) and pavlova. My mouth had a great time.

And it was really lovely catching up with all my favourite people from Laidlaw. I hadn't seen many of them for months, and it was great to hear about how their year was going at College and otherwise. I'm really thankful for the Laidlaw community, and super stoked that I'm still a part of it despite having graduated last year. The conversations are generally pretty awesome, and I like the version of me that I am when I'm with these guys. I hope and pray that these relationships will continue well into the future.

The evening also reminded me of the importance and value of hospitality.  Annd and Mitch are such a great couple, so caring and fun, liked by all those around them. They're such a blessing to their friends, and I particularly admire their willingness to open up their home so frequently and generously to others to come in and share life over a nice meal (Anna is the best cook, Mitch is lucky he's got skinny genes). I want to be more like that too as I go on in life, serve people through hospitality and all that. 

Friday night was definitely a time of laughter, celebration and joy. A very warm and welcome event to distract us for a while from the winter cold. 

G.

Everything is amazing and nobody is happy

Today I came across this YouTube clip of comedian Louis C.K. on Conan O'Brien a couple of years ago.

Louis C.K. is right in a lot of ways: everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy. We don't have the patience to give our phones one second to transmit and receive signals to and from space. We get frustrated when we get held up at airports, despite the fact that we are able to fly through the air whilst sitting in chairs to get to distant places in a very short time. Instead of being thankful that we live in such an incredible time with amazing technological developments, we moan and complain because things aren't fast enough or good enough. There's so much to appreciate and be in awe of in the developed world many of us live in, and things will only get better as people continue to innovate and create. We can either choose to live with wonder and gratitude, or choose to constantly grumble that nothing is satisfactory.

I'm going to strive to not be a spoiled idiot that is part of the crappiest generation ever.

G.

Degas to Dali exhibition

To celebrate the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, a few friends and I (and what seemed like half of Auckland) decided to check out the Degas to Dali exhibition on at the Auckland Art Gallery today. It was a fantastic collection of artwork by modern artists of various movements, including Impressionism, cubism, surrealism, and pop art. $17.00 NZD to check out 79 paintings, sculptures and prints by 62 master artists – not a bad deal.

My favourites out of the lot were:

Edgar Degas, Before the Performance, c1896-c1898,
Oil on paper laid on canvas

Edgar Degas, Study of a Girl's Head, Late 1870s,
Oil on canvas

John Duncan Fergusson, Dieppe, 14 July 1905: Night, 1905,
Oil on canvas

Gwen John, A Young Nun, c1915-1920,
Oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso, Mère et enfant [Mother and Child], 1902,
Oil on paper laid on canvas

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Japanisches Theater [Japanese Theatre], 1909,
Oil on canvas

Gustave Courbet, The Wave, c1869, Oil on canvas

I learnt some pretty neat things about modern art too. For example, painting landscapes was initially considered sub-par art because pre-modern art valued human beings and historical figures and events as subjects. It’s crazy to think that now because landscapes can inspire wonder and awe, just as amazing art depicting persons and well-known happenings can. Also, the invention of the camera totally changed the world of art: no longer did artists need to strive to faithfully capture reality anymore, so artists experimented with distorted perspectives and imagery. Rather than letting their external surroundings dictate their work, lots of artists looked inwards for inspiration and expression.

I had an awesome time today. Yay for art!

G.

The book thief

Last night I read Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief". All of it, 554 pages, in one go. I just couldn't stop reading - it was that good. "It's a small story about a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery."

The book is set in Nazi Germany. The main character of the story is Liesel, a young girl who is put in the care of foster parents by her mother because the authorities are targeting her own parents for being communists. On the journey to her new foster home, Liesel's six-year-old brother dies, and this traumatises her. At his sudden funeral, one of the gravediggers accidentally drops a book, and Liesel steals it. She will later acquire a taste for stealing books - she is the book thief of the title.

Liesel's foster father, Hans Hubermann (Papa), is a gentle and kind soul who instantly bonds with her. Her foster mother, Rosa Hubermann (Mama), is a foul-mouthed and hot-tempered lady who puts on a tough front but deep down loves her husband and loves Liesel. Papa is a trade painter who plays the accordion, Mama does the washing and ironing for rich people in the neighbourhood. They live on Himmel Street, one of the poorest streets in the township of Molching. Papa has always been kind to Jews, which has made life difficult for the family. Liesel becomes best friends with the boy next door, Rudy Steiner, who loves Jesse Owens and once painted himself black with charcoal and ran the 100 metre track at the local racecourse to imitate his hero.

Liesel is haunted by nightmares of her family (especially her dead brother) and wakes up almost every night. Her Papa always comforts her. One night, the gravedigger's book that Liesel stole falls out from its hiding place in the mattress, and Papa begins to teach the illiterate Liesel how to read. Once Liesel becomes literate, she begins to hunger for books. Her hunger is satiated somewhat by the mayor's wife, one of Mama's clients, who lets Liesel into the huge library at the mayor's home and read whatever she wants for as long as she wants. Liesel develops the habit of stealing books, and her primary target becomes the mayor's library, the reason for this being that the mayor's wife fires Mama once Germany became officially embroiled in World War II (tough times, not enough money to keep hiring to someone to do one's washing and ironing). She begins to steal other things too (mostly food), usually with Rudy as her crime partner. (It turns out that the mayor's wife had known of Liesel's book thievery all along, and even left the window open for Liesel to come in and steal from her library. But anyway.)

One day, a Jew named Max Vandenburg comes to the Hubermann residence. It transpires that Max is the son of a friend of Papa who saved Papa's life in World War I, and Papa promised the friend's (who died in battle) family that he would do anything to help them. Max had been living in hiding from Nazi soldiers for two years, and he had come to the Hubermann's house to see if they would hide him. Papa keeps the promise he made decades ago and hides Max down in the basement. Max and Liesel quickly become friends. Max used to be a fist-fighter. To pass the time, he works out, does crossword puzzles in newspapers that Liesel forages for him, writes down his thoughts and writes stories for Liesel. One day, when a throng of starving and sickly Jewish people are being marched through the town to the nearby concentration camp by Nazi soldiers, Papa instinctively offers one of them bread, and this catches the eye of one of the soldiers and most of the neighbours. Papa fears that the Nazi Party will target him and raid the house, which would result in them discovering Max. Everyone agrees that Max should leave the house for a while and come back in a few days. However, Max doesn't ever come back. Papa's fear is confirmed when he is sent off by the Party to help in the war efforts. Miraculously, he survives.

When the air raid threats arrive, several houses of Molching with deep basements are designated to be bomb shelters. The residents experience numerous air raid warnings as the war deepens, but each time, nothing happens to the town. Liesel keeps an eye out every time the soldiers march Jewish concentration camp prisoners through the village, to see if Max might be a part of the crowd. She does meet Max one day, an unbelievable miracle - he had been captured on the way to Stuttgart. Liesel also decides to write to the mayor's wife apologising for stealing books, and the mayor's wife gifts her with a notebook to write in: if she wasn't going to read any more books from the library, perhaps she might like to write one instead.

One night, bombs fall on Molching while everyone is sleeping. The Allies tricked the German army and no air raid sirens are heard. Liesel is the only one to survive, because she had been in the basement of her own home, writing down the story of her life in the notebook given to her by the mayor's wife. Later, when the war is over, she is reunited with Max.

It may not be apparent from the poor way I laid out the plot but as I said earlier (there's a much more comprehensive plot summary on Wikipedia if you want to check that out), this was a great read. The story jumps around a bit in time in certain places but that kept things interesting, kept up the suspense, and it wasn't confusing at all. The most unique thing about the book was that the story is told by Death, which made the whole thing super interesting. Because of this narrative device, parts of it were quite poignant, particularly when Death is reflecting on human nature and war. Zusak writes really well, very poetically and beautifully. Check out some of the prologue:

"I could introduce myself properly, but it's not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time,  I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A colour will  be perched on my shoulders. I will carry you gently away.
   At that moment, you will be lying there (I rarely find people standing up). You will be caked in your own body. There might be a discovery; a scream will dribble down the air. The only sound I'll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps.
   The question is, what colour will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?
   Personally, I like a chocolate-coloured sky. Dark, dark chocolate. People say it suits me. I do, however, try to enjoy every colour I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavours, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax."

Another part of the book I really enjoyed was the second story that Max wrote for Liesel, called "The Word Shaker". A part of the story is that the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, craftily used words to achieve his objective of taking over the world. It struck me deeply because it's true. Hitler's tyranny began, and was sustained, with a bunch of well-chosen, powerful words. Max's second story begins like this:

"THERE WAS once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life.

• He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.
• He would find himself a small, strange moustache.
• He would one day rule the world.

The young man wandered around for quite some time, thinking, planning and figuring out exactly how to make the world his. Then one day, it struck him - the perfect plan. He'd seen a mother walking with her child. She admonished the small boy at length, until finally, he began to cry. Within a few minutes she spoke very softly to him, after which he was soothed and even smiled.

   The young man rushed to the woman and embraced her. "Words!" he grinned.

   "What?"

   But there was no reply.

   He was already gone.

Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. "I will never fire a gun," he said. "I will not have to." Still, he was not rash. Let's allow him at least that much. He was not a stupid man at all. His first plan of attack was to plant the words in as many areas of his homeland as possible.

   He planted them day and night, and cultivated them.

   He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany... It was a nation of farmed thoughts."

Captivating. 

I'd totally recommend "The Book Thief". It's a wonderful read.

G.

A message to law grads: instead of corporations, help ordinary people

Lawrence Lessig (a Professor of Law at Harvard University) gave this commencement address to the new graduates of 2012 at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School a couple of days ago.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/a-message-to-law-grads-instead-of-corporations-help-ordinary-people/257945/

"I am a professor of law at Harvard. I run the university's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. At that Center for Ethics, we study corruption. Not Rod Blagojevich, or Randy Duke Cunningham corruption -- not "criminals violating the law" sort of corruption. Instead, corruption as in improper influence.

Think about a doctor taking money from a drug company, and then sitting on a panel that reviews that company's drugs: Not illegal -- if disclosed, not unethical -- but nonetheless, an influence that causes many to wonder whether it was truth or money that led the doctor to approve the drugs.

Or think about an academic taking money from a telecom company, and then giving testimony before Congress that just so happens to serve the interest of that telecom. Nothing illegal about taking that money -- if disclosed, nothing unethical -- but nonetheless, an influence that causes many to wonder whether it was truth, or money, that led the academic to speak in favor of that company.

Or think about just about every member of the United States Congress taking money from the interests they regulate -- Wall Street banks, coal companies, insurance companies, big pharma -- and then regulating in a way that makes life great for them, while making life for the rest of us not quite as great. Nothing illegal about taking that money -- if disclosed, nothing unethical -- but nonetheless, an influence that causes many to wonder whether it is truth and justice that leads Congress to care about them. Or whether it is just the money.

I tell you this about me because I want to establish my own expertise about corruption, so that I have the authority to say this: My being here today, as your graduation speaker, is totally corrupt. There are plenty of brilliant and successful souls who would have loved the honor of addressing this graduating class of lawyers. But I'm here because I begged. And I begged because my nephew is one among you. And the love and pride that I feel for him led me to do something that I have literally never done before: ask to speak someplace. And that, in turn, led your law school to do something no law school has ever done before: granted me an honorary degree and allowed me to speak to a graduating class.

This is all deeply corrupt; I am expert and I can prove it. It wasn't reason that led me here; it was love. And while that's perhaps a more pedestrian, forgivable sort of corruption, the question it now best is whether I can dig myself out of this deep and corrupt hole, to make something useful, maybe even virtuous, from this corruption.

Many of my students feel corruption every day of their working lives. They came to law school to do justice. They left law school to work in Inc. Law -- "Inc." as in law for corporations. No doubt, that is an honorable and important part of our profession, but for many of them, this isn't the law they imagined when they came to law school. They go through their whole careers never meeting a client who is a real person, only representatives of the "persons" we call corporations. And while there are many who are convinced that corporations are persons, as I once saw on a sign at a protest, I'll believe that corporations are persons when Texas executes one.

My point is not to criticize Inc. Law. It helps create wealth; it helps protect wealth. It gives great innovators a chance to bring their innovations to market.

Instead my point is to emphasize the importance of the other part of law. Not the "Inc." part, but the part that touches real people with real problems. It's the part that keeps a family in their home against an unjust demand for eviction. Or enforces a simple contract with a bank, to supply the credit for a coffee shop. Or protects a woman against her abusive husband. Or forces an insurance company to pay on a claim it rightly owes. Or defends a child in a foster home against the neglect of a distracted state.

This, too, is law -- the law of Erin Brockovich, not the law of Cravath Swaine & Moore.

But here's the thing about this law: No one thinks it works well.

There are plenty of lawyers in "Inc. Law" who go home at the end of the day and feel that that system works. Their clients got the process they were due. Their arguments were heard. Their interests were fairly considered. If through litigation, the litigation took place in a federal court with great judges, beautiful carpets, and clean bathrooms. If through a transaction, the deal was cut in a conference room at the Four Seasons. No doubt, these lawyers work hard. And the system rewards them with the confidence that the system works.

Not so with the law of real people. There is no one in the criminal justice system who believes that system works well. There is no one in housing law who believes it is what law was meant to be. In contracts, you read about disputes involving tens of dollars, maybe a hundred -- the disputes of ordinary people. These disputes are not for the courts anymore. Or if they are, they are for courts that are an embarrassment to the ideals of justice. The law of real people doesn't work, even if the law of corporations does.

Now if I were to don my reformers cap and turn to questions that I spend most of my time now addressing -- the corruption of our democracy by the corrupting influence of money -- I'd say, who could be surprised by this? In a world where 0.26 percent of Americans give more than $200 during a congressional election, 0.05 percent max out, and 0.01 percent give more than $10,000, a mere 0.0000063 percent -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80 percent of the superPAC money spent so far in this election. Who could be surprised that it is the law for the rich that works and the law for the rest of America that doesn't?

We lawyers are responsible for this corruption. And we lawyers will only earn back the respect of the people when we show the people that the law serves the people well. That it serves them quickly. That it serves them efficiently. That it serves them justly.

In the 225 years since our Constitution was drafted, no one can doubt the extraordinary progress business has made. The framers of the Constitution -- who included businessmen, farmers, scientists, physicians, and some lawyers -- would certainly be in awe of that progress. They would have also been in awe of the progress in farming: lack of food isn't America's problem today. Too much food is. Ben Franklin, the most famous American scientist and most beloved of the founders, couldn't have even conceiveconceived of an iPhone, let alone a hand-held calculator. And Dr. James McHenry, who studied with the framing generation's most famous doctor, Dr. Benjamin Rush, still believed bloodletting was the best way to deal with most illness.

In all of those fields, we as a people have made enormous progress. Yet the story of the law is more ambiguous. We today can pronounce the word "equality" with conviction; our framers stumbled over that idea. And we today can be proud of the range of citizens that we count as equal as compared with those they plainly and wrongly excluded.

But if you look at day-to-day law as it affects ordinary people, it's clear that the law back then was aimed at a more pedestrian crowd -- at ordinary citizens and ordinary problems. And it's clear that the greatest lawyers worked first on the law aimed toward that pedestrian crowd.

Since that time, we've seen little progress in this aspect of the law. Indeed, we've seen an accelerating retreat. We can cure cancer today. We could, if we chose, feed every human on the planet, three times over. But we can't give an ordinary citizen an easy and efficient way to protect her rights.

Courts are less open today than they were back then to the small claims -- small in the scale of things, but not in their importance to those who bring them. Courts are less relevant to most Americans. The system has convinced most of us that the law is for the rich, except that part of the law that involves the prisons.

We, all of us, have a duty to fix this, to make it better. We lawyers in particular have that duty. We fulfill it by practicing the law of real people, and through that practice, making that law better.

When my nephew told me he wanted to give up his career in journalism, and his career as a racecar driver, to become a lawyer, I was skeptical. I got the journalism part. But give up being a racecar driver?

I was skeptical because I'm not convinced we know any more how to do this law stuff well. How -- how to do it in a way that should make us proud, and gives others a reason to be proud of us.

But as I watched him grow through his years at this law school, I recognized that my skepticism was wrong. Never more than the day when he told me that he was thinking of simply hanging up a shingle after he left Atlanta's John Marshall Law School and practicing the law of real people.

He is brilliant, and generous, and playful and smart: And he will have a life that almost none of my students have: Every day, he will meet the people he is trying to help. And some days, he will feel that he has helped them. He has the talent to make "People Law" better.

And so I begged to celebrate this day with him, and therefore with you, because I wanted him, and you, to hear this one thought.

When you practice this law of real people, when you experience the way the law fails real people, when you see that the only medicine that you have to prescribe -- bloodletting -- helps no one except the vampires, recognize this:

There is no one who could justify the system we've allowed to evolve. There is no one who could defend its failures. But the men -- and okay, only men, and only white men, and mainly white men with property -- who gave us our nation also gave us a promise of something more than this.

And so when you experience this law of real people, you should feel entitled to demand that it work better. However bad it is, you should be proud of your work. But remain proud only if you do something to push it to become as great as our proud tradition promised it would be.

When LBJ took up the cause of civil rights, he was warned against it by his advisors. They told him that he would lose and doom his presidency. "What the hell is being a president for?" he replied and then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Well, I ask, what the hell is being a lawyer for?

You are as great as your proud parents hoped you would be. That's what they feel today, as they watch you today accept this degree.

They stand with you today -- those who watched you grow up and now celebrate the promise of your life. But as you begin your career as a lawyer, as you begin to dig yourself out of the financial hole that you are in, as you enter a field too many think is just corrupt, don't think just about your families and the pride they can't hide today.

Think also about those who 40 years from now will look up to you and ask you: What did you do then? Think of your kids and their families. Think of the work they will see. Think of the rewards they will recognize.

They won't respect you for your money, or for your fame, or even for your incredible good looks. They willlove you, no doubt, regardless. But they will only respect you for what you did, for who you became, for how you left the world. For how you made the law, "People Law," better.

Leave it better, lawyers, than we lawyers who have educated you have given it to you. Leave it in a place that your mother and your daughter, your father and your son, can respect. Not corrupt, but true. Not just rich, but just.

For what the hell is being a lawyer for?" 

I guess there are lots of things you could say to criticise Lessig's address. For example, studying at and graduating from Law School (especially an American institution, even more so at Ivy League universities like Harvard where Lessig teaches) requires significant financial input and most Law students are suffocated by debt, which no doubt influences their decisions when they think about what kind of job they would like to do after finishing their degrees: big commercial law firm jobs pay out, whereas fighting for the little guy generally doesn't; and you can't help others if you can't help yourself first. Et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to ignore the shortcomings of the address and focus on his main point. 

I work for a big commercial law firm whose clients are mostly big, faceless companies. Contrary to my relatively low expectations about the job just before starting, I've come to realise (happily) that I enjoy the kind of work that I'm required to do for my firm. I can quite comfortably go to sleep at night without being plagued by guilt or dissatisfaction or a sense of purposelessness. I am content with my job. For now. Though I do think one day not too far from now I'll decide that I've had enough of the corporate law life and go into practising "People Law", as Lessig calls it. I would like to use my knowledge and skills to help the Joe and Jane Bloggses of the world with their (seemingly) small but very real problems. As cliche as that sounds, that really is one of the reasons why I decided to go to Law School. "To help people." 

Let's stay true to ourselves. A calm but resolute reminder to which I hope to always return.

G.

Big hugs

When you want to show affection to people who don't like hugs, a virtual hug could be the way to go.

Cutetastic.

G.

Jersey boys

I'm a huge musical theatre fan. Recently I had the privilege of watching "Jersey Boys" with my good friend Geoff (who is also a huge musical theatre fan), and it was brilliant.

"Jersey Boys" is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (as the poster explains), one of the biggest American bands of the 1960s. Apparently they're still pretty well-known; I say apparently because ironically, I didn't really know who they were before watching the show. I'd heard a few pop culture references about them in TV shows, but that was about it. In any case, I really enjoyed the show.

The story of the group's rise to fame from the poor, rough and trashy suburbs of New Jersey is told from four different perspectives. Frankie Valli, the small and charming lead singer with a powerful falsetto. Bob Gaudio, the songwriting genius who wrote all the group's number one hits. Tommy DeVito, the hotheaded guitarist who got into huge trouble with loan sharks. Nick Massi, the quiet bassist who quit the group after Tommy became sequestered in Las Vegas by the loan sharks chasing after him. The group enjoyed huge success, but behind the scenes and in their personal lives, things weren't so great. For example, Frankie split up with his wife because the group's touring put a huge strain on their marriage, and a few years later his daughter Francine died of a drug overdose. But they all kept going in their own ways, and in the end the Four Seasons made it to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

Yeah, I had a great time watching the show. The actors (whom I thought were Americans but discovered later were Australians, doesn't matter) were all amazing, and the music was great. I was surprised to find out that Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons were responsible for loads of songs that are still really well-known today, like "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (I LOVE this song) and "Big Girls Don't Cry".

Musicals are awesome. I hope to catch another show or two before the year is up.

G.

The vertical self

Last weekend I read "The Vertical Self" by Mark Sayers. Like "Brave New World" it had been on my reading list for some time. It was awesome.

The book explores the theme of identity; more specifically, the struggles we experience with the question of identity, and the meaning and value we both give to and find in who we are. Sayers argues that today, we no longer know who we truly are, because we all buy into to a horizontal sense of self: the individual derives his or her identity from the world - culture, other people, celebrities, the media - in a "sideways" fashion. For people who hold a horizontal sense of self, the creation and cultivation of a public image are paramount, and society both reflects and dictates who they are. Moreover, the horizontal self makes us narcissistic and self-conscious, as we feel the need to constantly groom our public personas to win the validation of others.

Sayers states that that the concept of the horizontal self is a mistaken way of tackling the question of identity, and suggests that the contrasting idea of vertical self provides the real answer to understanding who we are. "The vertical self is defined by being part of a greater reality. This worldview leads to a belief in the eternal, the desire to cultivate one's spirituality so that one moves upward on the path toward becoming more like God." People with a vertical sense of self look "upwards" to understand who they are.

Building on the Christian premise that humans are made in the image of God, Sayers proposes that in order to understand who we are and find our real identities, we must re-image ourselves in the image of God. The identity of every human being is rooted in his or her God-given image, and we need to return to that basic principle to truly know ourselves and be comfortable in our own skin. In order to do this, we have to rediscover what it means to be holy.

Moreover, Sayers says that in this life, you're not the real or true you; the real or true you is the redeemed in the new heavens and new earth. This redeemed you is basically you minus all the effects of sin and death. This redeemed you is yourself, but with your positives amplified, your talents expanded, and your maturity fulfilled. Though you won't be able to fully become your real or true self in this life, you can and should journey towards becoming the real or true you more and more. Again, the answer is holiness.

Holiness isn't about impossible perfectionism. It's about wholeness. It's about getting rid of sarx: anything in life - attitudes, relationships, actions, desires or worldviews - that carries with it the spirit of death and corruption. It's about placing our inherent impulses and wants under God's sovereignty. It's about shalom, perfect peace and balance with the world around us. It's about submitting to and being secure in Christ.

I don't know if I can say with confidence that I really know who I am. Who I am seems to change a lot depending on who I'm with, what I'm doing and where I am. I'm still figuring it out and I'll probably spend the rest of my life wrestling with questions of identity. Maybe I'm equally and entirely all the persons that I am at different times and situations. But overall, it's encouraging to know that I can look to the most awesome person ever to gain a true sense of self, and I'm hoping to tread the path of holiness until the end of this life as I look upwards.

G.

Here's a cute card for you for no reason at all - surprise!

The other day I found an envelope outside my bedroom door. I opened it, and this is what was inside:

Before the cream sets out too long /
You must whip it

My flatmate Yeri had seen this in a gift shop and felt compelled to buy it for me, with a random message of cuteness and kindness inside it. I love surprises like this! You're hanging out at home, having a regular day and then BAM! You get given an awesome card for no reason. Friends are neat. Yeri's neat.

Keep on keeping on with cute surprises, I say. It'll totally brighten someone's day.

G.

Brunch: the best way to start the day

I'm doing my professionals course at the moment (it's a course Law School graduates in New Zealand have to do in order to get admitted to the bar) and as part of that course, I get one day off work a week to study. Thankfully, I've been able to take all but one of my profs days since starting my studies. I've been told by pretty much everyone to regard my profs days as actual days off; to use the opportunity to have fun and relax. I've been heeding that advice for the most part.

Today is my profs day for this week, and my day began with homemade french toast with berries and yoghurt. It was delightful.

Yummers. I heart profs days.

Brunch is definitely the best way to start the day. Happy Tuesday, everyone.

G.

Brave new world

Last year, I joined an online book club, and I decided that at the beginning of each year I would set myself a list of all the books I want to read within that year. I only managed to get through half of the books on my 2011 list. I'm hoping that I get to tick off all the books on my 2012 list. One of the books on this year's reading list was "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. And oh man, it was amazing.

"Brave New World" is set in an imagined future world (called the World State) where human beings are created in laboratories (Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres) to be a certain class (ranging from Alpha, the best class, to Epsilon, the lowest class) and thus fulfil certain predetermined positions and roles in society. They are bred and conditioned to be think in certain ways, to behave in certain ways and to desire certain things. Consumption is extolled and people worship an entity they call "Our Ford",  evidently the being who pioneered this new world and lifestyle. Recreational sex (and recreational sex only, not reproductive sex) is an essential part of life, whereas the concept of family and parenthood are outlawed as being "unnatural". People are encouraged to socialise and pursue entertainment; solitude is considered to be terrible. Conformity is good, individualism is bad. There is no literature, no poetry, no genuine art. The ultimate good in this world is happiness, and people regularly take a drug called soma to experience hallucinogenic pleasure. Outside the boundaries of this world, there exist "Reservations" which are populated by "Savages": people who live primitively in indigenous communities, without soma, and reproduce naturally. Bernard Marx, an Alpha psychologist, feels like an outsider in society despite being in the highest social class. In order to impress a fellow alpha named Lenina Crowne, Bernard asks his friend Helmholtz Watson to arrange a trip for the two of them to a nearby Savage Reservation. To their surprise, they discover two Savages who belong to the World State: Linda, a former lover of the Director of the Hatcheries and Conditioning Centre where Bernard works, and their naturally conceived son, John. Bernard brings Linda and John back to the World State, where John (who becomes known as "the Savage") becomes an instant commodity. However, John becomes disillusioned with this society, and after struggling with Lenina's sexual advances (he comes to both adore and hate her) and seeing his mother die of a soma overdose, he instigates a riot, getting Bernard and Helmholtz into trouble as well. Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe, exiles Bernard and Helmholtz from the World State as punishment. John retreats to a lighthouse outside the city for a life of solitude, but is constantly plagued by people from the civilised world who want to get a sight of the Savage. One day, a whole bunch of people including Lenina visit him, and at the sight of her, John loses his mind and attacks her, which drives the people wild and escalates to crowd violence and an orgy. The next day, John hangs himself in shame and self-loathing.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It hit me with all these questions and thoughts about what it means to be human and what it means to live well. I think I particularly like dystopian novels (though "Brave New World" doesn't technically isn't a dystopian story, more like a false utopian story, but anyway) because they highlight these issues by presenting a society where people are no longer fully human nor living well because certain values and ideals are missing (e.g. liberty, free speech), and make you realise that those absent values and ideals must be essential aspects of the truly human, good life. In the England of "Brave New World", there is happiness and pleasure, but these are enjoyed at the cost of true freedom and choice. While happiness and pleasure are important elements or goals of human life, they are not genuine here. If someone isn't happy, s/he is considered to be strange. Pleasure is rammed down people's throats - quite literally, in the form of soma - so that they are constantly, artificially kept happy. The book portrays the consequences of taking Jeremy Bentham's hedonistic utilitarianism to the utmost extent: do what feels good and what makes you feel happy, because that's the ultimate good and the meaning of life. 

Philosophies clash in the intriguing conversation about the good life between John the Savage and Mustapha Mond, which takes place after the riot. The Savage champions liberty/freedom, while the Controller esteems happiness/stability, and these values are presented as being incompatible, as freedom is seen as being causatively linked to pain, suffering and unhappiness. 

"[O]ur world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that hey practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!"

"You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art ... Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

People don't know any better than the lot they are dealt with at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. They neither want more nor less than what they are created to want. And they always get what they want. There is no such thing as individual thought or preference, no colour or texture in life. No choice. No depth. No real significance. 

The Savage challenges the Controller about the importance of God. "[G]od's the reason for everything noble and fine and heroic..." But the Controller argues otherwise.

"My dear young friend," said Mustapha Mond, "civilisation has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted, objects of love to be fought for or defended - there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense. But there aren't any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There's no such thing as a divided allegiance; you're so conditioned that you can't help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren't any temptations to resist. And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. and there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears - that's what soma is."

The Savage responds thus: "But the tears are necessary ... Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. ... But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy. ... What you need is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here."

The culmination of their philosophic clash comes at the end of their conversation. The Savage argues that there is something in living dangerously, quite apart from God, and the Controller actually agrees with him: people must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time, hence the compulsory Violent Passion Surrogate treatments once a month.

"... We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."

"But I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want good ness. I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly. "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."

There was a long silence.

"I clam them all," said the Savage at last.

While I appreciated the intellectual value of this debate, I wasn't quite convinced of the truth of it. Why does the Savage only get to choose between living according to the rules of the World State or the primitive world of the Reservation? Isn't there a middle ground between these two extremes? I realised after I finished reading the book that Huxley addresses this very point in the foreword:

"In the meantime, however, it seems worth while at lesat to mention the most serious defect in the story, which is this. The Savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia, or the life of a primitive in an Indian village, a life  more human in some respects, but in others hardly less queer and abnormal. At the time the book was written this idea, that human beings are given free will in order ot choose between insanity on the one hand and lunacy on the other, was one that I found amusing and regarded as quite possibly true ... To-day I feel no wish to demonstrate that sanity is impossible. On the contrary, though I remain no less sadly certain than in the past that sanity is a rather rare phenomenon, I am convinced that it can be achieved and would like to se emore of it ... If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity ... In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman.  And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle - the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: 'How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible numbe rof  other individuals, of man's Final End?' ... [T]he Savage (in this hypothetical new version of the book) would not be transported to Utopia until he had had an opportunity of learning something at first hand about the nature of a society composed of freely co-operating individuals devoted to the pursuit of sanity. Thus altered, Brave New World would possess an artistic and ... a philosophical completeness, which in its present form it evidently lacks."

Ignoring this possibility of a middle ground, if I had to choose between Mustapha Mond's world and John the Savage's world, I think I'd have to choose the latter. The former is cosy yet artificial and meaningless. A life worth living inevitably involves pain, suffering and unhappiness. After I came to this conclusion, I then got to thinking, does that mean pain, suffering and unhappiness are goods? I don't think so. They are inevitable elements of a life truly lived in our broken world, but that doesn't mean pain, suffering and unhappiness are to be desired or pursued as goods. They weren't ever meant to be a part of the good life in the first place. However, in saying that, the world that I believe is to come, which will be absent of all these things, won't be at all like the Brave New World. The key difference between these worlds being the substance that holds everything together. The glue of the Brave New World is mindless selfish pleasure and preset destinies; the glue in the world that I believe is to come is other-focused love and freedom.

Conclusion: I'd highly recommend "Brave New World". Thanks for reading this long, rambling post, you're a trooper.

G.

A simple equation of happiness

I've discovered a simple equation of happiness that has been proven true time and time again. I think I'm coming to appreciate it more and more as I grow older. It's this: good company + good food = good times. Maybe it's silly to spell it out like that because it's a super obvious fact. But I think treating it as a super obvious fact encourages me to take combined instances of good company and good food for granted. And I want to appreciate all such good times to their fullest.

Yesterday was full of good times. It began with my flatmate and I having brunch at home. French toast with yoghurt and berries - it was delicious, even without any bacon. Nothing beats having great brunch in the comfort of your own house on a beautiful sunny morning in your pyjamas and bathrobe. And we shared great, mindless banter. She told me about a competition she heard about on the radio recently: you could win a trip to the Gold Coast if you submitted a photo of yourself in togs in an inappropriate setting. The winner apparently took a photo in her bikini at a cemetery. We both thought that was pretty weak, because it would've been way too easy to do, not really embarrassing at all since there would probably be not many people, if any, around. We brainstormed better venues, and came up with the steps of Parliament, a packed out lecture theatre, and Sunday church. Next time a similar competition is held, don't be surprised if one of us wins it.

Then at night I had my Law School friends over for a potluck dinner. I'd been meaning to have them over ever since we moved into our new flat, but I never got around to organising it. Better late than never though! I made basil pesto chicken wrapped in bacon, which I was really nervous about because I'd never made it before, and I figured it would go either really terribly or really well. I mistakenly bought basil pesto with cashew nuts in it - the cashew nuts got quite burnt in the oven. Apart from that, it turned out okay. And everyone brought really tasty dishes, which was awesome! I really appreciated that they took time out of their busy schedules to make it all the way to my place with such amazing food. We had wonderful wine as well. So yeah, pretty much all my favourites from Law School, sharing great food, having good chats - it was fantastic. We also played charades (guys vs. girls) which was good fun and created lots of laughs. We all got a bit competitive but it was amicable throughout. We called it a night at around midnight. I was stoked that everyone seemed like they had a nice time. 

I feel very thankful and blessed that I live in a decent house where I can share great meals with people I love. It's little things like this that make up a big part of living well. I hope I can be even more hospitable as time goes on, and create a home environment in which people can visit whenever and feel welcome and comfortable. 

Good company + good food = good times. So simple, yet so awesome. Get amongst it.

G.