Liquor soaked snapshots

treat for your peepers

Stop ruining my life

Need I say more

Beware of Greeks bearing super-weapons

The Antikythera mechanism, besides being difficult to pronounce, is the earliest known example of a geared machine and was used to calculate astronomical movements. Why is that interesting? Because the Antikythera mechanism was made in about 150BC and geared mechanisms (clockwork things) weren’t ‘invented’ until about  the 17th century AD. Still don’t think it’s interesting? Let me run part of my first sentence by you again, ‘was used to calculate astronomical movements’. This thing  was used to track planets!

One morning a man in ancient Greece got up and thought ‘hmm, I’ve got that big lump of bronze left over from all that sculpting I was doing yesterday, what should I do with it?……..I know, I’ll build a machine to tell me where Mars is on any given day of the week!’ I’m sorry? How on Earth did he know how to do that? The only reason I know what my friends and family are doing any day of the week is because facebook has a convenient news feed that tells me. In order to build a machine to track the planets you need to know certain things, certain things that you wouldn’t expect someone living 2000 years ago to know. You need to know about gravity. You need to know that the planets orbit the sun. And you need to know how to mould bronze to form tiny interlocking gears that do all the calculations for you. Even with the vast resources of the inter-web on my side and the advantage of being able to look up where the planets are, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t build this machine. And I’m a smart guy, I got Fight Club first time around. I even got the amazing twist in the Sixth Sense where Bruce Willis actually managed to make everyone think that it was a good film. But I don’t get this. It makes you wonder if the Greeks knew something that we don’t.

If you visit the Antikythera mechanism website you’ll find lots of interesting (if slightly dry) information about what they think it was used for, why it was built etc, but far more fun are the ‘alternative’ theories that surround the mechanism. the front runner is that the mechanism is evidence that aliens visited the ancient Greeks and showed them the secrets of advanced technology. Although I don’t actually believe this, I can certainly understand why some people do, mainly because there are stories about the ancient Greeks where they do a few things you really wouldn’t expect. My favourite example is a story about invading Roman ships being destroyed by Archimedes. How did he destroy them? He built a heat ray and set them on fire before they could reach the shore (go ahead goggle it – Archimedes burning mirrors). I mean come on, who taught them to do that if it wasn’t aliens? The second ‘alternative’ theory surrounding the mechanism is that it’s the wreckage of a time machine. I rather like this one. When I looked at the pictures of the mechanism I could see the perfect bit to fit in a flux capacitor. I also rather like the idea of Doc Brown running around ancient Greece shouting ‘Great Scot!’ and getting a team of Spartans to pull his car around at 55mph. But each to their own, I suppose.

Of course the truth is that they didn’t need aliens or time travel to accomplish any of these things. The truth is that they could do them all by themselves. The really amazing part of all this is that human beings are always capable of doing the unexpected and when pushed will often display quite breath-taking intelligence. One morning a man in ancient Greece built a machine to track the planets. Now what are you going to do with your day?

My brother also has opinions, this was written by him.

Thoughts from a towerblock…. (part one)

I work in an office. I sit at a desk and press buttons on a keyboard for thirty five hours a week. (Two weeks ago I got my own hole punch and stapler, now you might not see the significance in these items, however as a temp I see it as the company’s investiment in me. I am at least in their eyes worth the combined value of said stationary, sick pay not so much, but on the stationary front victory is clearly mine.)

However, I digress. I sit at the computer for thirty five hours a week and so do the other hundred or so people on my floor. Now maths is not my strong point but thats a lovely round 3500 working hours a week. Week in, week out the button pressing masses of my office are exercising their digits and ejecting their brains. Well maybe not all of them but my brain is definitely in park, which is how I began thinking about time.

Time is important. Time infects our lives with a malignant ferver, spreading accross every aspect. We, as a nation, are obbsessed withit. Buses, trains, clocking in, clocking out, being early, being late.

But why? Why are we obbsessed with time? Is it because we fear wasting it? Or just because we long for it to pass by? Do we value every second we experience? In my case clearly not. I spend the majority of my working week wishing time away, when really I should be using it. Imagine what you could do in thirty five hours…..fly to exotic global destinations, random roadtrips, adventures and escapades. You could be constructive, obstructive, aggressive, productive, excited, imaginative…pretty much anything but apathetic.

Antonio Vega Macotela wrote that “Our work time is converted into salary, and our leisure time into consumption.” We are consumers rather than participants in our own lives. This is tragic. It’s as if we live our lives in the third person until the weekend arises and it is gone all too soon. Snatched conversations, mini adventures become distant memories as the week looms over us and demands our attention.

Clock watching.

Seconds into minutes into hours into wasted nothingness.

So what’s the solution? A problematic question so far as I have no concrete answers. I do, however, have ideas. My brain will no longer be switched off for the majority of my waking life, that’s for the sleepy, dreamy times when escapism and fantasy aren’t a cop out from the real world. That’s not to say my current working situation is likely to change. Button pressing is not the creative picture making job of my dreams, but its still an experience.

And afterall isn’t that a little bit the point of life? Experiences. The good, the bad, the equist, the terrible.

Life changing, character forming, everyday and extrodinary experiences. Macotela continues to say “In the instant that time is transformed into hours, minutes and seconds instead of experiences, well, then time has been taken from us.”

Time will not be taken from me, at least not without a damn dirty fight.

I blinked and you broke my heart

So you’ve finally let your guard down. You’ve reached your comfort zone and those highly guarded, protective barriers around your heart have dropped to the wayside.

You are exposed.

Vulnerable, but also free and liberated and happy. The moment is blissful. You feel safe.

But what happens when the rug is pulled from underneth you? And you find yourself no longer musing on the beauty of life but cursing the damn thing for tricking you into the situation in the first place. You were fine. You didn’t need this dalliance into the romantic. In fact before said rug was put in place, only to be ever so unceremoniously removed, you laughed at the romantic. The weak. The pathetic. The hallmark card side of life had no time for you, and you no time for it. But what now?

Now you feel rejected. One tiny unexpected change hasn’t snapped you into thinking logically. No, it’s decided to make you question your whole personality. Your issues of self worth have all been linked to one event, one tiny moment. Something that was never the sum of your parts and therefore shouldn’t be defining you now.

But it is.

Constantly. Sneakily. It creeps up and that same phrase appears in your mind again and again…..I wasn’t good enough.

Well enough of this. It’s daft. You aren’t defined by this. So rejection, you ugly creature, enough with the questions. There are no answers to them, and even if there were would they change anything? Would they, when it comes down to the very essence of it, change how you feel? No.

So what now? Put on that traditional brave face? Because everybody knows its only the weak that show emotion. Except surely showing how you feel, even the unattractive, uncomfortable and unpleasant, is the bravest thing you can do. Sure, smile sweetly, pretend everything’s ok. But then aren’t you just lying to yourself. Head in the sand might seem like a good plan, but if you do that it might as well be head in the oven.

You stop feeling, you stop living.

Do what you want.

But don’t put those barriers up so high that this time no one gets in. Prisons aren’t good places. Carry on, minus the rejection monster, and see what happens. Because as certain as sunrise, it’ll happen again.

And least oblivion is only a glass away.

Constructive Procrastination

I would hope that some of these words will become more than constructive procrastination but for now I am satisfied.

These are my scribbles and ramblings with a few additions.