Changes..

The birth of my daughter has been a wonderful life changing experience. All aspects of my life have changed since that amazing day almost two years ago. Many changes were instant. Dealing with the added responsibility, the nappy changes, lack of sleep and lack of free time were all jarring but immediate, knowable and manageable changes.

When my daughter was born there was immediate love and attachment to her, my role became her protector and provider and I embraced this role. Over the last two years, my love for her has grown exponentially. I cannot imagine being without her, the amazing smile, the bubbly and stubborn personality and the cuteness overload! Movies depicting murder and death which I once would have watched without a second thought are unwatchable. My wife or daughter getting sick drive pain through my heart in ways I could not have imagined a few years ago. I feel more empathetic to the pain and suffering of others and their families.

I have 'more emotions' now than I ever had in my teens or twenties. It is quite an uncomfortable feeling to 'feel' more.

As men we put on a hard exterior, as much as the media will tell you it's ok to show emotions, I am not comfortable sharing these feelings... 

Wierd

Sometimes i feel i'm lazy, but i really enjoy simple and free things, like an afternoon nap, and sitting in the sun reading a book, these things don't cost much, so I don't feel so ambitious to do more. Some people like travel or expensive food, or wine or cars or other expensive things, but for me it is the opposite, relaxing IS the goal, and it's free! I sometimes feel there is something wrong with this way of thinking...

Part-time?

I'm thinking of asking for 4 day a week, spend 1 day a week doing my own thing, or nothing, just have more time to think and do whatever I want. It's so acceptable to drop say 30k on a new car if you want and noone will question you, but if your particular desire happens to be 'free time' and you switch to part time everyone things you've gone mental. It's a crazy materialistic world we live in, but I'm thankful for it, because if everyone was like me there would be a lot more people relaxing, and a lot less goods being produced, perhaps leading to high prices. Or it might work the other way, if everyone was like me they might spend that relaxing time looking for new ideas and opportunities and trying things out, hacking things together, learning new things and perhaps, just perhaps some people smarter than me would be producing new and innovative things out of that free time leading to a wealthier society and cheaper goods and services for all.

The old man.

Yesterday my good friend G had a heart attack, today he had a stroke, signs are looking grim, he will pass away shortly. I don't want to forget G so I will write a few words here so his life and character may live on anonymously.

G was quite a bit older than me, and he worked with me, but he was not a father figure, he was not a colleague, he was my friend. I first met him at a work drinks event, he was buying a round of drinks for a large group of friends, laughing and enjoying. It was shortly after that when he took up a seat next to me at work I started to get to know him better. We would have tea breaks every day and talk about anything and everything. Unfortunately this led to him being shipped off to another team for about 3 years but eventually he was returned to us.

In the beginning he was a vegetarian, but sometimes he would say 'i'm vegetarian but today i'm going to eat chicken'. This would be an endless source of laughter and jokes for us. Eventually he gave up his vegetarianism, only to reclaim it just months ago before his heart attack.

G wasn't the greatest software developer but we all wanted him back in our team due to the happiness he brought with him. Everyone knows those people that are cold hearted, manipulative, two faced and always playing politics but G was the complete opposite, he was warm, kind hearted, genuine and caring. I wonder if it was the stress of work that got him, he tried hard but kept getting bad performance reviews that really hurt him and stressed him out.

G looks like a quiet introverted shy guy, but he is actually quite well travelled and has taken some adventurous gambles. He spent a year or so working in Japan. He also worked in Saudi Arabia and made a lot of money over there. He spent some time in America and Canada before moving to Sydney. In Sydney he bought a Internet cafe of all things! He later sold it at a loss, at which point his wife decided it was best for them to have separate accounts - we would tease G to no end about this.
He bought and sold several properties, some at a profit some just breaking even one thing is for sure, he was never afraid to take risks.

 Shortly after I first met him, I gave him a rusty old car, it was hilariously bad but he took it and made use of it for about 6 months. One time he told me he picked up some important people in that car and it was raining, everyone complained about getting wet.

Recently he bought a home for almost 800000 and spent his holidays renovating it. This is slow laborious work for an old man but he did it with love and the results were quite amazing. When I was renovating my apartment of course he stepped in and helped me paint the whole place and in return he asked for nothing.

G was always donating money to anyone and everyone. He was supporting several people back in his home country with cash and other aid. God help those people now, who will support them?

He would tell me about his problems at home, and give me advice on dating and life, we would discuss property, finance, religion, food, sports, work, office politics and of course girls on our almost daily lunchtime adventures. He is one of the few people I knew that could almost eat as much as me. If we went out for pizza most people would share a pizza between 3 people, but G and I would always order one each and would always joke about how little the others were eating.

He had an incredible ability to tell a bad joke and laugh hysterically at his wit(or often lack of!), he would often be on his own at the start of his infectious uproarious laugh, but by the end nobody could resist laughing with him, and also quite often at him though always in good humour.

G and I had grand plans to drive across USA, to drive across Australia, to go camping. He was looking forward to his retirement, planing to downsize, travel around his home country, and enjoy the fruits of his life of labour. He won't get to enjoy any of that now, it's a shame he didn't take more time to enjoy it all a little earlier.

I just had lunch with him on Thursday, we went to a Sri Lankan restaurant and we both had delicious thali's, I ordered an extra serving of 2 rotis , we were meant to split it 1-1 however I ate 1.5 and he had 0.5. I spent a lot of timing complaining that I've been moved to a different office (in the city) from Monday, how insignificant and trivial that complaint seems now.

He had started to develop a funny old man habit, anytime you would say anything to him he would first respond with 'huh?' and if you weren't careful you'd end up repeating everything twice! I pointed this out to him on Thursday and joked that he needed to get his ears checked, we had a good laugh!

There's so much more I want to say but my mind is not able to recall it, how quickly we forget, how easy it is to ignore all the wonderful, little moments we have and pass them off as insignificant. Grand plans for the future are not the stuff, huge momentous occasions are not the stuff, it's all the little things, they are the real stuff of life. That's what we should remember but that's the stuff that gets forgotten. That is what I'm hoping to capture here it seems mundane and trivial but that's how it was. It's interesting that we have so many friendships that come and go, most of the time people just drift apart it's a slow painless process. The end result is the same, you lose a friend, but when it happens so suddenly, when you aren't ready for it to be gone, it is a sudden jarring painful traumatising experience.

Three minutes

We must enjoy our time, plan for the future but never forget the now, live life like it was your last. Enjoy everything, don't waste your time - spend some money, take a holiday, have a drink, eat a hamburger do it all, what are you saving it for? Let it go stop thinking so much. Break free the shackles of society, buy a new car, a new boat, a house, meet with that girl. Think carefully if this was your last week, month, year what would you want, what would you do. Life is balanced on a precarious perch, we are always, only minutes from the end.

Love

Well I finally understand love, after my recent breakup I've had some time to reflect on what love is and how it is commonly misunderstood and perhaps, the reason for the high diverce rate in western society.

It seems there are three distinct kinds of love.

Family love, father son, brother sister etc, this is an automatic kind of love, strong in itself, requiring only a little effort to keep it alive. Indeed it can survive long periods of little contact between participants. I am not so interested in discussing this type of love.

LOVE! Then there is the intense overwhelming feeling you get when you meet someone new, exciting, vibrant, it seems they are perfect and they see you as perfect. This type of love is frequently what people mistake for real love. Relationships built purely upon this kind of love are destined to fail, this infatuation always wears off, it make take 1 week, 1 month or 1 year, but eventually it will be gone. I don't get this type of love very often, or if I do, it only lasts a few days so I am unlikely to be swept away by it. I have a female friend who still believes this type of love is the real thing, she doesn't persue relationships with guys when she doesn't get this kind of love, and guess what? She's still single! She hasn't yet realised that this isn't real love, she also hasn't realised that she is one of the people that don't experience this emotion strongly. I used to feel this was true love, that was until my most recent relationship.

True Love. This is the real stuff, it takes effort,continuous effort to grow and maintain it, from both sides. It also takes commitment and to accept each other and each persons flaws. I finally understand this kind of love. In order to get this love, and to feel it, you need to give this love. It is not a linear relationship, if you give 1 unit of love you don't feel (receive) 1 unit of love. If you give 1 unit, you receive 2, if you give 2 you receive 4 it is an amazing quirk of this form of love. It is by no means automatic love, if you stop giving, you will stop feeling(receiving) and the relationship will eventually break down. The small effort of giving however, is worth it. The love you receive in return will warm your heart and allow your relationship to survive through the most difficult of external circumstances..

So many marriages fail, because they are based on the infatuation type of love, I think the reason why more arranged marriages succeed is because they skip the infatuation love and go straight to developing the true love.

After this relationship I feel like I have experienced love, if someone ever asks me 'have you ever been in love', I can truly say 'yes'.

Break up!

Well I finally broke up with my girlfriend of almost 2 years, or rather, she broke up with me. I knew it was coming to be honest, my rational mind knew, but the heart can take over and suppress the rational mind. One of the things I thought of doing was to write up an unbiased pro and cons list because, as time goes by, we tend to forget the negatives and remember only the positives. It is one of the great things about time, the universal medicine for the mind, it allows us to get over traumatic periods in our lives, but by forgetting the negatives we are prone to repeat (on in this case relapse into) our mistakes. I'm still hoping for some kind of miracle but of course it is not going to happen so for posterity all is to be recorded here..

Pros about her
She was loving
Calm
Enjoyed doing new things
Was  into fitness and looking after her health
Flexible (about disagreements)
Loved beer and having a drink occasionally
Was incredibly wise and mature for her age
Rational
Loved music

Cons about her
She didn't love me as much as I loved her. I realise I formed this opinion due to the following 3 points:
  - Prioritised work and family and friends above me consistently
  - Was not willing to quit her job to begin our life together (long distance relationship)
  - Not able to commit to me or the relationship 

Didn't talk much(or perhaps didn't want to talk, in which case this should be part of the previous point. (not good at making conversation)
Was not a good communicator (different to not talking, was not able to communicate problems, issues etc)


I wish I could have found out what her pro and con list about me was, at least that way I might be able to learn from my mistakes and do better next time.. instead she gave me the "It's not you, it's me" routine, but of course, we all know "it's ALWAYS you"! All is not lost though, I did learn a lot about love from this relationship, and I will do a post about this sometime soon..