So, the writing bug struck again, and I created this little... scene? Vignette? Whatever...
Re-evaluation

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Humour and Suffering

Another little medical nugget here that supports my theory (wait for the explanation, really...) that women don't tell jokes as well as men.

It's an old stereotype, and like a lot of stereotypes you aren't allowed to say, and it's vile and filthy and there's a HUGE grain of truth in it. Not all women, certainly, are incapable of telling jokes, and they're not necessarily incapable of humour when it is the case. Similarly, there are many men out there that just cannot deliver a punchline.

However, on average, men are better at jokes than women, and this study shows you why. All humour, when you analyse it deeply enough, laughs at someone, picks on someone's stupidity, or clumsiness or even just plain bad luck. This is why we are all more comfortable with humour from someone we know can laugh at themselves as much as anyone else, after all.

But men enjoy other people's misfortune. It's the competitive nature coming to the fore, it's 'he's just lost points and I haven't' mentality. I don't have to be good I just have to be better than the next guy. And so we enjoy jokes on a level that many women don't.

It doesn't make us bad people, it just makes us men.

Finding the way

OK, so Alan suggested I read this article to find a way forward for myself. Unfortunately, I think, this is a few levels deeper than I was talking about, so perhaps I've not been as clear as I should have been.

My 'purpose' at the moment - and for several years to come - is to give my family a stable, supportive environment to grow in. It's not a purpose imposed on me, nor is it something I was born to do. It's a conscious choice of the priorities in my life, I'm not a strong believer that there is a 'purpose' for each of us laid down from outside.

Life has as much meaning as we choose to give it, and whether we credit ourselves with that meaning or assign it to a fictitious supernatural entity is largely irrelevant - we still choose what has meaning for us.

I'm secure in that choice, I feel comfortable that my principle efforts are in working to earn money, but doing so in short enough bursts that I can be at home to help my family spend it all :)

I don't want to stagnate as an individual, though. Happiness is not a place to reach, but a way to travel, and you need to keep moving. It may be that just keeping pace with my kids will be changes enough to keep me growing, and if that's the case so be it, but I don't want to risk being unhappy, because that unhappiness will spread.

I don't have the money to really experiment with hobbies and pass-times to find something that appeals, so perhaps I'll have to start looking for a new job. I get nervous at the idea - I was brought up in the school of 'if it isn't broken don't fix it' - as the job I currently have is conveniently located, not particular stressful or difficult, and doesn't demand any of my time when I leave in the evening.

I'll keep an eye open for other jobs, but I don't think I feel unsettled enough in my life to start actively searching for something else just yet.

No legalisation of prostitution in the UK

UK Home Office recants on prostitution laws.

What is it with prostitution? This piece quotes Fiona MacTaggart, the Home Office Minister, as saying:

"I'm not tolerant of the view that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and there's nothing we can do to reduce it...We will take a zero tolerance approach to kerb crawling. Men who choose to use prostitutes are indirectly supporting drug dealers and abusers."

Well, perhaps if the industry was legalised it wouldn't need to associate with the black markets of the world, huh? I mean, is that no blindingly obvious to just about anyone?

Where does the government (this one, and previous ones) get off telling people what they can do with their own bodies anyway? For me, personally, sex is about expressing an emotional connection, I'm not looking for something to do on a Saturday before the football starts, but I know that I don't speak for everyone in that.

I sell my intellect on a daily basis, I put my physical talents (in this case typing and lifting) to use for financial remuneration, and put up with contemptible idiots for cash. It's called work. Prostitution is just another use of a human body for money, if the individuals in question choose not to involve their emotions.

This is just another closet religious convention written into statute with no justification offered at all, let alone a reasonable one. There can be no moral qualm with prostitution in a state that claims to offer freedom of the individual - it's a personal choice to take part in a transaction between two people. The only place the government can intercede rightfully, is if it chooses to tax the income.

Perhaps, then, value added tax will actually have a meaning.

Balance of Forces

In my early twenties, before I met my wife, I was looking to find love. I'd alternate in cycles between throwing myself out on the market (and therefore looking unattractively desperate) and going out hunting for someone to be with (equally unattractive, it seems).

I finally realised that either way I wasn't really putting ME out there, but a sort of charicature, and that anyone I did find would like the caricature and not necessarily me. So I just decided to be me and wait for it, and it happened.

It's a principle that I've gradually worked out suits me. I can't feel comfortable going out and shaking life by the throat, because anything that falls falls to someone else, and when I revert to being me I'm no longer comfortable with it.

So, with finding a direction. Nothing occurs to me at the moment, and though it feels a little awry, I shall wait for a direction to come to me. I'll keep trying new things, but I'm not going to throw myself into anything drastic until inspiration strikes.

Writing

Well, I've spent a few hours tonight finishing off the prologue for 'Light and Dark', which you can find over to the right in the links, under Fiction.

I don't claim to be the next Tolkien or Robert Jordan, and I hope I'm not the next Arthur C Clarke, but I do like to right, and I'd love to get any feedback you've got, good or bad.

There will, no doubt, be other works going up there, but for now it's the one I'm focussing on... until my attention wanders elsewhere.

Miracle Cure!!!!

It's True. 100% guaranteed cure for veruccas (as laboriously tested by my daughter).

All you need is...


...Teeth.

Seriously, over the last two weeks she has gnawed and chewed away at it every chance she got, and now... it's gone!!!

Damned if I'm going to try it, though.

Truth in Humour

So there I was, early this week, jotting something pithy, quick and hopefully witty for my profile here and I put:

"...who only has one of the goals he sat at 21 still to accomplish: to have something published..."

Sad thing is, it's true.

Thinking back, it wasn't my 21st, it was my 16th. Short, scrawny, isolated by geography and my own problems I couldn't imagine ever getting married, having a family, tying down a decent job. Academics didn't seem as important to me as it did to the people around me - I thought I knew everything already, and didn't feel compelled to prove it to anyone - and I'd just about begun to grasp the life-altering concept that I was going to be a professional footballer, singer or astronaut and would have to settle for the real world like everyone else.

So I sat one night, in the dark of the dormitory, in that interminable semi-silence between lights-out and actually needing to sleep, and made THE LIST.

I wanted to fly - not just get in a plane, but actually sit at the controls, take it off, fly it around, land it; the whole nine yards. I wanted to parachute. I wanted to visit a foreign country. I wanted to see my name in print. I wanted to be a black-belt. I wanted to drive faster than 100mph. I wanted to be a hero.

They, though, were just sort of gloss things. Fundamentally, deep down - and I think this probably true of us all - I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be a part of something special. So I added marriage to the list, and children. I couldn't imagine what sort of husband or father I'd make back then, so I started actually paying attention to people, caring... it did wonders for me.

Fifteen desperately short years later, and they're all in the past. I've flown, and it was wonderful. I've parachuted, and it was one of the single scariest moments of my life. I been to foreign countries, and found them to be pretty much like my own, largely. I've got my black-belt (thre of them), and I've done a ton, and more, on the A3M in a Seat Ibiza (and nearly killed it and me both). I've stepped up to the plate when called upon, put if not my life then certainly my immediate health on the line, and wondered guiltily for years if I didn't do it just a little too eagerly.

And I'm, somehow, married. And a dad. Twice. That I've unwittingly inflicted Autistic Spectrum Disorders on both my children is something I've come to terms with, just about, and we're generally happy.

But what do I do now? I'm still working on getting published, in bits and pieces, but inspiration is fleeting and intermittent (Vagrant Muse didn't just sound nice, you know). I'd like to learn to play the guitar, but it isn't really as pressing as the urges I felt back then. I sit down to make a list, and I find I don't really care about anything that I can't do, or haven't done, to feel compelled to add it to the list. I'd like to sculpt, but if it doesn't happen I don't think I'll really be upset.

So I have no real goals... and that frightens me. Am I facing forty (ish) more years of just getting by, getting through, getting nowhere special?

Where do I go when I don't have anywhere planned... can I just sort of trundle on and see if something occurs to me. It's not in my character to be directionless, but then it's not in my character not to be able to pick a direction, either.

Blog Explosion!!!

Despite the evidence, I haven't actually been really, really busy writing today :)

What I've put up here today is a sort of background pastiche of various bits and pieces I've written and posted over the past few years: setting out my stall, so to speak.

Some of it - actually a lot more than I had thought - is about 'the big picture', and as my kids get older I find myself getting less and less concerned about global politics and environmentalism and more concerned with the day-to-day problems of trying to keep two autistic kids from wrecking the house.

I might carry on in the same vein every now and then, but I think far more often there will just be little snippets and insights about little things... I think....?

After all, for the first time, this is really MY space. Up until now I've been posting things to other people's sites and boards. My time to bore the entirety of existence with the trivialities of life. Does anyone want to hear about my lunch? Anyone.....

Criminal Justice

We all know there's something wrong somewhere - rich Western civilisation gloats and stuffs itself full of its own promise as poorer, geographically challenged barrens scrabble amongst themselves for scraps from the industrialised table.The trouble lurks in the halls of justice of the major nations of the world, where law reigns supreme: the servant has evicted the master.The law was devised as a system for enabling justice to be done, but somewhere along the line it has become the goal itself, because the world is too afraid to let people make a decision and actually decide.We hide behind screens of 'inadmissible evidence' (how the hell can evidence be inadmissible???) and juries being directed to 'forget they heard' certain information. Persistent criminals are allowed to pretend they're just the next man in the street, whilst alleged victims are shorn of all hope and dignity before being cast out with only the prospect of a hollow victory in which the guilty are treated to a reasonable class of living, free adult education and above average facilities in an environment free of the threat of burglars and the like.Criminal justice systems in the developed world require a drastic, harsh and comprehensive overhaul... and soon.

Money

Money, it has been said, is the root of all evil. A parable about the folly of greed and the dangers of avarice, perhaps, by intention, but as with too many truths the reality goes deeper.This planet has the capacity to produce and transport enough food for everyone to be fed: but we don't. We can produce energy with no harmful gas releases to poison the air, and no toxic waste and byproducts to linger for generations: but we don't.And the reason is money. Or rather, the problem is greed, but it does deeper than that. Theft is about money. Car accidents, all too often, are about money. Wars are about money. Muggings, job dissatisfaction, pollution... so how do we organise the money to make things better? We can't - so long as there is money, a way of keeping score, a demarkation into which people can apply 'better' and 'worse' labels then there will be greed that divides. Value needs to be placed on people as people, and not bank accounts.So there's no hope, unless we get rid of the money. Here, when I say it, is where most people start to laugh. 'It wouldn't work', 'Money makes the world go round', 'what would we use instead'...Why wouldn't it work? Without the money, without that way of keeping score trying to keep score wouldn't make sense. What if we actually gave people what they wanted, because they wanted it? Everyone would claim as much as they could, want the biggest houses, the biggest cars... but would they?Cars, for instance, have prestige for two reasons: value and performance. Without the concept of value, there are only performance cars and if you want to drive one of those, we can put some at a racetrack. For everything else, if you need a car, use one. Without value, and therefore theft, the concept of ownership doesn't apply - there is a pool of cars to be used, and you use one when you need it.The same applies to everything - houses, food, energy, clothing. Imagine if life had no labels, no artificial 'values' thrown at us by advertisers and marketeers. Imagine a world where the lawyers were in it for the justice, and the Doctors wanted to be healers - not that all of them aren't at the moment, of course.The bulk of the anti-social behaviours that define criminality - theft, burglary, muggings - would be redundant. You could argue that there's little point in mugging someone now, and you'd be right, but that little is enough for some people. But if nothing that you could steal had intrinsic value? There is still the scope for individuality, still the scope to decorate how you choose, dress how you choose. If anything, without the external pressures from such places as adverts and market-trends, individuality might get a freer rein.Without money, then, the few things in life with real, intrinsic value suddenly become important - people. True talent, whether it be artistic, sporting, engineering... regardless of the field, suddenly that talent stands out for what it is. Would everyone want to go see the same football teams? Of course, so a first come first serve basis would have to be applied - no more season-ticket holders rewarded for their loyalty, unfortunately, but then no more corporate hospitality boxes tying up real fans seats for rich hobnobbing.So, what's to stop someone demanding a fifteen room house? Nothing, I suppose. Assuming that there isn't a 'means-tested' limit to what you can claim, you can have a fifteen room house. Of course, anything you want extra over the requirements you have to build yourself - and without money to pay people you have to clean it all yourself... is it worth it, because it's no longer anything to crow about.

God

St Thomas Aquinas defined God as - and I believe this is still considered the Church's 'official' expression - 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived.' God is the be all and end all, the uncaused cause, the Prime Cause - an Effect of pure will.Religion - by which I mean the worship or veneration of a deity, regardless of method or location - is founded on the idea that there is an ultimate being - something omnipotent and omniscient. If God isn't omnipotent and omniscient then, by Aquinas' description, it isn't really God. It might be a vast, incredibly powerful being, but it isn't God.Nietchze, however, described God as dead.In the final analysis there are four possibilities - God always was, is, and always will be; God never was, isn't, and never shall be; God was, but no longer is; or God wasn't, but it is now. When the issue of religion comes up, though, the wrong question is always asked - or rather an important assumption is made which needs to be looked at.Is God worth worshipping?If it never was, isn't and never will be, obviously not. Similarly if it was, but no longer is.If he wasn't, but is now? Well if he 'created' man, by whatever means, and was here before us, then we should treat him as though he had always been - to us it makes no difference. If it appeared after man - in which case there is the argument to be made that Man created God in his own image - then it has to be held responsible for the world as it is. God is omnipotent, and could end all the suffering, all the pain, all the hardships and wants of the world, but it doesn't. Why not? We are, through no cause of its - it didn't create us for a purpose, for we were here first. We suffer, as individuals and as a people, but this latecoming deity does nothing... I see nothing worthy of worship in that.If it always was? This is the typical religious system - the omniscient, omnipotent creator with a divine plan. Which doesn't make sense. The impression is that God is a benificent figure, and that 'life' is for our ultimate benefit - how? How many people are born, suffer, and die lives devoid of real happiness or achievement? If the omnipotent God created a world that was imperfect for such things to happen contrary to his intent then it is neither omniscient - it failed to see it coming - nor omnipotent - its creation is flawed.Which leaves us with the possibility that there is a plan, that this is all part of it, and that the God knows what it is doing, even if we don't. Which makes us, effectively, lab-rats. We are to go through the motions, sampling life, testing, seeking, feeling, fumbling our way through under a watchful eye for no good reason. Unlike lab-rats in our experiments, where suspicions might be confirmed at best, God already knows what the result will be. It is omniscient, and can see how this will end: can see each and every persons suffering and pain, knows the damage being done, but started the world anyway.So I don't worship, whether there is a God or not.I see the places of worship as shields against the infinite, a desperate attempt to be a part of something bigger than we are, clutching at straws of significance as faint hope of defence against the realisation that, in the infinite time and space of reality we don't matter to anyone but ourselves... and perhaps God.

The Good Life

The exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope. That's how Aristotle defined happiness in about 350BC. Debate has continued since then into the terms, into the methods, and into the fundamental truth of the statement, but it is generally accepted that happiness is a goal to which we should all have a right to aspire.So what then is 'happiness'? What is content? What is the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from letting a large roast-pork dinner settle in front of an open fire with a glass of red wine? (Unless you happen to be a vegetarian, of course? Or a teetotaller? Or have a gas fire?...) Happiness is different for everyone, and part of happiness is discovering what it is that makes you happy. So life should be about ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to find what makes them happy, and the ability where possible to achieve that happiness.What is to say, though, that being happy is the point? Simply this: what else is there? Life is an accidental occurence: there is no purpose to life beyond what we give it. If we choose to leave something for posterity then, presumably, we do so because it makes us happy, we gain satisfaction from it. Most everything we do is intended to make life comfortable, relaxing, easy... to make us happier, or to allow us time and freedom to find happiness.

Psychology is not a science

For the first millennia AD the great fallacy was religion, taking the place of free will and self-determination. With the information revolution and dissemination of information and data the populace of the planet has begun to interpret events for itself, sound the death knell for religions of the old school. Some modern faiths and spirit groups are trying to update, but window-dressing old ideas will never again be enough and religion will never again hold forth the power it did in, say, the middle-ages.Instead, the twentieth - and now the twenty-first - century has developed a faith-system of its own - psychology.Religion grew from an attempt to rationalise ideas of what people believed were the controlling influences in their lives - nature, weather, celestial objects and the socially significant manifestations of random chance. Psychology does essentially the same thing, save that is has coupled the ignorance of basic humanity to the arrogance and vanity of the post-Industrial era.As with religion, a self-appointed cadre of 'authorities' take it upon themselves to declare a core set of beliefs against which they disseminate perceived wisdom. Instead of the trappings of a god (or gods) they dress themselves in the mantle of science, seeking solace in the inviolate power of modern society.Unfortunately, for them, psychology is not a science.

(knowledge obtained from) the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world ... by observing, measuring and experimenting, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities

Psychology maintains the myth of being systematic, whilst unusual events and instances are merely listed as an independent syndrome and recorded, with little or no attempt to rationalise. More insidious, however, is the fields complete lack of any real body of evidence. Medical ethics (quite rightly) prohibits the manipulation of people for scientific study, and in this area that leaves psychology with nowhere to go to try its theories out. Clinicians, surgeons and the like can find animals of similar internal structure to work on, to test theories and to expand the boundaries of their knowledge. Psychologists, on the other hand, are tied to the theory stages. An idea is postulated, and for lack of ability to test it, it is accepted as Canon.People all over the world pay ridiculous fees to hear homespun philosophies with little more than anecdotal support and, perhaps, a track record for success. The success counts, it is true, but there are elderly grandmothers (with a far greater span of experience) who have been overseeing the trials and tribulations with their own personal observations for centuries, and they too have a reasonable success rate.The time has come for people to think for themselves - sans religion, sans psychology, but simply with their own eyes, ears, minds and the benefit of a mind powerful enough to realise it doesn't want to be experimented on.

Supremacy

Supremacists come in all shapes and sorts and sizes - racial supremacists, financial supremacists, intellectual supremacists, physical supremacists, new-age gurus teaching us 'the right way', anti-technology ethical-supremacists... Each of them has 'the right way' for us all.

So what's the truth? Who are the 'best'? It started off, long, long ago (or last week, if you're a Catholic, but that's a different discussion) that it was the men. Now, of course, that's not the case - allegedly. Then, it was the blacks, hispanics, asians... the list goes on. Suffice to say the list has, until recent times, been largely based upon gross physical characteristics, and even those that weren't had typical characteristics assigned to them. Jews, after all, are easily distinguished by their prominent noses and copious amounts of money, are they not?

In modern days, however, a new supremacy has been born. The intelligent are 'better'. The intelligent have the right to do, to be, and everyone else must follow in their wake. Whether it stands up to investigation or not, the Industrial revolution stands up as the birth of the rights movement. With the advent of machines to do the heavy, physical labour for people, the supremacy of physical power was lost. This led, in time, to the Suffragettes, to emancipation of many sorts, and the mainstream belief that physical differences were irrelevant to people's worth, and should not really be considered. That some poor unfortunates choose still to not understand that is sad, but the general sentiment is held.

So now we find that ethic becoming abused itself, as 'equal rights' and 'political correctness' confuse being treated equally with being treated the same for some things, and not others. Being physically stronger and more durable, apparently, is no longer allowed, but being smart is. 'All men are created equal' is the tagline attached to the school of thought that we can't discriminate against women because they are physically less capable of heavy, manual labour over extended periods. Fair enough, but to enforce quotas is no less a discrimination - it isn't judging individuals for themselves either.

Intelligence, though, is fine. Smart people can be sought, and thick people should be put out where they belong. Smart people are better people. Intelligence is influenced by many things: schooling, obviously, and home environment are generally considered the biggest two.... but what do they influence?

Inherent potential, basically. Each of us is born with a likely intelligence, a set talent level. How we are raised will take us slightly above or below that, but that basic potential is determined long before we are born. So if we are all created equal... how can we judge based on that? But we do - smart people have the opportunity to earn more, are accorded respect and authority, and the less cranially gifted aren't.

So if we were to stop doing that, where would we be? Well, there's the artists, or we could try something really original like treating everyone equally - according to their intentions and their abilities, but according them basic respect and affording them opportunities regardless.

Paths 2

I have tried, on occassion, to wonder what it might like to be mad - for my writing - and I've never quite felt I've succeeded.

It's a somewhat frightening feeling to think that might be because I don't actually have to change anything.

That's a little strong - madness conjures images of single-sleeved jackets and really thick blown vinyl wallpaper, but mental illness is a difficult subject to come to terms with. Where do you draw the lines? Asperger's is classified as a delay or retardation in social development... that's it. There are no voices in the darkness, no wringing of hands on axe-handles, no 'heeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!'

Symptoms include self-stimulation (which doesn't necessarily mean what you first think), social isolation and withdrawal and difficulty making friends and identifying social clues such as facial expressions and tones of voice.

However, it is also associated strongly with attention to detail, ritualistic attitudes and methods and poor mathematical ability. However, these traits aren't 'requirements' thought they typically accompany the syndrome.

Which means you end up with a shy, withdrawn stickler, who occassionally seems off in a dream world... hardly mad. So why give it a name? I don't want to be a bloody syndrome, I don't want to have me - what makes me difference, the 'Steve-ness' of Steve - taken away, labelled and put back as a disease, a problem or a syndrome.

So what if I don't make friends easy? I get by. My maths, thankfully, is pretty damn good, and if I've an attention to detail and a talent for methodology and ritual, well then don't play me at trivial pursuit, and give me a job where I have to check things. My pattern recognition is outstanding.

The line has been drawn, and it's ushering everyone that isn't 'mainstream' into little holes where they can be 'treated'. For what? Variety is the spice of life! I don't want to be like everyone else - I don't like the Spice Girls, or curry, or beer. I'm me, and that's good enough.

What next? Is being gay a 'syndrome'? After all, it's that little bit different from 'normal', isn't it. What about phobias? Irrational fears, by definition, represent a mental aberration of some sort.

And yet, I don't want my daughter to have to go through the childhood I did. No-one understood what I was doing, least of all me, and I could never really get across what I meant, or what I wanted. Autism is far, far beyond Asperger's, to the point where the disorder causes real, genuine problems in every day life. Asperger's simply requires a slight adjustment of perspective... I hope.

Paths

My daughter has autistic spectrum disorder - autism - she's been diagnosed for about six months now. My son displays a lot of similar signs and tendencies, and there's a growing sense that he may well be in the autistic spectrum, as well, probably a form of Aspergers.

Both these conditions are hereditary, and my wife shows none of the signs at all, really. I have in front of me a book we were given of various facts and ideas about the subject - I fit far too many of the groups not to consider that this might have come from me.

Now this isn't a guilt trip - my kids may have gotten this from me, they have inherited a gene from me that makes them more susceptible to it, or whatever - I can't control that, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. Similarly, I'm not going to rant about all the people that didn't recognise any of these behaviours when I was young - maybe they weren't there? Maybe no-one really knew about this condition back then?

But here I am, and I have to decide if I have this or not? Simple enough, really - if they can spot it in a two-year old, it should be obvious in me, right? Probably, but that's not the problem.

I've been sinking slowly into a dark, weary mood about this over a period of weeks, and I'm beginning - perhaps - to understand why.

I'm different. We're all different, we're all special, I know, but I'm different in a different way, if that makes sense. People have their own taste in music, their own fashion statements, their own choice of drinks and the like - I disdain it all, and I always have. I don't understand the point of drinking, and despite careful explanations as to its self-defeating nature, people ignore my lack of interest in clothing choices.

This evening I was teaching some kids from the local swimming club, I organise the bits and pieces they do in the gym. So, tonight, I'm ready. I've my programme laid out in my head, a rough idea of how to split them up - depending on who's there - I know the equipment we have, and I've got myself settled. I don't have a concrete plan for anything, really, I don't know what exercises I'm putting where in the circuits, don't know what tasks I'm going to give them to warm up. This evening, though, is a little different to most evenings - our usual room is being used, so we've been moved. Not a problem - I found out by accident, but I found out about a week in advance, and I'm ready for it.

And then we get there, and in fact we don't have a room at all. And I'm suddenly lost? I'm 29 and I can't deal with something simple like that - I've got the kids, their parents aren't around, so I have to get on with it. And it's dire - unfocussed, dull, uninteresting, an absolute sow's ear of a session.

Now, I've never adapted well to change - not in the short term. Long term, growth, technology, routines, I can handle that. But tonight, tomorrow, one-offs... I don't do that. Which is just a part of me, I guess... some people classify that as control-freakishness (freakishness?), and it may or may not be, but it works for me.

But is it really just a part of me? I've grown up, built a life, talked and treated people as though I'd made conscious deliberate decisions, and now I might not have. What if I've got Asperger's Syndrome?

Are they my decisions any more, am I making rational, reasonable judgements, or am I just another victim of a mental disorder. It seems a relatively easy thing to test for, and the possibility of finding out is there, if I want it... and I don't know if I do.

As far as I can see, it's a situation where I can only lose. If I'm not Asperger's, and I don't find out, then nothing's changed. If I'm not and I do find out, still nothing's changed. If I am, and I don't bother with the test, then I'm just deluding myself, and if I do find out I have it, does everything change?

Where do I draw the line between me, and the condition. All the things I think are right, all the 'realisations' that have come to me in 29 years - is communism really the best way? Is God really just a figment? Is money a deceit that we all propogate to our own detriment and everyone else's?

Or am I just trying to find excuses, now that I'm getting older, for being such an opinionated sod? Last year this was all cut and dried, and now it seems like there's no way out of this which is any better. I'm either mental, or I'm so off the wall that it's easy to believe I am, in which case what's the difference. I'm seeing things from a different perspective to everyone else, and suddenly I don't believe that's making me the genius that Einstein mentioned any more...

What are we?

Life, when you look at it dispassionately, can be a terrible thing. Not withstanding the various pains of disease, injury, trauma, emotional losses and finally, inevitably, death, the everyday processes and performances for the vast majority of us are dour, repetitive and uninspiring.

Most of us trawl through this morass knowing that it will not get better, knowing there is no other option and well aware that, except for the precious few, there is just another dull, repetitive tomorrow.

We reward those that convince us to forget for a few moments with riches and largesse beyond our ability to comprehend - sportsmen, actors, models and the like - yet we forget that they do relatively little. The emancipation lies within us all: we free ourselves when we find joy, happiness, love, friendship, humour.... whether through them or elsewhere.

So, given that we have the means to free ourselves - even if only briefly - why do we consent to remain trapped within the tedium? The world has been building up the myths of society for hundreds, thousands of years, and the few - the precious few - that can influence the situation easily would like to keep us that way, in order to remain in their privelege.

It is this ennui that divides man from beast, that draws a line between sentient and otherwise - not merely boredom, but the understanding that the structure could be different, that there are better possibilities. Animals have memory, but we have imagination to know that tomorrow is coming.

Imagination, at its core, has the property of creation - it is the conclusion without concept or precept, spontaneous generation of thought, which gives rise to an understanding of purely conceptual ideas. A dog may understand a list of poor behaviours, but does not intrinsically comprehend 'bad' however; it simply learns to associate undesirable acts - undesirable to its owner - with punishment, and therefore desists. Man, on the other hand, can empathise, can sympathise, and can predict a given response judging an action from an arbitrary point of view. This dispassionate perspective, this idea of 'justice' is the benchmark - that which can look at its own situation and decry 'this is not fair' is sentient, and that which cannot, is not.

Given that, then, it is this tedious life that reveals our nature, should we not accept it? Sentient nature is revealed not just in despair, but in all abstracts - Justice, honour and equality, perhaps, but art, creativity, hope... Sentience should not be a consolation to be driven to, but a nature to be held up to the light and admired for the wonder it is.

Paranormal

Conventional science generally decries belief in 'spirits', ghosts, telepathy and the like, despite some debatable experimental data, most notably in the field of telepathy. Consequently, they overload theories they do have considerable evidence for beyond their capacity.

Take, for example, genetics. The genetic code, when all is said and done, is a blueprint not for a 'body', or a 'being' but for proteins. All DNA can sequence is proteins. So, if you stretch the theory to a reasonable limit and assume that the positioning and spacing of the various 'genes' on chromosomes somehow relates to the order and relative abundances necessary to build a physical body, we allow a baby to gestate.

When it's born, it suckles on instinct, cries for food, attempts to climb across the mother's stomach (if left alone)... what sort of protein does that? Proteins can, in theory, affect broad emotional states, but elicit specific responses? That's pushing the theory too far, but conventional science has it that the genetic code is the be-all and end-all of inheritance.

So what else is there? Well, let's start with crystal growth. Crystal's don't have DNA, obviously, their structures are determined by the mechanics of the forces within their atoms. So why, then, does the yield within experiments rise consistently.

Nowadays the only people that routinely generate 'new' crystals - that is, crystals formed from a new conglomerate of base elements - are the pharmaceutical companies. When a new crystal is formed, the yields from a batch can be as low as 20%, but with time they rise, and rise until they are regularly achieving upwards of 70%... without altering the start conditions at all.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake proposed a theory he called 'Genomorphic Resonance' to account for this, and was stripped of his Doctorate by Cambridge University. - As an aside, the word 'heretic' was actually used in the official justification, in the early 1980's - The theory says that everything that exists creates a 'resonance' of form, substance etc. simply by being.

Other objects of a similar nature can pick up on that resonance, and be influenced by it. Obviously, with crystal structures, where the options are reasonably clear and delineated, that causes a gradual increase in the incidences of a particular formation, as those formations are kept and other - unwanted - structures are destroyed. This theory is backed up by the evidence that suggests similar crystals being grown for the first time somewhere geographically separated from the initial site also achieve greater success than would otherwise be the case.

So, what if we extrapolate the theory to other things... like people? If physical crystal structures create 'resonances', perhaps other things can... what if movement creates resonances? Maybe birds have the flight instinct because hundreds upon thousands upon millions of birds before them have launched themselves from the nest and flown. Perhaps horses can walk within hours of birth because of all the herds of history.

Instinct, therefore, becomes not something of the genes, but something of morphic resonance - echoing the forms of the past. If the body can resonate to such 'echoes', adapt to copy the forms of yesterday, what happens when that talent evolves.

If thoughts - deliberate, unconscious, any kind - create echoes just like everything else, and we can pick up them, the possibilities become strangely paranormal...

Telepathy suddenly becomes just a sensitivity to other people's thoughts. Twins, for whom so many other things are similar, are often the best subjects in experiments for telepathy, as thought their minds were already somehow in synch? Perhaps they are... perhaps their minds resonate in such a way that they each pick up on the echoes of each other.

Ghosts are just the echoes of previous lives and thoughts, being picked up by the people currently in the vicinity. Powerful events, events that cause powerful resonances, create a localised intensity such that most anyone can pick it up.

Remote Viewing becomes the ability to pick up the resonances in a directional sense, and clairvoyance and fortune-telling simply implies that the resonances are not limited to travel in a single direction through time.

And when we die? Do we leave anything to the afterlife, a spirit, a soul? Not exactly - but every thought, every idea, every action, every blink, burp and breath has left an echo, and every generation down to the last on Earth will interact with it, be influenced by it, and use it to reshape the world we have left into their own form for it. Perhaps, in this, lies the requirement to think the good life, not just to live it, or act it, or preach it: belief really could have power.

Nature of man

All men are created equal. This is taken to be a fundamental tenet of many societies, despite the evidence, being the basis either literally or implicitly for such documents as the American Declaration of Independence and the French Constitution. It could even, at a stretch, be contested that such a thought was part of the motivation for the Magna Carta. Given that, but demonstrated against a backdrop of Olympic standard athletes and the physically incapacitated, the socially inept and the charismatic, Nobel prize scientists and special needs schoolchildren how can 'man be created equal'?

Well, ignoring the whole issue of creation, how can 'man' be considered equal? If physical capabilities range so vastly, then by definition even considering the number of limbs and organs cannot be part of the equation. Similarly, with mental processes that encompass the artistically gifted, the logically adept, the sociopathic and the isolation of the autistic spectrum, it cannot be the way in which we think, save perhaps in the grossest sense that perhaps we all do.

So it would seem that, fundamentally, we are - as Satre would have it - and because we are, we are as one. In that case, are not all dogs created equal, and some of us merely have two legs and read? What is it that man has, that the rest of nature doesn't? Intelligence is present in other creatures, similarly tool-use and puzzle-solving skills.

Chimpanzees have an understanding of language, as has been demonstrated in numerous experiments. Given that, and given that the degree of intelligence cannot be considered requisite part of defining 'man'- for we are all equal - there must be a quality of our thinking that we do not share.

Any intelligence, if faced with a problem, can eventually develop the tools to solve it - even a computer, if programmed to learn. Directions, temperatures, pressures - physical manifestations that can be measured - all are things to which creatures and computers can react. Emotions, to date, appear to have evaded the microprocessor, but there is the chance they can be developed. What man has that the others don't is abstraction.

A computer can learn 'pain' because it is a direct response to a stimulus. Likewise it can learn 'up' as a direction, relative to an arbitrary point. However, it can't define justice. Honour.

How do you measure love? How do you quantify humour? You can't - they can be experienced, but not explained, delightful without being describable. That is what sets man apart - his ability exceeds his understanding. We are uncaused causes, each and every one of us, an effect with no direct cause, whether it be humour, or honour, or justice or anything else. Perhaps we made God in our image, and perhaps it made us in it's own, but either way we are as divine as it, because that random spark that is the 'self' is there in us all.

Metaphysics

Someone mentioned to me recently, in discussion about some of these writings, to define some of the terms I'd used. Justice, honour, etc. they averred, mean different things to different people in different places, at different times.

There has been a trend in modern times for philosophy to degenerate into a sort of mass dictionary, as various people try to define more and more precisely the ideas about which they are speaking, rather than dealing with the ideas themselves.

The problem with that is that the ideas you can clarify into writing are the ones that science and language can already give you precise definitions for. Abstracts such as good, evil, honour, rights... these are things that, but definition, are beyond the scope of definition in 'real' terms. They have no logical basis, they have no foundation in the real world, so we can only define them in terms of each other.

We all know good and evil, we feel them, we understand them, but we can't necessarily define them, save in relation to our own society, our own upbringing. The trick, therefore, is to unify society, to make it a single system, so that everyone is brought up with the same, communal set of ideas about what constitutes good and evil.

It follows, therefore, that finding the society that operates best, and can cope with the strain of catering for the most people, is the one that will best serve these abstracts, because it is in harmony of understanding those ideas that people will be able to live together.

The Internet

What is the internet? The most obvious analogy, though frequently avoided, is that it is the information equivalent of machines. We invented machines to do the physical work we, as people, couldn't do for ourselves, and now the computer is available to do the calculating we can't do for ourselves.

There is some resistance to this - as there were Luddites, so shall there be neo-Luddites, or cyber-Luddites, or whatever you choose to call them. At first blush, and the first line of defence if you will, are those who simply fear change. This is understandable, especially with the pace at which technology is advancing in this day and age. A hundred years ago the motor car was a relatively new invention, and the first powered flight was still in the news - it took those inventions forty years to have a real impact, and longer to become commonplace. The internet was born, really, in the 1960's, and in forty years has wormed its way into so many aspects of life. Todays children are growing up with, around and sometimes through something that hadn't been invented when some of their parents were born - that is rapid progress.

The internet, though, is something more than simply another labour saving device. It is a font of data waiting to be turned into information by enquiring minds, a wealth of opinion and fact to be drunk up, a thousand, million windows into a thousand, million places. It is what makes geography obsolete and - in keeping with Einsten - takes time out of the equation. These words I type here could, quite conceivably, still be drifting around cyberspace a hundred, a thousand, a million years from now, annoying whole new generations of people. But unlike the books of yesteryear, they can also reach people on the other side of the world within seconds.

Machines brought us to the realisation that we were something more than merely biological machines - or perhaps to the delusion that we are. Either way, the internet is forcing us to appreciate the next level of awareness, that thinking is not enough to make us unique. There has to be something more, we have to appreciate ourselves at another level - if making 'us' something inside the machines of our bodies meant that we could begin to see past the physical differences, perhaps this will allow us to see past the mental differences and realise that we are all, ultimately, something at once insignificant and wonderful.

The internet, then, puts this processing power, this wealth of information into a truly free domain, and that arouses fear from another place. Not that the wrong information might fall into the wrong hands - if it's the wrong information then there most likely are no 'right' hands anyway. Not even the tired cry of the psychologists realising their pseudo-science is being unravelled beneath them.

Rather, it makes a mockery, as information does, of the lies that underpin our societies. No, actually, our society - one of the most important lies it reveals is that there are no boundaries, no gaps, no spaces. We are all connected, now, we are all together - humanity is, and people are, and everything in between is a myth.

Money, nationality, religion, supremacists of all sorts - the death knell has sounded: ask not for whom the ISP tolls, it tolls for thee.

People have categorised, divided, enslaved, emancipated and controlled along a series of largely unintentional but socially accepted lies. These tools of past centuries have served their purpose, and their time, and like teenagers growing to the realisation that they really are small adults we must throw of these pretenses and grow up.

What makes the internet special, though, what makes it different to everything that went before, is that it doesn't just give to everyone - either directly or indirectly. It doesn't take from them, either, though you can give freely to it if you wish. It echoes the people of the world. Each voice typed into it, each flick of the finger adds to it, makes it more representative: - it is the ultimate Democracy. Everything is there, every voice is heard, every cry in the wilderness is equal, and those that cry in sympathy with others will attract others.

The ideas that are laid down here stand on their own merits, and will be picked up based on those merits. The ideas that appeal, the ideas that are reliable, the ideas that bring a chink of light, a glimmer of understanding will spread and that one voice can be heard. Once more, one person can make a difference.

That, is the internet.

Government

Look back through history, and social change has prompted largely by power being taken away from a central authority and distributed. Originally there were tribal warlords who took over other tribes to form kingdoms and empires, it's true, but since then it's been a general distribution.

So now we have enlightened, democratic societies. Allegedly.

Of course, we don't have real democracy, any more than we have had anyone give Communism a real go. Marxist-Leninism wasn't real Communism, though it's come closer than just about anything else. Likewise, the United States isn't really a Democracy, for all they shout about it. They elect representatives (or should that be Representatives?) who sit in their government on their behalf... that's a Republic. Logistics limited the practicality of democracy until recently, but with the advent of near-instantaneous communication regardless of distance, the prospect of real democracy is upon us.

Imagine, if you will, the ultimate reality TV show - come home, sit down, switch on, and vote on todays Bills.... It could happen, but it won't - and for all the wrong reasons. Capitol Hill, the Houses of Parliament, The Diet, and all the other governing bodies of the world are largely a display piece for a bureaucracy that actually governs. All the image and glamour go into a veneer of 'Democracy', whilst the real work is being done by faceless, unaccountable lawyers, accountants and whatever else behind scenes. These people don't want to let the decision making out of their own hands - they'd be redundant - and that's why vote-from-home Democracy isn't going to happen.

Which isn't a bad thing. I couldn't run this country, not even for this country's benefit, let alone as part of a responsible attitude towards the rest of the world. Neither do the vast majority of people (including, unfortunately, the bulk of those to whom the responsibility allegedly falls), and this is where the problem lies. Spreading the power is perfectly fine, so long as it is being spread to a population capable of making rational, sensible decisions. Unfortunately, not only does a lack of education/ability form a barrier, but standard distribution means that even given the education, all decision making will end up falling in the moderate range, as decisions vary to either side - the facts may support that decision, on occassion, but there are occassions when the moderate approach is the worst, and extreme - either extreme - is the only real option.

People who watch soap-operas. People who crush beer-cans against their foreheads. People who worship God. People who don't worship God. People who think beer should be banned... and other dangerous extremists. Fundamentally, through little or no ill-will, the vast majority of people may know what they want, but they do not necessarily know what they need, nor what is best for them. Sufficient evidence for that lies in the amount of money passing into the coffers of, for instance, tobacco companies on a daily basis.

All of these people already have a limited say - thankfully the system is a lie and their say is largely a matter of cosmetics - but the fact that the people we elect are, largely, woefully underqualified for the job is a sign of the ineffectiveness of the system. In the USA, as in Britain, middle-of-the-road politics actually holds sway, with the two major parties being largely indistinguishable from each other, having a history of promoting lawyers and accountants.

Despite the 'anyone can rule' ethic both claim to apply, copious amounts of money seem to be a prerequisite, though the dynamic may not be that simple. However, no actual training or knowledge seem to be required. That knowledge resides in the bureaucracy, which is both a blessing and a curse.

The elected facade, therefore, have no direct method of taking their uneducated vague ramblings and foolish promises and actually applying them, without putting it through the bureaucracy, which hopelessly mangles it beyond their comprehension on the way. Unfortunately, the knowledge that resides within the bureaucracy is unguided, undirected and ultimately turned in upon itself - knowledge of the system is used to maintain the system, not improve it, or make it actually do anything.

So where does the answer lie? Government systems are as diverse as the people who offer themselves up to either be in one or who find themselves subject to one. Monarchies, Oligarchies and all the rest have varying qualities and effects, but logic leads to a simple conclusion.

Given, as already discussed, people are equal, any system which defines an individual or group as inherently ordained, selected, chosen or preferred for government is at best questionable, and at worst ludicrous. This removes monarchies, any other form of nobility or hereditary leadership, and any sort of caste system. The qualifications for government have to be based upon the ability to govern - equality requires that we each be assessed upon purely our own abilities, and government is a skill that can be taught and learnt. This means that anything based upon finance (which should be non-existent anyway), religion, military ability, or adherence to ritual practices is insufficient.

Which leaves us with the rather obvious notion that government should lie with those best qualified to govern. Shocking.

Leadership has been studied by generation upon generation of scholars and scientists and a reasonably complete profile has been developed of what the ideal governor requires. Early testing against those criteria would indicate suitable candidates who could then be trained to the role. The most successful candidate would go on to rule, assisted at the upper levels of the bureaucracy by the remainder of the trained individuals, and advised by experts in the various fields they decide require advice.

Equality

Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am - was where Rene Descartes began his search for undeniable knowledge, the conclusion of an understanding that the mind can never really know that the information received from the senses is real. We've all been deceived by our own senses at some point - optical illusions, hearing things that aren't there, mistaking smells or tastes - and our minds are more than capable of similar deceptions, as we find when we dream.

Rationally, if we can dream and feel as though everything about us were real, then how do we in fact know that what we think of as the real world is not a similar construct of our - or someone else's - imagination? Because the realms of thought and matter - dream and 'reality' if you prefer - are distinct, we can use neither one to guarantee the other. I can't prove I exist by using physical definitions, because the senses that use to perceive that physical nature could be deceived.

Similarly, because my ideas require a physical interaction to manifest themselves in the world, I can't use ideas to prove anything physical really exists.

So the only thing, Descartes contended, he could guarantee was that he existed, because something had to exist to do the thinking. It might be confused about its own nature, but it was. All other thought, he believed, was based upon the physical.

There are thoughts, though, that are independent of the physical world. Abstracts can be inspired by situations, but they can only be defined in terms of other abstracts. They are completely virtual creations, and therefore have a guaranteed reality in a way that the physical world does not. We can know that Justice, for instance, exists, because we have created it completely within a framework of our own thoughts. We may have been inspired by considering our perception of an event in the (possibly illusory) real world, but the event does neither defines nor directly causes the realisation - it can only inspire it.

Those abstracts, however, would seem to have little use if all else is illusion. If I am alone, and everything I perceive beyond myself is false, then I am the architect of all that I know, for I have created this illusion within my own mind. If that is the case, I have done so with curious logic, and a remarkable consistency, supplying an illusion so effective that even I believe that it is real. This illusory world, however, is not real, and therefore I should place no faith in its lessons, save as inspiration for my own mind, and should therefore live according to the abstract concepts that distinguish me from the creations of that illusory world - abstracts such as fairness, Justice and honour.

On the other hand, if the world is real, and the physical evidence of our senses is believable, what then? Everyone else out there interacts with the world as do I, but I have no way of knowing how they percieve what they interact with. It appears consistent, inasmuch as they all percieve what I think to be a chair as a chair, but the inner workings of their mind are unknown to me.

Therefore, I can assume, that since I have no objective evidence that I can't gauge myself against anyone else in terms of the physical world because it may not exist at all, and if it does I cannot be certain that I am seeing it either correctly, or in the same fashion as they.

The only comparisons that can be made directly, then, are those that I know these people to have - by nature if they are real, or by definition if I have created them to be sentient objects in my reality - which are abstract concepts. These concepts are unitary - they either are or they aren't. You cannot have a bigger concept of Justice, or more Fairnesses than someone else. We all have them, and they are all the same.

We therefore have no reason to believe that one person is superior, intrinsically, to another. The fact that we are all manifested differently in the apparency of the real world is uncertain, and we can therefore only judge on the fact that, within the recesses of our own minds, we are all of a similar vein. We are all sentient, we are all of one people because of it, and beyond that we simply are.

Energy

Twenty-first century life demands energy - transport, medical care, urban infrastructure, heating, lighting, computers, industry. Despite the best efforts of the environmental activists we haven't reached the point where we're ready to abandon all that just yet. However, when they campaign against the damage we're doing to the environment they have a point. The fertile lands of Europe and North America teem with clogging, polluting power-plants and the industrial behemoths that belch forth their toxic offspring by-products, whilst hopeless African farmers toil to drag a subsistence out of lifeless, dusty, arid soil.

But it costs too much to move, resite industry to Africa, and it isn't economically viable to transport food out to them when they don't have the money to pay for it. This is because the power companies look five, ten, perhaps fifteen years into the future: the corporation executives aren't looking to make a profit they'll be too retired to spend, now are they?

Let's take a look at energy production. Fossil fuel reserves are running out - the rate varies depending on whom you ask, but all accounts agree that they are running out. They are also, universally, polluting. Again, the opinions on how polluting vary, and the opinions on the effects of that pollution vary widely: why risk it? If there were another option, would it not make sense to take it? Of course...

Hydro-electric? Excellent source of power, save that it's geographically specific, and similarly limited unless you want to compound the pollution problem by decimating huge swathes of land behind artificial dams.

Wind, wave and tidal generators all bring with them resource problems, whereby the initial startup costs make generation by these methods prohibitively expensive. Of course, if we got rid of the money that wouldn't be a problem, but there's still a lot of work involved in maintaining such systems.

Nuclear - not after Chernobyl!!!

Which is a shame. Nuclear power is not without its drawbacks, but it does have some things going for it. Over the lifetime of the reactor, it actually works out to be little different in terms of price from fossil fuels, but it doesn't create the constant miasma of atmospheric pollutants. There is the risk of a spill, and there is the need to store the spent fuel after the cycle has been completed, neither of which are simple tasks.

It is, essentially, the choice between some unavoidable pollution and the risk of severe pollution. If the unavoidable were only minor then the choice would be difficult, but the fact is that acid rain, smog, global warming and ozone depletion are causing deaths already, and will only cause more if they are allowed to continue.

However, the immediate future might be nuclear fission, but the long-term future is nuclear fusion, and thanks to the work of JET, ITER and others, that future is closer than it was. Abundant, cheap, safe energy is but a hairs-breadth away - let us hope the governments of the world will pay for that hair.

Intelligent Design problems

So I was watching a show this week about the push in the states to have Intelligent Design [wikipedia] (ID) put on an equal status with evolution in American science classes, and I got to wondering whether these ID'ers are stupid, mad, or think they're actually pulling the wool over our eyes.

It seems, on the surface, a clandestine attempt to contravene the American constitution's separation of Church and State - enforced in this instance by a blanket ban on worship in state-run schools - under the guise of a 'scientific theory'.

Underlying the problem with ID is its reliance on a 'Designer' that they refuse to actively consider. ID, they say, is about showing from the evidence in the world that there is a designer. Fine in principle, but the nature of that 'Designer' is what removes ID from the realms of science and into the bailiwick of Religious Education - if you insist on bringing it into schools at all.

If the Designer is in this universe with us, then the argument for the origins of life don't end, they simply transfer: instead of being 'where did we come from' the question becomes 'where did the designer come from', which necessitates investigation into the designer's nature.

If the Designer isn't in this universe - existed somewhere outside of the big-bang, and caused it all to happen - then this is God we're talking about. It makes no allegations about rituals, about whether God is good or right, omniscient or omnipotent, but it is our creator: this is the agency who caused everything to be, and put us in it, it is someone to blame for all the bad things that happen.

It leads, inevitably - if you are seeking the origins of life - to the question 'Who made the designer?'. Come to think of it, who made us? The other problem with ID is the vast gulf that lies between 'Design' and 'being'. Even if we accept the idea that we were 'designed', ID has (to my admittedly limited knowledge) made no reference to how that design came to fruition. Who, or what is 'the maker'?

I'm pretty open about being a sort of a humanist - I don't believe in any sort of God, Gods, higher purpose or any of that - and I recall hearing it described by a Catholic once as 'morality without a religion to follow'. ID, I find, is something far more scary: a religion without morality.

In the interests of balance, here is the Intelligent Design Network's view of the world. I don't buy it, but maybe they do... No-one else seems to, either. I couldn't on a cursory search find a site dedicated to debunking the Creationists/ID'ers ideas: that's the level of contempt, apparently, the scientific community holds for this 'theory'.

Joining the tide...

It's finally happened. I've given in and joined the mainstream. I've capitulated. I've started...

... a BLOG!!!

Why? Just to keep writing, mainly. I like to write, but life doesn't always give me the chance these days to sink my efforts into any considerable projects, and I still need the avenue of expression. So here we will have my pint-sized ramblings on any number of things.

To allow you to put them into some sort of context - if you want to do so - my name is Steve, and I'm in my (very) early thirties. My wife and I have two children on the autistic spectrum - a girl and a boy - and no pets living on the south coast of the United Kingdom.

Cheers

Steve

(edited to satisfy my borderline compulsion for spelling and grammar... :( )