Drive by Shooting

Bali has changed, radically. It was inevitable as we all know and those who live here see it ravenously digesting itself and reconstituting that matter into something different, its origins strewn amongst the waste but still prominent, hiding behind a curtain of pseudo westernisation. This is most prominent in its southern regions, a victim of its own success and phoenix like quality of literally rising from the flames to begin a new path to destruction in a different sense, the uninhibited pursuit of wealth instead of happiness. But amongst this renovation of thought and form lies a new beauty, oxymoronically, a beauty in its ugliness.

Bali has changed, radically. It was inevitable as we all know and those who live here see it ravenously digesting itself and reconstituting that matter into something different, its origins strewn amongst the waste but still prominent, hiding behind a curtain of pseudo westernisation. This is most prominent in its southern regions, a victim of its own success and phoenix like quality of literally rising from the flames to begin a new path to destruction in a different sense, the uninhibited pursuit of wealth instead of happiness. But amongst this renovation of thought and form lies a new beauty, oxymoronically, a beauty in its ugliness.
Images taken by various photographers hide these changes and try to create a sense of the antiquated Bali; the way it was before we came and became solo colonials (read my blog titled so, to fully understand this phrase).
I say embrace this change in all its filth and gluttony and see amongst it the facets of human nature that cannot be changed, only then, through acceptance and understanding can we re-asses the past to forge a different existence in the future, one without regret.
As Socrates put it “pleasure is something that is not temporary but survives time and is pleasurable now and in the future” Paying great heed to this axiom could save mankind from the regret of literally paving paradise to put up a parking lot. Jodi Mitchell, the Prophet, we the uninvited guests throwing concrete around and fashioning it into something we deem pleasurable until we realise that 50,000 other people are doing it and seriously blocking our view.
So here’s what I did, I got in a car and shot from the comfort of the rear passenger seat covering a great many kilometres in search of beauty, I found it everywhere. Here it is.

 

Elevation

Elevation: "Loftiness of thought or feeling" the free dictionary.com

There is something about being at a pinnacle and looking across to the horizon while accepting it's magnificence, and maybe, sometimes, being the only one privy to such a scene. It's important not to confuse this sensation with with that of an  Ego response of bravado, both when experiencing it and observing its affect on others. It's a pure, unimposing feeling like that of content and serenity. I find it here, on a precipice, some find it in an Ashram, a Church or even an office chair.
It's out there, the sensation of elevation and I'm more than happy to document the mood of it in these photo's. Enjoy.

Hindu Paparazzi

It's incredible what goes on in Bali unbeknownst to the masses, the intricate and the strange idiosyncrasies of Hindu Life playing out automatically on those auspicious days when the necessary becomes a reality in order to incite harmony on the island.

So along with my Duties to participate in the ceremonies of my Banjar I took my camera and my offerings to a temple where you cannot use any open flames and therefor incense, kept my flash off just in case and got up close and personal with the process of this unique ceremony. The dance of the Mangku's the running of the spear and the heavy presence of the various deities revealing themselves through the chosen few and their adornments, piqued my interest and elevated my spiritual self into a tangible sense of expereince. experience of the Niskala, the unseen.

The Meaning of Life

Life is incontestably and exclusively about experience. Having drawn this conclusion and then set about trying to disprove this as fact through various means of debate, the next logical step is to ascertain the meaning of this to us. Most importantly though, is how to apply this fact to our day today lives and the choices we make that effect our experience.

To be brief, very brief and only to propagate a thought process within your mind, plant a seed so to speak this is what I believe to be the most important fact about life that to my knowledge has never been conveyed in this way:

Life is about experience so the purpose of our lives is to monitor and regulate our choices to control the intensity and diversity of our experience for the purpose of growth as intelligent, conscious beings in the universe. It is literally our responsibility to do this and not doing it can only lead to a life discontent with our experience.

                So, assess your experiences and the potential to experience a myriad of new and beneficial things, weed out the experiences and choices that lead to stagnation of experience and development and see what happens when your decisions are based solely on this little canon, this miniscule doctrine. I believe that everything will tumble into place and the journey will continue fraught with adventures of every kind.

Faith In Fate

It's been a tumultuous couple of months to say the least. Projects getting stalled by unforeseen circumstances, Commerce being blocked by the changing minds of  nepotist business inheritance and a funk of failure clouding my every effort.

The suns shines sometimes but for how long you will never know. The point is, it's better to get a tan when it's shining  and ride out the dreariness with a shiny soul and attitude, maybe a time to give back the energy you've absorbed. And so maybe, as a Hindu I should adhere to the laws of Karma and the pursuit of Kama using Dharma and Adharma as an unpredictable way of choosing your path. One things is to not ignore the signs on the road and especially not to do it knowingly thinking you know a better way or in and egotistical pit of blind oblivion...... Which is often described as drunkenness :)

So again I plod slowly through my journey with feet clumped in the clay of a messy past knowing that when it drys it will flake away and free me from those very silly mistakes and bad choices that litter the trail. This time I'll avoid the mud pools i Hope, for the sake of my friends, my family and myself.

hope never dies and greatness can only be acheived when you define what greatness is for yourself.

Capatalism, Movies & Tangents

It's funny, the concept of cinema, how something so ugly has to happen to create things of such beauty. Hollywood wins the battle sometimes by perpetuating the visual and mind numbing torment, a reflection of itself, but sometimes something so profound eclipses the failures and makes the existence of such self centred madness seem almost invaluable to humanity.

 I wonder if the donations from the most shallow consumerist societies, to the poor, even put a dent in the armoured cataclysm of their destructive nature. The truth is no, it doesn't. There is no glory in donating in a way that doesn't even allow some discussion as to the occurrence of altruism within the transaction.

Hollywood, fuelled by consumerism, inspiring the aspiring to positions of mass consumerism in reward for debauching their creations of insightful entertainment, benefits us in a way that maybe a well produced theatre production would. Theater, a purer form of entertainment for the sake of art and without the cash incentives that attract the ego maniacal greedy fucks swooping in like vultures with aspirations of generating enough corpses for the world to chow down on and having only one seat at the table. A strange yet obvious metaphor for greed and excess, but if we say it enough times it might sink in long enough to implement an inkling of change and eventually..... Hope.

Everything is connected in the strangest ways, which, on a positive note, means that change is actually very easy if it begins in the correct place. Where is that place? Well, if you want to de venom a snake, you don’t pull it out of the stomach or the arse, do you.

Connectivity

As life succeeds itself through the process of time, relentlessly and without consideration for those who wish to  relish a single moment; I have become aware of an incomprehensible, space time ignoring, rubber-like fibre connecting me with those most important to my journey.  What a sentence that was... with a nice milky clarity to it. Ambiguous yes, but when you become aware of it the ambiguity dissolves like two plinks and the fizz of your hang over cure.

These connections seem inescapable; I'm trying as we speak but maybe their relevance cannot and will not be ignored. They connect me to people, situations, memories, patterns, the unlearned lesson and life rebounds me back to these effectors. It appears they are not done with me yet. I’m completely sure those in question are completely unaware of the magnitude of their influence. As am I.

I have a Theory. Here it is:

My theory is that in this life we learn from those who learn from us and if we don't get stuck in the interconnectivity these relationships propagate, we progress rapidly and without limit. The necessary capacity one must have for this process is acceptance, accepting that you have learned and taught what was available to the two interlocutors involved and excepting that being consumed with everything around the interaction, the purpose of this phase, and gelling with it on an unnecessarily permanent basis, will impede your progress. Maybe this is why some religions believe in many lives and reincarnations, too much to be expected to learn in one lifetime by a fair God anyway.

Breaking these attachments is hard and unnecessary, wives, children, friends, loved ones etc.... I suppose I'd like to be able to manage them differently, without jealousy or resent and hope and belief in the abilities of all around me. This is hard I Know but one day, maybe we’ll allow each other to excel, to realise aspirations experiences, excitement and adventure, just like we hoped for others in the first place. Well, those we love. Let’s just hope it was happiness and satisfaction we wanted for those we love, otherwise we’d have to question our definition of love and re write the list of those dearest to us. Eventual the list would dwindle like a star at dawn and realisation might overcome you as you realise you’ve scratched off your own name aswell.

What a fine & irrelevant rant this is... necessary only to clarify my own thoughts and to seek out those who believe in the process and give them hope that their decision to achieve their dream and fight for their desire was right, despite the resent of those who love and care for them. The saying goes if you love something let it free... so love it as it is, in its entirety and not as a possession with obligations.

I hope I can do this. I really do. but at the moment I'm consumed with the idea of the freedom it would give me if everyone else did it for me... let me chase down my dreams and aspirations of enlightenment, very selfish but the world has a way of teaching you every side of the task in hand, showing every point of view and gauging your reaction. Sometimes, you here it laughing at you and when you realise why, you laugh at yourself too.

-If you connected yourself to bungees of varied length and torsion, to things of varied distances from where you stood right now, in 4 dimensions, feeling the strain of those connections while you were fixed in place awaiting the release, what could be described as the beginning; where do you end up at the point of entropy, after bouncing around between situations like life sped up?  Balanced in the middle between all the forces around you…..

Balanced. You’d probably feel quite relieved too-

I hope none of this makes sense. If it does then see someone about it ;)