I always thought that the world was just how I saw it. That I was perpetually doomed to be a raiser of cats, doer of mundane work and payer of bills. Even though I could see that it was such a stupid idea to work five days, complain about work on the next two and repeat until I was 65 - I still signed up for it.

My life isn’t exactly ideal:

• Even though I don’t work 38 hour weeks, “I need a real job”.
• Even though I don’t do much on the weekends, “When will I get time to rest?”.
• Even though I bought a weird little house that suits me just fine, “I need a bigger house”.

And I felt BAD because I was having those thoughts.

My Invisible Cage of Belief was too small to hold me, but as my own jailer I was trying very hard to keep me in there. How did I get out? I went on holiday. A long holiday. To Europe, somewhere I have always wanted to go, but always managed to never make it.

It took me a long time to get to that point. I had to have weekends off from work. Then weekends away from home. Then a short holiday overseas, somewhere close but definitely out of mobile range. Then another short holiday slightly further away, for slightly longer, in a slightly more “backpacker” mode. And slowly, with the iron will of someone else’s expectations that people are allowed to go on holiday and a solid but quickly eroding belief that this was not the case, I made it out of the cage.

The first one was the hardest. It seems there are larger ones around it, like a Matryoshka doll, but with the knowledge that they exist and experience of what they feel like, escaping them seems to get easier.

I don’t know what those elite leaders of tomorrow are going to be like. I hope there will be some real human beings in the crowd. Some people who spent a lot more time tinkering with their inner workings than the outer workings of the world they want to take control of.

It’s easy for me to say this now, I can see the Invisible Cages of Belief I have escaped from. I’m looking forward to finding more.

So while I was away, I put on some weight. Some actual fat! Good fat, apparently, which is a general-all-over-covering rather than all-in-one-place fat. I have also lost muscle, probably because I haven’t been training much and most of the exercise I got while over there was walking/riding around, which is still exercise, but more toning than building muscle.

I seem to have gotten biologically older in the time away, which isn’t so great, diet and pollution perhaps? It was a long time between salads, although the food at “home” always had fresh from the garden vegetables. They were a life saver, literally it seems.

The overall results are good though, because while I was away my normal life was put on hold and it had an effect on my body. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting and now that I am back home I will be able to resume the good diet and improve my exercise regime. All of which should have a positive effect on my weight, both fat and muscle.

So in four months I am expecting some of those numbers to have changed rather dramatically. By whole numbers, rather than the currently error prone fractions.

I lost my passport at the Singapore airport. We walked the ~1500m to the transfer desk when I suddenly realised I didn’t have my little documents bag around my waist. I distinctly remember putting it into the pocket oh the chair in front of me so that I wouldn’t lose it and in the rush to get off the plane (hey, it was the first time I had made a connecting flight, I have everything else on me!) I just didn’t put that bag on. It must be said that I did have three items of carry on luggage [laptop bag, back pack and document bag] and I think I was hoisting D’s bag at the time so I counted three attached items.

I ran back to the gate that had finished disembarking to discover it was now starting to admit the passengers for the return flight. I jumped the queue, nearly starting a riot or anti-terrorist action, to explain why I was acting so agitated. Eventually the security people passed me on to someone who spoke a more English and I was able to get back on to the plane. It was being cleaned and from the way the security guard was talking there wasn’t much chance that my bag would still be there. I’m still not sure if he was trying to say the cleaning crew steal everything they find or if they “tag it and bag it”. It didn’t matter. The bag was exactly where I left it. Hooray!

Grabbed it and ran back to the transfer desk. Got the boarding pass but there were no more pairs of seats left, so D and I had to sit apart. It wasn’t that bad actually. Well, for me. I had a great time talking to two brothers (Phil and Col) from Sydney who have, among many other businesses, a surf shop on the east coast, it was a riot. D had to sit next to some over-weight guy who was intent on sleeping the whole flight. We visited each other though the flight and it flew by (ha!) in no time at all. Well, it did for me!

We caught the train in to Paris and quickly found the hotel to drop the bags off at. Breakfast in Paris! It’s quick and simple - whatever they are selling - pastries with meat and cheese. There goes my “try not to eat too much dairy on the holiday” idea. It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet!

We took a brisk walk to Notre Dame and, because it was raining, took refuge in a place called Au Vieux Chatelet where I had my first real French Coffee. It was a cappuccino, apparently, but it looked more like a Vienna to my Perth Coffee Connoisseur’s eyes. The cream was amazing! Then came the Creme Caramel and that was divine too. So much for No Dairy.

Back to Notre Dame, the outside this time, and then continued along the Sienne, meandering here and there as the muse took us. Eventually we wound up at La Petit Palais, which was housing a free-to-the-public gallery. It was here that I saw the painting La Bon Samaritain. This is an amazing painting. From the angle that I initially saw it the man on the horse looked real, I really thought I was looking at a real person. The rest of the picture was fantastic too, but that guy on the horse, that’s exactly what he looked like in real life. Possibly more so. I don’t understand how that works, but I was stunned. I can’t for the life of me remember the artists name. Damn.

The Louvre was closed. It was a Tuesday.

That’s twice I’ve been to Paris and both times the Louvre was closed to me.

Fine.

We saw three scams today: The Gold Ring, Save Africa and Do You Speak English.

The Gold Ring - the guy seems to pick up a ring from the floor in front of you, gets excited about finding it and then attempts to sell it to you, because it would be too much trouble for him to take it to the jeweller. He might be accused of stealing it. How about 10 Euros?

Save Africa - Get a bunch of your black mates and some sheets of paper with Save Africa on them. Add a few lines of name, country, date, amount and then accost people with excitement and exuberance and get them to sign the petition. Once they agree to put their name down, get the details and start demanding the 10-20 Euros from them. Right now. (I suddenly realised why those people who legitimately do this wear all those ID badges)

Do You Speak English - Old woman with crumpled (but plastic covered) piece of paper asks no one in particular “Do you speak English??”. Anyone who says yes gets treated to a confusing blast of misery and pointing at the paper. While they are trying to figure out what is on the paper, the lady picks their pocket.

I’ve never seen such blatant theft. Incredible. Obviously it pays better than a job, there were quite a few people doing it (not all in the same place though).

Essentially, I have started to trim down because I am getting used to the new diet and exercise. Now I have to start some serious beefing up. Good thing I’m off to Europe for a month in June, I should get plenty of protein and exercise while I’m over there.

We shall see.

It’s a little scary to think that I can almost remember those days after reading through the diary again, but I suppose that is the whole idea of a diary. If only I had realised how well it worked I might have continued further with it.

I remember having most of the “actors” in it reading it at the time, occasionally commenting here and there on following days. The site was nothing like this one though, where there are sign ups, comments, tracking and all that jazz. This is a much more polished package.

Anyway, it was fun reliving the past and now that it’s back out there I hope to continue to add articles to this blog. On a more regular basis than I have been, but not daily, that might be too much for the world to handle.

Here’s the link to the January 1999 archives. Enjoy!

1. It is difficult enough to make an I statement about myself, but it is impossible to make one about someone else.
2. We are all at varying degrees of development the myriad of different facets of ourselves. Adulthood is a label conferred by others to allow them to treat you as they wish so that they might continue to believe that they themselves are adults.

In all of the challenges I face while continuing to remain alive - having to deal with other people is the hardest and most common point where I come unstuck. Why the hell do you people do those things and what’s wrong with doing it my way, really?

I admit that it would be better if we all just got along, but who really gets to decide what’s best for all of us? And until they can explain themselves in perfect Ben-language, how do I know that they know what they are asking? If communication is a two way street then not being understood means that I can’t possibly understand. Where do you go from there?

I have finished putting up the December content. There are some links and references that won’t make sense that I have left in for archival purposes (i.e. I don’t want to start adding things to the entries 10 years later, seems a little dishonest)

It is interesting to me to see how I have or have not changed in the way that I talk and think about what is happening to me at the time. In some areas I feel like I was having more fun than I am now, but at this moment in my life I feel like I have more direction. And that’s a little scary as the direction has only really started in the last few months.

Still, better to have started doing something now than to wait another 10 years thinking that everything is going well. Having said that, it can be argued that I am only at this point in my life because of the path that I travelled to get here. It’s that kind of thinking that makes me see how it took so long to get motivated.

It’s jaw dropping.

We’re all on a giant pyramid scheme, hoping to find an extra layer of “members” to fill up our down lines. The horrible horrible thing is that the only people who can do that will be our children. And their children.

I understand that no one wants to deal with this problem unless they really really have to. Why remove the system that you know for one that you don’t, why remove a system that you might be winning in? Because you aren’t really winning. It will never stop. Paper isn’t very palatable and eventually there won’t be enough trees to pulp anyway. Digital bank balances are even more nutritionally deficient. What kind of revolution is going to be required to change the current system? Will the Peak Oil problem be the beginning of the purge?

It’s time. It’s time to cast a vote for ourselves.

What ARE we waiting for? I mean, seriously, when do you expect to actually stop working and live your life without owing more than you can possibly produce.

I need to get out of debt and then I need to start building The Bunker. Then, once I’m almost completely self sufficient, I’ll come visit the rest of you with $70 apples.

And the most amazing thing is that I had a birthday during the last two months and my biometric age has only increased by 0.15 of a year (It should have gone up a whole year because of the birthday, so I have effectively decreased my age by 0.85 of a year in the space of 2 months!)

The levels of histamines in my blood has decreased dramatically, last time there was hardly a screen that didn’t have any of the little cells pushing out histamines and this time Jeremy had to search around for quite some time before he could find one - and it wasn’t active, it was just minding it’s own business. Also the shape of my blood cells was significantly improved, pretty much all of them looked nice and round and plump. All in all, my blood looked healthy healthy healthy!

I have also started to convert fat to muscle, my weight hasn’t changed, but I have 700grams more muscle than I did before. This should continue while I put on some weight, so the process of filling out my frame has started already. I’m really pleased with that idea, it will be great to get off 78kg after all these years.

So I have decided that this was a brilliant idea and I will continue to take The Pills at the same rate as I have been taking them. Who knows, in two months time I might be 28 again!

So, I’m on the Hug Program.

It’s working great. I get more hugs and we are both happier already. It’s only been 2 days and the difference is great.