Boredom is Essential.ON BOREDOM AS A NEW CULTURE & ART: Apparently, with social media and always being connected, the problem is that we are not deeply, intrinsically, bored enough. The state of boredom is very important as a survival mechanism. Why? Because a fair bit of reality is absolutely boring a fair bit of the time. Having a 24 hour news cycle doesn't change the fact that not much in the news isn't boring. Fortunately, when bored, a person's mind is processing millions of things just under the glance of consciousness, working out problems, developing future survival scenarios, etc...most of the mind is about surviving the future rather than enjoying Netflix or football or horseraces...but with too much active thoughtful absorption in the present, too many activities, too many stimuli, we strand ourselves and dumb ourselves down into acceptance of the relentlessly mediocre. To deal with this, you can actually go to 5 day conferences on Boredom where experts talk about the likelihood of lottery wins, aeroplane meals, new word meanings, Hollywood, plankton, veganism, etc, and whilst they talk, and talk, and show slides, you, in the audience just kind of ...get functionally bored for hours ...and re-visit yourself unconsciously and devise your good future...and your good future is...dear lord...for fuck's sake...anything but this!

Woody Guthrie~ All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Little Boxes by Pete Seeger

R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People (Official Music Video)

The B-52's - Roam (Official Music Video)

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (HD version)

A good first day off work today. Although I would have preferred to sleep in til about...4pm, but... instead, I was up at cold 7am and then Mrs Fitz and I drove to Melbourne Town in the Big Traffic for about an hour and a half to the Eye Hospital (officially called the Royal Eye Hospital but I will not call it that, ever, as I despise the Sassenach invasion and occupation of Ireland). We waited for an hour or so, dozing in the dozing voluminous cloud of crowd there, and then I saw an eye doctor who said the recent laser surgery worked 'Hunky Dory' and, well, blink, that's good! Thank you very much. Great skills. I came home with 2 eyes yet again, and both still in their own individual sockets. I love being married to Mrs Fitz for many reasons but the main one is that I enjoy her company and, for some odd reason, she enjoys mine. She went off to work this afternoon so I am a bit sad being without her for the hours. In the interim, at home, I prepared a pretty good birdbath and bread experience for the backyard bird fly-ins, and a kind of tiled spot for the carnivorous kookaburras and crows, and left them with an offering of a pork rib bone. Beautiful sunny day today, and a tree in the yard is full of pink blossoms, humming with harmonic bees. Birds are occasionally gambolling about in the yard. An hour or two before sunset, I could well mow the small backyard, just for the green smell of the grass. Tomorrow, early again, we are off to get new tyres for the Nissan 4WD ute at Fawkner, a suburb 20 minutes away, rather than locally because the Fawkner folk throw in a free wheel alignment, then we'll have some lunch and I'll drive Mrs Fitz to work at the airport, and then pick her up when she has finished her work there. If we have time, in the evening, we will get back to ruling the Universe.