A discovery

Data. Beautiful data.

My little brain volumes are a changing. Changing significantly over time, and some by gender too. Some get smaller, some get bigger. But they are changing to the tune of both discovery and replication.


This is exciting. This is what science is about, testing ideas with reality and finding the small, tangible nexus.

Bogong

Feeling undone by the winter bleakness that had invaded my spirit over the past couple of weeks we decided to revel, rather than revile, in the winter delights of Victoria. Initially the plan was for some cross country skiing amongst the civilised groomed tracks of the resort, however upon discovering that a "Pub to Pub" race was to occur on the same day, the plan had become somewhat unappealing. In favour was a back country ski touring trip up Mt Bogong via the Eskdale spur, snow camping nearby Michell's hut.



Magic. Far far way.



Even more magical was the big snow dumps that had occured on cue throughout the week, nestling snow below azure alpine skies amongst stunted gums and rareified air. The 800m ascent over perhaps 3 to 4 km was gruelling given my body's winter apathy for cardiovascular fitness. But even after one day my body adjusted and while my mind was a little stuck on the idea of unfitness, my legs just got on with the work. I love the capacity for the body to dissociate from an uncooperative mind and I one day would like to abandon dissociation and move closer towards deeper association. The dualism is merely a convenient intellectual construct, and I am so often seduced by intellect, probably for convenience. Like following already marked ski trails in the snow.

A clinician

I have six weeks until I finish my formal, tertiary training as a clinician.

Integrating this professional identity with a personal one is likely to be an ongoing challenge. A boundary challenge. Everything seems to push against the boundaries, but some things need to become part of your skin. Some things need to be on the outside. It sometimes feels like walking a tight rope, knowing when to fall off and when to just keep balancing, and even, the timing of that first step forward above the void.

I will enter soon the cloister of my research. Anticipating the solitude of being caught in my own thoughts about obscure topics. Fighting the battle of distraction whilst hopeful in the journey of discovery. Scientific exploration is an exciting endeavour, a momentary step out of the drudgery of ignorance, no matter how small and seemingly inconsequential.

My research will perhaps one day be looked upon similarly as the hack work of phrenologists, but I will suspend any Kuhnian cynicism for the time being. Is science about what is good or right? Does it carry the burden of social endeavour and improvement? I think it does in its application, which is invariably a human process and potentially corrupted by the same "heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to". Yet the process of investigation and exploration cannot be judged a priori by the burden of utility - we cannot know what purpose a discovery might have as time unfolds. We must be scrupulous in our curiosity, but generous in our imagination.

Escape into the private life

I have taken a trip to visit my sister. Into tropical, blissfully dry weather.

My mind still running to a clock that keeps ticking. Stop. Stop. Tick. Tock. The constancy of the weather is reassuring at first. I like its accountability and for now I loathe - can barely even imagine - going back to the cold chastity of Melbourne.

I visited Kakadu. I found it difficult at first to engage with such a vastness. I'm a white little alien in an ancient landscape. I felt so foreign, swathing myself in sunscreen. My mind was taken back to Voss - I became one of those white pieces of paper in the shredded letters that flutter like cockatoos. Although belonging far less than a cockatoo, I fluttered and flapped like the useless words I have to describe such a landscape. I've lost my copy of the book, so I can't even borrow some of his words to help.

I am always enchanted by how beautiful, and deeply aesthetic men and women become when they are connected wholly to a place. The Aboriginal murals that adorn the caves, those which are open to the general public, are remarkable firstly for their inherent beauty. I claim nil expertise on any accurate interpretation of their true meaning, yet what I could not help but notice was their lack of sophistry. Rather, the pictures speak plainly, truthfully: "here is a story about the perils of not obeying our custom. Proceed, therefore, with respect and caution. Not only appreciate the wisdom of those who have gone before, know that they knew the secrets within. Life and death are mysterious forces, play wisely".

Tomorrow I head to Litchfield, for some crocodile free swimming. It is also quite strange to be "not able" to go where I please due to natural forces like crocodiles. While in thirty-five degree heat it is somewhat irritating, it is also marvelously humbling that I could be part of the food chain for a change.

I'll return via Sydney town and short visit to Pindari.

Winter

My feet are numb. The ink in my pen is so cold it won't write. I love when the literal so aptly matches the metaphorical, as through only the senses can we be truly reminded of the state of affairs.

The writer's block has been immense. The weight of so much to talk about, but so little to say. The actual experience of the past two and half years here has been somewhat different to the imagined. I had foreseen my work here to be a time of imagination and creation, of intellectual and social contribution. However, it has been hard work to survive the demands of my study throughout a tumultuous stray of personal events, much of which is taking a lot of time to process and understand. If such a state is possible or even desirable?

It has been a time of significant self doubt. I often, in line with the theme, doubt my capacity to be self assured and still be open to life's teachings. To stand strong in one's view of oneself, concomitant with being open to changing that view, seem almost contradictory states of being. Does what I know need to be constantly reviewed, as though, in the famous words of Socrates, "Εν οίδα ότι ουδέν οίδα." Epistemological nihilism, for just a little mouthful?

Would this be fine for the purely rational creature, one who has no foundation in emotional knowing, or intuition? Not trusting my intuition and relying purely on the evidence to unfold passively, the solely empirical, has led to dangerous places. Decisions driven by a weighted mathematical calculus damage the soul's work.

How can I know without knowing what befalls my eyes? I must to a large degree become comfortable with uncertainty. Events may or may not occur, and I can never know whether my preempting them prevented me from witnessing that which I was hoping to avert. I cannot control all things or outcomes, I am not that significant. To cope with this I must be prepared to acknowledge and accept myself, and embrace more tacitly and kindly my intuition. I must accept that "being right" in the moral and objective, calculated sense, may not "be right" for me. I have become aware that I have not accepted my own judgment and have been more answerable to the needs and desires of others, than to my own.

Confronting this has been frightening. Many are the nights that have been broken with strange, terrifying dreams. Seductive and silencing, awakening and alarming. I don't yet know what they mean but I awake feeling vigilant and exhausted. I'm tired of being exhausted and I might be ready to learn.

The circle incomplete

Autumn has arrived after a tumultous, confused summer. Or maybe it was just me who had been confused. So often I transfer my feelings to the weather, imbue them with an anthropocentric reality.

It raged to record heat waves but for the double-edged wind across the strait dumping cool changes, intermittently. Rains have come today. Washing the city in a thin coat of wet dust.

I complete my anniversary in Melbourne at this time of year. I await for the cycle of comfort to emerge, it is taking so long to feel at ease in this skin. Circles feel at ease don't they? I don't resist the city, or even change, I like it here.

I wish that I could have been your guardian angel,
Watching from above,
Because that is where I felt safe,
Giving you my love.

But in this earthly form I faltered:
I could not see
how to build, with these small and hands,
The good life for you and me.

The journey to the stars is short,
And the blade of trust is sharp,
Cleaving permanently, here on earth,
The two of us apart.

If I were that angel,
Watching from above,
I would have found some way to tell you,
That as a creature upon this earth, you always had my love.

But I of earth stand, a child,
Straddling a Blakean whole,
Neither here nor there knowing
Exactly where to go.

But now broken, dismayed, renewed and delivered,
here to this moment to see
nothing but the quiet acknowlegding
that we should let things be.