Camping in November

This blog is now about me making memories of my Dad and me.

After failing to leave at a reasonable time yesterday, we leave Sunday mid morning.    I highly recommend taking the scenic route away from the M1 and instead head South over the Gold Coast hinterland through Numinbah into Springbrook National Park.  We stop for lunch in the parks day use area and continue on for our first walk at Natural Arches.

Natural Arch - Springbrook National Park

This is the first time my Dad has seen Natural Arch.  He is 68 years old.  I have been here a few times and it is always worth coming.  Each time I come there is more people visiting.  Under the rock is dark and cool.  Apparently glow worms live here.  I have never seen them.

We drive on to Murwillumbah, continue down through Nimbin and into Lismore.  We get lost at Lismore despite me being here a month ago for the Masters Games.  Sign posting for smaller roads in this town is dreadful.

We are wanting Wyrallah Rd but we head out toward Ballina at the direction of two tourists who believe themselves sure of giving us correct information.  That is the last time I am asking directions from a couple of English tourists.  Eventually we turn around and drive back to Lismore where I stop a couple of locals who look a little scared at the prospect of me asking them for directions.  I must look really frustrated by this stage.

So we finally end up on the Wyrallah Road to Woodburn and then back on to the Pacific Highway.  We are trying to outrun the rain, but it catches up with us big time as the sun is setting.  Suddenly remembering that we have forgotten about daylight savings does not make the situation better and we stop at a little caravan park on the road into Illuka just as the owner is closing up the office.

It is pouring rain now but we insist on camping only.  He obviously thinks we are mad.  Our tent and van go up fairly quickly despite me not really knowing what I am doing on my first go with this tent.  It rains and it rains and it rains.  We wonder if we should check the weather reports for the next week but we still make dinner under our canopy.

Too Long; Didn't Read

http://lolcat.com/

I am so dumb about stuff that I had to look up what tl;dr means. Funnily enough this is some of what I found...

1. The inability to accept, understand or pay attention to information when not separated by a header. 
2. The ability to arbitrarily read 400 small posts but not a long one. 
3. A sign of ADD or lack of reading capability. 
4. A very cheap response and an indication of lack of wit. 
5. 90% of the time: A lie. 
6. A desperate attempt at a comeback used by people who just can't think of one. 
7. Usually used by people who've been torn apart verbally but want one last attempt at looking witty. 
8. Total failure at #7. 
7. A sign that, not only is someone too lazy and stupid to read but, clearly, too lazy and stupid to even type out four words indicating such.
9. Collect every "tl,dr" post online, and you'll have a good estimate of the number of lazy idiots on Earth, who currently have Internet access. 
10. Should really be: 
"Too Lazy, Don't Read." 
or, 
".....I got nut'n!" 
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl;dr

He'd Do Anything for a Farthing

http://history.icanhascheezburger.com/?s=After+school+Edward

This was so funny to me that I wanted to share it.  I showed it to some friends of mine and one of them said "I actually don't understand this..."   I give up...  I actually don't understand how you don't understand : \ 

The Empathic Civilization

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.  I really enjoyed what this video had to say and hope this becomes an important factor in our future social infra-structure.

Personally I suspect that empathy (and altruism) is a commonly used and genuinely understood phenomena of people already - just not perhaps from the perspective of scientific theory. This 'folk' knowledge however is less likely given officially supported credibility for its capacity in furthering our understanding of 'real truth' in the world, until it seems, a form of science picks it up and runs with it. 

Instead, simple empathy has been a phenomenon more likely embraced in instances that are less publicly recognized, and less economically rewarded. Empathic understanding I suggest has always been a legitimate form of knowledge - it's just a shame it has taken science so long to catch up. 

Man Cannot Live as a Commodity Alone

Someone asked me the other day what advice would I issue that captures the spirit of our times.  The only catch was that I couldn't just speak in parables and be all mysterious and everything.  I'm ok with temporarily suspending my reality - so here was my response...


The 'Spirit of our Times' might be different where you live but for me here now it reeks of profiteering without ethics and Weberian Corporatism. It reeks of a society where the darning mistress only focused on strengthening the social fabric where the individual gets to be economically useful to someone - whether that be as a consumer or as a worker. 

Society leaves people to take personal responsibility for the maintenance of their personal connections without truly providing sustaining, quality backup mechanisms for people to genuinely engage when they most need it.  For the healthy and 'successful', personal responsibility alone, may sound like a fine option if you find yourself able to gorge yourself at the banquet of success. 


Too often however I speak to people who are left with a profound sense of personal loneliness and disconnection when their lives are not going so good. Our social experiment failed as far as I am concerned. The mistress forgot to darn the parts of the fabric that give balance to work and keep us connected to others in times of deep or lasting personal crisis. 

For people to be ok (even when bad things happen)  we need others - in the flesh, besides us. We need people around us who can listen to us with their hearts and talk to us with their brains. We need to have people around we feel we can trust with our vulnerabilities, and our not so socially successful parts of self.


Our society is setup to be economically focused as the social standard, with the catch of deep social isolation during the rough patches. Our families are often broken leaving two adults whose wages now maintain two households instead of one. Our elderly are left in nursing homes because being 'a carer' is not economically viable and people are too busy engaged in their economically useful lives. Blah blah blah... 

This is why men cannot live as a commodity alone.

Photo by Paul Clark https://picasaweb.google.com/paulclark7559