about me

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator

I am also interested in the nature of mind and practically everything else except football and cricket, whatever they are.

dreams
My earliest vivid dream repeated several times. I recall It to this day. I was in a small one roomed house with wooden walls in a beautiful rural setting with gum trees at the top of a hill and a large picture window in each wall with my mother who, was gradually painting out each window one by one with the exact scene that could be seen through each window and as this happened There was a feeling of admiration of her skill and being puzzled by why she was doing this at the same time realising that what I was being taught about the world was obliterating my view of it. At the end of the dream all the windows were beautifully painted out and I had lost my view of the world outside and now I only had what I had been taught. They were the same pictures but these were not real - they were fake or dead or something like that.

church
Every week on the way to Sunday School I passed another church with its hall where I gradually came to realise they had Sunday school as well. One Sunday when I was 5 I went in. I discovered that I did not have to do anything or say anything much. They had to deal with me. And being uncertain where I had come from and unable to extract a clear answer from me they put me into a Sunday School lesson.

This Sunday School had a quite different feel to it. They seemed more relaxed and friendly and less intelligent. There was a sand tray – a table standing on 4 legs with a huge tray of sand covering it about 6 inches deep – about twice the size of the one at my Sunday School. And there were the wise men, the donkeys, one or more camels, various people and Jesus obvious by his garb and halo. But this Jesus was twice the size of the one at my Sunday School and astonishingly had a different face.... There were different versions of Jesus!! None of the kids or the teachers seemed to notice the weirdness of their Jesus. Cracks started to open up in my world view.

I kind of preferred this Sunday school but knew that this visit was one off – questions were beginning to form in their minds. I walked out when it was over as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

After some casual reflection I came to the conclusion that I did not want anything to do with church or Sunday School. Kneeling in church hurt my knees and listening to the sermons gave me a headache. I had been to Sunday School far too many times and there was nothing new in it for me anymore.

And I had started to see through it. I had seen another Jesus. There were probably hundreds of different ones. The Sunday School teachers were hesitant and emphatic They lacked any real confidence in what they were saying. They were just saying the right things and making stuff up. They didn't actually know. It was flaky and they knew it but were not able to admit it.

smallness
A few months later when I was six I discovered the power of smallness. One Sunday morning I decided not to go to Sunday School and my parents told me in various ways but without any solid reasons that I had to. Beneath their insistent commands I detected a lack of conviction. I tested the water to see what lengths they would go to to get me there. Would they drag me there themselves. I suspected that they would not be up to the public spectacle. I was. I had had enough church. As the minutes dragged on and time was running out they became more and more agitated. And when it seemed that I might possibly be taken there I climbed the walnut tree. I was high in the tree on the slenderest of branches and short of cutting the tree down a big person could not get anywhere near me. I knew it was game over when my father turned the hose on me. I was home clear. I was drenched but Sunday School was just starting and I was not there and I would never have to go again. I came down hours later after the sun had gone down and when anger had turned to anxiety and family won out over church. We had reached an unspoken agreement.

when you grow up
What are are you going to be when you grow up? I was speechless. No idea at all. By the time I was six I had the answer. I was going to be dead. There was certainty here. Everyone does it. This elicited more interesting responses than “no idea”.

What to do in the meantime was not so clear. After a very long time I reached the age when everyone was going to be something. There were still no signs anywhere in my surroundings that hinted at any point to the sensations of existing.

What to do out of so many choices? On closer examination I seemed destined to do whatever my experiences and upbringing predisposed me to choose.

I decided to experience as much as I could and particularly through the eyes of others because the view of one person is so limited. Helping others was pleasant and seemed least likely to turn out to be the wrong course just in case there turned out to be a wrong course so I decided on that too. Maybe something clearer would turn up as things progressed.

knowing
When I was little I was keenly aware of not knowing how everything worked. I loved fixing things. It feels so good when something is functioning smoothly again. I am still astounded when it does.

I lacked confidence in the opinions of adults. They misunderstood some quite basic things and harboured some obviously limiting ideas. I didn't want to wind up in the same boat.

As soon as I could put ideas together I speculated that there were two realities. An absolute reality that was correct (although there was no way of being sure what it was) and personal realities that suited everyday purposes. I am still fascinated by the tropical wilderness of theories, religions and psychoses although I am not so sure now about an absolute reality.

My second year secondary physics teacher (with a Ph.D. in Physics) explained Newton's third law of motion (Colliding objects rebound with forces that are equal in force and opposite in direction). I checked with him if the earth would move ever so slightly and unnoticeably when I jumped up and down on it. He took the common-sense view that it would not. The earth was too heavy to move at all. Here was an exception to Newton's law. To demonstrate this he thumped the wall of our prefabricated wooden classroom very hard. The building shook. For him this was an exception to his exception to Newton's law. I stayed with Newton and expanded my interest in the world views of teachers.

intuitive thinking
My thinking used to be deductive and linear as a child. The result of schooling. Around 17 I began to contemplate the limitations of this and took up chess to change the way I thought. Chess is a logical and analytic game. I used the intuitive approach of just moving the pieces instead of consciously planning the moves.

I played through hundreds of master games from chess books and then played with accomplished players. The games were enjoyable, I didn't lose them all and I learned that I didn't have to prove everything and think through every decision in logically constructed sentences. This was a great relief. I learnt that I could sleep on a problem and wake up in the morning with a more detailed and accurate answer than those I sweated over logically and methodically.

This approach to chess used to have a small dedicated following. I am not sure if it is still used. I haven't played for decades and probably couldn't even if I wanted to.

work
After a year or so fettling, horse-breaking, mustering, fencing and office work I completed a Social Work course. Since then apart from a few months of mining and factory work and over 10 years retailing vintage and antique clothing, accessories and jewellery I have worked as a Social Worker in Adelaide, London and Sydney.

I taught English, Social Studies and remedial English and Maths in a secondary school one year. I can't recall who told me that after 5 years of teaching you became a teacher. A quick look around confirmed this for me and it seemed to hold true for most jobs. Was this reversible? I didn't want to become a teacher or anything else for that matter.

I have spent no more than 5 years in a full time job (I need a break after that) but over the years have probably become a therapist among other things. Limiting - but what's the alternative – we all wind up being something or other eventually.

words
I spend hours researching and own far too many books. I also read manuals.

I was involved in organising one of the network of squats in London back in the 1970s. We had our own childcare, gardens and food co-ops with purchasing power. Our food buyers travelled the world buying bulk grains and pulses from producers by the container. We had the best Pakistani Basmati rice in London at 10 pence a Kilo.

The electrical manual for our squats was 4 double sided A4 pages stapled at the top left corner showing everything necessary to manage house wiring, on the go, without attracting the attention of the angel of death. It looked to be written by someone clear-headed but without the advantage of drafting, legal, publishing or electrical training. Clear and simple line diagrams of hands doing things showed each step.

The diagrams in the official government manual were beautifully and meticulously drafted and almost incomprehensible. There were hundreds of pages mostly repeating the same thing over and over in different ways and from different angles. You could spend a lifetime mastering it.

I came to realise that most books could be refined to a couple of A4 pages without much loss of meaning. Finding the right words and arranging them to minimise the ways they might be misinterpreted.

I am still looking for that one word that says everything. Until then johnbrasted.com aims for simple and effective paths to wellbeing.

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 28. Dec. 2011

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