Holidaying

"A change is as good as a holiday"¹.

On that: I've now had a holiday. It was to have been a week, but unexpectedly extended to over two. House sitting, well, more garden sitting. Normal stuff. Water the plants. Try not to kill anything. Easy enough. I mostly succeeded. Some over 40C days and snails did in a few seedlings. Acceptable losses.

Meanwhile, I walked a lot. Checking out the sights:

I like the pictures. They are easy to relate to. Tags ² are harder to appreciate. They are in the same group as Pollock paintings³; some people love them, but to everyone else, it is just unintelligible scribble. I'd rate tags higher than Pollock paintings. Tags I can see mean something. There are letters there to be found like a Magic Eye⁴ puzzle. It's a code, a language, it means something. Pollock paintings just look like scribble. Something a toddler did.

Why is one is called "art" and put on display to sell for millions, while the other is called "graffiti" and costs millions to clean off or paint over? Listen to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast Season 5, Episode 1 Dragon Psychology 101 for some ideas.

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1. Originated in 1825 ↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_graffiti ↩

3. Pollock paintings ↩

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Eye ↩

A Sleep Out

Mostly I don't think about YouTube's recommendation algorithm. Depending on mood, I gleefully or mindlessly scroll and click on it's suggestions. Sometimes it's fustrating for the unwanted options. I curiously watch one video, didn't like it, but now it continually recommends more of the same. Days of my life have passed down rabbit holes. Discovering useful, fascinating, interesting, irrelevant knowledge and trivia. Occasionly it suggestions really hits a spot.

The toolbox fallacy¹ was one such video.

It hit me with a hard truth. I think of myself as a traveller. But, glancing at the past posts archive, the last time I was really travelling was 2015. I can kid myself with some trips after that, but...

A write writes. A traveller travels. I am no longer a traveller.

I tell myself that I have had good reason; medical issues (true), bushfires (true), COVID (mostly true). But, I've also settled into a routine. I've gotten comfortable.

Sounding like excuses, I do need to stay about Sydney for longer. Summer is coming - heat & bushfires, COVID continues, and I have some things plodding along requiring me to remain.

I want to do more travelling. I'm not certain when or if I'll leave.

One thing I can do now, is to use my time better. Get organised. So everything is ready. In that spirit, late one afternoon, I decided to just go for an overnight. Gather my gear together, and go test it. Specially the new stuff that has never been used. With some reluctance, (a storm rolled in), I packed and was out the door into a light shower.

View from the floor

I was very out of practice. A long list of items forgotten. Most hilarious: I had a mug, water, coffee powder, stove, fuel, but no lighter. After I'd returned, the backup fire starter was discovered at the bottom of my wallet.

I've had a few more trips since then. Refining the gear list. Testing, discarding and replacing items. There is still more work to do yet.

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1. Opens in a new window. Video is 7 minutes long. ↩