New Year's Resolution

As a general rule I don't make resolutions each January. In fact, I don't think I've every made one before in my life. However, this year I'm at least setting myself a goal, or a project. Since I frequently catch myself spending prolonged periods of time playing games on my iPhone and reading - consuming - and often feel that I am not creating very much, I'm going to attempt a creative 365 project. That is to say, one creation per day, everyday, for 2011. A this stage I'm thinking that this will either take the form of a photo or a poem (at least a haiku) per day. I'll upload them piecemeal as I get time.

(Incidentally, if you want to see some really good photographic 365 projects, head over to Flickr and search for 365. You will find some people with real talent and, equally impressive, commitment.)

So here are two haiku (because I am too lazy to start with anything harder). I suspect that there is something rather wanky about taking haiku seriously. On the upside, only one of these can really be accused of that.

01/01/11
This specific pain,

for to us a child is born:

sleep deprivation.

02/01/11

Quiet hours of night:

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

and a glass of scotch.

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Trashy Serialised Fiction Part II

Part Two. More dialogue and exposition. Sorry.

Malory found walking through Ferris Wheel an unsettling experience, not matter how many times he came here. The restrictions were a big part of that – scavengers were only allowed to be in the city in groups of four, and certain of the heavier weapons had to be checked at the gate – as was the presence of other scavengers. Within a couple of minutes of getting through the walls, Malory had locked eyes with a familiar face. Eyes creased with wry amusement had stared at him from across the street, and after a moment he had placed the weathered skin and prematurely grey hair. They belonged to a member of another scavenger gang who, three days ago, had tried to shoot Malory through the face as they squared off over a valuable piece of electronics. A burst of covering fire from Hugo, who always had to lean into the recoil from his monstrous and heavily modified gun, had sent the man ducking away before he could work out his aim. Malory felt no rancor toward him now, and in any case, fighting between scavengers in Ferris Wheel was punishable by immediate death for all involved. But the sense of unease remained. In my old life, he thought, if someone was trying to kill you, you killed them back, whenever you got the chance. The dissonance contributed further to the prickling in the centre of his back whenever he came in here. Haven had different rules to the rest of the world, and he had been learning them since he and his men had arrived.

And, he thought, trying to ignore the looks that the locals gave him, the rules are different in every city within Haven itself. Ferris Wheel was quieter than Tumblehome, because the city authority was more brutal. Trading was protected in Hooch, but also less profitable, because of the taxes levied. The cities were ruled according to the ideas of whoever was in charge. There was no uniformity. There were also no instructions, and you learnt by observation.

Haven's cities tended to be built on top of old towns. The large cities that had once dotted the country were gone, slagged in the barrages during the purge. It would have been impossible to have eked out a living among the rubble and the solidified molten remains of skyscrapers, and it seemed that those who had survived had no desire to go back to them anyway. They were not a happy memory to be sharing. Instead, the people had gathered in whatever towns had been small enough to avoid the attention of the outside military, and started again. They had swept away the detritus once the ground troops left, picked up the walls that had fallen, and worked from there. Back in Falael, when he had a normal life, Malory would have called Ferris Wheel a slum. Now it didn't look so bad, and he could see order in the improvised dwellings. He could even see pride: a tapestry hung in a window here, a painting done on the wall in the four available colours over there, said that this was a place people made their lives, as well as their livings.

'Captain,' murmured Kipling, and Malory glanced back at him. The squad's sharp-shooter nodded at the far side of the street. 'Someone's taking an interest in us.' Malory looked, and spotted the man, apparently not armed, who leaned against the wall of a two storey building with a tin roof. He was staring at the four troops with lasting interest, and not just the usual irritable curiosity that characterised the people of Ferris Wheel. Malory hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.

'Browning, with me. Kipling, wait here and keep an eye on us. Dumas, stay with him.' The two men nodded, Kipling's hand straying to the butt of his rifle for just an instant before he relaxed again. Malory crossed the street slowly, Browning by his side, straight toward the man, who still stared at him levelly, arms crossed. Malory still couldn't see a weapon.

'See any friends?' he asked Browning, quietly.

'Nope,' Browning replied. He had been looking up and down the street since Kipling had first spoken, his eyes never resting in one place. He did not seem concerned, and knowing Browning, he probably wasn't very. 'If he's with anyone, they're not being obvious about it.'

Malory grunted in response, and then they were standing in front of the man. He stood up two steps up on an elevated porch, and Malory and Browning stopped in the gutter.

'Help you?' Malory asked, looking up at him, and the man's mouth twitched a small smile.

'Maybe. New in Haven?'

'Not really,' Malory said.

'People don't usually keep their uniforms long,' the man said, nodding at Malory's blue fatigues.

'People don't usually live long,' Malory said, shrugging. 'So it would be hard to know.' He began to turn away.

'Heard you might be interested in a new rifle, Captain,' the man said, and Malory paused. 'Like an Arrow maybe? I'm Jonah,' he said, without a pause. Malory turned back.

'My rifle's fine, and Arrows are expensive. Always looking for ammo though.'

'Not for you. For him.' The man called Jonah nodded over Malory's head at where Kipling was standing, watching them without moving. Malory sensed Browning tense.

'Well, Jonah,' Malory said after a pause, 'you certainly seem to know a lot. I might wonder how.'

Jonah laughed. 'Please. A dark-skinned scavenger, in UF uniform, says a name like Breach-Arrow in a town like Catchment, word gets around. New arrivals, military trained, maybe cashed up? Your reputation goes out around you. And you don't exactly make yourselves hard to spot, do you?'

'I suppose not,' Malory replied, without laughing. He relaxed a little though.

'So, are they right? Are you interested?'

'We'll take a look, but we're not exactly cashed up. Sorry if that disappoints you.'

Jonah pushed himself upright, and took the two steps down into the street, looking Malory in the face.

'Figured. This ain't exactly the kind of Arrow you'd be used to seeing either. Hopefully that won't disappoint you.'

Malory shrugged. 'Not me.' He turned and beckoned Kipling over. 'Him.'

Kipling started across the street, and after a quick look left and right, Dumas followed him. 'Sir?'

Malory allowed himself a small smile.

'This is Jonah,' he said. 'He wants to talk to you about a Breach-Arrow.' He saw Kipling's eyes widen momentarily. 'Try not to look too hungry.'

'Yes sir,' the sniper said, quickly regaining control. Malory wondered what this was going to cost.

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Trashy Serialised Fiction

Doing a spot of fiction writing. Haven't done any of that for a while, so I may be quite shit. Assuming that a couple of conditions are met (I remain motivated, and people don't seem to utterly hate this) I may try to continue this story here at Room in Nations (the blog that FB is stealing this from, if you're reading it on the big blue monster). It's largely unedited at this point: you've been warned.

Dante walked slowly over to where his captain was sitting, his back to the lit camp, staring out into the darkness. Malory had placed himself in the shadow of a fallen slab of concrete, and he was leaning against a low heap of rubble. It broke up his silhouette for anyone approaching. That was unlikely enough, this far back, but still.
'Mind if I join you, sir?'
Malory reached down and lifted the rifle that had been lying next to him, propped on a smaller chunk of rocky cement, making space.
'Have a seat, Virge.'
Dante lowered himself down, reflexively picking a spot, like Malory, where his outline would be indistinct. He adjusted his belt to move his various pouches of tools and ammo, then settled his weight. He looked out into the night, at the grey shapes of broken civilisation that blurred and faded into absolute darkness. There was single light shining dimly, a long way off, which might have been a fire. A camp, some part of his mind thought, or perhaps just a guttering flame in a burnt out building. An accident, or mindless arson.
'It really is a fucking wasteland, isn't it?'
Dante grunted agreement. He recognised the captain's mood for what it was, heard it in his tone. He felt the same way some days, especially when it was cold, and his chest bothered him the most. Nights like tonight weren't too bad.
'I feel like I should be grateful for it, sometimes,' Malory went on, a little above a murmur. 'It saved us after all.' Dante didn't reply, and after a pause the other man finished, 'But I hate it, too.'
Dante thought for a moment, then nodded in the gloom. 'Me too.'
Malory laughed, and though it was only a low chuckle, it wasn't completely without humour.
'Christ, Virge, whatever happened to military discipline? Since when do sergeants listen to their captains bitching?'
Dante smiled. 'Since when do they get told to call them Tom?'
'Huh,' Malory grunted, a final laugh before Dante sensed the amusement gradually leaving him, his shoulders slumping slightly again. 'Huh,' he said again, thoughtfully. Dante knew he was thinking about that issue, that military discipline, and what to do with it now. 'It's only going to take us so far,' said Malory, as though reading his friend's mind. 'Our context has changed a lot, and we need a new balance. I'm worried about Conrad.'
Dante didn't answer, but he was worried about the young man from Mallen, as well. There was an insolence there that was becoming more and more noticeable, less and less repressed. Something was sticking into Dante's back, and he shifted slightly, almost unconsciously. He seldom missed his mattress now, but rubble was still a bit uncompromising. 'I don't know how far there is to go out here anyway,' he said, after a pause.
Malory turned his head to look sidelong at the sergeant.
'Well, do you want to die here?'
Dante thought for a second, then smiled.
'No, I don't. You?' he countered.
Malory sat silent for some time, looking, unseeing, into the night. Finally he stirred.
'No,' he said. 'I don't want to die here.'
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Which Doctor?

I was out at the shops yesterday, with my lovely wife and daughter. We paused for coffee - or at least, I had a coffee; Stacie went with hot-chocolate, and we heartlessly confined our offspring to water - and then had a few other things to do. Scooping up little Charlie, I leaned over to put her in the stroller, twisting slightly to get around the table as I did so. I was at that point that I felt a sensation in my back that could best be described as Ping.

As anyone who has experienced it knows, that Ping is a truly unique sensation. It needs no further explanation to the initiated; the innocent are better off not knowing. But I suppose, for the morbidly curious, it felt a little like when you grip the base of your fingers and squeeze them together, so your knuckles jump over each other. Only in my back. And agonisingly painful.

Mark Twain once said that 'The world is a book, and those that do not travel read only one page.' This pain had aspirations of reading as much of the book of Chris as possible. Its fury spread across my back of course, but intensified with every breath: as a consequence, I found myself involuntarily tensing the muscles in my stomach and chest, trying to limit their movement. Unfortunately, this not only hurt even more, it also began deprive me of a certain amount of oxygen. Which also hurt.

I have hurt myself in the past in similar ways, though seldom as severely. Always I have been told, 'make sure you see a physio.' Having the planning disability known as 'being a man', by the time I ever thought seriously about it, the pain had gone away on its own. Yesterday, however, was different. By which I mean, my wife rang the physiotherapist around the corner and made an appointment for me.

I have never before spoken to a physiotherapist - at least, not in a professional capacity. I have a friend who graduated from Physiotherapy a few years ago. Stacie and I were invited to have dinner with her and her husband a couple of weeks ago, along with some other friends. In the warm after-glow of an excellent meal (both of our hosts are very capable cooks, and they had made dinner between them, a dish each, carefully assigned separate ends of the kitchen as their work spaces, since they are both what you might call 'alpha-chefs) we sat talking over coffee and scotch. Relatively recently graduated from Social Work, I laughingly complained that I sometimes feel like a child, pretending I know how to do my job; my friend the physio agreed. (I felt an even greater deal of sympathy for her than I might otherwise; I work in a high-school, so though my coworkers are older than me, as a rule, my clients are younger. She, on the other-hand, works principally with those over the age of 60.)

However, with no sort of warm glow whatsoever today (unless you count the Deep Heat cream) I made my way to the physiotherapist. I was greeted by an even-more-recently graduated young woman (in the course of our conversation, her side even and considered, my side jerkily put forward between stabs of pain, she told me that she completed her studies at the end of last year) who assessed my back and sides before going to work.

Generally speaking, I believe that I have a reasonable immune system. However, I have made my share of trips to the doctor over the years, and I have noticed this one thing: when you walk out of a doctor's surgery, if you feel any different than when you walked in, it is normally because your level of physical discomfort has increased. Doctors poke you and prod you, put cold things on you, stick things into you and are generally fairly merciless in their quest to make you well. I find that they help, in the long term, and I get better. However, this takes time, and I cannot remember having ever walked out of a doctor's surgery feeling 'cured'. Today was something of a revelation, because when I left, it didn't hurt anymore.

Oh, certainly, by twisting a particular way, bending too far, I could still find the pain - that is, if I tried to hurt myself I could do so, easily. But the majority of the pain was gone.

I have not the slightest idea how this is possible, and I now find myself with a mystical respect for physiotherapists; I feel about Rebecca (my hero) the way I imagine a primitive tribesman must have felt about his witch doctor. I don't understand, but I do not care. I am only grateful!
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Something a Little Different

Well, as I am chronically sparse in my updates of this blog, I thought I would try something a bit different with it. (If you're reading this on Facebook, and thinking 'What blog?' hit www.room-in-nations.blogspot.com to see the original work that FB pinches without sourcing!) Since I also take photographs (rather more often than I write opinionated opinion-pieces) I figured I would post some of the more arty ones here, with a quick discussion. You know, since I'm being self-indulgent anyway, even having a blog! Hit 'Read More' to see the first upload. Be warned though, it's a photo of me without a shirt on, so you may want to give it a skip!




This photo is titled 'Flash', both for technical and terrible, pun-related reasons. It was taken in my kitchen with a single off-camera speedlight to camera left, dialed down two stops. Exposure details are F5.6, 1/80th sec, ISO1600. Also, too much skin (again with the terrible puns).

I was trying to contrast the cold flash light with the warmth of the light coming from the next room, and hoped that my pose and that contrast would create a kind of isolation and disconnection, coupled with the vulnerability of taking your shirt off in public.

So anyway. First photo. There will be more, in theory, though hopefully they will usually involve less of me.
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An Argument in Favour of Compassion

My job, ideally, should not exist. People should care for one another instinctively, should be generous to one another, should supply for each other’s needs, and there should be no need to pay people to care. People relate to people. They do not relate to systems, and they do not relate to titles or job descriptions. The reality is, though, that people get forgotten, and other people have to be paid to care. That leads to the development of systems; with the systems come codes of ethics, which demand that people be empowered to solve their own problems, and not forge friendships with workers.

The Australian Association of Social Workers released a code of ethics in 1999, most recently updated in 2004. In Section 4, it states:

“Recognising that conflicts of interest can arise from engaging in dual or multiple relationships with clients… social workers will set and enforce explicit, appropriate professional boundaries to minimize the risk of conflict, exploitation or harm.” (AASW Code of Ethics, 4.1.4.g)

For those who don’t speak AASW jargon, a ‘dual relationship’ is one in which a person fills more than one role – in this instance, for example, trying to be someone’s social worker and their friend at the same. Dual relationships are considered to be problematic. Indeed they very often are. To use another piece of jargon, the existence of a worker-client relationship creates a ‘power differential’ between the two people; that is, there is a significant difference in the levels of power held by each party in the relationship. This is only logical, when you think about it: the client comes to the worker to receive assistance with problems that they are not able to solve themselves. While social work is heavily based on helping a client to identify and employ their own solutions to problems, rather than taking control of the situation and ‘fixing things’, there is still a difference of power that exists, almost unavoidably. Add to this the fact that many social workers are wielders of governmental and legal power, often for the purpose of compelling a client to attend a program or therapy session, and the difference in power held by each person can become substantial.

A ‘power differential’ is not something that is necessarily problematic within the social work context itself, though it can inhibit useful work. However, when social relationships are founded on interactions in which all (or most) of the power lies with one person, problems very often occur. The possibility for abuse, manipulation and control or, on the other hand, interpersonal dependency, is very real. It’s for that reason that the mantra has developed in the field, “I’m your worker, not your friend.” That’s why workers don’t (or shouldn’t, and usually don’t) go on non-work visits with clients, or more recently, accept invitations to be friends on social networking sites.

None of this means that social workers don’t genuinely care about their clients. For my own mental health, and for the sake of my family, I try not to bring my work home, on paper or in my head. Having said that, I have had, and I continue to have, clients who haunt me after hours (fortunately only in that I think of them: I’ve never looked out my kitchen window and seen one in my yard yet…). I know, from speaking to my colleagues, that most, if not all, of them, have had the same experience. None of us can explain what makes one client’s story more touching or tragic than another. Abuse, loss and pain are there everyday, under the surface, even if not directly visible. Sometimes though, it walks with you when you leave the building at the end of the day. A young person who will sleep on the streets because they have no home preys on your thoughts as you sit in your heated car; a single mother, going hungry because there’s rent to be paid, comes to mind as you begin dinner. Social workers care deeply about their clients; when they stop caring, it’s time to find another job.

But we continue to draw up those professional boundaries, for those good reasons: I’m your worker, not your friend.

Last year I attended a case-conference for a client who was in foster care. I’ll call her Kelly, though obviously that’s not her real name. The reasons why Kelly was in care are not relevant right now, but it’s enough to know that her mother couldn’t look after her; she didn’t have enough personal strength to make the changes necessary to keep Kelly when she was a baby. Kelly had no idea who her father was.

For the first few years of her life, Kelly was in a long-term foster placement, but eventually her behaviour became too problematic, and her carers were no longer willing to keep her. She was moved to another long term placement. Again, she stayed until her behaviour became too problematic, and then she had to go. At the time of the conference, she lived in what is known as ‘Transitional Accommodation’. To get through another piece of jargon, that means that she lived in a house with about five or six other young people, and was looked after by multiple carers, on a rotating roster. There are no fulltime carers in the TA houses – regulars, but no one who lives there.

Shortly before that conference, Kelly began to get close to one of the carers, and told her more details about her life and her mental health than she had told anyone previously. However, she also began to self-harm, and the worker began to feel under pressure, as she was the only real contact that Kelly had. The worker’s supervisor responded in keeping with the AASW Code of Ethics, and suggested that the worker be reassigned to another house, for her own safety and mental wellbeing. Kelly seemed to be trying to form a friendship with a worker, which had the potential for trouble.

Kelly was 13 years old – just about the age of starting high school. Remember being that age. You would have been developing into a teenager, certainly, but in most ways, you were still a child. Your experiences would have been quite limited, unless you had an unusually informative upbringing. That was Kelly’s stage of life.

Kelly’s mother couldn’t or wouldn’t, or a combination of both, make the changes necessary to keep her child. Her two long term placements ended with her being told ‘you are too big a problem to stay, so you have to go.’ Her living arrangements when I met her left her with no family, and no stable living companions outside of another few kids, all with similar problems. And as soon as she began to forge a new relationship with a positive adult, that adult was to be taken away.

At the age of 13, Kelly was told that she has to solve her own problems, and though people would support her in that, they would only be paid professionals. She cannot form friendships with them. They cannot love her.

Across the entirety of this planet, there is not a single person who will stand in front of this 13 year old child, and say ‘I love you, and I am here for you, no matter what.’ Not one. She is 13, and she is alone.
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A Public Service

There are certain things in life which spawn disproportionate amounts of debate. I'm not talking about major issues which people discuss at length – spiritual, ethical, political or other. These spawn about the amount of debate you would expect, because they're beefy subjects. I mean little things, things that don't really matter, but which people seem to pour nearly endless amounts of time and energy into discussing. There are of course the obvious examples – 'Who would win out of a fight between a Star Destroyer and the Enterprise?', for instance – but I'm frequently caught out by some of the ridiculous things people get wound up about. I saw a group on Facebook the other day (indeed I received, and ignored, an invitation to join it) entitled 'Give Australia an R18+ Classification for Games!' I particularly like the exclamation point.

While I have some interest in issues of censorship – I wrote to Communications Minister Steven Conroy to state my opinion against the national broadband filter – I find this particular group a little on the self-important side. For instance, one poster informs the group of the following piece of apocalyptic terror:

“This group (myself included) has been sedentary for too long. Now we have something to galvanise us into action... Left 4 Dead 2 has been refused classification... this is a BIG DEAL. Bigger than Dark Sector and Fallout 3. I'll be following this one very closely.”

Surely, nothing is bigger than Fallout 3.

Admittedly there is a good deal of irony in writing about self-importance in a blog post, of all things. But I have good news: I am not going to spend this post railing about people's priorities and selfishness. I have a different intent in mind: public service.

I would like to attempt to shed some light on a topic, also Facebook related, that, though seemingly even more insignificant and futile than the classification of Dark Sector, nonetheless galvanises at least as many people into action, or at least into a restless bickering that has often turned the air of a room or car the colour of red whine. The issue that has resulted in so many calls for a wah-mbulance in the last couple of years? Facebook friends lists.

If you're a facebook user there's a good chance you're nodding in recognition. Most of us have heard some sort of complaint from someone about friends lists. Whether a whinge about people who 'collect' friends, or a lament from someone that they have been 'culled' from another person's list (usually discovered by accident, since the monster that will allow you to post almost any opinion, and read others' opinions about you, is nonetheless tactful enough not to tell you when you are deliberately removed from someone else's list), it's a common enough refrain that most people have heard it. So here is my service: a brief outline of the three main approaches to Facebook friend-making.

Approach Number 1: Friend Collection
This was something that was almost a hobby earlier in Facebook's life, when you could even add applications that would keep track of your friend count and advertise how many people were 'rolling in your crew'. (Try not to laugh at the image of a bunch of white folks sitting at home, slack-jawed faces bathed in white light from their monitors, reading a commercial app that told them how many people rolled in their crew). It's sort of like a popularity contest, but even more artificial and shallow – a gathering which is a mix of genuine friends, passing acquaintances, and a few high-school nerds who were puzzled to receive a friend request from 'that guy', but who accepted because they were too polite (or afraid) to be so rude as to hit Ignore. This meaningless collection of names forms a number (always at least three digits, or you wouldn't be playing) which, presumably, makes the collector feel good about themselves.

Approach Number 2: Friend Connection
This is something which seemed to appear as a reaction to Friend Collection. People began to mercilessly limit their friends-lists to people who they actually count as friends. The popular line is 'I'm not friends with anyone on Facebook who I wouldn't talk to in real life'. The people who follow this belief system are quick with the Ignore button when friend-requests come in from people they don't know or don't like. They also occasional perform a sort of pruning exercise, going through their friends list and removing people from it who shouldn't be there, people who somehow slipped through the net on the initial request, catching the pruner on a generous day, or people who used to be close to the pruner, and have drifted away. People who follow this discipline appear to feel that they are adhering to a purer form of Facebook use, a sort of asceticism, where the brevity of the list and the tightness of the number on their profile page becomes the most important thing, and indicator of their integrity, and a way of setting themselves apart from the collectors.

Approach Number 3: The Glorified Address Book
I know it doesn't rhyme with the other two approaches, and I'm sorry about that. But this is the third approach, and it seems to rest on the philosophy of 'Who cares?'. People who use Facebook in this way are happy to accept a friend request from fairly well anyone, as long as they are fairly sure they can remember where they know the person from. They know that they're being collected or snooped on from time to time, but they're too apathetic to care. People in this group can superficially resemble collectors, because their friends lists can be quite long, but there is a strong chance they don't really know who is in their list, or that they just assume nearly everyone is, because they generally say yes to anyone. There is a certain practicality to this promiscuity, because it makes it easy to get in touch with anyone, anytime; at the same time, these are the people most likely to grow frustrated by knowing so much about so many people they don't really care about but do nothing about it, because it's too much trouble.

I hope that I have defined the argument clearly, for two reasons. Firstly, altruistically, I just like to help. If you've been sitting at home, perhaps curled in a corner, rocking back and forth, wondering what model of friend-interaction you should adopt in your Facebook-keeping, worry no longer. Simply read the descriptions above, and make a selection. If you choose Approach 2, I look forward to being purged from your friends list any day now.

Secondly, and less altruistically (as well as unrealistically), I hope that I have clarified this to a point that is at least close to finality. This is not simply for the fame and publishing offers that will no doubt flow in as a result of my achievement. My motivation is a simpler thing, a thing of fields and farms, milking cows and chewing strands of wheat: basically, I never want to hear another argument about the subject again.

Shameless self-promotion: to read more head to www.room-in-nations.blogspot.com
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