4 Months

4 months until I can finally be free!!! Can't wait!

S2

Changing moments

I felt compelled to write this before it left my mind. The last four hours of my life were consumed by me completely cleaning out and rearranging my room in the hope that tomorrow I will start fresh and get back into the rhythm of things.

While in the shower I came to the realization that this is not the first, and most certainly wont be the last, time this has occurred. How many times in life do we suddenly realize that we are on a downwards path and suddenly have great thoughts of turning around only for these to die within days, sometimes even hours?

Why does this occur so often and what can be done to stop it? The smallest change can alter our entire lives yet trying to go back is near impossible. Why when we have so much energy for something does it die so rapidly?

At times I wonder what I can do to change this but then I realize I am once again being drawn in to the never ending cycle. I think maybe I am too eager to change the smaller parts of my life. Perhaps I, and perhaps the majority of us, need to compartmentalize our lives into areas that not only make an identifiable difference but are also key to a better quality of life.

S2

Old People

So I have arrived in this country of Arabian designs after an a long, long plane trip. My luck for upgrading for free to business class did not continue following my last international flight. Instead I had a window seat next to a 100 year old arabian women, who spoke no English, except a barely audiable "thankyou", who was so old she was practically incapalbe of any human movement. During the enitre 14 hour flight the only time she moved was to go to the toilet, or eat and in both of these instances she needed help. Just opening the foil wrapped food was a challenge for her, and as such I was required to open all her food and help her eat!

When I attempted to sleep she was prone to random movements which always resulted with her elbowing me in the ribs. No doubt to get me to wake up and help her with her many journeys to the toilet!

When the plane began its final decent I thought my new friend would finally kak it. Her nose started bleeing and she began to cry. Yet, just as in the way she spoke, I could not hear her sobbing. Only watch as the tears, and blood, streamed down her face. For an instant I actually thought I was going to see my first person die. Surly this old women who could hardly feed herself would not last much longer.

It was only at the end of the flight that I saw how she survived in the real world. Her entire family was on the plane. They just could not be bothered helpinig her. This was especially evident when they all got off the plane, leaving her to presumably fend for herself with her two handbags, which she could barely lift. When it came our turn to get off the plane, she got up and I attempted to help her with her bags. Instead she went to another seat, presumably to die. I never saw the old woman again.

As I was disembarking from the plane, the troubles of old people for me did not end. I was welcomed to Abu Dhabi by a wailing old woman, who had fallen over and was struggling to get up. Thankfully some other blokes helped her and I got out of there as quick as possible.

I plan to never get old!

S3

Fitness First - Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Just went to my local fitness first.

Upon arrival I was greeted by the usual pop music blaring along with pictures of smiling faces, chatter, barely any excercise being done and girls with enough make-up on to rival their Saturday night counterparts. As I attempted to block this out of my mind and begin my workout I soon found that there was no chin-up bars in the gym! I searched for 10min but zilch. So I began my workout minus the chinups. As i gradually moved through my exercises I took in my suroundings and noticed that I was probably the only person working out, not only this but but I was greeted with a sense of hostility. Who was this stranger with a, what is that? Crossfit shirt? Infidel? How incredibly vulgar and politically incorrect, he obviously didn't know there was a Nike store sale on the weekend, surely he could have purchased a new dri-fit custom made shirt with air holes for his armpits just in case his heart rate goes above 70. As I tried to ignore the reproachful eyes Of my new gym buddies I moved on to my last exercise, the deadlift.

I begun on the lone Olympic bar, after removing the cobwebs, doing 60kg deadlifts. And people stared at me in amazement! as if I was some kind of Herculean giant, who was this man who could surely move mountains? 60kg! He must be on roids. And as I began to puff, the people around me looked at me quizzically, why they thought, why is this man exerting himself in a gym! Why is he puffing? Why is he actually breaking a sweat? Were is his designer workout clothes along with iPod armband, and why has he not walked around for half an hour greeting people before commencing a light workout without any physical exertion or sign of straining! As I looked around at these poor people I decided to push them over their limit of sensuality. I begun doing front squats. As everyone stopped what they were doing jaws agape I threw in the craziest manevour they had ever seen, I did, a thruster. And I was not prepared for the consequences. For as I did this thruster, one mans head actually exploded.

S1

The Death of Entertaining Story-lines

Soon after watching the fifth installment of Spartacus last night I couldn't help but realize that the only thing I found entertaining was the few moments Spartacus took to behead his seemingly superior opponent, the name of which escapes me at this present juncture.

Have films and television really reached the stage where the story-lines are so predictable that the only entertainment is derived from the mindless scenes of violence and sex? I will use Spartacus as the example for this but I am sure the points to be raised are an overlay for the vast majority of contemporary television series and films.

Is it possible for me to really become immersed in a story where I know that if the main character is killed, in this case Spartacus, then the series will conclude? The people responsible for the development of Spartacus have tried to add suspense in each of the episodes. This suspense is completely lost by the fact that I know, as should all mentally capable people, if Spartacus is killed then there is no more money to be made.

Because of this, all I am drawn to is the scenes involving either brutal conflict to the death or sex; however, even the fight scenes themselves fail to fully engage me because I am already aware of the result.

However, this is not a review of Spartacus. As this post suggests, I believe that the majority of story-lines put forward have lost the ability to entertain the contemporary audience. In an entertainment world where nearly every concept is an alternative expression of an already used theme, I find that the only real entertainment comes through three styles of storytelling.

Firstly, a story which actively engages the mind disallows the viewer to ignore elements of it. For this I would use the recent film Shutter Island. This film does not provide a clear cut storyline. Rather, it provides a myriad of possibilities for its conclusion. In doing so one is not drawn to certain scenes of the film but instead becomes transfixed by the need to discover the underlying story that makes sense of what the viewer is seeing. It is the conclusion of such films that provides us entertainment. After becoming so immersed in discovering the truth, it is this truth which, at the risk of submitting to cliches, sets us free.

Secondly, the brutal nature of a story provides entertainment in that it does not try to hide elements of the story. The recent film 'Harry Brown' is perhaps the greatest demonstration of this. This film is brutal in its portrayal of elements of modern society. It does not try to smooth out the rough edges of its story but rather envelops the viewer in the real world, one which is inescapable. This form of storytelling provides entertainment in that it does not allow one to detach themselves. One cannot find comfort in the softer elements of the storyline, because these do not exist, and in doing so neglect those it finds unappealing. It is this brutal nature of storytelling that clutches an audience and imprisons them in the story; in doing so provides a great deal of entertainment upon reflection.

Finally, the choice must be made between the unrealistic and the realistic nature of the story. Films and television series that attempt to perceive the unrealistic as realistic are destined to provide little entertainment and simply annoy the audience. I would argue that the choice must be towards the latter option provided. Unrealistic stories, while providing some entertainment value in their ability to go beyond the norms, become progressively boring as there is little engagement of the audience. Instead these stories simply seem to throw scenes at the audience and hope that their technical enhancements will wow the audience into submission. Realistic stories on the other hand do not allow such things to take place. The recent mini-series 'The Pacific' demonstrates such, here I must thank S3 for providing an effective resource. This mini-series constantly entertained beyond its action scenes.

Real stories do not conform to the usual conclusion of hero victory and villain loss, with a dash of femme fatale thrown in for good measure. Real stories involve sudden and inexplicable alterations in the storyline and it is this element that entertains. The audience is unable to simply view the film scene by scene because at any point the story could shift and become something different altogether. It is this disassociation from the normal that provides entertainment.

So perhaps for me as a viewer story-lines have not lost all their entertainment value. I guess it is just that I have reached a point where the norms of storytelling no longer engage me and in productions that conform I become easily bored and view the story scene by scene because I am already aware of the ending. So for a production to entertain me it must be one of the following. Fully engage me through providing multiple plausible conclusions, be brutally honest or be a serious and realistic story, most likely derived from the truth.

S2

The Sensual Three - Origins

This blog all started with an email from one of the sensual three to the others. The names of the sensual three shall remain undisclosed indefinitely. If ever one of the names is released then that person has transcended the sensual range of this world and now belongs to a realm that transcends humanities comprehension of the senses.

S1, S2, and S3 is what they will be known as.

The purpose for this blog is to enlighten the world and provide a place for reflection of the life journeys the sensual three undertake in their never ending search for complete sensuality.