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The problem with being human is that someone managed to lose the instruction manual. It was probably a bad chinglish translation from the original. There are those who would say that the various writings of prophets and other similar folk are our manuals. But given the scale of the cosmos, and that we figure we are fairly sure about 4% of it, a genuinely pragmatic manual would be pretty handy, one that, at a rough guess, would have nothing of us anywhere the centre of anything. In fact that might not be a bad indicator of any would-be manual. In the meantime, i think Douglas Adams' take on our significance, purpose and ultimate destiny is probably as sensible as it is likely to get. Reassuringly, we are third in the smarts pecking order, behind the mice and the dolphins.

Why do things have to have meanings? Why can't they be just things?

We seem to place so much store in the meaning of things. Meaning is assumed to be some essence of which we all have perfect apprehension. What an absurd game. The only thing we have going for us is to be sufficiently awake to ask, "huh?" "what do you mean?" or "what did you say?". The latter two typically evoking a torrent of "explanation" that only adds to the original noise and the only way to stop it is to nod, smile, use whatever acquiescing body language you have to hand and say: "uh huh", "I see" or "really?" The latter being the most honest of the three.

What increasingly amazes me is how far we as a race have progressed with such a noisy, inefficent and downright confusing set of protocols we blithely call communication.

Emotions

We signal how we feel in many ways. Those close to us can usually tell how we are feeling often before the feeling has registered. And if we communicate in a decontextualised way, i.e. email, some of us use emoticons to convey what we could not capture in words. I don't like emoticons. Never have. I figure if you need 'em then maybe we just opt for a little lamp attached to the skull that analyses brain chemical balance and converts that to a word or color to be displayed to the world: fine and sunny, cool change approaching! One can only imagine what such a system would do for male-female communication. He's thinking sex and she's thinking retail therapy. There is probably a good argument about having too much information. And perhaps the mind games we slip into are a necessary part of staying sane, having a laugh and not taking ourselves too seriously.

There is one situation however when some kind of signal or code would be handy. Those days when you are not up or down, not happy or sad, but somewhere in between and it's neither a good or bad thing to be in such a state. These are the days when you are often asked, "How are you?" I am building a store of replies that try to take the enquiry more seriosusly than it was probably intended and also have a bit of fun. Maybe: It's a bit complex, can I draw you a Venn diagram? I have multiple feelings right now and here are my top 10. The non-linear mathematics of my psyche is in one of those irreproducible regions right now. If I was the weather, I'd be cyclonic winds and that is only above the waist. Or perhaps a simple, let me dash off a quick sketch for you.

Readers n writers

Years ago a colleague suggested that the next time I was at ANU that I go to the library and borrow my PhD thesis so it would have at least one entry in the borrowed sheet attached to the inside cover. I resisted the temptation, largely because it struck me as being pretty silly to borrow something you already had a copy of and of which you were roundly sick to death.

It is something of this urge, "hey is anyone listening?" that prompted me to monitor web pages, blogs to get a sense of visitors, repeat folk (assuming a domain name entry flags a kind of uniqueness), one offs etc. So I find myself doing what I opted not to do so many years ago, checking to see who the heck is at least clicking on this page. Whether they read it or not is entirely another matter and what is conveyed to them when they do read it is equally mysterious. One needs a little mystery in one's life.

It is an odd and largely misrepresented statistic about web writing, "the number of hits", but it provides the writer with at least some sense that there are anonymous "clickers" out there whom, for whatever reason, are drawn to do some clicking on one or more of your pages. Actually, given the distribution and readership of many academic journals, I probably enjoy a wider readership here than via "the stuff that really counts".

Signals

I often think it is a miracle that humans manage to communicate at all other than in ways such as fighting, fleeing or mating. There probably are other primal urges but I did not do PU 101. It's not that we don't try to communicate. We are awash with all manner of signals, texts, stuff that is supposed to convey what is in the mind of one human to the mind of another. In most jobs you rarely have time to think about whether the signal you send is likely to hit the mark (whatever that means). But when you combine our capacity for signalling with our deep need to make sense of much of our world then things get pretty interesting.

There are those who are magnificent signallers. This does not necessarily mean that they signal accurately or in a sophisticated manner, rather that they manage to provoke/evoke responses in large numbers of those who pick up the signal. I'm guessing teaching is a bit like that. Good teachers signal in ways that do provoke/evoke and any other oke's you can think of. People speak of great communicators but i figure that is attributing way too much to the signaller. Good signaller I can agree to. But this tricky C word, like the tricky L word (L for learning) is something that does not bear close scrutiny.

So what we do in the face of all of this. We perform communication, act like it is happening. In fact, we have little to no idea what is going on in the minds around us other than our own and even then we might be suspicious of what the so-called conscious lets us listen in on. We are very good though, most of the time, at "reading" other bodies: thier eyes, hands movements, body positioning and so on. Not an exact science by any means but this is stuff that is rehearsed over and over so we respond without the need to process mcuh other than the signal occurred. The fun part always is when we take our little stock of "readings" and apply them to a person we have never met. Well we have to start somewhere! All such fun. I think I prefer the bounce theory I was writing about some time back.

Hints

One of the most puzzling and often annoying aspects of the general problem of human communication is when you are trying to tell someone something and they simply don't want to hear it. The converse is also rather annoying, you are not wanting to tell someone something but they are convinced you are. There is much to be said for plain language, i.e. bugger off, rude message following, or no, I don't want to listen to that sound track and if you play it again I may be physically ill. Which is all the more reason to enjoy, celebrate and be thankful to whatever deities float above (or below) for a partner who is as good at reading you as you hope you are at reading her. And no DBR, it's not THAT kind of relationship where one finishes the other's sentence but more of a kind of a sometimes spooky awareness of the other's mood, well being, happiness, angst or whatever. It's like surfing. You don't think, you just feel it and do it. Like many of the good, silky things in life. It's not a head thing, it is something that lies beyond the grasp of stuttering Western Science. It just is. And, as she is fond of reminding me, if it feels good do it. It does feel good.

Nekkid

There is something about doing away with clothing that has always appealed. Swimming sans garments is a joy as is being able to wander about without a stitch. Conventions and whatever hangups have been dutifully passed down from prior generations dictates that such events occur in privacy. But I keep thinking about apes and orangutangs, the pre-hominids, waking up in the morning and Mother ape saying, now don't you go swinging out there unless you've got clean underwear on. You might be run over by an elephant. Somewhere between there and now, we acquired a bunch of weird mindsets about bodies and their covering. One imagines the titillation industries would be broke if this mighty habituation of the human species were done away with tomorrow. The nude bomb has much to offer I suspect. There is always the view that clothing is also a device to help keep Australia beautiful. More media speak. I think clothing ought to return to its purpose: decoration, comfort, and protection (not from prying eyes but from the stuff that can damage skin or cause the body harm).

Back into water

I swam with Steph for the first time in the new pool in Geelong this early am. The body did not like it one bit. The mind kept telling the body it was good for it and to wait a few days for the endorphins or to enjoy the momentary reduction in adrenaline. Either way, there are days when the body, grudgingly celebrates with the mind and this was one of those days. It was also a day for a 16 yo to give a 59 yo a good towelling in just a routine 3k training swim. I don't mind being towelled by Steph. Good for her ego (I think). There are lots of things one can live without, do without and never mind if it was banned but my contact with swimmable or surfable water ain't one of 'em.

Bouncing balls

There are times in Australian rules when the ball just does not bounce as you want it. Folk talk about having the run of the ball. Life can be a bit like that. Some days it bounces right up into your arms, other days it bounces at right angles away from you, suddenly runs along the ground, sometimes kicks up high and any, all of these movements only serve to make you look pretty silly. Which, when you think of it is probably the meaning of life.

And today, a lovely line from Luciano Pavarotti. He was asked with a preamble about how much he sings about love, "what is love?". His reply, "If I knew what it was, it wouldn't be!'"

Life and love are like that. Hence all the feeble metaphors about what folk think they might be, all the while living metaphors, ways of thinking that bear little resemblance to the announced metaphor.

As I mull, there are lot of terms like that, care, respect, friend, affection, all terms that really should never be measured or defined. Any attempts to do that ends up making you look pretty silly and further removed from simply enjoying the unique pleasures that derive from being human. This is speaking with all the authority of he who once was seal (at least in my dreams).