My reading has been almost exclusively autobiographies over the last few years. I read about one a week. Recent ones include the true life tales of UFC fighter Ronda Rousey, Aussie actor Magda Szubanski and... I can't quite think back further than that at the moment... (I have become much quicker at discarding information that does not serve an ongoing purpose. Like a juicer: I extract the potent, nourishing and useful nectar and jettison the rest. Sip, sip.) If a book does not keep me interested, I stop reading. Think of each chapter as a station on a train track. Sometimes, even after the reasonably thorough sifting process done at the library (of which one in three books of interest actually gets carried out), I will still get off a train and switch to another about 10% of the time. 

There is not a limitless selection of autobios available, so I really do, sometimes, if nothing new has appeared, have to dig deep into the stacks and consider random possibilities. I am reading one such book at the moment. I can't remember what it is called, in fact, I don't think I even really cared much about the title - because the synopsis and reviews were enough to snag me - but it is about a guy who has spent his life playing computer games and simulations, beginning in the late 70's/ early 80's with the most basic of such games (in a style similar/based on Dungeons and Dragons).

The interesting thing about this guy's story (so far) is that he was only seven when he convinced his father to buy him one - which was aimed at players 16+ (not due to adult content but to do with development levels). When he talks about how his very young mind stumbled into these worlds and tried to make sense of them and navigate through them, it is truly fascinating, in a large part because, his mind is still that young that he is also still trying to assimilate and navigate through the parallel world of 'reality'. 

The games, in these early days, are visually rudimentary, but involve advanced and sometimes complex thought processes and decision making, where actions have consequences. If a then b. They are often about survival in a challenging two dimensional landscape and are about navigating through conceptual terrains while attempting to collect 'life force' to use against increasingly dangerous foes and scenarios.

One of the most mind-blowing things for him was when, after months of play and having achieved double digits in power, he somehow skipped ahead and ran into a troll who was so fierce that he could usurp power from a player, with one violent pummel that would cost 390 points. He could not imagine such a thing. Until he came across it. The concept of even amassing that many points (and all the game time, processes and procedures necessary to do so) for him at that stage were near inconceivable.

So, I'm right into this book! He also talks about the relationship between 2D worlds and 3D worlds - making an interesting and valid point that 2D worlds are often more satisfying because their natural limitations, in fact, allow for much more imagination and interpretation and, as well, can be less distracting. Where I am up to now, he is about ten years old and has found (when not playing a game) a preponderance to wander, through his neighbourhood for example, seeing maps and worlds and possibilities templated over the existing structure and finding that time has disappeared, three, four hours at a hit, without him being aware. 

As life often does, when you find a new interest in something, suddenly, you discover connections and related offshoots all around you. So I find myself his evening watching on YouTube: the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation? Headed by Neil DeGrasse, a panel of five physicists, astrophysicists and philosophers discuss that nature of reality and ask some interesting questions. I am actually just 29mins into the 2hr presentation currently, and actually paused it to write this because my mind was stimulated and I felt the urgent need to say a few things myself (to myself). And to you (reader) as well. But I know nothing of you and cannot with 100% certainty even assume you exist. True, from responses to my past posts, I do know that these pages do get a three or four thousand weekly hits (according to numbers and graphs on my site home screen - which I find it convenient to believe has some basis in reality), so, at least on some level, I can be pretty sure that this will be read. But for the moment -as I compose it - it is just me.

So, what I am doing is attempting to create a simulation of my mind scape, using these words, to convey it firstly to myself, for clarification and amusement - as well as a kind of progression/record - and then secondly to a group of others from my species who will then interpret them for their own amusement, nourishment, awareness expansion and then will extrapolate upon them in their own multiple and limitless ways. Which in itself, is not dissimilar to that kid with his games. This is not technically a game, but in some ways it is. I am doing it for fun. I am making something up. There are set boundaries - it is an artist's journal, a creative's meanderings that has been posted on the internet on Sunday, June 26th, 2016. Did I know where it was going when I began writing? Not really. I had some idea of a theme. So, in a way it is a journey that I am going on. And you are following in my footsteps. You are curious, too. I am curious, interested in, intrigued by the contents of my own mind and how I have processed information from the minds of others - that writer, the panel - and I am putting it into a fresh context and through some original filters and re-presenting it.

How will you process it? I wonder. Will there be some new thoughts sparked inside your consciousness that bring some fresh excitement, new ideas? I'm sure. And so, on and on, we pass concepts to and fro between each other, in an infinite variety. And with the internet, now, it is so much quicker and more powerful. Indeed, within just minutes of my completing this process of my recordings somebody else will likely be absorbing them! No old school time gap between a hand written journal sitting on a desk for months or years, then being edited, assimilated and finally printed/distributed into a shop or library that stores volumes of thoughts collected in 3D tomes for absorption. No, it's now instant. I'm going to click a button and here it is. You have it. (And so on...)

One thing I noticed while watching (listening to - I soon realised there was not much need to be visually attentive and traversed to other tabs with the audio in the background) the panel was how clunky we humans are when we attempt to verbal express things. As well as the distractions of voice, personalities, surroundings, there are so many barriers to expressing the often magnificent complexity of thought that takes part in our minds. Even in the short bit I have seen so far, I can perceive, so much interference and distraction going on and have to sift through for the juicy bits. I do believe that we are actually SO much smarter, more aware and advanced than we are able to actually express. I guess striving to get better at it is part of the fun. And that is why I write stuff like this, here; for fun and stimulation. As well, to connect. We are in it together. This wonderful world, er, simulation, er, whatever you want to call it.

As well as self expression, through images and poetry, as well as notations of the artistic experience, I have been utilising this space as a record keeping venue. Somewhere to express my memory of experiences from my past that had impact and meaning to me.

Over the past decade or so, my reading has become almost exclusively autobiographies and memoirs. I just finished Kim Gordon's book, Girl In A Band. I had no idea who she was before picking up the book but it gave off a good vibe. She is a lucid writer and observer and I found it engaging and enriching. I had never heard a Sonic Youth song before, but once I got half way through the tome, I hit You Tube and checked a few of them out. It enriched my reading experience to have done so.

I think an artist's life informs their creativity and creative output. Of course it does. Der. But what I am saying is that it's not only stuff about art and making things that is interesting. The details and situations, the feeling and experiences of a person, not necessarily ostensibly related to creation are, in and of themselves, equally as nourishing and informative as the artistic stuff. 

If you think about it we are actually all living works of art. Works in progress. What we do, what we choose, how we elect to express our personalities through our behaviour and actions are not only intriguing but they also add up to form a picture of a human's being that can broaden the outlook of and inform, inspire the observer in their own lives. 

That's why I like to read memoirs. At the moments I am reading about a mercenary in Afghanistan. I've been reading the true life account of Shirley Maclean's daughter, snippets of Julia Bishop's personal story, the highs and lows of a mountaineer, a drug loving chef from Newtown, photographer Sally Mann's erudite tome...

These are lives vastly different from my own. But what I love is hearing their voices, reading about their choices and the consequences. Understanding their feelings and motivations in important moments. it is comforting to connect. I acknowledge that they have taken the time to open up - some more than others - and to share what is meaningful and cherished to them. 

Some of my favourite memoirs are the more obscure ones. A guy that grew up in orphanages around Queensland, a woman who fell in love with a Columbian coke dealer, a man wrongfully imprisoned in Lebanon, etc, etc. If it rings true and feels real, it has an impact and value for me.

So, that's possibly one of the main reasons I have chosen to share some of my stories in this blog. Because, frankly, also, if I didn't then there are things that no one would ever know. Huge (to me) life experiences that would be just blow away like leaves in the wind. Of course, there are many, many such experiences that will never be revealed - ones that I choose not to share for whatever reasons as well as ones that simply do not come to the forefront of my consciousness when I am in the writing mood. 

If you really think about it, probably 90% of our internal lives - including the stories we make up about our real life experiences and the meaning we give to them - are never to be uncovered, never reach the surface. They make up the smouldering flame of our deepest, truest selves. They give warmth and flavour to our personalities, they mould our characters.

I remember when I was younger, more social, my friends and I would share our stories. Tell of what formed us. Certainly, my closest girlfriends from over the years have heard some of the most poignant, shocking, elucidating true life tales from my childhood till my 50th. After that, I have gone solo. My new girlfriend is my blog. 

Maybe not. There's no cuddling or sex. But my blog has become my confidante. 

Don't I worry about these things being read by people I know, people I don't know? (Which is better/worse? Hmm...)

No, I don't. We are all the same. My story becomes yours and yours becomes mine. There is no shame in being a human. We do what we can. We do what we must. 

And sometimes, some of us get to share the juicy bits. Like a repast. A delicious meal. Served up and ready to devour. The best food comes from real ingredients cooked by a chef with the right intentions. One who wants to share, one who wants to brings joy, knowledge, passion to anyone who cares to listen/read.

And this blog sometimes serves as my humbe kitchen. My life experiences the raw food. My words the oil and spices.

Feast.

For me reading is an integral part of my existence. I find the actual process of reading - rushing across letter, bouncing from word to word, sucking them in with your eyes, letting them swirl around in your brain and amplify into meaningful sentences, paragraphs... concepts. Munching on delicious combinations of adjectives and nouns, inventive, rhythmic phrase clusters that titillate and delight the cerebral neurons like cheeky pixies.

I began really loving reading around the age of ten or eleven - comics were a big part of it, of course, but also magazines like Time and Newsweek and books. The Hardy Boys series was a huge favourite. Those cliffhanger chapter endings! My love for books really kicked into high gear around the age of fourteen when I started reading adult fiction in paperback form. I would buy them second hand from a local second hand bookshop in Tokyo. The shop was filled with Japanese books, of course, but there were about three or four shelves of titles in English. I chose very carefully. To buy a book and not be able to read it, legitimately enjoy it was something I only did once or twice. I hated to think of the title I had missed or excluded that would have perhaps opened a new world. So, I ended up spending one, two hours in the shop sometimes, before deciding on my purchase. As a discipline, and because I wasn't very cashed up, just one at a time. Unless there were two amazing ones, guarenteed reads that I didn't want to miss out on.

It was a thrill to be able to read 'adult' fiction - whatever I wanted from a young age. It helped me mature, formulate my world view, learn things about the world and it's inhabitants. Authors like John Fowles, Alistar Mclean, Woody Allen and on, that guy who wrote The Joy of Sex, all contributed to my development. 

I was known around school for always having at least one, if not two, paperbacks in my blazer side pockets. The commute to and from school was close to an hour - three train lines, two switches - which was two hours a day of extra reading time, thanks very much. There's no question I learnt more from reading books of my own selection than I did from set scholastic studies. It's possible, likely even, that my respect for and love of writing stemmed from my reading passion.

It's a habit that continues today. I always have one book on the go that I will read from cover to cover over a week or two period. Then there are the 'circlers', two or three that I pop in and out of. As well, there are the 'chancers'; ones that deserve a chance - a chapter, 20 pages - if they keep my interested I keep going with them. 

These day fiction writing mostly doesn't cut it for me. I visit the library several times a week - generally gravitating towards the art books, of course, but then the auto biographies. Mountain climbers, creatives, criminals, soldiers, inventors... a good yarn told in the first person - particularly one that is honest and illuminating - is satisfying and often inspiring in some way, insight into the headspace of a person who has done something extraordinary.

So, yeah, to me books are beautiful things. Powerful, mysterious, full of promise - teachers of the best kind; they lay it out there for you to discover for yourself. No pushing. No hard sell. A simple invitation... come along for a few steps... if you are compelled to continue, well, let's take the journey together. At completion you will be a slightly different person. You will have evolved.