OK To Be Average

How does one achieve mediocrity? Certainly if you are below par, then you simply need to work harder; do better. This situation is common place: I cant play golf very well but if I practice and practice I can become average. With the exception of Sunday pancakes, I really can't bake, but if my wife and children were able to endure the offence to their palate for a few months, I reckon I could turn out a pretty decent sponge.

All of this seems like common sense; logical; simple even. But lets flip this concept on its head for a minute. What if the aspiration to over-achieve is innate in your persona? Is it reasonable then to aspire to mediocrity?

How different the world would be if the likes of da Vinci and Martin Luther King woke up one morning and decided that today was the day they were not going to do anything other than the bare minimum. Consider this: "I have a dream.....but I cant really be bothered striving to achieve it". Or Leonardo was contemplating manned flight and then, just before he puts pen to paper to design the ornithopter in 1485, he residing himself to the inevitability that someone else is sure to develop the idea at some stage in the next 300 years, so why should he bother.

Where would we be if everyone aspired to be average?

Shooting for the stars everyday is fine, provided that your impact is sufficiently cushioned when you only manage to land in the trees. But shooting for the stars everyday is not OK if you constantly fall on your ass on the cold, hard ground. It is mentally, emotionally and physically draining.

Success brings with it a euphoria that only quenches your desire to achieve more and more. But euphoria does not last: If it did we would become numb to its pleasure. The net result is the rise and fall of your perception of yourself. You forget the highs when your business life is tracking along a level plain: Stable is boring and you desperately search around corners for some new concept to thrust you back into the spotlight.

But maybe you don't need to constantly achieve greatness. If you can teach yourself to 'live in the now' then you can enjoy the spoils of whatever everyday successes surround you.

Order of Priority

There comes a point in our lives where we all "used to be" something. I used to be manic about training. Four to five nights a week I would be jogging or on the 'kick bag' or at the Dojo. I had goals that kept me off the couch. 

When you come home from work, have a beer or wine with your wife, have a meal together as a family and then deal with the mountain of dishes (the size of which oddly is inversely proportional to the complexity of the gastronomic delight just created and consumed prior), it can be very difficult indeed to drag yourself into your trainers and out the door into the wind and rain. But, as I said, I had goals; whether they be fight training or training for grading.

Without goals the commitment to train seems to have slipped through the cracks that appear as a result of the rigors of my daily life. I refer to this as 'life getting in the way'. But is that really such a bad thing? 

No matter how cluttered my garage was there was always a space around the periphery of my kick bag. It was rather like a shrine or deity, always available to me and accepting of me. No matter the mood I was in when I commenced my 3 minute mantras, I always felt rejuvenated after.

But life has closed in around my kick bag and come between it and me. In this instance, 'life' is defined as 

'dance props'. Now my daughter is the one that needs the opportunity to connect with her deity. With competitions only weeks away, my space has given way to hers and my training time has become hers in the commitments I made to build her dance props. Am I OK with that? I think so......for now at least. 

I know my time will come again and the bag and I will be re-united.

The Psychology of Fear

Fear is an immediate and adaptive response to a threat or, at least, a perceived threat. A phobia, however, is the manifestation of that fear that develops way out of proportion to a perceived threat. 

I am keenly interested to find out the origin of fears and phobias. There is much debate on the topic. Some say that a phobia is learned, usually following a traumatic experience. After that any additional experiences, even vicarious ones, or information constantly works to exacerbate the fear to the point where it becomes a phobia. But there are many who profess that phobias are an innate and evolutionary response to stimuli that suggests any potential to harm the individual of any given species. Deep in the brain is housed the amygdala and this is thought to be the central loci for emotion and response. 

The latter explanation has merit but how does one explain the weird and wacky phobias that have been documented in the peer-reviewed literature (i.e. phobias that are really real). Ablutophobia - the fear of washing or bathing? Really?

More common in children or women, it seems much more likely that the origin of this phobia arises from some historical traumatic experience endured by the individual. I can imagine, knowing the effort required to convince my own children to regularly bath, that some less well adjusted and empathic parents may have, on more than one occasion aggressively and/or forcibly 'cleaned' their child and in doing so planted that seed of fear that then sprouts to become a phobia.

Whatever the case this is one conundrum that requires further explanation. Now all I need is a bag full of snakes (of the non-venomous variety) and a creche full of toddlers that have never seen a snake before. Add the two together, stand back and let science run its course. 

My Tribute to the Fauna of the Kimberley

Recently I traveled central Queensland, where the cattle, cane toads, cats, dogs and pigs have stamped their authority on the ecology of our most remote outback locations. Where once life was proliferated en mass by high temperatures, insane humidity and abundant rainfall now there is an eerie silence.

There is stillness among the pandanus-lined creek where historically the grass and leaf litter spoke incessantly of life as it rustled, crackled and crunched under foot of varanids beating a hasty retreat.

There is a solemn loneliness you feel as you drive along the very same roads that you onced shared with basking snakes, dragons and, at night, geckos.

People of this land say that some of the great reptilian fauna, long since decimated by the cane toad, are starting to return. I hope so, because I miss the massive King Brown (below) and Yellow-spotted Monitors like the desert misses the rain.

Value the vibrancy of this footage as reality has most certainly faded to grey.Kimberley Water Python

Top Gun

I wish I could remember the pilot's name. She was only 30 when this footage was taken and she was astounding. Arrest your panic: I speak in the past tense only because the footage was taken a while ago. She could flat turn this Cessna most effortlessly, making it corner like it was on rails. This is no mean feat when the only resistance to it's incredible inertia is just thin air. The flat turn changes the planes direction (yaw) without it having to bank over. It was totally astonishing. I guess I need to explain what we were doing and why.

We were doing aerial bird surveys of the wetlands and floodplains associated with the Ord River. This took in RAMSAR wetlands (the highest conservation category wetlands), estuarine mudflats and the mightly Ord River itself.

The idea is that you fly really, really low over flocks of waterbirds and as they take to the wing you estimate their numbers. Quite a task! Two birdos (ornithologists), one either side of the plane and me up front on the GPS: the ultimate aerial rally navigator.

The footage you will see in the link was of us flying the lower Ord River from the mouth at West Arm Estuary (Wyndham) to Ivanhoe Crossing near Kununurra. Unfortunately you have to endure the first minute or so before you get to truly appreciate this girl's level of skill at the helm of this modest little aircraft. If you can hold out to the end you will get a clear picture of just how low we were flying when you see the wing (which sits atop the fuselage) below the tree-line. Top Gun

Where have all the surfers gone?

There are many things that I know little about: Surfing and sharks are two topics I concede I know absolutely nothing about. Well, almost nothing. I know that wind direction is the second biggest determining factor of whether surf is surfable (sic). Offshore wind blows from the land to the ocean and it sweeps the face of the wave as it forms, creating a clean surface down which a surfer chooses to  plummet to his/her imminent death. Onshore winds blow waves out from the back and make them scrappy and difficult to ride. 

I tried surfing once and found it to be a very unsociable pursuit where your fellow surfers regale in fits of laughter as grommets and skegs (do they still use this term?), alike, flounder in the white-wash. Drop-in on a serious board rider and you are liable to be picking fibre-glass shards out of you cranium for the term of your natural life. Encouragement, development and support are nouns and verbs not common to the vocab of a true surfer.

Sharks? Make no mistake; I am very scared of sharks. How is the irony? I spent three years studying one of the world's most venomous snakes on Carnac Island and the most terrifying part of each day was swimming from the boat to the shore. I felt like shark bait and that 30 m swim felt like the Cottesloe to Rottnest Island Channel Swim. I fear them because they are masters of an environment that feels completely foreign to me: the water. While my head is above the water, below the surface I am certain they are stalking me.

Sharks are phenomenal creatures; the oceans greatest super-predator and, despite my fear, I have massive respect for these animals. No matter how beautiful and inviting Australia's south-west oceans may be, I am more than happy to bare witness to its majesty from the safety of the beach. 

But when I am standing on a viewing platform at Conspicuous Cliff, looking over an absolutely stunning southern ocean, awestruck by the offshore winds kicking up glassy barrels and spraying clouds of mist 30 ft in the air, I am left to wonder only one thing: Where have all the surfers gone? It is school holidays; it is the weekend; the conditions are ideal and there is not a single person in the water. Can you spot one? Where have all the surfers gone?

Has the fear of the Great White finally gotten the better of the iconic Aussie surf gods. If this is so, I am sorry for them: They are losing a part of themselves which is more important to them than any one of their five major senses. However, I am sure that they, like me, also have massive respect for the super predator and concede that the ocean belongs more to them than it does to us. 

Three Little Pigs

I was at Adel's Grove in central Queensland, bang in the center of Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park. I am no stranger to this prehistoric landscape comprised of pandanus-lined waterways and tropical vine thickets and every time I find myself drawn into it I am awestruck. I lose myself following the meandering streams, hoping to find their origin which may be a fissure in a rock or a natural hot spring.

This time it was different. Something was not quite right. Something was missing. Normally I am accustom to pushing my way through thick Savannah grass along the waters edge. Here there was nothing; it was desolate. Worse than that, it had been pulverized to barren wasteland. I am embarrasseed to say that it took some time for me to realise what had done the damage: Feral Pigs. I could hear them tearing strips of bark off trees and breaking branches. It was not long before I could hear them all around me; grunting and recklessly smashing their way through what little undergrowth was left.

What a shame it is that such a stunning environment can be so severely damaged. To see the extent of damage to which I refer, hop on to youtube: More Than Three Little Pigs

Where do you draw the line?

I must be brief as I have work work to do. Work work is the adult version of homework; the work you do when you are not in the office. Alas, I had to get this out there as an example of my very poor sense of humour. Is it that I find the most simple things amusing, or is it that the long lonely road skews one's sense of humour? I am not so sure.

Driving the Gregory Downs Camooweal Road, in far away north-west Queensland, from Isa to Bourketown, is a tough gig for man and machine. I did nearly six hundred kilometres and the vast majority of that was rutted out rocky shale road or bull-dust pitted flood plain. The fine clay powder wisps and clouds around your vehicle like the Smoke Demon (does anyone still watch Game of Thrones?) and tries with vigor to drag you off the road into the nearest tree. 

So when you hit the silky smooth black-top you are somewhat relieved. The sense of calm returns as does the sense of humor so when you see something like this you just have to stop and take a photo. Let's face it, there is that much cow dung in central Queensland that you can't possibly avoid it all.

Travel is an Extreme Sport

Just five days ago I was sitting in my fat-bottom chair by the fire, tapping away on the keyboard, just as I am right now; I was awake a little earlier than perhaps I should have been. I was anxious about the journey that lay ahead of me. 

The catharsis of blogging enables me to relive or better appreciate the opportunities and experiences that come my way through work or leisure. But to experience first requires a journey, as no tangible experiences come to those remain ensconced in the fat-bottom chair.

I walked out the door at 7:30 am with my family who had most kindly volunteered to take me to the airport (on a Sunday morning no less). I boarded the Qantas flight to Brisbane and arrived 5 1/2 hours later. The time there was about 4 pm. I met up with my Client, who has become a very good friend. By 6 pm we were in Mt Isa, in remote central western Queensland. Early the next morning we drove 7 hours to Adel's Grove, in the beautiful Lawn Hill National Park. 

We spent two days on the ground working.

On Wednesday we drove 7 hours to Doomadgee, got on a plane at 4 pm and was in Mount Isa by 5 pm, after which I got on another plane to Brisbane: I arrived at 9:30 pm. I had a 10 hour stop-over in Brisbane which is too long to while away the time in the airport, but too short to bother getting a room. I chose the latter as sleep deprivation was skulking at my door. By 8 am I was on the plane to Perth where I arrived dead on midday. My family were waiting with a change of clothes with which I metamorphosed from Worker Man to Family Man. I then drove for 6 hours to get to Denmark where, now that I have arrived, I plan to go absolutely nowhere. That plan is inevitably doomed to failure as, this morning, we are going hiking in the treetops.

Glamping vs Real Camping

I would like to say that this is how we roll when we go out bush, but that would be a lie. This is what is known as Glamping (5 star camping). Reality is a slight variation on this theme.

I don't believe that may people would give much consideration to the question of how basic can one really go when one goes camping? Well, on a recent trip to the middle of the Goldfields in the middle of Winter we came up with a number of culinary solutions to reduce the need to pack superfluous culinary items.

When camping in the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter who wants to be bent over a small two burner gas cooker trying to cobble together a meal? Nobody does, and this is especially the case when there is a gorgeous log fire burning that can char your T-bone whilst charming your chilly bits.

To cook over an open fire one needs a hot plate of sorts, but who has room to pack a dirty great, fat smeared lump of steel to cook on? Try a shovel instead! It is even self-cleaning: After you dig you next hole it will sparkle like brand new.

What do you do if you want to evolve beyond the neolithic BBQ: Perhaps you want to make a stew. Well, in the goldfields of Western Australia you don't need to look terribly far to find some old culinary items laying to waste in the dirt. We found this enamel baking tray which was ideal for a tuna mornay. It too was self cleaning as the photos suggest.

So this school holidays don't dampen the mood by fighting with your wife/husband about what are the must haves vs. what will actually fit in the family wagon. Take a leaf out of my book and simplify your leisure time by reducing the unnecessary clutter associated with Glamping and go camping instead.