The End of Neurosis

During days of quiet reflection at the Shed, one of the most powerful insights that comes back to me time and again is that you can never change other people.  They will stay crazy right up until they decide to change all by themselves.

Oh, sorry, did I use a non-PC word there?  Crazy?  You are correct: therapists strongly dislike the word "crazy."  It makes it sound like any fool can become a therapist without years of medical, scientific and psychiatric study and training.  Now, that actually is the situation, but they still don't like it to be generally known.  That is why they prefer to call crazy people by a another name that makes it sound as though they knew something meaningful about it:

Borderline Personality Disorder

Therapists also do not like to work with crazy - uh, I mean individuals exhibiting Borderline Personality Disorder, because they know that there is nothing they can do to "cure" them.  Because you can't change other people; people can only change themselves when they decide to.

Stop Whining about the noise and sparks,
and let Angle Grinder Man cut your chains off.

And crazy people (just get over it, ok?  It takes less time to write and amounts to the same thing) never, ever change because part of being crazy is that they are utterly convinced that they are not the ones with the problem.

I don't have to define crazy (or BPD) because you know it when you see it.  Everyone knows someone with wild swings of emotion, likely to bite the head off of anyone at the slightest whiff of what they believe to be an attack on their self image, or people that get mad at you and sulk for weeks over something you don't remember doing or saying.  We label them drama queens, rage-a-holics,  people with issues, narcissistic, co-dependent and so forth.  But really, they're just plain-old straight-up Crazy.

(I'd like you to immediately, right now, buy and read this book: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.  Do it now.)

The most important thing you can do now to ensure that your life is not infected with crazy is to stop hanging around crazy people.  You'll be glad you took this step, and the sooner, the better.  (I know a good divorce attorney if you need one.)

The next step is to swallow the bitter pill and look in the mirror.  How does a person who consciously chooses to no longer be crazy actually make the change?  Perhaps you're not full-on bat-shit crazy, but just, say, a little on the neurotic side.  Maybe there's just a touch of some social phobia, anxiety, anger, brooding over past bullying or trauma, or a wee bout of addictive tendency.  If that's the case, then you're actually pretty normal.  Therapists love people like you!

Crazy people never question for a moment the existence or meaning of their emotions.  They have intense emotions set to explode on a hair-trigger.  Ordinary neurotics have less intense emotions that underpin their various behaviors, and the trigger isn't as sensitive, but in principle, it's all one of a muchness.

The whole thing, the entire spectrum of human irrationality, suffering, self-sabotage and discontent, hangs on just one thing.

The one thing that allows all of this stuff to exist is your unquestioning belief in and unwavering devotion to the illusion of consciousness.

Break that illusion, that spell, that waking, life-long trance of the mind, and all forms of neurosis vanish like smoke.  If you can crack that facade even just a little, you can begin to do things that make an enormous difference to your happiness, success, suitability as a marriage partner, sense of fulfillment in life and rankings on Google.

For example, you can begin to understand that emotions are not actually real.  This admits the possibility of questioning your emotions.  As the observer of the mind, whenever you discover an emotion forming within you, always ask this question:

"What would a person have to believe in order to actually choose this emotion?"

You can also begin to question the validity of your experiences and the people that inhabit them.  Your mind, based on what it senses and what it unconsciously believes and assumes, pieces together the objective world around you and the people within it and projects a simulation of this onto your consciousness.  That is in fact the only possible way for a conscious being to experience anything at all.  While there most definitely is an underlying objective reality outside you, you only ever experience a subjective, carefully-filtered and not-100%-accurate simulation of that reality.  That is why people in your reality sometimes say, do or think things that they did not actually say, do or think.  Crazy people fly off at shadows and imagined threats; non-crazy people discipline their mind not to make those assumptions without first considering the illusory nature of consciousness.

When people moan and say they can't change, that means they are still 100% convinced by the illusion of their own mind. Pain still exists, insults still cut deep, fear and past trauma keep the unformed future and the unchanging past alive within them at all times. Suffering goes marching on.

But as soon as you know how the magic trick is done, the show is over.  The veil is lifted and it is the End of All Neuroses.

Great Expectations

The year was 1985.  I was a couple of years out of high school, I didn't have much money, and I needed a new watch.  Fortunately for me, I also happened to be in Switzerland at the time.

So in the checkout line at a grocery store, I picked up an inoffensive-looking plastic watch from one of those displays that preys on impulse-buyers like myself and handed over the amount shown on the price tag.  It was twenty Swiss francs, the equivalent of about ten US dollars at the time.

It became virtually the only watch I owned and wore for the next fifteen years.  The other day, now 2012, I put a new battery in it and fitted a new black leather strap so I could start wearing it again.  For old time's sake I suppose.

I didn't have great expectations of it at the start, but I gradually came to appreciate the extraordinary quality and durability of this uncommon timepiece. It's 27 years old and works perfectly. Today I simply can't believe they were able to sell me this watch for next to nothing.  Sure, it looks like just another a mass-market plastic throw-away watch, but how many watches do you own that say this on the back?

It says "PAT PEND MONDAINE WATCH LTD ZÜRICH."  Mondaine normally makes the sort of high-end timepieces worn only by those individuals who are extremely committed to being on time for stuff.

Of the many watches I am lucky enough to own, this one if not the most attractive is the most special.  It has seen me through most of the defining events in my life.  It got me to most of my classes on time when I did four years of Physics at Arizona State University.  I say "most" because once I was 20 minutes late for class after a physics lab involving alpha particles and magnetic fields.  My watch seemed to be working normally, but was 20 minutes behind when it usually gains or loses no more than 0.5 second per day.  So what happened?

Did I accidentally discover a time portal into the very near future involving alpha particles and magnets?  The actual explanation is much more boring.  Checking my lab notes, I found that the magnetic field I was working with had been switched on for a total of exactly 20 minutes.  I hypothesized that the strong field had caused this watch to temporarily cease keeping time, and a subsequent experiment confirmed this to be the case.

After graduation, this watch accompanied me to various jobs, and eventually back to university for a Master's Degree.  I was also wearing this watch from 3 AM to 3 PM on the Sunday that my son arrived, the most traumatizing twelve hours of my life. Because this timepiece has far exceeded my expectations, it makes me very happy.  And there's the trap.

Are you waiting for something external to make you happy?  Real happiness either comes from within or not at all.  It is expectation that creates my unresolveable tension between the present situation that I can't change and what I ASSUMED being a father was going to mean.  That tension, which is a form of stress, saps a person of energy, strength, health and new ideas. And it is entirely a product of thought, not of anything real.

Is it possible to change the way I have been conditioned to think, and thus make the unendurable tension vanish? Is it possible to let go of judgement and expectation, and simply allow things to be as they are?  The pain in my heart is "bad" because I assume it isn't supposed to be there.  Couldn't I just accept it, instead of slowly killing myself through resistance to it?

It's only the little voice inside that holds me back.  It tries to tell me how others will judge me if I appear unstressed, unconcerned at a truly disgraceful situation.  Few people would justify a mother intentionally taking a child 6000 miles away from a loving, caring father.  Most people would be absolutely outraged to know that the child was influenced and encouraged to have no contact with his father.  By that standard, I should be in a continual state of outrage 24/7.

And I easily could be.  I would also be dead within 6 months from the stress.

Think of me then what you will, but I am changing my expectations of what fatherhood means.  I'm just here, he's just there, and whatever happens, happens.  I've done everything I can do. I have grieved the loss of my fathering life.  It is time for me to move on.

It's good to know exactly what time it is, isn't it.

A Complicated Day

March 10 is always a complicated day for me, for complicated and varied reasons.
For example, on this day in 1957, a man named Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden became a father.  Again.  He managed to do this a total of 54 times in his life, with 22 different wives.  See, now there's a guy who understood about putting all your eggs in one basket.  One smart man, if you ask me.  Obviously, not all your kids will turn out great, but what a disappointment little Osama turned out to be!

It's also the day  in 1940 that Ray Norris, famous Oklahoma mechanic and truck driver, became a dad for the first time when little Carlos was born.  Ray was destined for heartache however when the boys' mother moved to California, taking Ray's sons with her.  When Chuck Norris breaks someone's heart, it stays broken.

Graham Farmer, born on March 10th.

James Gerald Ray became a father on this day, as well.  In 1928.  We know so little about him, though.  Did he ever wonder, for example, where he went wrong with his son, the low-life assassin James Earl Ray?

It's not all bad news, though.  In 1935 on this day, a man named Farmer had a son nicknamed Polly.  This lad became the most famous Australian Rules Football player in history, Graham Farmer.  In America, he'd probably be the equivalent of Ronald Reagan or something.  Today, there's a freeway in Perth named after him, the Graham Farmer Freeway, which passes directly underneath the dodgy Perth suburb of Northbridge.  Good job too, because you wouldn't want to have to drive through Northbridge if you could help it.  The tunnel is known among your more humor-orientated locals as "the Polly Pipe."

Eddy Lincoln's proud papa,
shown here WITHOUT a hat.

On this day in 1846, famous beard and hat aficionado Abraham Lincoln became a father for the second time.  What a great man he was, who contributed so much to the world of public hat and beard wearing in spite of having such a miserable home life.  Even naming the child was mired in conflict:  "Eddy" versus the mother's irrational insistence on "Eddie."  What a nut-job that Mary Todd was!  But Lincoln's joy was to be short-lived.  Literally, as Eddy only lived to age three years, ten months and 21 days.  I cannot look at a  US one cent coin without seeing some of his anguish.

Also on this day, in 1947, famous Toledo resident Don Scholz became a dad!  This is wonderful news, because little Tommy did everything that typical boys do.  He fiddled with everything from go-karts to airplanes, was a basketball star in High School, took piano lessons, and went on to get a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.  Don was incredibly proud of his boy Tom, but the best was yet to come.  After working as an engineer for a few years, Tom Scholz literally "gave up the day job" and founded one of the three greatest American Prog-Rock bands ever, Boston, and became a bazillionaire rock star!  Every parent's dream come true.

Founder of Boston born on 10 March.

(The other two are Kansas and The Mothers of Invention, in case you weren't sure.)

Many people misunderstand what it means when  father is "proud" of his boy.  They project their own insecurities onto the situation and assume that it is a kind of boasting, a self-validation, living vicariously, or the dad simply attempting to big-note himself for something the son has accomplished.  This is the wrong interpretation entirely.  That swelling in the chest that a father feels when his son makes good is pure joy from the knowledge that the boy has unlocked a little of his own unlimited potential and is experiencing some measure of fulfillment of his own life's purpose.  That's what every father yearns to be able to do.

On this day in 1964, a very lucky guy named Phil became a father for the fourth time.  Who exactly is this Phil person?  It's a little complicated.  His real name is Phillip von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.  But he's not German as one might assume, he's actually Greek.  He married well, though, to an English gal named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth II of England!  Although the lad in question, Prince Edward, will never become king of England (I think even his Chauffeur is ahead of him in the succession line), Phil is still very, very proud of his boy Edward, Earl of Wessex.

Speaking of royalty, this is also the very date in 1845 on which Alexander Nicolaievich Romanov's life changed forever.  His son Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov born on that day succeeded him as Tsar Alexander III of Russia, but married the most unfortunately-named woman in History: Dagmar.

Karl Whilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel,
born 10 March 1772.

In 1772, on this day, Johann Adolf Schlegel became a dad for the second time.  Both his sons became important German scholars and philosophers, but the younger son born on this day was by far the shining star of the two.  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel achieved rock-star status among German intellectuals.  Of course today no one remembers exactly what their deal was, but at the time it was all terribly important stuff.


On this day in 1705, Johann Jakob Stöller (what an AWESOME name!) became father to a son who went on to do some tremendous things.  For example, he discovered Alaska.  No small feat, since Alaska is a frickin' huge, frozen object found way, way up there!  Young Georg Wilhelm also got a lot of animals named after himself, also as a result of discovering them.  I'm not sure how he missed out on naming rights to "Alaska" though.  So I'm going to start calling the place "Stöllerland" from now on.

March 10th was not really a wonderful day for one particular father, however. Jean Calas, a merchant from Toulouse, France, died on this date in 1762 at the hands of his torturers, fanatic Catholics (i.e. the French Government) who insisted that he had killed his own son.  In fact, the son had committed suicide, but out of shame the family tried to hide the fact, which led authorities to suspect the dad of filicide.  A terrible series of events, to be sure.  And as usual one with at least one positive outcome.  The famous French philosopher Voltaire, aka Françios-Marie Arouet, became interested in the case and through his incessant needling, haranguing and embarrassing the government, he succeeded in having the charges reversed posthumously.  He also secured a substantial payout for the bereaved and aggrieved family.  The government was thereafter a little more circumspect about torturing people to death whenever Voltaire was around.


On March 10, 1977, Astronomers announce that they have discovered a ring of debris around Uranus.

What's so funny?  It's a true fact.  Look it up.

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the very first telephone call, to his assistant who it turns out was only in the next room over.  He was over-charged for the call, and is currently still on hold with customer assistance to try to get it resolved.

That means that as of today, the telephone has been around for 136 years.  But do you think my son will pick one up and call me?  Or is he going to wait another 136 years to talk to a dad who is very proud of him, no matter which nation or province he becomes supreme ruler over, how big a rock star he becomes or how many new species get named after him?

Son, you're always a star in my book.

A Horrid Thing To Say

"That is a horrid thing to say, and you had no right to say it.  You don't know what it's like to lose a child!"

That's what the woman would have said if she had not been giving me "The Silent Treatment."

Girls, I'm going to let you in on a little secret:  IT DOESN'T WORK!

The "Silent Treatment" amuses and confuses, but it never has the intended effect, which presumably is to punish a man into recognition that whatever he did was wrong.  See, we're not actually all that put out when you ladies don't talk to us, and it is a decidedly ineffective means of giving us any new information or insights.

In this case, the woman who was not speaking to me (well, one of them) was a work acquaintance whom I barely know.  The conversation was about a friend of hers who had recently lost two children, one of whom went into a river and never came out again, and the other, her unborn baby, miscarried when the mother was confronted with the surprising and unexpected mortality of her first son.

Yes, it's a terrible, tragic event.  Yes, we all feel sadness at that mother's loss.  My mistake was not joining the pity-party, as I was expected to do, and taking a little piece of the pain into my own life.  As though that would help matters.

Instead, what I did which I shouldn't have done was to say:

"It's possible this could be the greatest thing to ever happen to her."

-     -      - 

Now, I recognize it was wrong for me to say this.  It was wrong for me to make a suggestion that the listener was not at all prepared to hear.  Is this what is meant by the somewhat unfortunate parable, "Cast not thy pearls before swine?"  Unfortunate because I would in no way wish to associate this essentially decent person with "swine." But the meaning is fairly clear.  Don't give people things, even precious things, that might do them more harm than good.

Of course I had no sure way of knowing beforehand what level this individual's state of personal growth and awareness would be.  I know now.

Was she correct in thinking the things she didn't say?  Was that a "horrid" thing to say and am I devoid of human empathy?  My assertion is, "No" and my reasons are twofold.

First of all, empathy.  I feel real compassion for the mother whom I don't know from a bar of soap.  As a matter of fact I do know what it's like to lose a child.  My own son was taken from me without good cause, legally, against my wishes and in spite of my every assertion and exertion.  I was forced to say goodbye to a child I would never see again, in the sense that he would be inches taller and a person I would not know anything about the next time I saw him.

I see my son about once a year for a couple of weeks.  That means I have basically no relationship with him at all, because he does not phone or write me.  His mother has neatly excised me out of his life, and I grieve my loss as much as any parent who loses a child.

Not only that, but I go through that grieving, months and months of soul-wrenching agony, all over again every time I say goodbye to him.  I will never see that child at that age and stage of development again.  Ever.  I will have no hand in raising him, helping him, enjoying his life with him, facing problems with him, or anything with him.  In another year I will be awkwardly introduced to a completely different young man who knows as little about me as I do of him, and with whom I have no connection.

Do I know what it might feel like to lose a child?  You're welcome to disagree, but I think I do know a thing or two about it.

Secondly, I have some reason for predicting a possible Divine outcome from this mother's experience.  We can run and we can sometimes hide from ordinary everyday setbacks, we can even take them in stride.  But something of this magnitude forces a person to ask some serious questions about life.  While I would never want anyone to suffer as I have, it is after all pretty much inevitable that many people will.  But suffering doesn't have to be in vain.  If the mother is an intelligent person as I assume she is, she will quickly recognize three things.

That this is way more than she ever thought she could handle.

That this amount of grief can't be ignored or just swept aside.  You don't just "get over it."

That barring something miraculous, she is about to serve a life sentence of grief and pain.

When someone realizes this, faces reality, does not run from life, run into drugs or alcohol, or escape through some other means, then that is the opportunity that a few lucky, blessed people have in life. This is their chance, because no other option is left, to look for that elusive door to the next level.

And when they have found that door, to open it.

And when the door is open, if she has the courage, she may even go through it.

She will enter a plane beyond sorrow, suffering, grief, conflict or pain.  A realm of light and knowledge, a place of pure understanding.  Just for a visit, you know.  Because the search for that door is one we can never be entirely finished with.

Some teachers explain this event as "dying before you die," and is one of the keys to really living.

When I heard that a mother experienced an inescapably tragic event, I felt a little rejoicing in my heart on her behalf.  My reflex reaction to the terrible news was one of hope for her.  This just might be the blessing that propels her to discover the door to her own personal End of Suffering.

As for the children, well, their problems are clearly over.  I like to imagine that they would gladly have given their lives for their mother to gain something that is worth far, far more than mere flesh and bone, mere matter and form. Infinitely more, and infinitely longer lasting besides.

Dear reader, if anything I wrote here offends you, feel free to give me all the silence you can muster. I think I can take it.  And if you broke a tooth on any of these pearls, I am sorry about that.  Really.




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The Blind Labelmaker

In the study of ideas, there is a never-ending plethora of -ism's.  We have Existentialism, Materialism, Nihilism, Marxism, Skepticism, Atomism, Infinitism, Fundamentalism, Coherentism, Solipism, Empiricism, Rationalism, Realism, Idealism, Nominalism, Conceptualism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.  There are many other -ism's, besides.

As necessary as they seem, there are problems with these labels.  We seem to need them because you can't think about something unless you can name the thing.  Or can you?

It is possible to think without words, but it's really really hard.  Trust me.   Even I wasn't able to do it until I had learned at least one second language.  Then one day I found I could manipulate ideas in my head without having to refer to their labels in either language.  Translating from one language to another isn't simply replacing English words with the equivalent words in, say, German.  It doesn't work.  You must get the thought expressed by the English sentence into your head, and then re-express the thought in your own words in the context of the German language.

(By the way, if you want to understand how a nation thinks, what they believe without even knowing they believe it, and what values they unconsciously, implicitly hold, then learn their language.  All those things lie hidden in the words they depend on for thinking and without which most people cannot think at all.  And even then, people only think things that their limited vocabulary allows them to think.  If you can't be bothered to learn a second language, then at least learn as many new words as you can, so as not to be limited in the things you are able to think about!)

In any case, that's why there are so many words to describe ideas.  The problem as I see it is this.  When a philosopher thinks up a new word - creates a new label - and people begin to hear of it, the whole world suddenly gets divided into two parts:  things that are described by the new label, and things that are not.  In effect, each new label is two labels:  the thing and its opposite.  That part of the universe that belongs within the new label, and that part which does not belong.

Further, people silently think (without choosing to do so - it's automatic) that everything covered by the new label is the same in some important way, and everything outside the new label is the same.  Without active opposition, the world becomes very monochromatic (look it up - that's your new word for the day).

These labels are often compared to theories in science, but in fact they differ significantly from them.  Both might be described as a model of reality, useful only to the extent that they reproduce what we can observe.  And so we understand that the world isn't actually divided up into everything that is Existentialism and everything else that is not, yet it is occasionally useful to model the world in that way.  But a scientific theory is much, much more than a model, a black box the interior of which is irrelevant as long as it produces useful results.  No, a theory in its inner workings must closely resemble reality as much as possible, and not just simulate observable phenomena.  Only then can a theory also make accurate predictions of as-yet unknown, unanticipated phenomena.

Another challenge posed by these labels is that new, original ideas are easy to dismiss by lumping them into an old label.  "Oh, that's just old-fashioned Modernism."  (Wait . . . what?)  It's the fastest way to end a conversation while maintaining an illusion of triumph.

Which leads me to wonder why people so often misuse impressive-sounding labels.  Do people throw them around in order to have that feeling of exclusivity or supremacy?  Are they so completely unaware that the real effect is to cover themselves in snootiness?

Until recently, that is precisely why I had very little use for the oft-misused and inherrently imprecise terms of Modernism and Postmodernism.  By implication, there is a third, "none of the above," or Premodernism for short.  (Does this cover all the possibilities, I wonder?)

Then, the day before New Years' Eve I had a long, relaxed chat with a Philosopher and father of two, who in a previous lifetime was a Geophysicist, a Corporate Consultant, and Environmental Activist. He knew how to use these particular labels in a more productive way: as shorthand for discussing without judgement various styles of thinking that roughly correspond to the Graves' Values Levels which were developed as a part of what became known as Spiral Dynamics© in the 1970's.  They also correspond inexactly to Robert Bly's seven layers of the male personality.

Essentially, individuals and groups utilize systems of values or styles of thinking which can be identified and predicted.  There exists the possibility of movement or progress from one style to another.  This leads to the erroneous assumption that such progression is a goal to be achieved, with under-achievers to be pitied and sometimes harangued.  My friend by contrast used these concept labels without judgement or condescension.

One of the many things I learned was that someone who skips over or does not completely integrate the useful foundations of one level can appear to be operating on a higher level while actually being quite dysfunctional.  He or she will have some significant blind spots or character flaws.  A Modernist, for example, might identify himself as an Athiest or a Skeptic (though there's nothing inherently wrong with that - an untestable belief chosen individually).  Modernists also reject much of what might be called Premodern thinking: superstition, unquestioned obedience to authority (basically anyone in a uniform or sufficiently impressive hat), conformity, tribalism (including racism and tribal morality - right and wrong are defined as relative to what's right for the Tribe), and ostracization of anyone who seems different.  A Modernist for example will usually not belong to a church or identify with a particular religion.

But in rejecting Premodernism, some important parts of an individual's operating system are often written over.  Children awakening into Modernism at increasingly early ages might for example fail to develop a system of personal ethics because they were not first exposed to any form of group ethics.  My friend expressed what to me was quite a novel but obvious idea that Premodern (or if you prefer Level Four or Blue Level) organizations like churches and schools have the responsibility to nurture people within the values systems in which they currently operate, while keeping a door open for individuals who are adequately prepared to move through it.  In other words, they might also allow for the possibility of transcendence.

A striking example was shared in which a postmodernist teacher, a self-described Enlightened being, came to Australia to speak to an interested audience.  Towards the end, a participant asked the question, "Does having children assist or retard a person's progress toward enlightenment?"  The answer was, "Enlightenment is impossible if you have children.  They only get in the way of your growth."

This was glaring evidence of a gaping hole in this supposedly enlightened, Level 7 individual.  The archtypical Premodern experience of raising children, of procreating, is actually one of the most powerful catalysts for personal growth and transcendence on many different levels - as an individual, in one's capacity for love, sacrifice, compassion, leadership, - in the ability to act decisively, and in one's ability to experience and rise above pain, loss, empathy, anxiety, need and attachment - as well as growth in the more indefinable spiritual or existential capacities.  Raising children is not the Premodernist error or fools' roadblock that our "enlightened" teacher took it for, but rather an opportunity that comes along for a few lucky individuals to experience unheard-of new plateaus in this lifetime.

Later there were rumors that this same teacher had been taking undue advantage of his female acolytes, further indication that he had unwisely skipped a few important steps in his personal development.  Enlightenment isn't a destination, it's a journey.  If you think you're there and you stop moving, you aren't there.

That brings to mind one last problem with the over-reliance of labels.  Did anyone realize they were Premodernist until someone invented the word Modernist?  If someone is aware of the label Postmodern, doesn't that make him automatically something beyond Postmodern for which a label has not yet been produced?  Having a label to hang onto might actually trick us into thinking that we are something which we are not, or that we know more than we really do.

We might be compared to a Blind Labelmaker who busily affixes stickers to boxes at random in an unlit warehouse.  If we quickly slap a new -ism onto every idea and individual without actually examining the contents, of what value then are the labels?



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One Little Word That Can Change Your Life

I've written previously about untestable beliefs that you can test personally but which are not subject to scientific validation or falsification.  Unlike science, which is a collaborative, cumulative enterprise of progress, personal growth depends on you alone and is a journey everyone makes from start to finish.  No shortcuts.  Or are there?

You alone can make the discoveries of personal enlightenment.  No teacher, guru, minister, psychologist, "self help" coach, parent or mentor can do it for you.  A teacher can at best give hints and encouragement.  I can only promise you based on my experience that there are discoveries waiting to be made which are immensely worthwhile.  Possibly the only thing really worth doing with life's short moment.

If you have ever wanted to change your life or if you ever desired to be happy, then perhaps you have tried taking a vacation, re-decorating the house, buying some completely different (yet somehow identical) shoes and clothes, getting up at an entirely different time, quitting one job and getting another, moving to a foreign country, reading completely different books, having a new relationship or a new child or a new divorce, or buying a totally different car to the one you have.  One with, say, four wheels instead of . . . oh, never mind.

You might be unusually lucky and have everything suddenly go your way.  All morons and idiots vanish from your life, bullies all get their come-uppance, your preferred political party wins the election, your chosen athletics corporation makes the playoffs, and all the TV shows you most despise get cancelled.

If you are fortunate enough to experience all that, then it might also be your good fortune to learn an extremely valuable truth:  You're still unhappy!

Then if you have the time, health and resources, you could keep trying to change your internal emotional state by continuing to re-arrange the world around you.  If you do this and if you live long enough, you might even discover something truly extraordinary:  You had what you were looking for inside you all along.

A person who can make that journey is lucky indeed.  How much luckier is the person who gets to the finish line in an instant without all that effort?  Such a person could live his whole life happy right from the get-go.  Wouldn't that be interesting.

So what is this one little word that can change your life?  It's just an untestable belief I have that says the way I ask a question determines the quality of the answers I receive.

Lots of people ask themselves, "Why is this happening to me?"  And the human brain is an answer-generating machine.  It is not a logical truth machine, however.  Answers only.  If you ask your brain a question, it WILL produce an answer even if it has to make shit up.

If you ask why awful things always happen to you, your brain will produce plentiful evidence that this assumption is not only correct, but has countless logical, inescapable reasons.  So be extremely careful what you ask your brain.

But if we change one little word in that question, it becomes a vehicle of power rather than self-pity.  It becomes the trigger for your brain to plan for your success rather than undermine all your efforts.

Change the "2" to a "4" and get:

Why is this happening FOR me?

Test it in your life and share the results.





I recommend:

Fathers and Sons at War

Star Wars is a modern re-telling of a very ancient saga, although with many of the details changed.  History, legend and movies are filled with stories of fathers and sons who must unavoidably confront one another, and often fight to the death.

Original hand-written copy
of the Hildebrandslied from
about 820 AD.

This is the very struggle (though usually metaphorical rather than literal) that almost every man will face in life, and often twice.  Once with his father and once more with his son.

One of the oldest and most riveting versions of the father-son legend is the story of Hildebrand and Hadubrand.  It takes place in the time of Theoderic, King of the Ostrogoths and his struggle against Odoaker, the first "barbarian" king of Italy following the fall of Rome.  Etzel, aka Attila the Hun, looms large in the background of the saga as well.

Hildebrand and Hadubrand are casualties of this protracted war when Hildebrand is forced by Odoaker to leave his homeland (presumably in Schwäbien) and take refuge with Theoderic in the east.  He and Theoderic engage in a 30-year running battle with the forces of Odoaker for control over Lombardy.

Meanwhile on the home front, Hildebrand has left behind a wife and young son named Hadubrand, who grows up mainly in the company of women.  As everyone knows, it takes a man to raise a man.  Only feminists, blind to their own confirmation bias (as is the case with every doctrine-identified group), insist that gender doesn't matter.

Theoderic the Great in battle

And so we find Hadubrand, an angry young man who hates his father for what he assumes was abandonment for personal glory and yet tells everyone who will listen how renown his father was as a warrior.

As fate would have it, Hildebrand and Hadubrand are destined to meet on the field of battle, possibly as Hildebrand attempts to return home.    But Hadubrand does not recognize his father and insists that Hildebrand has died in battle in some foreign land.  He is blinded by anger and determined to fight this "intruder."

Hildebrand, on the other hand, knows his son perfectly well. Though old, he is a formidable warrior, undefeated in countless battles, and carries vast experience, skill and wisdom. Can he protect his son and pass anything on that will help preserve Hadubrand?

Following is my original English translation from the new high German and referring closely to the original text.  (Not many people know I missed getting a BA in German by 5 general course credits . . . I was going to take an economics class or something, but never quite got around to it.)



I heard it told of the Challengers' lonely struggle;
Hildebrand and Hadubrand, standing betwixt two armies.
Father and son prepared their armor, straightened their battle garments,
And girt on their swords over their armor as they rode out to fight.

Hildebrand son of Heribrand, the older and more experienced man,
Spoke with few words inquiring of the other,
Who among the people was his father, or of which tribe he belonged.

"Name any one to me, then I will know the rest of your kin,
For known unto me are all great men of the realm."

Hadubrand son of Hildebrand spoke, "The people tell me,
The old and the wise, they that were alive at the time,
That Hildebrand my father was, and I am Hadubrand.
He rode away into the east, fleeing the wrath of Odoaker
And took up with Theoderic and his warriors,
Leaving in poverty his bride and infant son;
Without inheritence rode he into the east.

And Theoderic having no friend suffered my father's presence.
He angered Odoaker mightily and was Theoderic's most beloved warrior,
Always at the vanguard in battle, always yearning to fight.
Renown was he, the bravest of all,
Yet I know he lives no more."

Then spake Hildebrand, "Would to God that you never
Are brought to battle with your own kin!"
Then took he from his own arm the plaited mail,
Fashioned of royal gold, a gift to him of the King,
The Ruler of the Huns.

He said, "This give I you as a token of friendship."

Hadubrand son of Hildebrand spake,
"Our gifts will be exchanged by the speer,
Point against point!
You think yourself exceedingly clever, old Hun,
To tempt me with your words whilst launching your speer at me?

You are an old man and full of deceit.
Sailors told me that he fell in battle far in the west, over the ocean.
Hildebrand son of Heribrand is dead."

Then spake Hildebrand son of Heribrand, who was not dead,
"I see well from your armor that you have a good master,
And have never been banished of your realm.

God knows, though, that trouble comes.
I wandered abroad threescore seasons, summers and winters,
Where I was ever in battle.

If I could not be killed at the gates of some foreign fortress,
Will my own child smite me with the sword,
Cut me down with the blade, or make me to be his killer?
You could easily win from so old a man his armor
And rob his spoils - if your strength holds out."

Said Hildebrand more, "Even the faintest of the Ostrogoth
Would not refuse you battle, seeing as you lust so for it.
So let us commence and discover
Who will wear this armor and who must lay it down."

Then sent they both their speers of ash flying
Which impaled upon their shields,
And they rode hard against one another
And smote furiously until both shields were destroyed in pieces,
and ...







You may have noticed that the ending of the legend is missing.  The story was written on two pieces of scrap paper at the Benedictine monastery at Fulda, and if a third sheet ever existed, it is now lost these 1200 years.  If you were Hildebrand, what would you do?  Kill your son, or allow him to kill you in his anger?

Or is there a third option?

Yes, there is.  It is this option that comprises 98% of fatherhood.  Stay engaged as long as you physically can, thereby passing some of your skill and wisdom on to your son in spite of his resistance.  I like to imagine that Hildebrand resisted being struck down until he was sure Hadubrand's skill was up to the task of preserving him against a determined enemy.  That he gave no killing blow unless he was sure of Hadubrand's ability to defend against it.  This is indeed a narrow line to walk, even when the stakes aren't life and death itself.

Someday perhaps Hadubrand will realize that the man he fought was his hero, the legendary Hildebrand that he loved and hated, and that Hildebrand's life and final act was one of devotion to his son.

What Is Secret Men's Business?

Observant readers have noticed that some of the post labels on AussieShed.com include a cryptic reference to "Secret Men's Business."  Many Australians have at least a functional understanding of this concept, because it is an Aboriginal invention, and possibly their greatest contribution to the world (after the Stick, of course, second most useful thing ever.)

In an unbelievably harsh landscape such as Australia, in which survival is not at all certain, what is there to aspire to?  To posses?  Conquer?  What is there to attain?  There is one thing.  And it is the only thing worth having whether you are alone in the middle of a burning red desert or on the throne of an empire surrounded by subjects.  There is mastery over your own self.

Secret Men's Business is a general category of things that men do only amongst themselves or entirely alone, and includes sacred initiatory rites or rites of passage, rituals of atonement, preparation for battle or marriage (surprisingly similar), grieving, renewal, investiture of authority, and prayer.  It is not that women can't do these things, the point is that these things sometimes need to be done separately. Women have their own "secret women's business," events which men are forbidden from witnessing on pain of summary death . Women post their guards with spears and orders to kill on sight any male that approaches, no matter who or why, strangers, husbands, boyfriends or children alike.  It is strictly enforced, far more so than secret men's business.

"But how is it secret if you're telling us all about it?"  Good point, and the answer is that "secret" doesn't refer to the general content, but only to the conditions.  Certain things have to be done alone or only in the company of men in specially designated places, even though everyone knows exactly what is being done.  And this is for the good of all.

One of the results of this arrangement is that spouses do not get the mistaken idea that they own each other like property, and that they get to be involved in every aspect of their partner's life.  I know western women who think they are entitled to know every detail of everything their husbands do every minute of every day, and if possible to be directly involved in it if not actually in charge of it. I suppose their greatest fear is infidelity, but ironically they are doing everything necessary to ensure that it happens.  Eventually.

When men and women openly embrace and respect Secret Men's Business, there is greater trust, respect and understanding in a relationship.  If a man is faithful to his wife, it's because he chooses to be, and that should mean far more to a woman than enforced fidelity.  He is to be far more respected than if he never had the opportunity to stray.

But this goes far beyond western society's mad, blind obsession with fidelity in the midst of almost universal infidelity.  As essential as it is for a happy life, it's only the warm-up lap of the Indianapolis 500. The main event to which so many people never gravitate is the growth and development individuals experience as a result of their circumstances, and in particular, as a result of their relationship with a spouse or partner. As the Aboriginals discovered over countless generations, a man's development into an Elder, a wise, trusted, powerful and benevolent leader upon which the survival of his family depends, is a spiritual quest undertaken on two parallel tracks.  First, it is done quietly, privately, in secret and under the guidance of experienced and accomplished men of immense spiritual stature.  Second, a man must be married, live in the world and have sons to finally understand.  Is this for everyone?  No.  Some men will choose not to become an Elder and go a different way.

When families, clans, businesses, churches or nations fail to develop their boys into men of leadership quality, they eventually cease to be.

But when we say to our sons and to our men, as in this initiation rite recorded in ancient Bedouin scripture, "arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart," then almost anything is possible.  Boys will not be swept up in gangs, drugs, and violence, but instead will prepare for their future with a will.  Men will not be defeated and ruined by depression, addiction and suicide.  Instead, men's lives will be meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling.  Communities and families will be strong in the face of the unfathomable challenges to come.

Men, be "united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity. Awake, my sons; put on your armor. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, arise from the dust and come forth out of obscurity."

Guys, do you have a place you can go to do your Secret Men's Business?  Here is one place, for a start.

A church or temple is also an excellent place for men, and you don't have to be a Ned Flanders, a God-Botherer, or some kind of religious zealot, either.  Although I'm not Catholic, I've had many great experiences at the Benedictine monastery at New Norcia in Western Australia. Taking an evening meal in the male-only Rectory in the Benedictine way of total silence is a wonderful experience.  It is the most dignified, respectful, self-respecting, calming, meaningful and affirming way to eat that I have ever experienced.  Up until that point in my life, mealtimes were demeaning, accusatory, belittling, and inflammatory exercises in male denigration.  Had I not usually been responsible for cooking the meal, I might have declined any invitations entirely.

In our society, fathers have lost their authority and the respect of children and spouses alike, and this much to the detriment of everyone.  It is not necessary to equate patriarchal authority with subjugation or abuse, nor is it useful to uproot all tradition just for the sake of a few occasions when it didn't suit. We teach those around us exactly how we are willing to be treated.  Men who live a life of respect for themselves and reverence for their Secret Men's Business, whatever it may be, will be treated with respect, and will be revered when they are old.  Those doing the respecting of their husbands and fathers will experience the benefits of more security, stability, protection, and comfort in a very uncertain world.

The Top 10 Shed Improvements, pt. 2

Continued from 5 Sept 2011:

The Final Five of the Top Ten Shed Improvements are:

5.  Wood Burning Stove.  This was a wedding gift from my good neighbor Geoff.  Did I mention I got remarried a few years ago?  Not everyone was pleased, but Geoff was absolutely delighted for me.  A few years back his wife rose up from the breakfast table one morning as Geoff was drinking his tea and said, "Goodbye.  I'm leaving.  For good."  And that was that.  The first and last conversation they had about it.  He was seventy years old.  He spent three years in a depression, barely getting out of bed.  Then one day a dumb clueless American guy started trying to build an impossible shed on the block over the road from him.  This guy needed all the help he could get, and now Geoff had a reason to get up in the morning.  And that American certainly learned a thing or two about how we do things in Australia.  Sadly, Geoff isn't around any longer.  Last year his ex forced the sale of the property to finalize the division of assets, and now Geoff travels the world with a beautiful, rich widow.  (What?  Did you think I was going to say he'd fallen off the perch?  Geoff has still got more fizz than many men half his age.)

4.  The Dunny.  The jakes, the john, the bog, the thunderbox, the commode, the crapper, the head, The outhouse, the privy, the loo, the latrine, the WC, the reading room, the throne room, the porcelain bus stop, the necessary place.  Building this essential addition deserves a post all its own, and will be appearing soon. 

3.  Insulation.  I was told it couldn't be done: "You have to install insulation BEFORE putting the roof and walls on a shed.  The only way to insulate it now is to remove the roof."  Here's a tip:  never tell an engineer he can't do something!  I actually did it, with the help of my wife who is very handy, smart, practical and excellent in every way.  And with a scissors-platform lift that we hired for the day.

2.  Rainwater Tank.   There is no other source or supply of water at the Shed other than what I can carry with me.  The roof, being 100 square meters, collects 100 litres of water for every millimeter of rain that falls.  This part of Western Australia can get 400 to 600 mm of rain in a good winter (nothing the rest of the year), and so I can collect up to 60,000 litres (16,000 US gallons) a year.  This tanks' capacity is (surprise surprise) 65,000 litres.  In 2010 we had about 200 mm of rain all year, and I was so low on water I had to bring it with me up to the Shed in bottles.  This year (2011) is much better, and the tank is three quarters full as of the end of August.

Visible on right side: external depth
gauge, an ingenious and clever item.

For the first few years the water was always brown and odd-tasting due to a large Wandoo tree overhanging the Shed and forever depositing its leaves on the roof.  Rather than clearing the gutters every week, I decided that the tree had to go.  Because that would be less work in the long run, and I am essentially very lazy.  I am ambitious in my laziness, though, and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid unnecessary work.  It's actually a lot of hard work to be this lazy.

And the most awesome Shed improvement to date is:

1.  Thermobond HRC Roof Paint.  I was still an ignorant foreigner when I ordered the material for the Shed.  I did not understand the consequences of roof color selection.  Even with insulation the shed was unbearably hot in the summer under its dark green roof.  Before insulation was added, it was 15 to 20 degrees C WARMER inside the shed than outside, meaning it could be 65 C or 150 F inside.  The insulation knocked about 10 degrees off that figure, but the roller door could not be insulated and was a major source of heat with the afternoon sun bearing directly onto it. It became so hot you could not touch it.  I would say 80 C or 175 F easily.  You could feel the radiant heat from it anywhere in the shed.  The size of the roller door meant that 5 to 6 kilowatts of heat was entering the Shed through it alone.  That is the equivalent of a large gas furnace, the last thing you want running full blast in the middle of summer.  After painting the roof and roller door with this engineered paint, the steel was no warmer to the touch than ambient even in the full afternoon sun, and the shed's inside temperature was knocked right down to ambient temperatures.  This paint has made all the difference!  I strongly recommend it to anyone with a steel roof, whether it is on a house, a workshop, a patio awning, a travel trailer (caravan), a chook pen or anything that gets too hot in the sun.  


The paint's magic is that not only is it highly reflective (so bright you can't look directly at it in full sun), but it also has a high "emissivity" normally associated only with black or dark colors.  Emissivity means that when the surface is hot, it radiates the heat away from it easily, making things cool off faster. So not only does the painted roof reflect more of the sun's energy away in the first place, it also dissipates its own heat faster, and won't get hot no matter how long the sun beats down on it.  This was also one of the cheapest improvements I made to the shed, costing me about $200 in paint and $200 to rent an airless sprayer for 24 hours. I only wish my son were around to appreciate it.  He hasn't been back to Australia in more than a year.  I lost the court case of his mother's relocation application because the female judge regarded the mother's choice of where she prefers to live as vastly outweighing any benefits the child might derive from having a father, not to mention the father's laughable parental rights. As every feminist knows, fathers have nothing whatsoever to offer a child.  As everyone else in the known Universe knows, feminists are completely full of shit.

Playing video games at the Shed.

When a court-appointed psychologist visited the Shed to observe my son and me together in our natural habitat, he reported that the Shed was "better accommodation than some places I have paid money to stay."  Clearly the message is that  if you come to Australia, you should be prepared to rough it.

The Top 10 Shed Improvements

These are the improvements to the Shed that actually made things better.  Not that there have ever been any misguided, botched efforts that made things worse.  At least none that I will admit to.  In fact, I never have failures.   I have  "learning experiences."   Lots and lots of learning experiences.  But the results of that lifetime of "learning" are the following accomplishments, listed in order from the meager to the spectacular.

10.  Work benches. Doing everything at ankle-height is fine if you have really long arms.  But for me, it became hard on the back after a while.  Fortunately the previous owner of this land had left a fair amount of scrap building materials, presumably the beginnings of his own shed.  Among them was a stack of 3" pine fence slats, still nailed together in 8' square panels, and a remarkable collection of used doors.  The slats were stacked on top of some old tyres, so the termites had not yet gotten in them.  Pine slats might not be good for much, but they're still Sticks, and in the hands of a competent Aerospace Engineer, there isn't much they can't do.  With a bit of "eyeball" mitering learned from grandpa Jacob, and using just a hand saw and a cordless drill, I turned a few decrepit slats and a couple of abandoned doors into sturdy work benches and shelves.  The set of mobile drawers was a Bring Out Your Dead lucky find.

9.  Awnings.  Had I known how good these were going to be, I might have put them all around the Shed.  As designed, they protect the windows from the blazing summer sun while giving me an unobstructed view of the block.  But because I designed them to be self-supporting, they were the very devil to get up.  The buttresses that hold up the awning are in turn held up by the awning, so I had something of a chicken-and-egg situation.  Fortunately, I also had some sticks and string on hand, which as usual saved the day.

8.  The Mezzanine.  By adding an elevated floor spanning one of the Shed's four "bays," I increased the amount of useless junk I can store in the Shed by 25 percent!  I'm not sure if that was entirely a good thing, but it also created a comfortable space below it, which I was eventually able to wall off, insulate and air-condition.  Summer was nearly impossible in the Shed before that.  On a technical note, working with these Rolled Structural Steel Profiles is quite easy and a lot fun too, but it has one or two delightful engineering challenges. When a "C" beam is loaded, it tends to open up and twist away from the open side of the "C" in a mathematically predictable way (some of the bending moment becomes torque due to asymmetry of the cross-section).  However, if you pair them such that two of them face each other, they can be strapped together like this, and therefore carry more than double the load of either one alone.  And they don't have to be close together.  I spaced them 650mm (about 26") apart to produce isotropic loading capacity of the structure.  That's an engineers' way of saying it has the same strength whether loading the floor along or across the floor joists.  The floor decking is 25mm (1") Sturdifloor tongue-groove particle board (nothing flimsy about the Shed!).  As a bonus, the decking itself is capable of distributing shear from one joist to its neighbors, thus making the floor even stronger decked than bare.  Typically, decking due to its weight reduces the load capacity of a platform, but in this case, due to careful engineering, it is actually increased.  In all, this platform is incredibly light, stiff, strong and inexpensive. The very definition of an engineering success.

7.  A Fridge.  Before this came along I relied on ice chests and a portable 12V refrigerator that runs off a car's cig lighter. The portable fridge was fantastic and now I wouldn't think of going camping or on a long road trip without it, but it was also heavy and I got tired of schlepping it back and forth to the Shed.  Plus I like being able to turn up at the Shed and find some supplies already there such as frozen french fries (chips) or a steak in the freezer, single-serve butter and jam packets, and an ice-cold Ginger Beer waiting for me.  The sort of things that can quite happily stay there for several months untouched and still be fit for human consumption (to the extent that they ever were to begin with). But before the fridge would be of any use to me whatsoever, I needed:

6.  Electricity.  This was a major undertaking.  It required the use of hydraulic, diesel-powered men driving rugged, manly machines to dig a 100 foot trench 4 feet deep to bring the cables up from the road.  It also required licensed, manly electricians to install a power board, outlets, lights and switches.  Fortunately I have a friend named The Paulinator who gave me "mate's rates" on the materials and work. People call him that because they assume he is really a machine from the future.  Also he has a lot of kids.  


Because it was such a major financial investment, I naturally had to have a very good reason for going through with this.  I was trying to have more time with my son, in particular I wanted at least the time to which I was already legally entitled, but which was being denied to me on various flimsy excuses.  Improving the Shed with electricity, a fridge, lights, a TV, video games and other amenities would remove some of the excuses for the denial of regular weekend contact with my son.  I happily invested many thousands of dollars (a big chunk of my remaining life's savings) and many, many hours of difficult, strenuous, hot and sweaty labor in this good and worthy cause.  




But in the end, other even flimsier excuses were found to keep my son and me apart.  "Honolulu?  What's so great about Honolulu?  No, I can't in good conscience consent to that. A boy needs a father.  Fine, see you in court."

Next: The Final Five Top 10 Shed Improvements.

The Shed Begins

No, The Shed didn't hitchhike to the Himalayas and get some stonking-good ninja moves from a creepy guy who used to be a Jedi but this time turns out to be evil.  It began the way everything normally does.  As a thought.  First an idea, then a decision.  Everything around you that you can see, feel, taste, smell or hear started out as a thought in someones brain.

Obviously I had to do a bit more than think The Shed into existence, though I'd estimate that's about 98% of the work.  It's the other 2% that takes all the time, money, blood and sweat.  Thinking contributes to every step of the way, too.

Any divorced dads out there?  You can probably understand the frustration of trying to maintain contact with your kids when you don't have anywhere for them to stay for a weekend.  When I did get to spend a weekend with my son, circumstances were such that there were so many rules I had to enforce and so much problematic behavior that needed to be "managed" that my son and I virtually had no relationship at all.  No relaxing times, no happy moments.  Our contact times were mired in stress and conflict, as though by some design.


That's what finally motivated me to build The Shed after considering doing something like this for some time.  In addition to other things, it would be a place where a boy and his dad can just be themselves without female interference, rules or conflict. A place where a new father-son relationship could be built. 

Building means doing some foundational work first.  For that, a local chap from Bindoon brought in his bobcat and a couple loads of compacting sand. Once the ground was flat and hard, forms for the cement work were put in and holes dug for the footings where the main steel supports would be located.  I at least had the foresight to specify additional concrete "aprons" where the doors were going to be.

After curing to full strength for 30 days (hey - you can't rush these things), the pad was ready for the steel to be delivered.  The cement was 14 meters by 7 meters (nearly 100 square meters or 1055 sq. feet) in area, and the shed would be 14 feet high at the apex of the roof.  That didn't seem like much on paper, but standing on that empty slab I thought, "I must have been out of my mind!  This is going to be HUGE!"

When the steel was delivered, my first thought was, "Where's the rest of it?"   But according to a four-page detailed bill of materials, everything was there for the assembly a complete shed.  Everything except for a clue as to how to do it.

Right. Which screw goes where?

The Shed, prior to assembly.

As a child growing up in the USA I owned an Erector set.  In the UK and Australia they call these things "Meccano" sets because the word "erector" causes most boys and some grown men to giggle uncontrollably. Basically it consists of miniature steel girders, beams, plates and itty bitty screws that you can use to make all sorts of stuff out of.  LEGO is kind of a "cartoon" version of Meccano. 

Geoff and I, risking our necks on top of  ladders.

Notice how bricks come in surprisingly handy.

That was time well-spent in my youth, because now I had an enormous life-sized Erector/Meccano set to deal with.  Plus, I had a set of instructions which I swear were written to actively hinder and misdirect me.  But with a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, all that time spent playing with Erector as a kid, and a 70-year-old neighbor named Geoff who had done this sort of thing a few times before, that unimpressive little pile  of steel eventually transformed into The Shed.

Siding is a one-man job, if that man happens to own
some neodymium rare-earth supermagnets,
and if he knows how to use them properly.

The building permit specifies that the structure is non-habitable, in other words I can't legally "live" there.  However, classed as "workshop/storage," I can legally be inside the shed for purposes of working.  But if I get tired from working, I might sit down on a chair that just happens to be stored there.  


That chair might even be a sofa.  And if I am really tired, working in my workshop late into the night, I might lay down on the sofa and accidentally fall asleep. And, if as a favor to my neighbor I happen to store some old beds for him in return for his help putting up the shed, those beds might get sat or lain upon, but only for short (8-hour) naps in between working in my "workshop."


Also, what's to stop me from "storing" a few cans of beans and what-not in the shed and using a gas flame (such as is commonly found in many workshops) to heat one up for a snack?  Shouldn't a well-equipped workshop also have a parts washing trough?  Many of my "parts" happen to be shaped exactly like dishes and spoons.  No, this is NOT a kitchen sink, because such things would not be permissible in a non-habitable structure.

NOT the kitchen area.

That was the plan, anyway.  When my son and I tried staying there for a weekend, we learned something new about "non-habitable" steel buildings.  In the Winter, they are colder inside than outside, and in the Summer they are much hotter inside than outside. My numerous university courses in Thermodynamics did not fully prepare me for that; nevertheless it is true.  It even has a really boring scientific explanation.  


In time, therefore, certain improvements were made to The Shed.  Unfortunately in time, my son also relocated overseas with his mother.   For a long time after that the only visitor to The Shed was the Grieving Man.  

I"ll reveal some of those improvements in a future post.  Also, I'll reveal what a life-sized court-appointed psychologist who was not made out of LEGO had to say about The Shed in his official report.