I like fat people

Ok, so thinking before you speak is an art that I am still very much in the process of learning. Thinking before I type is a little bit easier. So believe me when I say that I mean every word of this statement: I like fat people.

If I reflect back on the most quality people I have known in the past, the heavier set ones are consistently up there. (I have stopped trying to make this blog sound politically correct- let’s face it, there\s nothing PC about it). Think about your life… Who have made the best friends? Who are the ones that have been gracious and welcoming? It’s the fat ones, isn’t it?

And I think it’s an easy to understand albeit controversial: Some people in this world are at disadvantages purely because of the way that they look. It makes me sick to my core that we live in a society where this is true, but it’s fact. Unfortunately. Things come easier to some people and often the reason they come easier is simply the result of genetics and nothing more.

Then the stark reality leads me down a logical pathway. Genetically disadvantaged people (For the record- I don’t believe that anyone can be genetically disadvantaged as such- asides from disease and disability- but we live in a culture where certain attributes and features are advantageous and others aren’t.) have to work harder on other things to make them attractive to the world. They have to become nice on the inside otherwise they really would have nothing to attract people to them.

I remember once having this friend. Well, half friend. She was by most accounts a social outcast. Looking back I can’t figure out why she was a social outcast except for the fact that she was chubby. She was lovely. She tried so hard with people and there was little reciprocation. I remember keeping her at ‘half friend’ status. I was 12 years old by the way. (Carl reveals his age at this point hoping to gain a little sympathy for his stupid, childish attitude…) Everyone kept her at bay. She was the brunt of many a joke. She was the humorous part of many a conversation. Just ‘cause she was fat.

So she worked harder and became tolerant of rejection. I have no doubt that today she is a marvellous young lady with many things I do not have. I feel sick for being in a crowd that was cruel and possibly caused many of her tears. Gosh, if teasing the skinny kid were the order of the day I would have been the one crying.

And so I’m led to feel the following:
The compensation that society gives people for favourable attributes is perhaps the most yearned for reward hoped for by most people and yet it may well be the most crippling illusion as we chase the acceptance of people.

Book Review- A Short History of Nearly Everything

OK, so here is one of those books that we have all seen on the shelves at exclusive books and wondered about... i can imagine many have read it too.

I started reading it in march and it is now june so it took me a good 3 months to get through it. This is mainly because i kept it as a bedtime book (mistake) and so i made progress at about 2 pages a night. The book requires concentration and an alert mind- all the things i do not have at bed time. Anyways, im going to divide this short review into a couple of good points and a couple of bad about the book 'cos at the end of the review im going to tell you that you should read it anyway... so this way you know whats coming your way.

Positives
1. It is the best common thinkers guide to the development of science that you will find that is understandable and accurate (i presume this of course).
2. It is well written and Mr. Bryson does well to try and make science sound interesting and eve funny at time. This is a grand achievement.
3. The book covers so many interesting subjects... my favourites were the chapters on space, inventions that made scientific progress possible, and a look at the development of man.
4. You dont have to read the whole book. The book is in sectioned format and so it is quite easy for one to isolate only things that interest you and read about them.

Negatives
1. It feels more like a textbook than a normal book 80% of the time. I guess it had to be this way for the book to be factual and accurate but sometimes i found it a bit much. I would have preferred a less factual read with more stories cos then i would have maybe remembered what i have just read. As it stands now, i remember very little.
2. Some chapters are just plain boring. I guess it comes down to personal preference but i must say that at times i was just simply bored. I tried to remain interested but sometimes it just wasn't happening. I blame the book.
3. It provides a historical account for the development of man but suggests no theories to go along with the facts. Facts alone are so empty partly because there are so many of them and so many possible angles to look at it.. I was left with a lot of knowledge and even though i wanted this knowledge to show me something, it was never going to. And so now im blaming the book for now being textbookish enough. The book suggested no framework for coherent thinking once we know the facts. and i sort of wanted something like that.

I guess it is hard to have done what Bill Bryson has done... At the end of the read I am more knowledgeable and my perspectives have become more in tune with irrefutable reality and for that reason i think all people should read it. Just not at bed time.

not my quote

"the atheist is to be pitied more than all men because he has no-one to thank"

the second thing that economists do

and so here it is... i did not forget. and seeing as im exactly half way through my degree now, i have hopefully picked up some points of value along the way!

to recap, the first thing economists do is that they analyse relationships ceteris parabus. if you want to know more about that, take a read of a previous post: ''the first thing economists do"...

The second thing
Moving on to more urgent matters, the second thing that economists do is to analyse situations in two different time frames: short run and long run. Short run analysis allows the economist to evaluate shifts and changes in economic conditions and their immidiate impact on the state of the economy. This is useful as in the short run things don't change much and so you can evaluate them easier.

BUT then there is the LONG RUN... and that's what im so taken with. I'm not going to be too long in trying to explain this- so you either get this or you don't, but try and picture the following...
One of the goals of economic policy is to keep a balance of payments account that is reasonable. The balance of payments account, for the purposes of this analysis, can be described as the amount of rands flowing into SA as a result of exports minus the amount of rands being spent abroad in order to purchase all those cheap CD players and other electronic rubbish from China, Taiwan and Japan. (and other imports too).... In SA, this account is constantly in deficit because we import more than we export. Isn't it nice to be living in a 3rd world country? Anyways, there is a problem when the economy of a country starts to do well because then people start to earn more and then they start to want to consume more which means that the demand for imports increases, which means that imports increase and resultantly the balance of payments account goes into further deficit. oh dear. Therefore, in the SHORT TERM we sit with a deficit which means that something needs to be done... like government could increase taxes in order to reduce people's disposable incomes and then imports would decline etc....

BUT! and this is where the budding economist in me starts to get excited... in the LONG RUN, something else happens... the economy ADAPTS. Think about the following logically... it's not rocket science (i know this cos im not a rocket scientist)...
1. When people's income is up there is an oversupply of money in the economy. This causes interest rates to go up which in turn causes overall spending to decline. When spending declines we have LESS IMPORTS> therefore BoP (Balance of Payments) deficit reduces.
2. When we import lots of junk then there is an oversupply of Rands in the global economy. When supply is up then demand is down (a building block of economic theory) and this means that the price of rands goes down. This means that the cost of foreign goods increases for south africans and therefore LESS IMPORTS> therefore the deficit reduces even more!
BEAUTIFUL STUFF... long run analysis is great because i realise that over and over there seems to be balance... there seems to be adjustment... continuously. This is not true in some instances of course but i find the amount of times it does occur to be uncanny.

And it get me thinking you know. Long run = adjustment. I start to think about life in general and the need for adjustment. Take a divorce for example. In the short run it sucks. It's hopeless. There is despair. There is hurt. And no one can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But then it works out. People adjust. They are forced to. I have recently broken up with my girlfriend of 2 years... i don't know if i will ever know another girl quite like her. I want her. I cant have her now. It's tough. She's in my mind, dreams etc.... And so what must i do? What other option is there? I adjust.... Life without her still works.

Then my brain takes another tangent and i think about evolution and darwin's theory on natural selection. The fittest survive. The weak one perishes and the LONG run favours those who learn how to survive in challenging conditions and those that adapt.

In fact the long run speaks of little else besides adaptation.

And that is what they do, these economists. Clever bunch they are.

Book Review- For One More Day

Well, this is one of those books that requires an imagination from page one. The author, Mitch Albom, seems to assume a lot of poetic license. I don't know if you are allowed to write in the 4th person but this guy does... to know what I'm talking about you kinda got to read the book. Anyways, i dont want to write a long review, but only to say that this read was easy (i read it in about 3 hours) and at times very emotive. It is a story about a guy who at the end of hope and angry in life and he gets to spend one day with his deceased mother (you feeling the new age vibies?? he he) The day is a day that changes him completely and opens his eyes to the reality that gnaws away the constructs of his perceptions of his parents..

There were times when I was captivated my the authors imagery and the way he presented ideas and at other times found him rather uninspiring. But on the whole it is a book that i would recommend to most people. To anyone that has battled with a relationship with their mother then this is a must-read i reckon. It opens the eyes of children to the heart of a mother.

And that's all i got to say about that really.

the trip

so at the moment i am in drakensbburg... right in the middle (where the peaks are the grandest) and i have had a fantastic past few hours. let me tell you a little bit about how it began:

yesterday 12 noon:
i go past the bottle store and pick up some red wine. i am a novice at this but there are people around me so i pretend to know what i'm looking for- truth be told, i don't even know where the wine section is! i finally find it and being all too aware of the people around me, i pick up 2 bottles and pretend to compare them. the outcome of my purchase had already been decided on price but i had to look like i was choosing my wine based upon the fact that it was 'vintage' or that it was 'born of sun, air, rain, and rich african soils.' what rubbish! so that was purchased and i popped my wine into the boot of my fully-tanked, clean and reliable silver dragon (otherwise known as my 1992 VW jetta) and hit the road.

yesterday 1pm:
it has been an hour on the road and i am starting to panic. it looks like i have either underestimated the distance of the trip or the pace of the silver dragon. the latter seems like a betrayal so i resolve on the fact that the distance over time equation is not in my favour. i will miss the first half of the rugby for sure.

yesterday 2:30pm:
i am still 150ok away from my final destination and a tv set. i am flying through valleys and around sharp corners. the silver dragon is proving his lordship of the road. i know it is beautiful around me and i am tempted to slow down and look but i have become a carnal man driven by pure instinct. rugby. that single word makes my right foot heavier and i press on.

yesterday 3pm:
KICK OFF! I am still 70km away. I look at my trusty radio. Surely finding a good signal is unlikely out here in the mountains?! i decide to try anyway. 99.7fm... and there it is!!! RECEPTION! i would have prefered it to have been the reception of dragon peaks resort but this was still something unexpected and something that tasted like heaven. i hear the welcome sounds of nkosi sikilela crystal clear resonating in my car as it speeds hurriedly along. my mothers warnings of 'drive safely my son' have been long forgotten. my heart swells with pride as i hear the cheer of the crowd and the blast of the whistle...

yesterday 3:30pm
according to the radio commentators we are all over the wallabies and this seems like a game to watch. the mixed afrikaans english commentary has started to really bug me because i only know whats going on half the time. i see the resort. i turn in. the is a guard at the boom. i drive up at pace. "lift the boom buddy..." i think loudly enough for him to maybe hear. as i get nearer he realises that im not stopping. he starts to lift the boom thinking that only a bona fide guest could display such confidence behind the wheel. the boom is now high enough for me to sneak through and i know it. as i approach he scans my windscreen for my sticker (or whatever i am meant to have). But it's too late. I am in! I sure won that little contest! he he! The carnal instinct has grown. The 10km speed limit in the resort is somewhat laughable.. In 2 minutes flat I am seated in front of the box. The green and gold so much more colourful than the voices of the radio guys.

yesterday (time unknown)
it has been a nail biter of a game and we are into the last 5 minutes. Larkam clears. Down Steyn's throat. He lines up. I think 'no ways'. Camera angle is perfect. The ball floats. My heart bounces. Up it goes. And it's there!! Flip, WHAT A KICK!! Thank goodness i didn't have to hear that on radio. That was a feast for the eyes not the ears...
Scores are level. Momentum positively ours. We move forward again. Ruck. Steyn in position. Pass. Strike. Clean. I realise that the net happiness of the south african population hangs on the progress of that little white ball. It's progess pleasing, i rise to my feet in the most united south african movement since the soweto riots (yes, the game was on youth day and that little sentence took me awhile so go and read it again will you?). South African's stand. From Boksburg to Boputhutswana we are on our feet. Nationwide there are at least 23 million high fives in the 10 seconds to follow. Flip, this is going to be a good weekend. I can feel it already.

yesterday 8pm
Im still smiling. The fresh berg air fills my lungs and makes me feel so alive. I sit with my mother and step-father and chat about the mundane things that parents and kids love chatting about. At time it gets slightly serious but on the whole it is just chit-chat. And it's great. I'm here, exams are over, i love the people im with and the whole horizon is screaming God's majesty in a way that makes the screams of the newlands crowd sound like whispers.

You just know when something is going to be great.

the first thing economists do

So I have been at the textbooks lately and been rather enjoying it too. In the last 2 days I have been getting stuck into some economics and have become rather interested in the method of analysis used by economists. Any economy will have vast amounts of variables that are all interconnected in many (either obvious or discreet) ways. Economists develop and analyse relationships between variables so as to gain understanding of what happens when something changes (i.e. the chain effect of decisions made by government or the reserve bank etc). I have been rather impressed by their method of analysis. Let me ellaborate by giving an example of a way that economists naturally go about their investigation:

They will look at a situation and examine 'ceteris parabus' what will occur if something changes. Ceteris parabus literally means: 'all else being equal'. So what happens is that they examine DIRECT cause and effect relationships. Secondary effects and spin-off consequences are ignored. Only the main stuff is examined and once that is understood then secondary effects can be considered. For example (stay with me you non-financially interested people... there may be something non-financial in store later...) if interest rates increase (as will happen the next time the reserve bank meets) then investment spending decreases. This is because people don't spend a lot of money when money is expensive and money is expensive when the interest rates are higher. Less investment spending leads to lower production which leads to lower national income. There we go! We have just looked at the relationship between interest rates and investment spending 'ceteris parabus'... What we didn't consider though is that by raising the interest rates, some people will benefit by earning a HIGHER income. Consider the man who has R3million in the bank... If the interest rate rises 50 basis points then he will earn an extra R15000 per year for doing nothing. (Kinda makes you want to have R3mil in the bank doesn't it?!) But we condidered him as an afterthought. The main relationship was analysed not the accompanying one because it held the predominant effect. Ok, ok... so what is the life lesson?... Well, i guess that it can be a handy skill to be able to analyse life 'ceteris parabus'. To be able to see the main relationship. the main cause that is causing the effect in a given situation. To be able to identify the crux of a matter that may have many negligible 'cruxes 'that could confuse a man. To distinguish the salient matter at hand. (Ok, i think it's becoming obvious that i'm saying the same thing but looking in the thesaurus for fancier words everytime. ha ha!) I think that is called wisdom. The ability to see things for the way that they really are. The wise man will know the heart of the matter and he will concern himself with that heart. The foolish man will not see the defining issue and will get caught up in trying to understand things that really don't matter at the end of the day. Or the beginning. Wisdom. Seeing life as a series of interconnected variables and being able to understand each one ceteris paribus and thus understand the flavour of the whole. Wisdom.

Economists also do something else that is quite handy, but you can catch that thought in my next blog post...