Nicholosophy

DrupalDownunder 2011

January 28, 2011

I attended the DrupalDownunder conference which was held in Brisbane last weekend. Work paid for me to go since I have been working on a major Drupal project over the last couple of weeks.

Talking about Drupal and web development in general and attending all these great sessions have really driven home that my passion is in web development and web programming. Most of the development work that I do is in Excel so being able to shift into web development is going to take time and patience.

What normally happens is that I see some wonderful web programming and figure that since I can’t do that type of work that there is no room for me in the industry. What I forget is that the people with these skills have been working for years to develop their skills. If I start now, there is a chance that I can build up my skills and get into the game in the next year or two. So that is what I’m going to do.

Another thing I realised while at the conference is the massive community that surrounds Drupal and how being a part of such a community can bring such great benefits to someone like me. So many brains to pick and at the same time I can use my coding skills to add something back into the community.

So a big thanks to DrupalDownunder 2011 for reviving my passion for web development. Thanks for showing me how becoming part of the Drupal Community can only help me to grow. I’m looking forward to the next year of my life and seeing where it heads.

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Posted in: Mental Health

Facebook stoops to a new low in revenue raising

January 5, 2011

Update: False alarm folks. Carry on. Apparently it relates to a spam bug in Facebook Pages. Content below is left as a historical reference as to why I should not go off half cocked.

Facebook have done it again. In its attempts to make itself a quick buck it has run roughshod over its users. This time it isn’t about privacy concerns or about claiming in ads that people have used features which they haven’t. This time they are adding links to pages which the page admins have not added and cannot remove.

A good friend of mine is releasing an animated short film this year called “A Small Exposition“. I’m sure he thought that it would be a good idea to create a Facebook Page so that his friends could keep up to date on it. Perhaps he was hoping that through the power of social networking more and more people would find out about his short film and want to check it out. This all seems like a good idea.

Facebook must have decided to get in on the action. Down in the links section there is a second link that appears which doesn’t seem to relate to the subject at hand. Can you see which one it is?

Yes friends, Facebook have stooped so low as to include an advert for a Weight Loss Diet in the links section of the page. Creator of the page and all around good guy Pete Foley said via Twitter, “Yeah I have no idea where that came from. I can’t remove it either. It makes it look like I put it there myself. It’s baaad.” (source here and here)

I can understand that Facebook need to raise revenue to fund the service. They have adverts right down the right hand side of just about every page on Facebook. It seems that this wasn’t enough for them and they have had to go to the lengths of adding unremovable links to people’s pages in order to raise some more funding. Imagine if this was on a page about an eating disorder and how distasteful that would be.

So what is next for Facebook? Inserting wall posts into my profile with advertisements? Would they do this to the page of a multinational company? I do have to wonder. Ethics seem to have gone by the wayside in 2011.

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Posted in: Mental Health

Feminism and clothing for me

December 29, 2010

I forget sometimes that feminism isn’t just about women. My understanding of feminism isn’t great. I do try to learn things as I go but it is something that I’ve only been presented with closely over the last few years. The way I look at it is that feminism is trying to remove injustice from society and to make people realise that there is male privilege that exists, whether you are actively trying to preserve it or not.

Therefore as a man I can be a feminist in that I agree that injustice should be stopped and that the privilege that exists must be acknowledged and dealt with. Privilege isn’t something that I can remove just because I don’t believe it should be there. It requires more of a generation of change in order to reduce the privilege. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong in the comments.

So when I mentioned the other day that fat isn’t a feminist issue, that isn’t completely correct. What I should have said is that fat is not just a female issue. It doesn’t just affect one gender. It affects all genders on the gender spectrum. Does male privilege mean that I still have some advantages because I am a fat man? Definitely.

I also think that fat women have a better selection of clothes available to them than fat men. At least that is my experience. It is no where near the privilege experienced by those who fit into straight sizes and is often out of the price range of many socio-economic classes. It is still there and available whereas sometimes I think there is almost nothing available.

I’ve recently found a few sites which have some male fat clothing or custom made garments so I am really looking forward to trying them out. I’ve heard that one of them, Casual Male, only accepts US credit card. I have to follow this up with them but if this is the case then it is very disappointing that I’m so close to getting some awesome clothes and yet so far.

Anyway I just thought I’d get that off my chest since after thinking back over my last post I realised that I’d put that forward in a clumsy way.

On a completely unrelated point to the rest of this post, Muzza’s Pies make the best pies. Seriously. The Best!

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Posted in: Mental Health

Fat is a humanist issue

December 27, 2010

Sometimes I feel like a minority within the fat acceptance movement. I feel like I’m a tiny voice trying to be heard but being drowned out by the other voices around me. Men are under-represented in the fatosphere for what is likely a multitude of reasons.

I think that many men don’t feel like they can voice their opinion on being fat. Or perhaps they don’t feel a major desire to voice their concerns. Maybe it is because men like to talk about other subjects more, and that talking about being fat feels shameful or triggers some emotion that as a man they don’t feel ready to deal with.

I know I struggle with the way that being fat makes me feel. I’m lucky to have grown up in an evironment where dealing with your feelings was ok and having a wife who has shown me how to talk about how I feel and even write about it. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a guy who feels that they can’t talk about how they feel to their loved ones, let alone the whole world through a blog. It must be difficult carrying around that feeling of guilt and perhaps sadness, which can even lead to anger and self-loathing. I know I feel that way sometimes but at least I have an outlet.

This is why I feel disappointed when I don’t get the chance to let my voice be heard. It isn’t about me wanting to be out there and being popular or what have you. I’ll admit that I enjoy working with the media, doing interviews and the like. But for me it is about getting the message out there and showing other men that it is ok to love yourself as a fat man. There is no need to bottle up feelings of anger and sadness and having them explode on you without warning. I know what that is like and it isn’t pleasant.

I want to help other men feel included. I want other men to feel empowered enough that they can perhaps talk about this with their mates or start writing things down in a blog, even if just for personal reflection. One day I’d love to see the number of men represented in the fatosphere increase to a point where I no longer feel like a minority. I don’t want to be the majority, but I want to feel like my voice is represented.

Fat is not a feminist issue. Fat is a humanist issue.

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Posted in: Mental Health

A cry for self acceptance

December 17, 2010

Trigger warning: Talking about weight loss and cutting. Not actual cutting mind you. It’s more a figurative thing.

I’ve been pretty much hating on myself today. I’ve started to feel like my weight is getting in the way of my life. I suppose a lot of fat people feel that, but I feel like I should be able to accept who I am. Today I haven’t. I’ve felt pretty useless and unhappy and my gut has been the focal point of that.

Now that I understand how weight management works, in that the body does its own weight management, I’ve come to realise a few things. The first is that no matter how much I like my weight, I’m not likely to be getting too much smaller. Secondly is that the reason I am as large as I am now, and not the size I was in my 20s is due to all the dieting I’ve done over the years.

I’ve started to hate myself over dieting that I did over 10 years ago, or even earlier. I’ve come to this point where I figure it’s all my fault that I ended up this way because I tried to force my body to be a weight it didn’t want to be and it fought back by going higher and higher and higher. It has only done what it was designed to do. If I didn’t push the issue then maybe it would have left me where I was.

Then I read about people who have lost so many kilos in so many months and it is as tempting as another piece of pie, or cake, or whatever. “Hell, they did it. I can too.” I still desire thinness. I have to admit that a part of me desires something that I cannot ever have. And it is really hard to tell yourself “No, you know you can’t do it. You know it isn’t healthy to try and do that. Just eat well and be healthy.”

It’s hard to tell yourself that when you have to order your shirts specially made over the Internet. It’s hard to tell yourself that when you can’t walk into a store and get casual clothes – I have three pairs of shorts that I wear on a rotating basis. A few more shirts thankfully but it really isn’t confidence building.

Some times I imagine just grabbing a knife and cutting away my gut. The rest is fine. Just that gut sticking out there for the world to see and me to feel. Thankfully I’m in a space where I know that would be REALLY BLOODY STUPID. But there are times where I just feel like that I should do whatever I can to get rid of it and yet I know it will always be with me.

And I cry and I yell and I scream and I wish and I dream. None of it makes it go away. None of it stops the pain. None of it makes it any easier. Yet I fight on and dream of the day when the fight will be over. I will love myself and I will love my body just as it is and I will be able to get the clothes I want and do the things I want to do and not have to be ‘held back’ by my weight.

This isn’t a cry for weight loss. This is a cry for self acceptance.

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Posted in: Mental Health

Fatty nirvana not yet achieved

December 15, 2010

The road to fat acceptance nirvana is a long and arduous one

Trigger warning: I will be talking about weight loss concepts. If this triggers, look away now.
As a fat activist I often think that people look at me and think I have hit fat nirvana. That place where I’m always happy with my body and I never think about losing weight and never wish I was a different shape. That place where I am confident and happy in my skin all the time and I’m always ready for the enslaught of negative media and social pressure because I’m there, man. I’m at total nirvana.

WRONG!

I struggle on a daily basis with my body. I sometimes think that my body would be better, and I would be happier, if I lost a couple of kilos or if my gut wasn’t so big or if this or if that. I sometimes think that life would be so much easier if I could lose some weight. Not all my weight mind you, because I’m a fat activist and therefore I’m happy being fat. Just not this fat.

So as you can see, even I can fall into the trap of negative body talk and body shaming and thinking I’d be so much happier if. Just if. Thankfully I also know that really my body weight doesn’t affect my happiness and that my body is at this weight because that’s where it is happy to be and no amount of moving or eating less or whatever else is going to change that.

I also have issues with my level of fitness. I can at least disconnect this from weight and realise that I can be very fit and still fat. I just know that at the moment my fitness isn’t as good as I want it to be. I think recognising that is perfectly fine and nothing to be ashamed of.

Something I have started doing as well is decanting larger packs of snacks into smaller ones to take to work. A few reasons I do this—the first is that I can just grab a couple of packets of whatever in the morning when pulling together my lunch stuff and put it in my bag; it’s much cheaper than buying other stuff when I’m at work; if I took the whole packet of nuts/chocolate bullets/whatever to work I’d eat the lot in the first day and be left with nothing by the end of the week.

I recognise that when it comes to certain things I really will eat them until they are gone. Chocolate, snacky things like those muti-coloured soy flavoured rice cracker things, nuts and other assorted snacks just go very quickly. What I have found though is that I generally feel quite sick afterwards. Since I have reflux, I have to have smaller amounts of food more often. Since I often don’t feel that fullness feeling, I go for what works for me – bagging up serves.

Some people will consider this problematic because I’m controlling my food intake and I’m one step away from a diet. Even I’m a little conflicted when I think about it. But I do think that it is ok to do this. Firstly I could just buy smaller sized snack packs, but they are so much more expensive than doing it myself. Secondly it’s hard to find wholesome foods in these snackpacks – I don’t need a packet of chips at work (it’ll just give m e reflux anyway). Anyway, quite often I’ll grab two or three bags and have them all at once because that’s what I feel like.

But I am still actively controlling my food by doing this, so I see that it might be seen as problematic by some. At the end of the day, this is what works for me. I think we all have some foods that we know can be an issue and there are ways in which we incorporate them into our life without them taking control.

What I would love to know though is what you think. At the end of the day I’m on a steep learning curve in fat acceptance land. So your input is always welcomed. Whether I change my ways though is totally up to me.

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Posted in: Mental Health

Remove the headless fatties from our media

December 9, 2010

It is high time that mainstream media around the world stopped using headless fatty shots with every article or video piece about fat people. I think there are a few reasons why they do this.

They know that if they asked people, they would say no.
If they have faces, it makes it harder to use them in generalised negative news pieces
If the fatty looks happy or really well dressed, they don’t suit a doom and gloom story
They won’t get sued for humiliating someone if you can’t identify them by their face

Yet when that person sees this footage of them being used in this way, it can cause pain and anguish become compare. It also dehumanises fat people and gives people power to pick on and attack fat people.

Are you a fatty? Would you like to be a non-headless fatty?

I’m starting a drive to find fat people around Australia who would be happy to be approached by media companies to appear as stock fatty content. Only certain people will feel comfortable about this, so I’m sure that only a few will be happy to do it. But would you like to?

Drop me a line in my contact form and we can go from there. We can start a list of people happy to be contacted by media for this sort of thing. Perhaps you’re also happy to speak to the media on fat acceptance issuse or on how you find being fat in a world that discriminates against you? Let me know – we often get requests through Axis of Fat for people to talk to the media.

All information would be held confidentially and I would contact you to ask you if you were interested and you would contact them. The other thing is I would set up an email list so you could be emailed about things coming up.

Don’t feel pressured to do this. Only a few people will feel comfortable about this, but for those people there needs to be a way to band together and try to get the media to change their ways.

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Posted in: Mental Health

Quickie: Opinions, feel free to feel entitled

November 28, 2010

A bit of a quickie tonight as I sit up and wait for the after hours doctor to come visit. Yes, everything is fine.

Now that I’m living a little more enlightened, it has become clear to me that people very much hold their opinions close to their hearts. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear the quote “Opinions are like arseholes – everyone has one”, it seems that opinions carry a very big emotional value to the person to has it. I know that this is true for me, but it has taken a while to recognise this.

So when I challenge someone about their opinion or belief about something because it is sizist, or racist or bigoted, I quite often here the reply “But I’m entitled to my opinion.” So I wanted to clear something up.

My opinions make me who I am. They affect the way I live, interact with people, make purchases, vote at elections, etc etc. In fact the reason that I think opinions are held so close to the heart is that they reach into the core of a person’s being. They really do make me who I am.

Therefore, people have every right to have their opinions. They are very much entitled to hold it true if they wish. In the same way, I am entitled to view that opinion as bigoted and call them on it. And based on my opinion (which I presume I’m entitled to as well) that opinions make the person who they are, I will call them bigoted (or racist or sizist) as well.

I haven’t stop them from holding an opinion. I’ve just noticed that when I weigh it up, it’s not one I can agree with. And if it matches the accepted standard of a bigoted (or sizist or racist) opinion, then I think it is correct to call that person out on it.

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Posted in: Mental Health

The idea of being sociable seems so foreign to me

November 26, 2010

I’ve never been big on making friends. It’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just really inept at it. When I’m in a social situation it is quite normal for me to sit quietly in a corner somewhere as everything else revolves around me. Occasionally I will pluck up the courage to talk, but quite often I will peer into my phone and pretend I’m doing something important. This implies that I’m not available and you don’t have to worry about me. Yet I’d love you to worry about me.

This situation mostly happens when I’m around people I don’t know very well, or if there are a couple of big personalities and I can’t find my voice in the group. I assume I seem disinterested or bored. People often ask me if I’m OK, and I am. I’m just not sure what to say or what I can add to the conversation. I often feel like they are talking about things I don’t understand or I’ve never felt apart of. Life general everyday things.

I’m much better with smaller groups of people. If I am left with another person I don’t know I will attempt small talk. If it is a group of three, often I can just sit back and nod in the appropriate places. I’m very much introverted and this has become more pronounced over the last few years.

Yet part of me yearns to be sociable. Part of me wants to hang with people who get me and take me as I am. I want to do things like go to karaoke, or go out for dinner or drinks or trivia, or just sit around a campfire/bonfire/hot coals and talk about life with a few drinks. Part of me wants to feel comfortable around people and not feel like I should censor what I say in case I offend someone. Not because I’m generally offensive; I just figure something I like or do will be considered incorrect or not be liked by others. Maybe that is why I hide away and don’t speak.

When I do speak up my mind, I sometimes scare away people. I grew up with a few close friends and since moving to Brisbane have had a few other close friends. Even today I feel like I don’t have many people that are my friends. They are often people I have met through Natalie, and even though I consider them my friends, it’s different, you know?

People have suggested I do hobbies or find groups to join but I’m either too scared to do so or can’t find the types of things to do. It would require a bit step out of my comfort zone and the times I have tried I have only felt pain when it backfires.

Even these days my close mates have drifted away. There are greater differences between us and we all have our own lives going on. But then I think about my father and his inability to make friendships and wonder if it’s like father like son?

I should probably come to terms with the fact that I will never be part of the ‘in’ crowd. I don’t even know if I want to be. I guess I want to be part of a group of people that I can hang out with once or twice a month and have fun times with.But lets not dwell on that.

I guess for now I just have to accept that I’m me and this is how I am. I can’t force it. I just have to accept me and go from there…

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Posted in: Mental Health

Friendship has so many different meanings

November 21, 2010

I was talking to Natalie the other night about friendship. Everyone has their own view on what friendship is. I’m no different and I think it is interesting to see the different forms of friendship that exist in the world. I thought I should explore this further, even if it is just for my own benefit.

What is friendship to me? I think there are different levels of friendship depending on how long I’ve known someone, how I became friends and there are different reasons why I am friends with them. That doesn’t mean the friendship is any less important but it does mean that what I might expect from them is different.

I’m not one to have a lot of friends, so when I do make new friends I come to look at them as being very important. I prefer quality friends over having many of them.

I’m not one of these people that hangs out with their friends every week or every month even for some. That doesn’t mean they are any less important to me. We all have our own lives and our own interests and that is what makes it cool. Sometimes we’ll catch up at a party or just talk over the net but if they needed a shoulder to lean on or someone to talk to I’d be there in a flash.

Not hanging out isn’t because I don’t care. It is to do with the fact that I’m a home body and an introvert. I don’t socialise a lot and when I do it takes a lot of energy. Some of my friends are quite sociable which is great, because it means I can attend things and enjoy myself without having to be Mr Out There 2010. It can lead to issues though if they are feeling neglected because I don’t go to things often because staying at home is quite often the most soothing thing for my soul.

As an example, I have a group of friends that I’ve known since high school. By and large I spent my formative years as a young adult with them having awesome times and really letting my hair down. They live in another city which is about an hour away, so they aren’t too far away to visit but I don’t see them every weekend with them any more.

These guys are the guys that I know I could depend on if all hell broke loose and I didn’t know where to turn to. My pride might get in the way but I know I could rely on them no matter what. It doesn’t matter how often we chat or how long it is between catch ups, and even if you have a few weird moments here or there. At the end of the day, they are my friends, or really my “mates”, and if anything life shattering happened I’d be there for them in a second. I know they would for me too.

Some of those people I went to school with. Some I met later on and have kept in touch with. I know that it is very hard to get rid of these people from my life, and I’m very grateful for that.

Some friends I have I won’t see for a while until we are at the same event. Busy lives cause us to be like ships in the night and pass by often without realising it. Doesn’t reduce the importance of the friendship for me. Like a friend of ours that we see probably once a year or even less. It doesn’t make them any less of a friend and we’ve be there in a minute if there was a call for help.

I can understand that some people might think that friendships like that aren’t really good friendships. I guess that is because they have a different understanding of what friendship is. That becomes a problem if a friend of mine does have a different idea to me and then we have to work through it. Sometimes that doesn’t work and you lose them. That’s life.

What is interesting is that there are so many different ways in which friendships form and how many different ways people see friendship. Some people want their friends on call at all times and must see or talk to them regularly. I’ve never been like that, even with family. We all care about each other but we have our own things on and we talk when we can.

Natalie and I get on so well because we are quite similar in this. We both love our own space to do our things, but still enjoy hanging out with each other when we want to. I think it is the same with my friendships with other people.

I’m sure some of my friends and ex-friends from over the years have found this difficult. I am who I am and I don’t want to change who I am so I guess it is a balance of finding people who can work with what I can offer. I think that’s much like any relationship.

I wonder what you think. What does friendship mean to you? What do you expect from your friends? Do you need them to be in constant contact or do you prefer to just catch up occasionally, or a mixture of the two? Let me know in the comments as I’d love to see what other people think on this.

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Posted in: Mental Health