Stars, passions, light... what was I thinking? I sound like some kind of schlep astrologist.

Did you know though, that when we look at the stars, we are seeing light that originated many billions of years ago? We are in effect, witnessing an image of the universe from aeons ago - before mankind, before the word-concept "star" even existed.

Just think of all the horrific apocalypses that we have yet to see - entire planets and alien races erased in giant bursts of supernova. The universe might already be self-destructing, our planet soon to be consumed in an immense flash of energy, rolling silently, majestically, through the cosmos towards us... and yet we live on, as oblivious and ignorant as the birds that flew above Hiroshima on that fateful day.

Then again, where now we see nothing but black space, there may be thousands of newborn stars with their attendant planets and moons - fantastic new galaxies teeming with the beginnings of life.

And for those strange and wonderful creatures, our story will not begin until billions of years after the last human has perished. What will they see? Is our purpose to serve as a warning to them? Will they come and dig up our bones, scour our sandblasted landscape for fossils and relics, and mount our pathetic remains in museums like dinosaurs?

We think we're hot shit, but maybe we're no more interesting than troglodytes or petty amoeba in the bigger scheme of things. Perhaps we're not the end point of monkey evolution, but a lesser form of milkyway mollusc, only marginally more interesting than the tinea found on Uranus? We aren't worthy of their museums! We're just a touristy gimmick to entice intergalactic travellers to take stop-revive-survive in this forsaken part of the galaxy!

Star light, star bright, what are you looking at tonight?

One thing about blogs is that they make you realise how quickly time passes. Has it really been one week since the last post? I feel compelled to write something new, even though I haven't really finished the last post yet. Too many days, too little thought, and way too much laziness.

Luckily, I have friends who can think for me.

I ran into Gracie at Danger's housewarming, and she gave me some cool ideas to complete my last post. No time to finesse them now, but here they are before I forget them...

Each piece of art is like a star - you can never have too many. Even the faintest one helps to illuminate our universe that little bit more. In fact, their incredible number is part of their beauty. A single speck in the sky versus a million specks - which one impresses you more? Then compare the daunting task of having to create a masterpiece as brilliant as the sun, to the simple task of creating just another star in a universe of stars. Thinking in this way, cosmic impossibilities become something we can grasp, and make possible.

Also, we should look at each masterpiece the same way we look at our ex-lovers. For a time, they were the brightest star, the centre of our universe. But time is like distance - it changes how we perceive things, whether we like it or not. Before we know it, that bright sun recedes into the distance, becomes lost amongst a sea of stars. Therefore we constantly need new stars, and new art, to rekindle our passions, light our universe, and show us where we want to go.

What does it mean when someone says "you are full of beans"? Are they suggesting you are full of energy - full of the seeds of great ideas? Or do they mean you are full of gas - just one big fart amongst farts, an expellation of odious nothingness - a windbag, an empty dreamer?

If I was truly full of beans, I would pat my stomach with the contentment of a man full of goodness. A warm belly is not to be scoffed at. Good digestion encourages contemplation - a kind of metaphysical digestion, essential to human nobility.

A recent visit to the Art Gallery has inspired me to take more time to digest my world - to ruminate on the relationships between objects and events in my life - to contemplate contemplation itself. Do we contemplate less than our predecessors? The painters of old had to carefully compose and craft a single image over several months, often several years, investing much contemplation in the subject of their work. We on the other hand, are faced with a proliferation of images so overwhelmingly vast that one could spend several lifetimes studying them.

Standing in awe before a painting that took 6 years to complete, I couldn't help thinking of the millions of photos we now produce everyday. Who has time to look at them all? In the ten seconds you spend contemplating a photo, ten thousand other photos are taken. The industries of mass media are producing more content each day than we can possibly consume in 24 hours. The weight of all this work is mind-boggling.

There are now too many masterpieces that demand contemplation, understanding, and elevation into something more than mere representation. The impossibility of comprehending them all annoys me. What then, drives us to continue producing? Do we really need more masterpieces? Why am I compelled to add my own creations to the already impossibly dense detritus of history?

Perhaps it's because understanding is not enough. The conclusions of contemplation must be acted upon, inscribed and shared with others, preferably through a medium that will outlast our frail bodies. From the first rock-painting to the 3D animations of today, we have progressively simplified the universe into forms we could understand and control, and thus unlock meaning in our lives. Each act of contemplation and creation then, is a small step towards gaining full control of our destinies.

"Love is the infinite placed within the reach of poodles."

Ah Celine, you funny frog. It's a pity you're dead. We would have gotten on well together. I'm flying through your "Journey To The End Of The Night" - it has been my faithful companion during this week of "working" from home. Your philosophy of "Pleasure first" is just the encouragement I need.

Like Danger, you delight in saying what others dare not, in provoking rather than prevaricating. Your fantastic assemblies of wise and wicked words are quickly filling up my little black book. We need more people like you to expose our dark thoughts for us, to make us laugh at our lusts, and share a conspiratorial chortle over life's inanity. Some writers just have more balls than the rest. To publish this in the 1930s makes me laugh.

"Even I who had travelled and experienced no end of complications in the pornographic line, never seem to have exhausted the hope of intimate revelations. Where the ass is concerned, there's always a residue of curiosity. You say to yourself that the ass has nothing more to tell you, that you haven't one more minute to waste on it, and then you start in again just to make absolutely sure that the subject is exhausted, you learn something new about it after all, and that suffices to launch you on a new wave of optimism. Indeed, there are always, at all ages, discoveries to be made in the vagina."

One other important thing you've taught me, it's that my struggles are nothing new. Money and boredom have always been the bane of humanity. Cursed with intelligence, we became bored. Boredom drove us to invent Money, and Money drove us to create everything else under the sun. But our struggles make us interesting. People who don't struggle are boring. Their energy is like the unflagging persistance of an ocean liner, plowing its way through endless seas...

The necessity of buying a new mobile phone has introduced a new way of looking at things. The phone I bought two years ago looks like such a pathetic interpretation of Star Trek futurism. This is 2002! Is it as futuristic as we all imagined growing up? Watching French films from the 60s and American films from the 70s has taught me to see time itself as a showcase. Jean Seberg in Godard's 1960 classic, A Bout de Souffle, is still as sexy as ever, because her short spunky haircut is back on the streets of today. It makes me wonder - when will our waxed and jagged haircuts become the goofy bighair throwbacks we see on midday TV dramas? The Citroens of old seem as futuristic to me as the iPod of today. But somewhere along the line, Citroen actually went backwards in time - from being futuristic to anachronistic. Meanwhile, the things we grew up with are now coming back into fashion as the kids of yesterday become the designers and trend-setters of today. Hence the 70s revival, which is now transmogrifying into the 80s revival. Why are E.T. and Star Wars being re-released? Is it really for the kids of today or us - the kids of yesterday?

Is time a physical law or a perception? Many things around us already seem like clunky, dinosauric remnants of an age that thought it was thoroughly cutting-edge and modern. The beige box computers we use look like something out of the Flintstones. A shiny black Remington typewriter from 1920s is much more impressive. The 1970s targeting computer used in the Rebel's attack on the Death Star was cutting edge in its time too. I often wonder how I managed to get so enthralled in those monochrome games... Pong on the Atari, Donkey Kong on the handheld, Bushido and Sun Tzu's Art of War on my XT. Was it just childish imagination or were those games so futuristic and novel everyone thought they were cool?

This working from home gig has been great. I've started reading books again and watching copious amounts of daytime TV... yesterday I was getting into Head of the Class, followed by Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Talk about dated! How come we never see today as being dated? Look at Oprah - she had that big wonderful diet thing, and now she's fattening up again. We should all make an attempt to see today from the perspective of ten years into the future. Cos the times, they are a changing...

Been feeling guilty for not writing much lately. It's a strange itch. Like the feeling after having watched too much TV ... not just a dazed tiredness but a sour kind of annoyance at yourself. Writing isn't much fun when you're beat. It's been all hands on deck for the Big Brother 2 launch, and I had to work a 54 hour week, which is nothing by modern standards, but it seemed to wear me down. This week I'm rostered on nights, which means I get to work from home, which is much cushier, except it kills my social life. I forced myself to go out last Saturday night in order to compensate but was just too exhausted to really enjoy myself. I almost fell asleep in Superbowl at 2 in the morning. Going soft I tell ya! After the highs of Melbourne, I'm like the walking wounded.

But one week on and I'm still thinking about moving to Melbourne. I've been evangelising it a lot to my friends. I wonder if I'm serious. It would be nice, for a change, to actually do something I dream about. As miso suggested on Saturday, I am at risk of getting "too comfortable" and not going anywhere. Was that a subtle accusation of "selling out"? Miso despises the safe way. Whatever happened to carpe diem? In my defence, I downloaded the application form for the VCA, I guess that's a start.

It's become quite clear to me lately - I want to study more and make films, write books or something. But I would happily postpone those dreams for the privilege of not having to work in shitty depressing jobs for the rest of my life. Everything was fine until I left uni. All of a sudden, the motivation to imagine and create went head to head with the motivation to live in comfort and security. Reality Bites. I guess creating is too much fun. It has to be underpaid otherwise everyone would want to do it and there'd be no food on the table and mountains of garbage on every street corner. The amount you earn is usually inverse to the amount of fun you have whilst working. Unless you come from a rich family, you need either the fun to outweigh the money, or the fun that money buys to outweigh the pain of working. Most people tend to work their way up from the left end of the scale to the right, but I want to do it the other way round.

Anyway, it's late and I'm feeling old. Got to go get my beauty sleep. There's too much ugly in this world already.

Just got back from an awesome holiday in Melbourne. My third trip in almost 6 months, but an important one, because this time I decided that Melbourne is better than Sydney. Although I was born in Sydney, I grew up in Melbourne so I've always had fond memories of the place, but now I'm convinced that Melbourne truly is cooler - both literally and metaphorically!

I love Melbourne's lanes filled with cafes and restaurants, the many little boutique stores selling Australian designed clothes and accessories, the friendly people and flat, bike-friendly topography. Most of all, I like the cottage industry feel of the place. Where else can you walk into a clothes store and buy something actually designed and manufactured by the shop assistant? Or listen to two jazz bands playing on the pavement at the same time? Creative souls are respected in Melbourne.

Sure Sydney has warmer weather, a beautiful harbour and great beaches, but Melbourne has culture, a sense of community, and great town planning. There's less traffic and street-noise, the roads and pavements are wider, theres more parks and trees, which all adds up to make people less aggro overall. Car drivers wait for pedestrians to cross the road, rather than honking and running them down. It's a nice place!

Wait til you see my photos! It all just makes me want to move to Melbourne and become a filmmaker.

But bloody hell, all my friends and family are in Sydney! Move to Melbourne ya bastards! You're ruining my life! I won't be happy without you!

What the hell? Why am I always at work again? The weeks seem to pass like flying geese. Maybe I've been having too much fun. My wallet certainly thinks so. I just spent the last 4 days like a hedonistic uni student... no concept of day, time or suffering. Between clubs, bars and cafes, I saw Wanking Life, Royal Tenenbaums, and even started shooting the prequel to Tian Bian. It felt good to be behind the camera again. Though I noticed when watching the rushes that I pay no attention to what people say when I'm filming. Face glued to the eyepiece, I enter another world - one viewed within a moving rectangle. I am no longer a person. I am an eye. The overriding importance of the visual greedily consumes brain resources usually dedicated to hearing, touch, smell and taste. Watching rushes is like being there for real, because during the shooting, I'm not actually there... I'm off in some virtual editing suite complaining to my assistants that the actors aren't gestural enough, that they're not forthcoming with the subtle mannerisms desired by the director.

I don't know how I'm ever going to make a film using real celluloid. My method is not economical enough. I let the camera roll, even between takes, hoping to catch those spontaneous natural responses that charm me. Out of a whole day's shoot, I got 90 minutes of footage, of which only 5 minutes leapt from the screen, of which only 30 seconds or so may actually make it into the finished film. But I guess that's why movies are so wonderful - because they distill life down to its essence - to a few fleeting seconds of pure charm - Bazin's "holy moment."