Flueber's Theorm

Okay. So I’ve settled into my new life in Darwin. I’ve landed a job which, while not the most stimulating or challenging role I’ve ever filled, is keeping me out of mischief (or at least, forcing me to concentrate my mischief on weekends). I’ve bought myself a car (and then smashed it into the beast from Marlow’s Lagoon – still waiting on the quote from the insurance assessor to come through). I’ve come to grips with the fact that I live in Palmerston. So I guess it’s time to come clean on what I’m really doing here.

In the spring of 1976 a Dutch mathematician named Hans Flueber theorised that for all X where X is acted upon by an exterior force (let’s call that force “Garry with 2 Rs”), the probability that Garry with 2 Rs would act upon X was inversely proportional to the number of well meaning friends telling him he should totally act upon X.

Obviously old Hans faced a few challenges when it came to proving his theory. Firstly, it didn’t have any numbers in it, so all his mathematician friends started laughing at him. Secondly, I (Garry with 2 Rs) wasn’t born until 1983, which, while proving how far ahead of his time Flueber was, made it difficult to define a meaningful set of testable variables. Also, he was mute, invisible, a pirate and made of grape flavoured jelly, so people tended not to take him seriously.

The point is (yeah, believe it or not, there is one) I’ve decided that while I’m here and not suffering from the same shackles and obligations that many of my friends do (spouses, children, a social or biological imperative to grow up and act responsibly, etc.) now is the perfect time to launch a theory of my own (this time it’s real. I’m not made of jelly or any other sort of desert as far as I know. I do really like ice cream though).

Wait… I just read back over the second paragraph. I think I should clarify; X is not a woman. X is more abstract, and basically stands for the stuff everyone tells you that you should do, because it’s established social convention, or popular ‘wisdom’ dictates it as the appropriate choice.

Where was I?

Yes. My theory is that in a city the size of Darwin, for a citizen of that city as well known to many of its other citizens as I am and for someone who’s been bouncing around the Christian scene for as long as I have, it is not necessary to limit one’s abilities and influences to the service of just one branch thereof. If that didn’t make any sense to you, don’t panic. It’s only just starting to make sense to me. For now, I’ll just introduce you to my first running total for this year. It’s over there on the right hand side of the blog, under my profile description (maybe I should update that too… although I think all that stuff is still true).

I had my first conversation with someone who told me I needed to get planted last weekend. While I respect the opinion of the man who told me this, he’s completely wrong. I'm convinced that it's possible to be a functional member of the Church of Darwin without confining myself to membership of just one congregation. This year, I intend to prove it.

I aim to misbehave




Garry with 2 Rs

(Yeah, I know I can’t actually use that as my new sign off, since it’s already been done by Captain Reynolds. It would be awesome though…)