This morning I woke up to a couple of maggots falling on my head.

Since I moved into my cabin, I have had one or two rats entering into the ceiling where the insulation is and possibly nesting. Frequently I have heard them scuttling about, scratching, gnawing, and occasionally squealing with antagonism at another. It is usually only one at a time, and I have thrown the sides of my clenched fist banging against the ceiling to scare them and hopefully either shoo them away or just shut them up from fright. And that was usually when I noticed much upheaval of accumulated rat droppings on the other side of the plywood where they were living.

The ceiling has two 1.5x1m (aprox.) sheets of plywood over the room, a narrow skylight with two PC sheets doubled over top of each other, and directly above the bed two narrow half sheets of plywood covering that end.

About a month ago, after waiting for a sunny weekend, I ripped the corrugated iron roofing off the bed end and found lots of droppings that I cleaned up, but couldn't find any obvious entry points for the rat to get in from the outside, only pathways into that area from the other area. Two weeks ago, I attacked the other side pulling off the roofing and again, finding no rats but many rat droppings. But this time, after doing some research, I sprinkled the insulation and general area with pepper, paprika, and oregano to use as deterrents while also dropping some rat poison in one of it's travel paths, and down where some of the insulation was. 

I think the deterrent worked, as there was no more scuttling in that larger area of ceiling, but over the bed, the rat came back. Last night I heard a rat scurrying about, but then went quiet. This morning the maggots came to visit. Now, let me be clear, I expected there to be a dead rat up there: when the weather did heat up in the afternoon the last few days, I did start smelling the distinct stench of decomposition. So, I knew that at some point I would need to get back up and clean it out. This morning was that point. Three maggots at 7:30 AM, up I got, checked my hair - clean; checked the bed - a few more maggots; cleaned these up, got a bucket and put it beneath the plywood gaps in the ceiling where I suspected they had fallen from, and began getting the tools together to go back onto the roof and pull off the roofing. 

This is what I found:

Yay! Dead rat. Urggh! Dead rat and maggots. (I thought rats were supposed to go outside to die?)

While pulling the infected insulation out and shoving it into a big black rubbish bag, my flatmate/tenant seemed to only care about the minuscule fibers missing the bag and falling on the ground, or drifting through the air. That got me a bit pissed off since having rats in the flatmate's ceiling seems to be the least of her concerns and I replied quite angrily "right now I'm a little bit more concerned with dead rats and maggots in my ceiling." After I got it cleaned out and vacuumed I said that there will need to be new insulation placed in because I've thrown it all out. She said she'd get it herself instead of telling the landlord. 

But why not tell the landlord since it's his property, his housing responsibility?

"I just don't want him to be too concerned about what's happening here, especially with repairs, otherwise it might tip his decision to finally sell the property."

This has been her concern for some time I think, and should he sell, we are all out with nowhere to go: I return to a car that isn't running, potentially back to Tūranganui-a-Kiwa to live with my parents if I can't find a place as cheap as this to rent. With no current car running (mine stopped working about two months ago), returning to living in a car isn't much of an option: I could sleep in it on the side of the road outside the house, I guess!

So currently, I live in a cabin that the tenant doesn't want to contact the landlord about fixing for fear that he'll decide to sell. This property with the potential for vegetable gardening has become her home, the house is her home, and the village we live in has become her home. I understand that dilemma for her, but I do feel at times there is a lack of compassion and concern for her fellow flatmates.

If this cabin is to remain my home, then I am going need to fix it myself and block up every potential entry point for a rat to enter in through. It's not something I can rely on a landlord for, or the tenancy holder. It is my home, my responsibility.

Prior to the spread of the internet, ideas and concepts were not available to sway with as much force, or at least, wide spread dominance and with such speed. Gangs happen because individual identity is lost, and then used as a call for groups who want members - "find your identity (with us!)"

If people were taught pure individualism, not selfishness based on desires as Ayn Rand's philosophy promoted, but a welfare of self-first mentality, then all else would follow. Because in order to take care of the self, one must look after the self, prioritise the welfare of self, and in this one is able to recognise dangers to the self more readily. “Is this going to be beneficial to me?" Most times this will exclude mob mentality because mobs and groups ask for a sacrifice of the self; at some point the individual will be told or persuaded to drop the self-preservation in order to achieve the higher goal: "do it for your brothers," "are you a real man? Do this so you can be a real man as well!"

The higher goal, therefore, must always be self. When it’s not, stronger willed individuals who manipulate are able to take control. Personal self-hood is replaced with someone else's concept of self-hood.

Self-preservation is a key instinct, but is eroded as individual identity is lost. One feels ‘other’ rather than ‘self’. Or, they identify self as ‘other’ rather than ‘I’. ‘I’ is an inward looking state determined to find what is best for self, not subject to outside influences. While outside influences do exist, they are instead a smorgasbord of what enhances the self, not what satiates emotional, physical or intellectual desires. Satisfying these desires for the sake of satisfying them makes one a slave to desires, rather than an owner to their pleasures.

​In terms of male violence, specifically, domestic violence, there is much to be said for ​jealousy and the (in)ability for males to express their feelings without anger turning to hatred and destruction. Much has been said by others, little of which I disagree with (if any).

I am very much a proponent of Egoism as set out by Max Stirner in his 1844 publication The Ego and Its Own. Instead of focusing on individuals outside of himself and how they should act to create a "better" society, Stirner advocated a form of anarchist philosophy that was purely about what he wanted. The point was always to remove 'spooks' from the mind - anything that reduced the individual to a subject to be manipulated by others. Many human beings, if not all, allow ideologies to rule their concepts of the world, they then become subject to these belief systems. What 'communism' has been turned into - a tyrannical 'evil' - is the perfect example - misunderstanding the theory with the application of an idea through fascists and tyrants.

Max Stirner sought to destroy all institutions, ideologies, and belief systems that took away his own individual self. The logical outcome for each Egoist via this route is quite simple: I am what I make of myself, not what others make of me; I am the Unique self according to my own will not to others.

There is no doubt in my mind that society benefits everyone when everyone is accounted for and supported. I'm okay with this, because society provides me with things I need. But history has shown how belief systems when promoted as the higher goal for whatever reason, is what kills humans, is what oppresses people, is what reduces the individual to the subject of someone else's will; is what sends men off to war to be murdered, is what drowns women to decide if they are witches or not; is what kills over and over because, because, because... Male violence (any violence, but specifically male) seems to be centred very squarely on what another human being does to affect them: another person's actions have reduced this self to a subject - subject to how this other person acts. They are no longer what they make of themselves, but what another has made of them. Jealous, angry, possessive, etc.

Many New Age spiritualists seek to help people remove negativity, to learn to live in peace, in the now and not in the future. We as human beings must decide how we pursue life on our own terms.

RE: www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/wellington-lions-player-losi-filipo-escapes-conviction-after-group-attack-2016092618

Today I am truly disgusted with New Zealand's justice system. If we cared more for the victims of attacks, we would have justice serving them and not the attacker, we would believe that justice is relevant only to the actions committed, not by who the people are who committed them, or what their future prospects are.

A human being must be held responsible for the actions they have committed and therefore deal with the consequences of those actions – did nobody teach this to the Judge who presided over Filipo’s case? To allow a human being to get away with four assault charges on four other human beings is quite simply not asking the perpetrator to be responsible for their actions, and thus not to truly deal with the consequences of those actions. It is extremely shameful to see Losi Filipo “say” that he he is remorseful yet commit to no actions that would be evidence of remorse – does Filipo have enough guts to step down from playing rugby for the same length of time that his victim is unable to play rugby? Even more shameful that he has not expressed this so called remorse himself in public as far as I'm aware, and had a spokesperson to do it for him. Is this the example of our great rugby players - cowardice?


Let me ask some other questions:

- Will Losi Filipo's contract with the Wellington Lions pay compensation for any surgery, therapy, etc., of the victims?

- If Losi Filipo is truly remorseful will he volunteer to give back to the victims what he took away in whatever way is suitable?



A question for New Zealanders:

- Will we stand by and do nothing as our Judge's make exceptions for celebrities and sports stars?



These victims are brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters – they could be family to any one of us. If we allow the Justice System to continue committing miscarriages of justice, then we allow the potential for further assaults to be committed without any consequence.

Are we going to ask the Judge to step down from duty because s/he has not served the interest of the victims first, the community second, and the aggressor third by demanding that they receive the full force of the law and deal with the consequences of their actions?

Does the NZ Rugby Union care only for money and ratings to allow an aggressive abuser to continue playing with the audience of many young and impressionable children and teens watching?



What are we the parents, educators, and caregivers to children and youth supposed to say when it is clear that if you are a sports star, you can get away with brutal assaults on other New Zealanders?


I would like some answers please, because I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do. And I certainly don't know how to tell students to be responsible and deal with the consequences of their actions, when case after case is presented where perpetrators of assault don't have to do the same.