Conversation between a boy and a rabbit shaped cloud

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Do I fascinate you? You've been staring at me for hours.

BOY: Yes. Right now you are the canvas for my thoughts.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Well, I'm glad I can be of assistance. I often look down and do the same thing.

BOY: Really?

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Well, there's not a lot else for me to do up here...

BOY: What goes through your mind?

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Oh, many things I guess. Wanting to be down there amongst you all is one of them. I often fantasize about what it would be like. To go about the daily business of a human. To build a kingdom.

BOY: Yes?

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Yes! Often! I really think I could make a go of things. I would be focused and not succumb to distractions like everyone else.

BOY: You think we are distracted? Life on the ground is not so easy. Those things are easy to say being a cloud. You are so removed. You possess such carefree perspective.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: It looks pretty simple from up here.

BOY: You are mistaken cloud! It is complicated down here! It might seem that there is a clear objective in life but there is not! Many people spend their whole lives just trying to find that objective, many people's objectives contradict and are in competition, and some people are constantly modifying their objectives, never satisfied.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Hmmmmm, that sounds complicated. I always thought you were striving for happiness.

BOY: Yes we are. But it's not that simple. Happiness tends to change. We can't be happy all the time otherwise we grow weary of it. We seem to need a certain level of misery, boredom and pain thrown in the mix, then we can appreciate happiness again. But all our cycles seem to be out of whack because, often, different things make us happy and sad. And then amongst all that we have to work. And we work too much! We have little time outside of work to strive for happiness.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: I'm not completely sure if I understand. It sounds like a mess down there.

BOY: It can be.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: So that is why I often see you guys staring up at the sky? Your relative insignificance in the context of the universe puts your minor, trivial problems in perspective.

BOY: Yes, I guess so.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Ah, I see. I had wondered about that, but wasn't sure. Do you sometimes wish you were like me, a cloud?

BOY: I often wish I was as free as a cloud.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Yes, it is pretty awesome up here. We are free but at the same time we have limited control of our trajectories. We form and then we break apart. Nothing lasts. It's only during storms when we gather for any meaningful interaction. It's like a family reunion or jamboree. Heavy rains, blocking out the sun, pounding the earth. It's what we live for. I love a good rain! Storms are like a cloud orgy.

BOY: You take pride in making storms?

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Yes, but they don't happen often enough. Often we are so sparse and far apart, it is like wandering in the desert. There is no one to talk to and it can be like that for months. It's only thinking of the next party that gets us through. But sometimes we have no idea when that will be. Sometimes there is no wind and we are stuck, like a sailboat in the ocean. Tell me boy, do I make an interesting shape from down there?

BOY: Yes! You are a rabbit, but you are starting to break apart.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Ha! I thought so! It's what it felt like when the other clouds joined my form. A rabbit in full flight, no? Front and hind legs extended?

BOY: Yes! Precisely.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Good. I'm glad you noticed. I think I made a good dragon yesterday. You would not have noticed though. I was a few hundred kilometres down the coast.

BOY: I would have liked to have seen that.

RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: It was glorious. I caught my reflection in the ocean.

BOY: But you're starting to break up now. You're losing your pointy ears and your legs.

DISSOLVING RABBIT SHAPED CLOUD: Yes. I can feel it. The parts that joined me are starting to drift. It's a shame. We were starting to get to know each other, to have a connection, no?

BOY: Yes. I wish we started this dialogue sooner.

CLOUD: Yes... But... Oooooh, hang on! What's this? Yes! Yes it is! I smell some high pressure to the north!

BOY: Huh?

CLOUD: I'm outa here boy! There's rain coming! The other cloud particles that joined me sensed it earlier. That's where they are going. There's a storm forming! A hot, sticky, moist, wet jam with other clouds! Yahoooooo, Party time! I'll leave you mulling over existential thought. Later!

BOY: -

Dear 40 year old me,

Dear 40 year old me,

God, how are we? Did it all go as planned? Did 31 year old me get the trajectory right? Did we set the right goals? It feels dangerous and frightening writing to you because you seem so close, and you, as you read this, I will seem just a moment ago. We are something like a throw and catch. A throw and catch over a wide flowing river. Did I manage it well? Did your feet have to wander far to search for the catch. I hope I was on the money. I hope your hands were safe.

So many questions! I was a wide minded 31 year old. I had so many places to aim, I had ideas and I wasn't too sure on where I should shoot. But that's a good thing, is it not? To leave the road open to the unraveling journey? To not put a ceiling, walls or floors to ambition?

Did we end up in some off-grid cabin in the woods? Are we in a tiny house pulling the finger at the man? Am I a novelist? Are we practicing permaculture? Am I a unique and cool human specimen? Are we free like birds? How was my investment strategy? Were we able to live off passive income? Did A2 milk take over the world?  Were the years of burden worthwhile for us or did it hinder us? Did it break and destroy us or did we survive, our creativity, vitality and outlook intact. Did we pull out too early or did we stay in too long? It's so hard to get this right as a 31 year old. How much is enough? How much is too much? What is the cost of savings? What exactly does anyone really need. Are we foolish? Are we (in some ways obscurely) brilliant? Oh the burdens of the 30s. Do we have children? Are they as tiring as people say or do they just say that because they have to work full-time as well as raise them. Are we still working? If we are, I hope it is just for fun and it doesn't feel like slavery, a truncation of the better thinking, knowing, inspired self. Tell me we transitioned to a creative industry. Tell me the years up to this didn't hollow us out.

So many questions!

I can only assume where you would be and what you would be like. I hope you are happy and at peace, that you are fit, healthy and still have a peculiar and endlessly entertaining mind. I hope you want to high-five and thank me. Or have I screwed up and do you want to kill me? I've always thought about you and what you would want. I wanted you to be fricking awesome in your own quiet low key way. But at 31 I feel that I am at a very precarious cross-road. With just a few decisions I can change you quite dramatically. Right this minute I am molding you. How crazy is that?! I am forming myself by the decisions I am making. I want you to know the nature of my intent. I am ambitious and not too dead to dream. There's a cloud - metaphorical - that I am trying to curate. Twenty year old us started off as a bit of an uninitiated dickhead and bounced around in a bi-polar fantasy land at times but he found some form and matured a bit. From him, to me, all our lives, we've been building. I just wanted you to know that. We've been waiting for the moments that are soon to unfold and I hope the foundation that we have laid to date is going to capitalize on what is to come.

I hope we make it. Godspeed.

Am I angry? 31 year old me has been getting angry. He's been getting frustrated. There are so many things that irk me. Even stupid small things like: why is Tom Cruise still starring as an action hero? (Sorry. I got distracted there. I'm half watching the breakfast news as I write this and Tom Cruise is hanging off a plane on take-off in a new impossible mission). But Tom isn't actually the problem, you know. He's just the cherry on a cake of disenchantment. The main serving is the human power struggle. The lack of love and compassion. Racism. Inequality. Facts like 20% of Russia's wealth is owned by 111 people. Backhanded and corrupt governments. The fact that we are all flawed, tainted and complicit no matter which chair of judgement we feel entitled to sit in. The world wants things their way and each person's way is contrary to another person's way. Then there's mobs like ISIS. Then there's multinational corporations and governments raping poorer countries. Meanwhile as governments and multinational corps do the raping for a filtered down societal benefit, we're busy taking selfies, seeking attention, documenting our pretend lives, the highlight reel that we want everyone to think is a live feed. Sometimes it's just too much if you stop and think of it. The world is f***ed. You need to get away, escape, lose yourself in some far fetched fantasy land, watch a corny Hollywood movie. Then suddenly you have 53 year old Tom Cruise hanging off an airplane in Mission Impossible 5, saviour of the world.

Climb mountains 40 year old me. Climb lots of mountains.

We haven't been climbing enough mountains. I think it is a necessary medication for us. We get pissed off with the planet and we need perspective. We need a grueling climb and then to look down and see everything from a distance. When removed it looks beautiful again. Tell me we started climbing mountains again. Real mountains. Not just Australian hills where you can still hear and see traffic from the top. All those people in footy shorts and thongs driving around in their beloved utes and trucks.

Be still. Be calm and at peace. I hope I've traveled down the right road for you. You are a brilliant thing even though you often don't believe or realise it. Success isn't what you have or don't have, it is about the ability of your soul to rejoice, the ability of your soul to feel and connect beyond the veil. That's the source of endless beauty.

Or maybe I'm wrong. You know. Who knows? Maybe at 31 years old our fundamentals are way off the mark and we're headed for doom. At least this letter serves as a beacon, a marker. Just like all your writing.

Be free and know that you get to write your own story. You're a good narrator and there's been a pretty amazing cast so far. Never feel like you are a slave. You owe yourself that. The pages and pen are your own.

Fact is, I'm writing to you in future tense but really I'm writing to me in present.

Hasta luego.


31 year old me.