What exactly does your god tell you when he whispers in your ear? What does he do to manifest feelings in your heart?
The things you will go on to do in his name?
The actions you will take?
From the small things to whether you reply to an email or respond to someone in the street.
To the finger, with gold you will surround.
To the bombs planted in the hearts and minds of those whose god is different.
You will put your god before people.
Then one day when you finally meet your god will you be relieved? To look back on the devastating road that lead you to this place, but be glad that you finally made it.
Will you look back on all the people that haven't and feel pity?
I wonder if you will realize that the reason that they haven't might be because of all the things you said and did in his name?
They meant nothing to you, and therefore your god.
Madame Delany, the last remaining clairvoyant, was sad when she finally packed up her tent. As she stowed away her crystal ball and unhooked the veils for the very last time she reflected on years of visions and readings. She met all sorts of people in that tent. There were many non-believers who came in for a laugh, some were skeptics - unsure of what to believe - and the remaining others stared into her eyes intently. They trembled when they held out their palms, they clutched and shuddered hopefully. She could feel their energies, she could read their expressions and body language. It was a serious matter speaking words into people's lives. It was a matter she never took lightly and if she saw nothing amidst the faux smoke and glimmer in the crystal, she never charged.
But no one came to see her anymore. Machines had taken over.
Madame Delany sighed as she contemplated the demise of personal contact, the human touch of intimacy, romance, drama and mystique.
People were now informed of their futures via computers for handsome sums not just loose change. It was an age where machines knew more about people than people did about themselves.
Almost every human action was monitored, recorded and meta-analyzed. With the advent of social media, CCTV cameras, satellite tracking systems, and electronic financial blue-printing, machines could trace the whereabouts of everyone, the things they viewed and searched for, the friends they kept, their affiliations and habits - social, financial, and private.
It was an age where technology was fast but time was even faster. People were busy, too busy, lives always being lived in the future tense with no ability to rest in the present moment. People no longer knew each other, just ideas and marketed images, sales-pitch personalities on screens. You saw people's selected images rather than their physical being. This was how they communicated and this was how they networked. There remained very few chance encounters. Face-to-face evolved into screen-to-screen. Existence had become calculated and boring. Advertising slowly replaced inspiration, and wonder had been brushed aside by statistic.
But Madame Delany never wanted any of these things. She despised the city and its commercialism. She hated machine orientated invasions of privacy all for the sake of capital. She lived the life of a true bohemian, in the countryside on the outskirts of the city. There she lived in peace, growing her own vegetables, trading produce with neighbours, never owning a cell phone, computer or television. She had all that she needed, living a simple contented life.
But this way of life was slipping away. Slowly, even the bohemian communities were evolving. House rents increased and became harder to cover. The owners in the city began to evict those that couldn't pay. Everyone started to move further afield where the cost of living was more affordable or stay, working harder and longer. She began to lose many of her friends and the community disintegrated.
Some months later, a drunk and heavily depressed Madame Delany stumbled off a public bus in the middle of the city. Fuelled by a heavy sense of irony she swiped her bank card in a machine that told people's futures. The bank card was the only information they had on her and she hardly ever used it.
The machine quoted her the cost of it's clairvoyance service and it was nearly the entire sum of her account, but she decided to accept.
In a slot at the bottom of the machine a piece of paper emerged which read her new balance which amounted to a few quarters - the cost she usually charged her clients to have their futures read.
Below that was only one additional piece of information, her future;
Directions to the nearest bureau where they issue food stamps.
Immediately the screen dismissed her, changing to welcome the next user in bright colours, an image of a nuclear family jumping for joy in celebration on an intricately cultivated suburban lawn.
What is your life mission? If you could put it in a sentence what would you write? Have you even given it a good amount of thought? Do you believe that there is a purpose in life and that you have a meaningful and pivotal role to play?
It's not an easy question to answer because it beckons your views and beliefs about existence. Why are we here? What are we doing? Where are we going? What is important, sacred, and what do we hold dear?
For most people it is likely a question that gives rise to so many more questions but how insane would it be to not ponder and ask questions about one's own life?
Such questions have come up a lot on my travels. When asked what a person's aims and goals in life are a large proportion will answer with something like "to live life with no regrets" or, "to be the best that I can be."
They seem content with such answers and don't give it much thought beyond that. But such statements have no foundation. They are like voices thrown into the wind, fading and taken in any direction. What is 'the best that one can be'? And how does one go about achieving that? I'm also uneasy with the saying 'live life with no regrets.' Isn't it more accurate to say : Make mistakes but learn how to live with the scars?
Surely we can do better.
It seems not much is sacred in this day and age. Technology has given proliferation to information, opinion and choice and post modernism has promoted an unbridled pursuit of pleasure. We are in the habit of living for the 'now' and giving in to the immediate but where will it take us?
What is your life mission? Is it to live the good life? Is it to pursue pleasure in all its forms and fulfill your every desire in the trust that that will bring personal fulfillment and happiness? Would it create a more harmonious world, to give in to each flutter of the heart? Is this what it means to be true to oneself?
I seek pleasure in my life but I believe that there are pure pleasures and illicit pleasures. Pleasure always has a cost. You either pay for it before or you pay for it after. Pure pleasures are often at the cost of patience, diligence, trust, and perseverance. You pay for them in advance. Illicit pleasures are those that cause harm or have impact on yourself or someone else somewhere down the line. Without guidance or a moral code or truth, pleasure is a problem.
Where do you think pleasure comes from? Is it merely a reaction of chemicals confined to the body or does it transcend into the mysteries of the soul?
As a great and wealthy king once wrote with his kingdom at the height of it's glory;
"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."*
There has to be a foundation. There has to be something solid that dictates what is truly beautiful, pure and meaningful and what is not. There must be truth.
With post modernism and relativism I feel that we are drowning in a sea of triviality. There is no longer a black and white. Truth has become a relative term and has therefore become undefinable. There are no longer boundaries and therefore there is no longer substance. We are each kings of our little kingdoms toiling under the sun.
What is your life mission?
I fear that the world today doesn't ask the question. We are walking blind, chasing sensual pleasures in a hope to find meaning but we are getting more and more lost. An endless chasing of the wind.
What is your life mission? What does your heart and soul really long for?
It's not an easy question to answer but what are we if we don't give it serious thought.
*quotation is from the book of Ecclesiastes 2: 4-16.
Gandhi was asked to describe in twenty-five words or less what
his life mission was... .
He said, "I could do it in three: Renounce and enjoy."
You renounce all worldly attachment to everything and
enjoy what God gives you.
You give away what you have inside yourself, your love.
You're not concerned with whether it worked or didn't work, whether
it was right or wrong, whether
you won or lost.
You just constantly flow through your life
without getting attached to the results.
The irony is that the less attached you are, the
more you get.
The more you keep circulating,
the more keeps coming back to you. It's
a flowing system.
Matt 22: 36-39 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."
When I was about ten years old I remember seeing a teenager in Wellington wearing a black shirt with the print "TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS." I was riding in the back seat of a taxi that day with my dad and my aunt and uncle and as we stopped at a set of lights the teenager crossed the road the taxi driver shook his head while reading the contents of the teenager's shirt aloud. He laughed sardonically and as he did so I remember my adult compatriots taking notice and sharing rather sardonic chuckles themselves. What would that kid know about TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS?
Was it a slow download speed on Napster? Was it the vexatious Wellington wind? Was it being short a bus fare by a few cents? Was it the lack of attention paid to him by a female cashier at Burger King?
Maybe it was all those things. Maybe it was more. I guess it doesn't matter when it comes to TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS because perception is subjective. It's psychological. It's irrational. But the feeling may be very real.
On a bad day I'm experiencing TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS.
I'm doomed on such days. There is no hope, no light. There is no promise. And although I pretty much never swear and even seldom do it in my head I resort to profanity and it seems the only apt adjective to describe anything because it is all fucked. FUCKED. Fucking fucked.
FUCKED.
I'm feeling so low on these days which is strange for me as I like to think I'm the sort of person that leaves their front door each day in search of hope.
I feel like I've been abandoned. Although I have lots of friends and family it doesn't mean anything. I am alone even if I am not. I am abandoned even if I am surrounded. People are talking but no one is listening. Suggestions are sugar coated but they hold no pertinence. Even I know that I am being an idiot for the way I am feeling but I can't help it. I have already tried to feel otherwise. Ive already told myself that I am being irrational. But none of this matters because the feeling is so real. I am utterly empty. There is a huge void inside. I'm drowning in a sea of people. I'm falling apart in a public space. I'm silently crying out for help, for anything, something. Something that holds it all together. Something that makes sense. Something that tells me that there is purpose, a plan, meaning. That hope and love are real, not just experiences. That they have a source and it is absolute and unconditional. That love is. That love wants. That love will find me.
I don't nor ever will own a shirt that says TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS but I feel like I've worn it before. It was on a bad day. Possibly my worst day.
It was also in Wellington. I played indoor cricket without feeling. I drove home with no urgency or desire and then lay in bed wanting to be swallowed by it never to resurface. But the feelings would not go away. I felt tormented. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to bring it to an end.
It was a work night and at 1:30AM I decided to get in my car and drive up one of the hills overlooking Wellington city in the rain. I got out of the car and stepped out into the moonless wintery night. The clouds hung low and remember fumbling my way up an overgrown path. I love mountains because they give me clarity of vision. They put things in perspective for me but on this night I felt devoid of my natural senses. When I could see the specks of city lights below me through the fog I wondered what the point in all of it was. Who really made a difference to the world? I just saw it as one big hopeless fucked up mess. I had an idea that I wanted to scream when I reached the hilly outcrop but I couldn't even manage that. My breathing started to go and I got down on my knees failing to gain any form of composure. What was happening to me? I had no idea. "Oh fuck" I remember uttering to myself. I started freaking out. I was scared. All I felt was darkness and I was at the mercy of it, like it was going to consume me. Oh, God, Oh God, please help I remember voicing in my mind over and over again and eventually my breathing started to slow back to a normal rhythm and it calmed me. I felt as though I was covered in a veil of darkness but now I started to see a pin prick of light. It was faint, tiny, minute but it disturbed the darkness and I clung to it.
'This is what hell is' I was told that night. It is not fiery flames. It is darkness and separation. Devoid of hope.
You must know this. It is a reality for many people.
People need hope. They need love. They need truth.
Light starts in a dark place.
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
ON A GOOD DAY it feels like nothing can stop me. It's like I am channeling the powers of God, I have been called and counted and this remarkable understanding of love and sense of self, others and purpose oozes from my fingertips. In many ways it feels as if I am uncontainable, like I am bigger than my body and greater than a sum of my parts. I am not alone and I feel a connection to humanity, nature and the universe. I get a sense for how it spins: wheels within wheels, circles within cycles, micro and macro. It all comes down to the same glorious design and purpose and I'm looking at all, touching it, feeling it, inhaling it and I realize that we are inseparable. I was made to walk this earth just as every other. Our lives where made to collide and intersect and although there is pain and other inclement weather, this is not the status quo and these are not chains that are set to bind and confine us.
On a good day I feel as though I am found and placed on a high shelf. It is not because I am better than anyone else, it is simply because that is my value along with everyone else. On a good day I am raised up and can see so clearly. Beyond what I can normally process in my head. Beyond what is dragged around in my heart. It lifts like helium. It shoots into the sky and explodes like fireworks in the dark. All my conflicts, all my fears, all my inadequacies, all my guilt and all my wrongs. They become huge explosions resonating throughout the sky, sending shock waves throughout the earth. There is an explosion of light. A multicolored spectacle of space pioneering sparks.
I'm with friends, family and strangers on a good day. We're all watching the firework display and letting it all go. We link arms together and watch it all explode. On a good day we're all up there. So, so high. So, so free. But we are also on the earth. We are extensions of ourselves. We are in all things and we are in each other.
On a good day we are clutching at something intangible.
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if everyone made an honest living. What if all jobs were in some way a benefit to mankind and what if companies didn’t charge too much for products or services. What if everything was reasonable? What if there were no monopolies? I know I’m asking too much. But what if everyone just did enough to have what they needed?
I look at people and their lifestyles and wonder how they keep it all together. These thoughts have stuck with me having rented a spare room temporarily with a family. Both parents are thirty-something health professionals and they have two children, 4 and 3.
I wouldn’t normally stay with a family but for 5 weeks it was convenient.
I watch them. The family. Not in a creepy way but the way someone watches things when lazily microwaving a potato for dinner. I look at the alarm (6AM) when the kids are tearing up the house in the morning. And I watch him (the father) fall asleep on the couch at 8:30PM with an un-drunk cup of tea in front of the television.
Is this the future? I think.
This cannot be the future.
It is this fear of this sort of thing becoming my life that has prompted thoughts about living modestly and making honest gains.
Why do we work so hard? What makes us work so hard? Do we have to work so hard?
These are my answers;
Capitalism. The rich have power. They rich have luxury. The rich have people under them making them money. Why not be rich?
Yep. That’s about it.
But I wonder how many of us working class get there? I mean truly get there. And what is the cost?
I’m not coming from a “let’s move the country and start a commune” point of view (although I do fantasize about it from time to time). Business and industry is important part of society. But what if people worked less? I’m not saying work less hard. I’m saying: still work hard, simply work less. What if we job shared? The tasks would all get done. The cogs of society would keep turning. We’d all have more time for recreation. We wouldn’t always be microwaving potatoes for dinner and we’d all have better quality of life, health and well-being. There would also be a lot less unemployment.
It’s a wonderful thought: A three day work week and a four day weekend.
I know, I know, this is sounding a bit like communism. But isn’t the idea of communism quite beautiful until human nature kicks in and the balance of the scales are corrupted by laziness and greed? There will be people that want something for nothing and there will be people that want everything at the expense of others. We can’t eradicate human nature and therein lies the problem.
I walked across Spain on an ancient pilgrimage trail several years ago with my friend Matt. We stayed in refuges, most really cheap, some requiring only donation. It is a popular trail. Some do it for religious purposes although many do it to ‘reconnect’ with the simple way of life and ‘escape’ the trappings of their general realm of existence. Each day basically consisted of fellowship, walking, eating, drinking, sleeping and enjoying the scenery. The only problem was some people saw it as a race. They wanted to get to the next refuge before everyone else. They would get up at 5AM, turn the lights on in the dormitory, create noise by packing all their belongings and disrupt everyone’s sleep just so they could trudge on ahead. Maybe they were scared of not having a place to sleep. Maybe they just felt the need to arrive at the next destination first.
I revisited Northern Spain again earlier this year and re-walked some of the trail. A Hollywood movie had been made about the walk since and I was surprised at how much busier it had become. It was actually too busy. People were now getting up at 4AM and by lunchtime there were lines outside the refuges waiting for them to open. The prices for refuges had also been put up. Many people even cheated by taking a bus.
Maybe that is just like working life. People have this desire to have more than others or get there faster so they pursue these things rather than focus on meeting their own needs and enjoying the journey.
It is after all the journey that is important, not the destination.
I don’t know where the world is going. We have technology that is supposed to make things easier for us but it ends up making us more busy. We put our kids in a daycare or kindergarten so both parents can work and then this industry of child minding blossoms and pushes up the prices of time spent with our children. Suddenly we want a night out without our kids and then we realize that it’s going to cost us $100 for the babysitter because the going rate is $20/hour. Such is the case with the family I am staying with.
Maybe I’ve travelled too much and maybe I’ve fallen a little too out of touch but I just don’t get what it is everyone is aspiring towards.
On the Gold Coast everyone looks at and wants this;
Gold Coast Highrise and coastal real estate
But I’m looking in the opposite direction. I’m looking at this;
Gold Coast Hinterland
In ten years I wouldn't be surprised if people no longer walk across Spain but instead opt to drive.
There will be pilgrim taxes imposed for accommodation. The concept of 'pilgrimage' will be lost.
The family I have been renting a room off live on the Gold Coast but they never really get to go to the beach.
On the Gold Coast there are already public buses branded with images of women with large breasts advertising for 'medical holidays' in Asia. I hear nurses at work talking about them along with botox and nip-tucks. Meanwhile the 'hard' men are wearing sleeve tattoos and they drive around in fancy cars purchased on finance.
Dying is for suckers so I'm not going to do it. Think about it. Wouldn't it change the way you looked at the world. Wouldn't it change your itinerary, your goals in life? Don't die. Just don't do it. It makes everything so much easier.
I meet people that are scared shitless of dying everyday. Most don't explicitly state it but I can tell. They proudly and importantly talk about their accomplishments and their achievements. They educate me on them because I am meant to appreciate their worth. They mention their boat, their overseas holiday house that they barely visit. The mansion they live in. They speak of their possessions as if holding onto them like they are slipping away. Good for them, I think. They may have generated considerable wealth. They may have established small empires for themselves. But what does it all mean? They're going to die. I'm not bothered with any of it.
That's not to say that I don't try to accomplish great things. That's not to say that I'm not after a home and a holiday. I'm just not in such of a rush. I'm in no hurry. I just take my sweet time. The outlook is pretty cruisy when you think eternal.
All I'm after is a decent conversation, a hike in the hills, a play in the surf. I'm here to learn and to share, to enjoy and to grow. You would think I'd be more concerned about advancing empires in the time that I have. When you are not going to die you can build something that can trump anyone else's. You can spend more time working and more time investing. You can buy more land and afford more labourers. The truth is, this is still a waste of time. Even though I have all the time in the world, there are so much better things for me to do.
I would rather tell people that they shouldn't die because it is that simple. All they need to do is realize that they have a choice and choose not to do it. Just don't do it!
There are so many sunrises waiting to be seen from mountaintops. There are so many seas to be sailed. There are crops to plant and feasts to be shared at harvest. There is nothing else for us to do and there is no need to overcomplicate it.
I'm not going to die.
Even when my body is riddled with cancer and I'm on my deathbed.
Sometimes you’ll be in a place and all you want to do is find it. You’ll feel completely lost, completely incapable, completely hopeless. You will search high and low, near and far but the feeling and the loss is inescapable. You’ll be walking alone, amongst the crowd and the traffic. You’ll blast music in your ears without listening. Words will not make sense and emotions will only polish the edge of something you cannot convey. There will be silence when all you want to hear is a small clear voice. There will be noise, deafening scrambled noise when all you want to hear is quiet. There will be this small seemingly insignificant spot inside you that is empty and in realizing this you will discover that that small insignificant spot is actually all that needs to be filled and the remaining space has no bearing or importance in life whatsoever. You will retrace your steps till you found the point where you went wrong. You will remember the time when you had or was close to finding it. You’ll remember how important this thing was. You will realize that this is all that really matters. That this is all you need. Then you will carry on. You feel the sun on your face and the ground at your feet. You will continue as you always continued in all the noise and lights. In all the hum and all the fuss. You’ll run and watch everything blur like everyone else. You’ll watch everything get complicated. The world is a dizzying kaleidoscope. You’ll find yourself lost again. You’ll realize how far you have traveled from where you were. You’ll be in that same place. Completely lost, feeling completely incapable, hopeless. The scenery and the happenings and interactions that fill it will suddenly seem all disconnected. And all you’ll want to do is find it...
He looks at the screen hoping that enlightenment would come but once again there was no message. It frustrated him that things would have to be this way - this kind of one-way communication with his father. He wanted answers. He wanted to know everything, to know where he was going, what he was supposed to do, how everything would pan out. He wanted to be able to calculate all of the obstacles in his path and the difficulties he would face, that way he wouldn't feel as if he was always running blind, falling from one problem to the next, never understanding the purpose of it all despite this underlying desire for something he couldn't define.
He looks at the screen once again.
Still nothing.
In the absense of communication he would often spend time speculating about how he should go about things. He was doing this now as he walked around his apartment staring blankly through his thoughts. He would try to assume his father's rational point of view but always fell short. This was perhaps, that he was not the man his father was nor would ever be. His head was clouded, a jumble of interferring stimuli that tried to find solace in outlook, but the forces were always opposing and the result was a scaled down yearning propogating an unsteady forward step. He wanted more. He knew he was made for more.
Another glance at the screen is taken.
Again nothing.
He looks at his watch. The kids would be climbing now. Each one with a bag, up the tallest towers in the neighbourhood. They had turned into some kind of juvenile army over the years. One day he had been flying a kite as his father had instructed of him in the Eastern Bloc and the children had seen him and been amazed. They had never seen a kite before and were mezmerised by the way it hovered so effortlessly in the air, how it sailed around buildings. It was only made of two sticks, paper and string but could embrace freedom so simply.
He had gained a following that day and that was probably what his father had intended. Now there were hundreds of them. They came out of the urban jungle wide eyed and hungry. They sought something that previous generations had lost and though it dumbfounded him they were entertained by his projects. The projects became a replacement for being left to their own devices on the streets. It was like a cultural or drop centre. It was to become their new education.
He could see them now zig zagging up the emergency stair cases of adjacent buildings, each one carrying a loaded sack like a procession of ants in the night. The current project had been months in the making and he enjoyed the sentiment that it carried. They had spent the last three months collecting Tigris Corporation flyers and the children had graffitied them, each in their own way. Some with lipstick, some with horns, other with more defacing creative flair. On the back of each flyer was a message to the city, a stated concern, a hope, a prayer. They were written by people from all walks of life and demographics across the city. They had collected the messages from people on the street then transcribed them onto the backs of the graffitied flyers. The last step was to fold them into origame paper tigers.
He had a view of the whole city from his balcony. Tonight was a clear night with the haze wearing only thinly on the horizon. Every night he stood on his balcony he would ponder the city and all the unanswered questions in his head. He would look to an adjacent tower and always see a young woman that did the same. It gave him solace. He did not know who she was but watching her silhouette and the mystery of her form gave him an idea of some sort of innate connection.
The kids were on the rooftops now. They signalled to each other and proceeded to drop their loads until the blackness of the night sky was overcome by a swarm of tumbling tigers. People in buildings saw them and ran to their windows and caught them as they fluttered past. It was the first time he had seen so many people look out of their windows with interest, excitement, curiosity even.
A paper tiger lands on Miss Delaware's balcony and he watches as she picks it up, unfolds, and reads it. When she is done she immediately looks back in his direction and it is unmistakable that she is looking at him.
Whether she had read his specifically written message or not was irrelevant. Somehow though, he knows she has.
He looks back and checks the screen in his apartment.
Nothing.
It no longer bothers him. He will find her himself. It makes more sense this way.
In another room he is pacing. He watches her via the surveillance system, sitting as attentively as when the faces first started to flash up on the screen. This had never happened before. It had been four hours. The trawl had been completed three times. First the city, then the state, finally the entire country. Everyone has a match, he thinks. All that was required was change.
He re-enters the room with another man. As they enter the screens turn blank and Miss Delaware turns to them as if her moment had come. Her face was like that of a girl recieving flowers for the first time. Her eyes were large and full of hope. They were a fable realized.
They sit down in front of her with serious faces. Before speaking the unknown man unzips a black bag. This was the moment she had waited for and dreamt about her whole life. Now that it was happening, she expected it to be different.
"We do not have a match for you yet" the Affinity curator says. "What we can offer you is what is contained in this bag."
The world was different when Miss Delaware exits the palm of the Tigris Corporation. On the day that she had expected answers she had been given further doubts and questions. She hails a taxi and demands to be taken to her brother.
Outside the windows of the cab she starts to see things with new eyes. New emotions and thoughts are awoken in her and it feels like a fatal wound. She sees all the cracks in the city where they had been painted over and watches them grow as the taxi continues to the East Side.
A light flashes on her wrist indicating that she had a dozen new messages awaiting her attention but she decides that she cannot face them now. She already knows who they were from and what they would say. She already knows the congratulative expressions and remarks.
She looks down at the black bag that she had been given. The city had a soul and all it needed was to be unzipped. To join it or leave it, that is what they had told her. The decision was hers.
The East side was the roughest part of the city and more affluent parts liked to pretend it didn't exist. She watches the slow societal decay on its approach and contrasts it with the black bag that sat on the seat beside her. In the middle of both contrasting scenes was her brother. She knows that she needed to see him no matter what state he was currently in. He may provide her with some sort of answer or guidance.
She doesn't bother knocking when she reaches his door and instead swipes herself inside. Some days he was lucid and with it, other days he was nothing more than mumbling sloth in. Calling out to him and stepping over empty pizza boxes and an assortment of take out containers she hears the latter.
In the living room she finds him lying on his side with his top arm dangling off the sofa and onto the floor. Slowly he rolls onto his back and slowly addresses his sister.
"He-ey sis.." he manages, his eyes staring past her, bloodshot and vacant.
"Oh Si!" she says compassionately, sitting down and giving him a soft embrace. She places her hand bag and the black bag on the coffee table clearly in his view. As she leans over her to hug him more firmly he starts to reach for it.
"How are you?" she asks her brother. "Have I come at a good time?"
Si does not respond having reached the black bag and taken a firm grip of one of its corners with his fist.
He turns his attention back to his sister. The unbelief on his face heartbreaking. He does not ask what her sister is doing with this black bag. His sister can already read the question on his face.
"I know, I know!" she says. "I mean I don't know! I don't know! Oh, I can't..."
She feels tears well up somewhere behind eyes, as if pumped from an infinite ocean that was bound somewhere deep inside.
"They gave it to me today!" she explains. "Today I was supposed to find Affinity but I didn't have a match. This was all they could give me. They said it was the only way."
Her brother lets the bag go as if extending his arm to reach for it had taken too much effort. As he does this his head collapses backwards onto the arm of the chair, his eyes closed, a deep breath taken, before summoning strength and continuing again.
"Everyone says many things Sis" he says. "Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone wants assurances in life. They want answers. They want to know that everything will be okay. We pay for it. We pay for it everyday. They sell us what we want to believe and we buy it! And we will keep buying it. We will buy it until we are broke, until it has taken us over and there is nothing left and then we will be burried in the ground."
He looks seriously at his sister, the one who had always lived a virtuous life, the one who both inspired him and wordlessly criticized him for the way he had lived his life. He pulls out an unused cartridge from his pocket and quickly inspects the label.
BADMINTON MATCH it read and as he reads it, he rolls his eyes and decides that he should no longer buy assorted packs from the Chinese man in the next block no matter how cheap they may seem. He directs his eyes back to his sister and narrows them.
"Don't do it Sis" he says. "You are probably the truest thing there is. You are the truest thing I know. Do not open that bag. Take it back to whoever gave it to you. Otherwise, this is what you get."
He rams the cartridge onto his wrist which stimulates the clamping and injecting mechanism built inside. He writhes in a semi painful looking exstacy before exhaling hard and his body relaxing. Immediately after doing this he reaches into his pocket and finds another cartridge and clamps it down on his wrist and infuses the substance.
This one says THREESOME and he catches a glance of it just as the infusion process starts.
This will be interesting he thinks.
"See you later Sis. Come back and see me next week and tell me that you are not afraid, that you will swim in the ocean no matter how infinite and lonely it may seem."
And with that, his body is overcome again. He contorts on the sofa and then is released with laughter and heavy rapid breathing. Miss Delaware stays for several minutes until her brothers body is lame except for the signs of breath and pulse. He has a semi happy look on his face.
Miss Delaware arrives back at her apartment after nightfall. On the table in the middle of her living space she places the black bag and looks at it. She looks around her to see if anyone is watching but she is entirely alone. On the room function remote control she sets the function to "Oceans" and the walls, ceiling, and floors of her apartment become waves crashing on an undefined shore. She unzips the bag and fumbles through its contents. She reads the labels on the cartridges. KAMA SUTRA, DEER STALKING, COCAINE...
She looks through the bag at all the labels, each one speaking of an experience, some questionable, some desirable, but none that she deemed she wanted to experience artificially. She begins to cry feeling inept in all her lack of experience in some aspects of life, feeling alien when compared to what her friends and work colleagues were doing. In the process of questioning whether it was her that was abandoning her friends or her friends that were abandoning her, she raises the black bag and it's contents and smashes them onto the floor.
"To find your match you need to be more like your match" they had said.
Next she goes around her entire apartment and strips every wire that connected into every socket. She removes the communication device of her wrist and crushes it under her foot. She smashes every screen that fed her any image, every speaker that delivered any sound. She erases her social networking profile then smashes the hard drive as if sawing a body in two to release a soul. When her rampage is over she is so exhausted that she collapses on the floor. Her whole apartment is silent for the first time in as long as she can remember. There is no humming of machines, no clicking of information through electronic devices. No ones and zeros except for those that were jumping across the synapses of neurons in her head. Sick of her apartment and wanting to look elsewhere other than the destruction of her hands she makes her way to her balcony. Around her was a sea of towering buildings and flickering lights stretching as far as her eyes could see.
In the tower she sees him.
This was also the moment that the sky rained paper tigers.
Image: the 'Helmet of Salvation' atop a human skull.
Golgotha (meaning 'place of the skull') was the site of crucifixion on Mount Moriah, Jerusalem, Israel.
The Helmet of Salvation is part of the Armour of God referenced in Ephesians 6:10-18;
(10) Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. (11) Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (12) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (13) Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (14) Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; (15) And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; (16) Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. (17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: (18) Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Salvation refers to freedom from bondage to sin and death (for us) by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The image therefore represents 'life for the dead'.
WHAT IF JOY was to be both the inspiration and objective of every decision we made? Would we make different decisions? Would we change where we worked? Would we change our friends? Would we change how we spent our time?
Ask yourself. Why are we alive? What is life all about? What do we desire? Is it not joy? Is that not why we are here?
It's something I've been thinking about over the past several months. Why do we often not consider joy in every decision we make? And if joy is not the object of every decision we make, why do wonder why we end up unhappy, bitter, or depressed?
In light of these musings I have recently been testing a theory: The Joy Theory.
The Joy Theory
We were created out of love and were intended to experience and share unending joy. Nothing has changed. Life is meant to be joyful. Our spirits are meant to rejoice and seek good things. When we are pondering doing something, we should ask ourselves if joy is involved. If it isn't, we should ask ourselves why we intend to do it. Choose the things that lead to joy and really seek them out.
So this is what I have been doing. I have been trying to reconcile my plans and actions to joy. If I can see no joy coming about as a result of an action, I don't do it. If something will bring joy, I do it.
I apply the theory to all aspects of daily life (when I remember); getting out of bed, what to have for breakfast, who to hang out with, whether to help someone in need or not, to sit and watch television or not, to go out for lunch or not, if I should go for a run. It sounds stupid, like all of those decisions are not very important ones, but I've found that they actually make a big difference at the end of the day. It also scares me to think about all of the things that I do without knowing why, things I don't really want to do.
It makes a big difference when you help someone out of a joyful heart or help someone out of joyless obligation. As does going for a run. Or having a cup of coffee in a cafe.
The above things do not really seem to be a problem if done joylessly, but what if our lives are a culmination of moments and decisions like these? If we choose badly, we deprive ourselves of joy. We forget why we are living. We forget why we were made. We lose perspective.
This is bad.
In my experimentation I have found that the Joy Theory is not just an applied rule but it is also an outlook. In seeking joy we are not just seeking momentary pleasures but long lasting pleasures. Joy comes from things that are immediate and things that are to come. Good and bad things have a habit of self perpetuating. We are the sum of our decisions. We choose the path in which we walk. We make the bed in which we lie. Where do we end up if our decisions are devoid of joy?
(Note that pleasure is not necessarily the same as joy).
Consider going to the pub when you are in a bad mood compared to going to the pub when you are in a good mood. Consider buying a sweater when you have had a bad week compared to buying one when you have had an amazingly good one.
Chances are, going to the pub in a bad mood isn't going to end joyously. Chances are, in a few weeks, or months, whenever you look at the sweater you bought you will be reminded of the mood you were in when you bought it. Will you be reminded of that terrible week or that amazingly good one?
How about relationships?
Does application of the Joy Theory change the company you keep? The girl you pursue?
How about your job?
Or when considering consumption of that extra row of chocolate?
The Joy Theory. It's an interesting experiment. Why not test it and see where it takes you. I've been testing it and I'm a believer.
This blog is dedicated to my very good friend and fellow peregrino Matt Chernishov, who has made some very good decisions in the name of joy.
joy –noun 1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused bysomething exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4. a state of happiness or felicity. –verb 5. to feel joy; be glad; rejoice.
You will show me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
How I Learnt to Seek Wisdom: The story of my elderly ghosts
It all began in the hospital. I heard the screams of dead people, past, present and future. They whispered and pleaded but received no answer because the sands of their life had already fallen through the hours of their glass.
But then I had to go and see the people on their way out. Some were kind souls. They were at peace. They understood their fate and destination and ushered the transition as if some sort of holiday. Others were opposites. They clung desperately onto their remaining breaths. They were wretched, disconsolate works that cursed an ambivalent and distant time keeper, or refused to acknowledge any such entity completely. Their essential angst burned with a desire for the destruction of everything and everyone if that was to be their fate. It was a dichotomy that I found hard to shake. If there was one thing I learnt from the departing, it was to consider the destination of accumulated steps, the directions I took, the decisions I made.
And so I would part their curtains and transport myself into some sort of purgatory. Heaven or Hell I told myself. Each had its inclination. There was not much I could do for the bodies that lay, but my contract dictated that I be there to at least give them the option - or sentiment - of disparaging movement. Some would greet me with a smile and a gentle squeeze on my hand but others would outpour a tumultuous internal dialogue. They spoke to me like ghostly apparitions. They warned me of mistakes and the pending apocalypse. With skeletal arms they grabbed me by the collar and pulled my face until it met theirs. I would be forced to look into their half-dead, receding, blood vessel scrambled eyes.
"Listen!" they would say. "It's happening now! You think you will live forever! I was like you once but look at me now! It tricks you! Time beguiles and dispossesses. There will be no more footsteps, your destination determined. Beware. Pay attention. The thief pretends to be a friend and soon you will be gone."
This is why I no longer work in hospitals. I prefer private clinics. People are much younger. There is no eminent death.
But the elderly people still haunted me. They followed me from the hospital and sat in the room watching as I treated the younger, healthier people. They pointed certain patients out to me. Sometimes they nodded in approval. Sometimes they made a throat slitting gesture. I asked them what they meant by such signals but they no longer spoke because they were dead. And so the behavior continued. Sometimes there was a shake of the head, sometimes a nod, sometimes a slit of the throat. They would follow me to the tea room. When I left work at the end of the day, they would watch me through the window as I drove away.
After a couple of years of having these elderly people persistently follow me around I decided to consult a Great Physician on the matter. I told him about my ghosts and how they continually tried to communicate with me. At this point they were not only bothering me at work but had begun to follow me around everywhere. They would criticize choices of girlfriends, nod their heads in approval whenever I went for a run, fold their arms when I drank too much and conversed drunkenly in a nightclub.
"Why are they bothering me?" I asked the Great Physician.
"They want you to realize something" the Great Physician replied.
"What is it?" I enquired.
"There is nothing I can say that will not always be said" said the Great Physician. "And there is nothing that I can do that will not always be done. You must look, you must listen and you must pray. Everything in nature is a sign. It will be found by those who search and pray. But many do not bother. They are too stubborn, distracted or proud. The path to death is not with feet but led with the heart."
And so I left the Great Physician's office and walked home with my elderly ghosts en tow.
Days went by and nothing changed. Work was the same. Ghosts would nod, shake their heads, or slit their throats depending on the patient. Life criticism was the same. When I ate my vegetables: nodding. When I went to the mall: shaking. When I considered contacting a particular girl: slitting of throats. I started to suffer from lack of sleep as the ghosts began to make a habit of standing by my bedside staring at me quietly through the night. I told them to go watch some television but they wouldn't listen. Every time I opened my eyes or woke from a dream their deathly faces would be staring at me.
One Saturday morning having woken to the staring faces of death I decided that I had had enough. I would finally get to the bottom of the mystery that was plaguing my life.
"What do you want from me?" I asked the ghosts.
They looked at me blankly.
"I know you can't talk so instead I am going to look to you for permission. If I walk in the right direction I want you to nod. If I walk in the wrong direction I want you to shake your head. And if I walk in completely the wrong direction, I want you to slit your throats. It will be like a modified version of Charades. You will guide my every action with your approval or disapproval."
The ghosts nodded happily.
And so I got out of bed: Nodding.
Slowly I walked towards the door to exit towards the kitchen but the ghosts shook their heads.
"You want me in my bedroom?" I asked.
They nodded.
I proceeded to slowly pivot on the spot and looked to the ghosts for approval. They nodded slowly and then nodded avidly and then proceeded to shake their heads when I had pivoted too far. I returned to the desirable direction and found myself facing my bookshelf.
"You want me to walk towards my bookshelf?" I asked.
They nodded.
There were not many books on my bookshelf. I picked up a magazine and the ghosts started slitting their throats. I picked up a comic book and they started slitting their throats. I picked up a tennis ball: Slitting throats. Cricket trophy: slitting throats. Rubber band: Slitting throats. Paperclip: slitting throats. Half eaten apple: they pointed to the bin. Eventually I picked up a book. It was a book that I had neglected for some time but knew I should have been reading. The ghosts nodded.
I opened the book: nodding. I skipped to the back: shaking. I thumbed my way more towards the front: nodding. Eventually I found the right page and the ghosts were ecstatic. They threw their hands up in the air and celebrated, championing my achievement.
I proceeded to read from the book;
"Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, for the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy."
And with that, the ghosts were gone.
So the moral of the story is this: Seek wisdom when you are young because it will set all of your paths straight. It will lead to a long, honest life of joy and pleasure, void of regret. It is a wealth that all of the money in the world cannot buy. You will rest easy and peace will find you.
I've wanted to write something on the Israel-Palestine / Jewish-Christian-Muslim conflict for quite some time, but even after writing this I don't think I have got my point across. But maybe that's my point.
חֶבְרוֹן الخليل HEBRON
We are fed a lot of opinions about the conflict in the Middle East. Essentially what I'm talking about is the land of Israel, or Palestine, a small little strip of land as narrow as 15 km in some points (modern day Israel excluding Occupied Palestinian Territory). Geographically it links Africa, Asia, and Europe. Blood has been shed on this land for many centuries and it continues today. Because it is so small, some would argue: what's the fuss?
Probably the more one tries to understand the conflict in the Middle East, the more complex it gets. The conflict is not just geographical but it is also cultural, religious, and combining all things: political. The heart of the problem is as deep as its roots and there in lies the problem. Identity.
I titled this blog HEBRON. It is an Arab city in the annexed Palestinian Territory not far south of Jerusalem. It contains arguably the most Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the West Bank. I went there late last year to check it out.
Hebron sits in the Judean mountains and is home to 165,000 Palestinian Arabs and just over 500 Jewish Settlers. Some call the Jewish settlement crazy because they certainly don't choose to live there for the quality of life. So why are they there? Well, probably the same reason I was going there (minus a morbid curiosity for disaster). It has something to do with the tomb of the Patriarchs.
The tomb of the Patriarchs refers to the burial cave of Abraham, Sarah, Issac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. It is sacred to Jews and Christians because they are the ancestors of their respective religions (Jesus was also a descendant of Abraham, Issac and Jacob).
But when you go to the cave of the Patriarchs today you do not see a cave but a giant mosque. This is because Abraham is also recognized as the ancestor of Islam, the mosque of Ibrahim (Abraham) being erected/transformed from a church during one of the Muslim invasions.
The humble cave has come a long way since three generations of Jews were buried there.
Over 2000 years ago King Herod of Israel builds a 12 meter wall around the site. It lies enclosed, open to the sky until a basilica is erected in the Byzantine (Roman) era.
In 614 the Persians conquer Hebron and the church is destroyed. Muslims take control and build a mosque in its place.
In 1100 the Crusaders capture Hebron and transform it back into a church.
In 1184 Saladin invades and the building becomes a mosque once again although they allow Christian worship.
In the late 14th Century the reigning Mamluks prevent Jews from coming as close as the 5th step (later extended to the 7th step; The wear on the rock at this site is seen today).
In 1967 Jews gain access to the tombs once again following Israel's victory in the Six Day War over Jordan. The land comes back into their control for the first time in 2000 years. Immediately Jews begin to resettle.
Since then there have been various acts of violence from both Palestinian and Israeli sides; bombings, shootings, massacres, murders, destruction of historical artifacts. When you walk around modern day Hebron you can sense the conflict, there are military checkpoints everywhere and Israeli soldiers patrol the streets to keep the peace. The mosque of Ibrahim itself is now heavily guarded. It has been divided into two sections following a massacre in 1994 where Goldstein, an American Jewish extremist shot 29 Islamic worshipers. Today half is annexed for Muslims and half for Jews. A wall divides.
I had the opportunity of checking out both sides of the mosque. On the Muslim side the Muslims were doing their thing, on the Jewish side the Jews were doing their thing, half of the ancestral skeletons lying under each side of the partition. Afterwards, my friend and I decided to take a walk around the streets and alleyways.We didn't just want to go to the main site and snap a few photos. We wanted to get a real sense for the place, to wander aimlessly, get lost a little, find ourselves amongst it, breathe everything in.
We are stopped periodically by armed checkpoints before gaining clearance to venture further. Some Palestinians greet us genuinely although most do it with mocking manner. Some ask us "Do you know where you are?" as if to say: "What are you doing here? You should leave." Some spit at us, throw firecrackers at our feet so they explode to startle. I am shot at by some kids with a BB gun and feel the sting against my calf.
Eventually we reach a quiet area of abandoned buildings. There is an empty school, a rusted bicycle, graffiti covers dilapidating walls. I kick a flat soccer ball that lies on the ground and watch it struggle to bounce and roll. Apart from the occasional patrolling soldier there is no other life.
It is eerie.
Just past the school we come across a sign written in Hebrew which is translated in English. It commemorates the murdered Jews who once lived in the area on which we stood. I look at my friend and notice that she is now in tears - at first a few, but soon a steady flow. I sit with her on a patch of dusty ground amongst weeds in a silent street. I place a gentle hand on her knee and rub it while I stare at a star of David spray painted on an adjacent building.
My friend is Jewish but non religious. I can't help but consider how much her tears speak for the otherwise silence on this street.
After some time a young patrolling soldier approaches with his gun slung over his shoulder. He looks as though he doesn't want to be in his body. I acknowledge him and he says hello. I don't think he has noticed my friend crying because he proceeds to ask me where I am from. I tell him that I am from New Zealand to which he responds suddenly upbeat.
"I have a friend that has been there and he says it is really beautiful" he says.
I smile awkwardly and tilt my head in the direction of my crying friend. I try to highlight that she is in a state of sorrow and that conversation is slightly inappropriate.
He nods and continues his lonely patrol.
Abraham in Brief
The Torah is the foundation of Jewish legal and ethical religious texts. It is the same as the first five books of the Biblical Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). The Qu'ran has similarities to both Jewish and Christian Books but splits at the point of Abraham. An abridged account is thus;
God told Abraham to leave his native land and promised that He would bless him and make him a great nation. Abraham's wife Sarah is barren and cannot have any children. They pray to God who answers their prayer by promising them a child despite her being beyond in years.
As time passes, Sarah and Abraham begin to doubt God's promise so Sarah convinces Abraham to marry their Egyptian maid Hagar in hopes of having a child to her. Because of this, Sarah begins to become jealous and treats Hagar harshly.
One day Hagar decides to flee but an angel of God appears to her and tells her to return to Sarah as she will bear Abraham a son who will be "a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the face of all his kinsmen.” This child is to be named Ishmael.
When Ishmael is 14 years old, God tells Abraham and Sarah that the time has come for their bloodline to continue. Sarah becomes pregnant and bears a son, Isaac, to Abraham.
When Isaac is born, Sarah can no longer stand the sight of both Hagar and Ishmael. She tells Abraham that they will not share of the inheritance and that they are both to be sent away. Abraham is distressed by his wife's words and seeks God's advice on the matter. God replies saying that Isaac will continue the Abrahamic line but Ishmael's line too will be made into a great nation.
Ishmael and Hagar move to Arabia (present day Saudi Arabia) whilst Isaac, Abraham, and Sarah stay in the land of Canaan (later to be Israel).
Abraham Sacrifices his Son
Later in both the Bible and Torah, God tests Abraham's love for Him by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah (the mountain on which Jerusalem sits and where Jesus would be crucified). But God provides a ram* as a sacrifice thus sparing Isaacs' life.
*In the Biblical New Testament, Jesus is called both the 'Lamb of God' and 'Son of God'. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is believed to be a foretelling of God's sacrificial love for His people through the death of His beloved son Jesus. In the same way sins had been atoned by animal sacrifice, sins would be atoned once and for all by the sacrifice of Christ, who was God subjected to human experience.
In the Qa'ran, Abraham is believed to have acted to sacrifice Ishmael although the name of the son is not stated in Qa'ranic text. This takes place in Arabia.
Abraham is then believed to have visited Ishmael and Hagar in Arabia. On one such visit he is purported to have constructed a place of worship to God called the Kaaba. This is the cube shaped building in Mecca, the most sacred site in Islam.
