First of all. Why such critical and condoning tone? Why not such question posed with love or concern? What does it even mean to you? Does my life effect you in some way? Do I cause you pain? You say that I have no stability or foundation. What do you expect from me? I'd build a house if I knew where to put it. I'd make a home if it agreed with my heart. Both are not for lack of resource. I'm not an unwise and foolish penny-less vagrant.
Are they monuments, a wife and children? Are they things to erect on my lawn? Everything happens in its own time and I trust that everything works out as it should. So let it be.
You fail to see this journey I'm on. And I'm working it out slowly. I've been studying and I've been discovering, and I'm lost somewhere within the depths of me, the universe makes sense.
I've learned what it is to look through these eyes. I've stepped through the past and come to terms. I've held things in my hand and let them go. I've taken hurts and lies and thrown them into the light.
Because this journey is not about a destination. You see, it is so deep and amazing that we never truly arrive. It's not about milestones or trophies. It's not about accolades or comparisons. It's a personal and shared experience. Blessed are those that sink into it's weight, and feel it's endless bounds. Do you know what love is? Are you in awe of its power? It will collapse your knees!
So what about my years? So what if I'm thirty?
I am a deliberate man and I am deliberate in my actions.
So please don't criticize me when I can honestly say;
In another life, in another set of circumstances maybe I'd get my child to hold a sign reading;
"Behead all those who insult the prophet".
A mother takes a photo of her child with a banner during the Muslim riots in Sydney.
Maybe I'd carry slogans reading;
"Islam will dominate the world. Freedom can go to hell."
Islamic protesters in the Europe.
If some people are drawn to carry out such actions then I can't say that the same possibilities do not lie within me given another life, in another set of circumstances. But I've ventured into this life areligious and then with my own theological Christian views and in my current realm of experience I'm at a loss for why these people are doing what they are doing. What has gone wrong in their lives? When did they become so full of hatred and... megalomaniacal?
The above images were taken recently as Muslims responded to an anti-Islamic film made by an American. Muslims around the world seemed to get caught up in a rage about the film inciting violence and anti Western sentiments. In Sydney a protest resulted in a bloody riot.
To be honest, I was not surprised.
Images from the Sydney riot
Before moving to the New Zealand countryside when I was seven years old I grew up in South-West Sydney. Known for its ethnic mix and immigrant communities I had friends with names like Zara and Wasim. They had surnames like Bidaxous. I had aunties, uncles and cousins from Malaysia. As I can remember life was pretty good. Even though my dad was working long days as a carpenter and I'd often stay up as late as I could so I could see him come home before I went to bed I was always taken out for trips in the weekend. We'd go to the beaches at Bondi and Manly, cycle around the Botanic Gardens and Darling Harbour, explore the Blue Mountains to Sydney's West. Friends and cousins would get to come too if they were allowed. The more the merrier.
Now, after twenty-one years absence I've returned to Sydney and it's been interesting contrasting memories with present day reality. Everything is so much bigger. Traffic so much worse. I returned to the avenue I grew up in and noted that my childhood home is no longer standing. It's been knocked down and a mansion has been built in its place. Similar things have happened to the neighbouring houses in the street. They threaten to bulge over their sectional perimeters, they fight against each other for height, they fence each other out with ridiculously high walls. There is less green grass. More concrete. Fewer trees in the yard, if there is any yard at all. You can't have a yarn to your neighbour above the fence anymore. Gates are locked. It's rather depressing.
Likewise, where my Aunty lives, not too far from the Mosque in Lakemba and where I spend time when in-between work contracts I walk past the local public school and notice that the majority of children in the Public School are Arab. As years have gone by white families have slowly moved away. I walk the streets homeward from the train station and kids are running amok in groups without parents.
It can't be much of a life growing up in Sydney's South-West these days. With cost of living high, parents working long hours, kid's are basically co-brought up by television and video games inciting violence and terrorism. Quiet times without radio pop or gangster rap are pierced by the background noise of the incessantly traveled six lanes of Canterbury Road traversing the suburbs. There is no local haven, no place for peaceful solitude.
Sydney harbour
When people think of Sydney they think of the beautiful Harbour, the Botanic gardens and beaches. The Sydney lifestyle is pretty good if you live in these areas and have a lot of money to afford it. The reality though, is that you will fit somewhere in the socio-economic demographic that exists between the coastal outskirts and the less desirable depths of South-West Sydney. You're with the immigrant communities plunged into traffic fighting to keep your family afloat. Life may be tough.
The world is a busier place than it was twenty years ago. I can only imagine what it might be like arriving in Sydney with a young family from another country with a very different culture. I'm technically an Australian and returned on my Australian passport and found it difficult to settle in, get my tax-file number, medicare card etcetera and this was with having family and friends already here, speaking English and not having to find a place to rent. It is little wonder why immigrants stick to their own communities. It is what they know, it is what they are comfortable in. Uprooting families and moving countries and all the associated stresses that go with that can rank higher for stress as death of a loved one.
'White' Australians criticize ethnic communities for not integrating properly into society but I think they do not realize how difficult it can be. The only culture shock they have experienced is reverse culture shock after driving into Cabramatta, a suburb in South-West Sydney. Some of the shop signs are not even in English.
The suburb of Cabramatta in SW Sydney contains a strong Asian presence, particularly Vietnamese.
Even I experience a sense of reverse culture shock when visiting Cabramatta and I'm half Asian and well traveled across the globe. Whilst it saddens me to see lack of integration by immigrant communities I don't blame them. It's a two-fold story. How are immigrants supposed to adapt if not welcomed by others. Without getting to know our neighbours how is a community supposed to function?
Especially in a country that has never been free of racial prejudice. When people have ideas of superiority, that they epitomize the country and that their way should be considered the status quo.
I'm all for multiculturalism and I'm a product of it myself. Both sides of my family are completely different. At times it might seem like they are at odds with each other. When both sides of the family have met there have been elements of uncertainty and awkwardness on both sides which I've found both frustrating, amusing and essential. It might sound strange but my whole life I've clung to these awkward silences, the bonding attempts, the retractions, cautious niceties, the cultural faux pas. I've lived in these spaces because they speak of who I am. I see my acceptance as being a product of two different cultures uniting.
I bring the conversation of immigrant communities up a lot with my patients at work and it's interesting to see their responses. So many of them think that their country is being invaded by foreigners and that they should go back to where they came from. They say this to me, the person who is rehabilitating their injury, and I wonder if they know that technically I am one of the people they are telling to 'f**k off'. And if not, if they consider me one of them, then what of my mother? My aunties, uncles and cousins.
After all. Unless you are an Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander you came from somewhere else as well.
I've been on the other side of the cultural conflict as well. I've hung out with Asians and individuals from other ethnic groups who have hurled anti-white sentiments and that doesn't make me comfortable either. I feel as though caught in the middle and never really belonging. I'm the gap. The divide. I'm the bridge. I'm the metaphor. I'm either the recuperating casualty or the triumphant victory.
Which brings me back to the Muslim riots.
There's a lot of pent up frustration, stress and aggression out there. The mental and spiritual health of many people is not good.
I refuse to believe that many -if any- of the Islamic rioters had even seen anything of the film that was said to offend their prophet Muhammad. I had no idea of the film's existence until the riots occurred and would have had no interest in it but after the ruckus and stink that was created I was curious to see what the fuss was about.
I checked out the trailer on youTube;
Has anyone bothered to watch it? It's 14 minutes long and so terrible that I could barely manage to watch two minutes of it. And that's just talking about the acting and cinematography, let alone storyline or message.
How this movie could cause such worldwide turmoil is beyond me.
But that is my point. I believe that most wars that have ever been fought are never truly in the name of what they are fighting for. There is some other motive, some other agenda. The Muslim protests turned into riots for other reasons.
Capitalism reigns supreme in the major cities of the world. We have 'the haves' and the 'have nots' and there is a tooth and nail struggle for most of those that exist in-between. Social media has also made us a very vain and superficial culture. We justify our self worth and success by what other people think of us, by the lives we are perceived to have, we are a collection of smiles and good times but we seldom allude to all the time in between.
It's not much of an existence crammed into the suburbs struggling to get by week to week. When you don't feel welcome in a country that you call home. When all you see is concrete, buildings, roads and traffic. Nothing is natural. Your parents are barely home and don't have enough time and or money to afford multiple bus and train fares to take you to the beach or the mountains. Maybe they don't even know the joys of the outdoors and how necessary it is for the soul. You spend your time on computers and play games that involve mass murder. You listen to music that encourages negative introspection and being the victim. You see other people. They have it better, easier. They have more. They have everything. And now they are making fun of you and insulting you. But you have an association with an impassioned group. You can unite and act in the name of something bigger. Jihad.
I can see it happening. It's happening now.
As a passage in the Bible states;
"For wherever jealousy and rivalry exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil."
My Aunty's place in South-West Sydney got robbed a few weeks ago. A few weeks earlier she had been home and noticed some Arab youths snooping unabashedly around the street. They were checking out houses and cars. When they saw my Aunty looking at them they pretended to hide behind a tree. A neighbour's house down the street was robbed also. They stole money, jewelery and electronics. They went through all of my stuff as well but decided I didn't have anything worth taking. The idiots. They could have taken two of my most prized possessions: my Gortex rain jacket and my Gortex bivvy tent. In some ways I wish they did. The dick heads could have done with getting away from the city and getting amongst nature and the elements. They could have found a quiet spot where no noise was manufactured, where there was an uninterrupted natural expanse as far as the eye could see. A place devoid of concrete and traffic and advertising and signs and rubbish. A place where they would not be distracted from their own thoughts for several days and where they could have a long hard think about things, maybe experience an epiphany.
In some ways I don't think I'm any different to the robbers though. If push came to shove I could probably manipulate my mind into theft. I imagine it would probably spring from envy, then perhaps a manufactured hatred for others with more than me, pity myself for being one of the 99 percent. Maybe I'd play a race card. Other races haven't done anything special for me so why not steal from them if they are better off. Each is for their own. I'd never do it but I can see how easy it could come about.
It's sad when races don't intermingle. All parties should make a concerted effort to get to know, understand and care for each other. Maybe if they did there would be less hatred and extremism. Maybe if the neighbour of Taliban members baked them some nice fluffy pink cupcakes they would chill out a little and maybe give up researching construction of bombs. Maybe they'd pass up an opportunity to riot and not really feel in the mood.
Keeping to ourselves is not the answer in a multicultural society. Love and community was never created in a vacuum. Constant signs of hope need to be shown by people reaching outside of themselves for others.
That is the real war.
To understand and f**king smother everyone with love.
If anyone wants to kill me after that they might as well go ahead and do so because life would not be worth living.
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.
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.
