Paddling Like Fuck

I'll be seeing you soon. Don't think I'm giving up or anything. Work is overwhelming at the moment but it'll settle down and we'll be back to abnormal. I'm going back to the UK on Wednesday next and that is the end of my sojourn in old Dalmatia. I'm going to miss this place. It has captured a special place in my heart and ... well I'm going to miss it. I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of nice people, get to know a special place and soak up a different culture. My only regret is that for a large part of it I could not share it with someone I love. There's a saying - a worry shared is a worry halved. I also think that a pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled, and if that is doubled twice it is quadrupled. Singular pleasure seeking often leaves one feeling empty.

So it was a particular pleasure for me to share a kayaking trip to Brač with a colleague. I'll try and give you some idea in a future post as to the distance covered but I'll tell you now. It was a fucking long way. But good, you know how good you can feel when you have really achieved something. That's how it felt.

It's All In The Mind

“Wait, get up a minute.” Said George.

Hank paused. He looked over at George and he could see the sweat running down his oil-stained face. Henry eased himself out from under the car giving George space to do the same.

“Where are you going?” Asked Hank.

George wiped his face with an oily rag.
”I need a drink of water.”

Hank looked at the transmission assembly lying on the trolley-jack, then he looked at the clock.
”But we've not finished yet.”

George started walking towards the office.
”I'm too hot.”

Hank sighed. We’ll never get this finished tonight, he thought.
"OK, bring me one too." He shouted.

I just thought I'd try that to tease you. What did your imagination tell you the poem in the previous post was all about? Well we know where Lingo Slinger's head was.

Whatever ...

... comes into my head in the next two minutes. I'm going over to Hvar today. It's apparently beautiful but then to me all islands are beautiful, especially all islands in the Adriatic. I'll hire a scooter and tool around and see where the spirit takes me. That's the joy of life isn't it? Not knowing what might be around the next corner. Or maybe it's a curse - not wanting what you have but always wanting something else which you can't quite see clearly but you know it's always going to be just out of reach.

Enough of this middle-aged angst which is so boring. I hope that Lingo Slinger did good at the poetry slam. Here's one from me:

Wait, get up a minute.
Where are you going?
I need a drink of water.
But we've not finished yet.
I'm too hot.
OK, bring me one too.

Is Human Life Sacred?

That was the philosophy question in the final assessment for my OU course in the humanities. Now I know that I'm not supposed to post these TMA's onto my blog but I'll get away with this, mainly because I posted it off without copying it and now I've only got a vague recollection about what I actually wrote. So let's consider - what do we mean, first of all, by sacred. I always like to get back to basics with these things so let's take the dictionary definition first:

sacred a. 1. Consecrated or held especially acceptable to a deity, dedicated or reserved or appropriated to some person or purpose; made holy by religious association, hallowed...

I believe that it is in humankind's instincts to hold human life as sacred and I would extract from that dictionary definition the part - dedicated or reserved to some person or purpose. It seems to me that most people hold human life to be sacred whether or not they believe in a deity. So what, you might ask, is the purpose to which I think human life is dedicated to? It is simple self-preservation.

We studied early on in the course the philosopher Rousseau and he spoke about society obeying the general will. Most people would see sense in this idea as the alternative to rule by consent is anarchy, and in a state of anarchy we are at peril. So we live in what we commonly call society. In most cases this is based on small groups such as the family, then the neighbourhood, the town, the province and then the nation. We expand this co-operative network by forming alliances, commonwealths etc. and finally a body such as the United Nations.

The link here is that we wish to protect, firstly ourselves, then our family, then out neighbours and countrymen, and then our allies and international neighbours. Our instinct for self-preservation is not therefore just a narrow, selfish impulse. By holding other human life to be sacred we protect ourselves. That is society. Maggie Thatcher tried to tell us different:

And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. (M. Thatcher 1987)

If we look after our families and our neighbours we live in a social world, a society. The poor old cunt didn't know what she was saying. Of course there are instances of killing but these are mercifully few compared to the billions of lives being led by people in harmony with one another. Making war is not our natural instinct, making love is. All human life is sacred and we don't need a religion to make it so. And that is not to put religion down as such. Often religion is nothing more than unscrupulous people seeking power over others but it can be a force for good, and I believe that this is so when it is directed inwards. When a person studies his own inner self, call it the soul if you like, then he is more able to see the value of others and to cherish the beauty and diversity of his fellow humans.

A New Beginning

As you may notice from the comments below the gorgeous, pouting Lingo Slinger seeks to rouse me from a prolonged torpor and get on with this blog. It seems also to me that it is time I got on with the rest of my life, not just the blog. The reason I have been slumbering this long, or reasons I should say, is that (a) I have been busy with work (b) I have been reconsidering the future content and (c) pure fucking laziness. So there - now you know.

So now I've spent all this time reconsidering the future content, what have I decided? Not a clue. Hopeless, all this reconsidering when you fail to come up with something substantive. Never mind, I'll write about nothing until something comes up. (Why don't you sit on my lap Miss Jones and we'll see what comes up).

Thing is, I've got writer's block and I did want the point of this to be an outlet for creative writing. And now I just have to fall back on bashing away at the keyboard until something happens. My time in Croatia is coming to an end shortly, in about three weeks. I'll be packing up the office soon and getting ready to hand over my apartment. I will be sorry to go as I've just fallen in love with this country. The old town of Split has been my home for the past year and a half but all good things must come to an end eventually. There's a nice community of ex-pats here and I'll miss that. Friday nights in the Caffe Bar Libar have been especially pleasant and the genial host (hosts are better if they're genial as if they're not then they're generally surly) Kristijan has become a good friend. It's one of the nice things about Split that the people here are very fond of their town. There's a poem inscribed on a small obelisk near the old town centre which I think sums this up very nicely. I liked it so much I had to learn it off by heart in Croatian.

Ne treba
Nikamo ici
Nigdje drugdje
Traziti
Sto jest
I tu je

Basically the poem says - You don't need to go anwhere, to look elsewhere, what you want is here. Perhaps in another life all I want would be here but I'm not a Splichian so I'll seek elsewhere. Some day I may find it.