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Ghosts are real

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

I don’t know because I don’t know everybody. There’s always someone (out there) who you can’t entirely appreciate unless you’re Buddha or the like. You spend most of your formative years learning until your ‘cup runneth over’ only to realise (even if only partly enlightened) that you don’t really appreciate anything. Then you lose your close friends and realise the party’s over. The ones that don’t make it. They’re so close you can think their very thoughts – and find you’re still talking to them. What do you think of this or that? Would you do things differently? What a laugh as you share a joke or two – in your mind. Don’t look back. Never look back. But God, what a party. Some exquisite moments. Ghosts are real. They’re just souls in the ether.

Be yourself

How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?

In my youth I saw myself as kind of average – well yes, my physicality and stature but I would like to see myself as someone healthy in regard to my fitness and slimness. But that isn’t anything necessarily vain because a positive focus on oneself is considered normal.

But wait, a stranger cannot immediately ‘see’ you in the sense that they cannot fully appreciate you at first glance unless, of course, they have special powers. So I might be described as having authentic attributes averaging out my personality profile by way of weighing up the good and bad. The intention here is to appear as normal as possible and not to exhibit too many eccentricities. Of course, as one ages, abnormalities and physical anomalies become accentuated. This may be a reason older individuals seem to convey regular, moderated communication so as to 1/ convey a general neutrality 2/ offset misunderstanding or 3/ underplay perceived threats due to increasingly strange and individualised appearance. Or maybe they just get older and wiser. After all, why provoke somebody brandishing a weapon simply because you look increasingly strange? (Wha?!)

In an effort to appear too normal you could inadvertently describe yourself as a mannequin in a shop window or as dull as a plank of wood all the while thinking this as actually interesting.

Perhaps best be yourself or you may not appear so.

Dangerous curves

Who is your favorite historical figure?

Spending most of my life in the arts because of personal bias and without reasonable perspective, I might choose someone like Van Gogh, Rimbaud or Hildegard of Bingen.

But I am old enough to appreciate my limited view. Taking nothing from the aforementioned, I have wound up knowing more about less (or is it less about more, more or less? Dah).

A grander view would include Newton, Epicurus or Joan of Arc but I know little about them. These days I like the left field characters, the misfits that take the untrodden path. Moondog, Thelonious Monk, Erik Satie.

Oh but I forgot to mention the irresistible. A most uncompromising historical figure. Someone who has survived boundless human endeavour and vicissitudes. A force of matchless beauty and remains undiminished from centuries past. Oh, Venus de Milo you have dangerous curves! I have a crush on you (a stone crush).

Gone camping

Have you ever been camping?

It used to be a regular thing. As a family we used to go way north of Adelaide to camp in the Flinders Rangers. It got into my veins pretty early with all the experiences that go with it including the boring, the messy, swimming au natural.

I remember volunteering for the school holiday hiking trips. One year we did the Cradle Mountain/ Lake St Clair trek in Tasmania. Another year a small group of us did the Mount Kosciusko high country. Then nothing. Nothing for years. Why? I thought I’d changed, that I didn’t need it. That I didn’t need to ‘go bush’ anymore. But maybe underneath I’m hankering for untamed nature after all. Maybe the easy domesticated world I inhabit isn’t enough. Trees, rocks, ice, mountains, rivers, ropes, carabiners, blinding sunshine, freezing wind, rain, blisters, tired legs, hunger. Remember? Naah. Time to raid the fridge instead.