Tag: humour

A day in the life ..

Was today typical?

Diary entry July 28

Early start at 4:30 am. Text group leader that I’m in for today’s jump. Feeling groggy but the coffee helps. Check the pack from last night. Yes, everything here except the unnecessary. Take emergency kit with protein drink and electrolytes separately. Yes, I’ve double checked. All here. Doing a fry up. Nothing like a cooked breakfast. Best preparation but have a sinking feeling most of this ends up in the paper bag at 10 thousand feet. Checking text memo from group leader. Great, all’s clear. Jump’s on. Weather good for plane. Just a south easterly picking up mid arvo. Extra details on check list – mm, seems all here. Oh, what’s this written at the bottom?

’At the time of arrival core needs must be met. This includes anything outside requisite procedure.’

No stress. No chances taken. Nothing left to chance. Just jump. Yes, this is it! Right, shower and change. Don’t forget the lucky necklace. Keys, right. Now, make sure everything’s switched off inside. Place pack next to medical kit on back seat. Must get to airfield before dawn.

Just another typical day (I wish).

Paying attention

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

My whole life needs attention. Sometimes I wonder if I actually appreciate what it means to pay attention let alone the details of my life that need attending. I can stand to attention but seem to fail to pay attention. Well, sometimes. Sometimes I have no choice but attend my daily needs and then wonder if I can attend to ambiguous fantasies and futile ambitions. Stuff like that. Hey, I couldn’t even recognise valuable distraction, forbidden temptations, impossible dreams. Maybe I should pay attention to dreams. Strange, I can’t remember them. What good is that? Maybe I’m actually living backwoods. Like starting from the end and going through to the beginning. Am I mad? 😀

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).