Hieronymous the Anonymous

Retreat of the naysayers

Let's face it,there's an element in every society who are straight out whingers. They're the people who are never happy; or at least not happy unless they have something to complain about. They're a bit like Goldilocks except they never seem to find that thing 'just right'. They piss me off.

There are myriad public examples of this every year. Right now though the big topic of complaint here in Melbourne is the new Myki ticketing system.

Now it's too be admitted that this has had a long and difficult gestation to birth. In theory the current public transport tickets are to be replaced by a Myki card, essentially a smart card you can load up with dough which will then be automatically deducted for each trip you have. It's a system that incorporates trains, trams and busses. In theory it is a very good enhancement to our public transport system.

This is what has to be remembered I think. I've travelled all over the world and experienced many different public transport systems. The best by far is the Octopus system in Hong Kong. Now as it happens our new train and tram partner also runs the trains in Hong Kong, which are brilliantly efficient. It would be nice to anticipate similar efficiency being introduced here, but it has to be admitted that the challenges of a far-flung public transport system are much greater than the relatively compact Hong Kong. Still, I have hopes that we may approach some of that, and in conjunction with the Myki card we will soon have a world leading public transport system. That has to be the goal.

Unfortunately there have been a litany of issues with Myki, which have been compounded by public relations fiascos and incompetent government ministers. Well, shit happens. I don't agree with all the decisions they've made regarding the operation of Myki, and I anticipate some further issues in the months ahead. I prefer to look ahead though. Whatever kinks there are will be ironed out sooner hopefully, rather than later. I like to believe that we have made a positive step forward rather than languish where we were. Regardless, this is here to stay.

Sadly there are many who would rather complain blindly rather than giving something a go. At the first sign of difficulty they throw up their hands and complain bitterly about the government and how things were better before. I need hardly say that's the sort of attitude that blocks progress of any sort: perhaps they would be happier with horse and cart? And it's timely to recall that when the current ticketing system was introduced 15 years ago there were great complaints then too. I guess that's the ugly but unavoidable aspect of progress: there'll always be someone complaining at it.

There will be teething issues, there always are, but we need to persist beyond that. One day we'll clap our hands at the ease of it and wonder how we did without it. Until the next improvement of course.

The inner H

The other thing, and I think this is unfortunate in relation to my friends and family, yet I believe no-one can know me properly without reading what I write in this place. I don't discuss these things with others, rarely does any of this escape onto the outer world, and none of my friends or family read this.

I look forward to that changing one day, but on my terms.

Crash, burn, fly...

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The night before Christmas I woke up at about 5am. I had been dreaming intensely, complex dreams full of intricate detail. Into my dreams a sound had intruded. The sound was incorporated into my dreams in the way of these things, it had swelled and become so insistent that the narrative of my dreams fell away, and I woke. I lay in bed feeling disorientated at first. Then as I slowly found my bearings I realised the sound from my dreams continued now that I was awake. I lay still listening, trying to follow the source of the sound. At first I thought it was coming from next door and I wondered what it could be. Then I realised I was wrong. I continued to listen before getting out of bed. I walked down the hallway towards the sound without turning a light on. I could see clearly with my dark accustomed eyes. Rigby followed at my heels. The sound became louder as I approached. I felt no alarm, though I wondered what it could be. It sounded a little like a smoke alarm, but knew it couldn't be. I poked my head in the loungeroom and the sound diminished. When I turned towards the bathroom it became louder.

Earlier in the day I had bought a new iPhone clock radio and had put the old one in the bathroom. In my fumblings with it I had inadvertently set the alarm to go off at 4.55am. I switched it off and went back to bed.

Awake now I lay in bed and recalled the dream. I slowly put it together again from the fragments I had left in my memory. I recalled a series of women asking me questions about what I wanted to do. The dream shifted into different locations and different scenes, but this remained the constant: a subtle, gentle and genuinely curious probing of my ambitions. I tried to answer and as I did one after the other to the series of questions asked of me I found my answer shifting. It was as if in my first response I had answered conventionally with the expected answer, and the answer I had not bothered to question myself. With the stress of answering and of examining myself again and again it seemed I gradually went beyond the expected to something deeper. What did I really want then? And who does that make me?

The night before the yoga teacher had asked me about the job I was in. In answering I explained to her some of the dilemma I potentially faced. The truth is I am bored and am not sold on the company, yet I am already being sounded out about a permanent role there. That would be a role hard to resist - great money and a senior role at one of the biggest companies in Oz. It would set me up. It felt though I choice between what I wanted to do and what I thought I should.

To my surprise the yoga teacher thought I should continue to go my own way. It's more fun she said, more dynamic. As I sat there I wondered at that. It is a lot of things, and maybe those amongst it - yet her point is well made. I continually think I must establish myself into a life and career. I think I should 'settle'. I feel the need to re-build and to reclaim some of what I have lost. The sensible option then is to accept the gilt edged option when it is presented to me.

That may yet happen, if in fact the opportunity comes, but I think it unwise to commit myself one way or the other yet. As always I remind myself to be true to who I am - and I increasingly believe I am made for certain things and not others. This was the sense of the dream I think, brought on perhaps by the comments of the yoga teacher.

Funnily enough earlier in the day I had come across one of Rilke's more famous poems: Archaic Torso of Apollo. 

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark centre where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

There in the last sentence of the last line is the kicker. In all my little journeys this is something I find myself returning to. Not that I should be changing my life necessarily, but that I should be taking proper account of it. It is easy to slip into easy ways. I think to myself and the sensual delight I take in life, in what I eat and drink and touch. It is pleasant to eat Haigh's chocolate and to order in fine wine and to sit comfortably in my home watching cable TV in between jaunts to cool bars and top notch restaurants. There is nothing to complain at any of that, but it is lifestyle, not life.

For me again I reiterate that I feel I must scoop out everything inside me. I have to use it, put it out there, know and understand it. I don't think I can settle, I don't think I'm made for the sedate and comfortable lifestyle, and no matter what riches there are within my reach they are good only for a nice flat-screen TV, a cool holiday and the lifestyle I speak of. I can't help but believe that I am built in such a way that I must follow my own erratic course if only because that way truth lies. And perhaps enlightenment.

Is this the choice everyone makes? I tend to think not, for whatever reason. It is true for me though. The story of my life is the story of my wrestling with this decision. For every time I wish to settle down and to lead the conventional life there is a part of me that says ok, but... I want those things, I hope to have them, but I think now it must be within the context of my own journey. I have to go the way my instinct leads, must continue, I think, to crash sometimes because I have tried for too much, have outreached and sometimes outsmarted myself, as I must do...I cannot deny who I am.

So, we'll see how things unfold. Odd to think though that a person who thinks this way can possibly be the serious master of the universe in the corner office.

Easy days and sleep-ins

Image by harold.lloyd (won't somebody think of the bokeh?) via Flickr

If Christmas eve is a day that leaves me mainly indifferent then Boxing day is one of my favourite days of the year. Sandwiched in between is Christmas day, which is neither one nor the other for me - which is pretty appropriate really.

For me the period leading up to Christmas can be a frenzy of social activity. More often than not I find myself doing things because I think I should rather than from a real desire to do them. By the time Christmas comes around I am pretty well socially exhausted and generally over it. Boxing day though and everything starts again. You draw a deep breath and relax.

That's certainly my intention. I can recall this period 2 years ago, which lingers in my mind as the near perfect template for post-Christmas perambulations. I did nothing exciting. I hardly saw a soul outside of my occasional ventures to the shops or a local cafe, and that suited me fine. After a hectic few months - I had returned from Morocco a little more than a month before, and was in the middle of my Jennie phase - I wanted nothing more than to live quietly and within myself. Fortunately for me I had a pile of very good books, and amid the occasional break for a cup of tea or coffee, I read my way through them. I think I figured I read somewhere around 900 words in 4 days, a pretty good effort.

The other thing I did was let my mind ramble. Everyone needs me time, but everyone needs it for different things. Like most people I like to get back in touch with my true self, but unlike most that involves me following the labyrinthine path of my own curiosity. In part that was kicked along by my reading material, but the recent events in my life at that time added some extra spice - though my inquiries were never less than objective. It might seem odd, but it is at times like those when I feel myself most fully (which is different to 'most like myself', which generally is the case when I'm travelling).

This year I'm hoping for something similar. I have a bunch of books to read. I hope to do some writing. I'll do a bit of cooking. I may pop down to the MCG tomorrow to catch a bit of the test match; and on Monday I might trundle into town for an hour or so to check out the sales and get some fresh coffee. My ambitions extend no further than that - and that makes me perfectly happy.

Christmas eve: what is it good for?

Even after all these years I don’t know what to make of Christmas Eve.
 
I don’t mind being at work on the day. There’s a festive air and while you work hard for a bit there comes a time when you lay down tools to enjoy the occasion. Some places I’ve been we’ve popped a bottle or two of bubbles, and almost invariably have a Kris Kringle involving a lot of laughter. We always knock off early. All in all it feels like a different, special day.
 
Outside it is all a frenzy as last minute shoppers scour the department stores for the gifts they’ve left too late. Christmas carols play as muzak, Santa’s are to be found all over town, and more than one person is walking around with a set of reindeer ears or red Santa’s hat on their head. It’s all happening but it’s not a bad vibe. Then, sometime in the afternoon it begins to tail off, the shoppers with their newly purchased and wrapped presents head home leaving only the diehards and truly disorganised to wander the increasingly deserted streets of the city.
 
This is the bit that I don’t like. At the risk of sounding a bit like Scrooge I find the evening of Christmas Eve boring verging on the depressing. I understand how many people want to spend it with their family, though it’s an urge I’ve never experienced. I do, but in the vacuum it creates is a kind of dead world where those of us more inclined to party find ourselves floundering. Left without options you flick on the TV to take in the viewing options: a variety of Christmas related films and the inevitable carols by candlelight.
 
Now carols by candlelight are a Melbourne institution. They’re always a very big deal at the Myer Music Bowl, a great venue, and generally the performers are pretty good to childish. It’s not my thing though. I find it hard to be critical, but the fact is that nothing is more certain of making me miserable than watching them. It’s strange because my Dad, a tough old boot if ever there was one, swears by them and wouldn’t miss them. For him it’s part of his Christmas tradition. For me avoiding them is a big part of my Christmas tradition.
 
I'm half inclined to venture into town and start the seasons celebrations with a backpacker or two, but chances are instead I'll be home with Rigby, just the two of us.  Maybe we’ll watch a slasher movie together.
 
Speaking of festive airs, this place where I’m working right now really gets into it. You have to admit that they’re a pretty generous and warm-hearted joint. A few days after I began everyone in the organisation got a beach themed hamper, worth a couple of hundred dollars I would tip – including me. In my time here they’ve had several themed presentations and get-togethers, and as I write this the kids of the people working here are in the cafe enjoying party pies, fruit and the entertainment provided by a few lissom Santa helpers in red outfits singing along to the brightly garish Christmas songs. And as I write Santa has just arrived to great acclaim. I’m not sure if that’s a job I’d fancy – I’d be frazzled in no time – but it’s great to see a corporation take the time to give something back to their staff and their families.

Fading honour

I’m standing at a tram stop at about 7 last night waiting for the tram to come rattling down the road. I’m listening to my iPhone, a playlist that includes Under the Milky Way, Monkey’s Gone to Heaven and Love My Way. It’s not cold, but the sky is dim and pregnant with rain. It had rained all afternoon, heavily at times, and walking home I had been caught in it so that my suit became a shapeless, soggy mess and my hair thick and tangled. For now though the rain has paused.

The tram comes along. I board, buy my ticket, and take seat. I am weary but somehow refreshed from a hot shower and a change of clothes. I listen to my music and peer out the window. I am afraid of being late, but should know better but to worry. I am 5 minutes later than I had planned – late for me – but Donna is her standard 20 minutes behind schedule. I stand in Flinders Lane outside the restaurant waiting for her, before directing her to the car park next door.

We sit and order a glass of bubbles each. This is one of the best restaurants in town, and this is our little Christmas celebration. The surroundings are elegant, the service cool and efficient. After some debate between us we order our respective meals and order some wine. We chat about the most recent things, my job, the little escapades I’ve been on, her new landscaped garden, a restaurant she went to. The food arrives, entree, gnocchi for her, stuffed zucchini leaves for me. Both are good, mine delicately constructed and full of flavour. Then our mains arrive, duck for Donna, and roast chicken for me. The chicken is good, but the Asian inspired sauce a little sweet for my palate (I have a sweet tooth, but like my savoury dishes to be savoury).

We have more wine, cast an eye about the room, speculate whether the two darked haired women along the way are lesbian. Down the end is a beautifully dressed old man, a gentleman of the old school, suit and regimental tie. Sitting with him is a tanned woman of about 25 dressed in a frilly dress, her blonde tresses tumbling over her bare shoulders. She looks like Shirley Temple. This starts another conversation, then digresses: do you think people these days know who Shirley Temple is?

As is the theme these days we then start up about Y generation. It seems amazing to me that once more this is being brought up as a topic of conversation – Whisky last Friday, the two women on the nights before, now Donna. The conversations are similar: each profess some bewilderment at the very least, and some disdain at worst. Of course I have an opinion and launch in on that. We order dessert.

Dessert is a wonderful array of sweets. They look beautiful on the plate and taste just as good. This is much more, much better than the usual dessert fare. Both of us fall into raptures. I sip a dessert wine, an excellent Italian soave.

The conversation shifts a few degrees. We find ourselves talking about the recent police crackdown in the city and Donna mentions, as she has many times before, how she worries about me in the city late at night. She thinks I am the assertive type, not inclined to let things go, ripe for fronting up and being set upon, and she tells me a story.

She tells me of a male acquaintance of hers, someone she has mentioned a few times before. He is a lovely man she says, considerate, confident much like you, assertive also though not as much as you. She told me how she had received news of him the day before. He had been in South Melbourne over the weekend with a friend of his, an off-duty cop. They had left a pub and were out in the street where they witnessed a young couple hail a cab. As they are about to get in a gang comes up to them trying to claim the taxi. A melee ensues in which the male is struck and the woman has her head slammed into the boot of the car. Seeing this the two men run to their aid, but as seems to be normal these days are king hit from behind and then kicked mercilessly as they fall to the ground. He is now in hospital, several bones broken and his eye half out of his head. A proud, good looking man he will need plastic surgery and refuses visitors. He does not want anyone to see him like this.

It’s a shocking story, but you hear stories like this more often these days. We puzzled over it, Donna and I, what honour there is in ganging up on people, in hitting them from behind. None, but honour now is an archaic concept.

This is what she worries will happen to me some day. But what are you supposed to do? I asked. They did the right thing. People were in trouble and they went to help them. Yes, she knew that, but perhaps the times are that one becomes more prudent. But that’s the end of civilisation I said in different words to that. The day we stop doing the right thing is the day our society is in terminal decline. Yes, that’s true, she understood that. But what do you do? I know it’s tough for your friend I said, but I hope in the wash-up he has no regrets at his action. All the while I’m imagining myself in the same situation. I know I wouldn’t even stop to think. Past experience has told me my body would take over, I would react and step in. None of my friends would do anything different.

I fear the direction society is heading and blame my generation for it. We have let too much go, been lax when we should have been harder. It’s ironic that my generation – generally a tougher, more independent, more self-reliant generation – should have failed for being too soft. This is a conversation for another time, but increasingly I have a sour taste in my mouth at the direction things are heading.

Whisky said on Friday night that we were born 20 years too late. Maybe. My life is good, I am happy, but I fear the day will come when I will want nothing more to do with the society I am part of. Well maybe that’s overstating it, and maybe this is normal for one generation looking over their shoulder at the next one coming along. Yet it’s hard not to believe that for all the great advances and relative prosperity that in some aspects things have never been worse. I trust this is a passing phase that will be corrected, otherwise I’ll truly become an old fogey and grumpy old man.

Complaint Box | Paying Guests - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

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Has this happened to you? It hasn't to me, not in the way that's described in this piece, but I can understand it. It's a sign of the times, times that have become more casual and less formal, more laid-back and less structured. Is that a good or bad thing?

It's both in different ways I think. I miss some of the more formal rituals that my parents generation shared, even if they were wild in other ways. I've experienced enough of those rituals myself to know the pleasure they bestow among the recipients of them. One of the things we have lost is the sense of occasion, and because of that it's a great pleasure to actually indulge by dressing up and making a big deal of it when the random opportunity presents itself.

Casual makes things easy though - possibly too much so. I know I invariably head out in a pair of good jeans, a nice shirt, and a sports jacket as the occasional concession to respectability. Because there are so many more options these days and, I suspect, we are a much more social generation (that's gen X), those 'occasions' are integrated into our normal life. They're fun, but they're no longer special.

Still, I think, there are standards. I had a big birthday party a few years back and went all out. I hired out the upstairs function room of a cool restaurant in Greville Street. There were drinks on tap and food laid on; I got WEG along to draw one of his famous caricatures for whoever wanted one, and even got a girl jumping out of the cake - something I'd always wanted. It was a great night and paid for every cent of it - as it should be.

There is another grey area which is very common these days: restaurant bills. Do you apportion them out evenly amongst the company, or do you all get your calculator out and tally up your contribution? In my group we normally do the first, though there are some obvious inequities in that.

Wine often makes up a good portion of a bill, yet there are people who don't drink, or hardly at all. Is it fair for them to subsidise another? I think that depends on how you look upon it. If you look at it as a contribution to the occasion as a whole then that's perfectly fair; but if looked upon as payment for consumption then clearly it's not.

I went to the George last Friday night for a birthday dinner. Entrees were shared, with platters placed the length of the table to help yourself. Now I'm allergic to seafood and all but one of the plates were from the ocean. I managed a small bite and went hungry while everybody else feasted. Should I have paid for that?

I did, and without complaint. It is what it is, and ultimately it's all swings and roundabouts. We may sling a non-drinker a $20 refund on the bill occasionally, but the reality is that more often than not it evens itself out. And for the cost you get the great pleasure of sharing good times with your friends. I can't complain at that.

Googling me

On a whim I did a google search on my name. Of the results probably ten were related to me. They picked up my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and found a few articles I have had published. One of the odder results was a link to a book of records an old school friend had kept and put online. I was glad to see that I still hold two records: for memorising pi to 150 decimal places (actually 155), and for stool holding, which is 5 minutes.

There was one result that seemed familiar even though I couldn't recall it. When I clicked on it I found it was for another person with the same name as me. What was strange is that he has the same, non-name related, nick-name. What are the odds of that?

The flight of Icarus

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It was not so long ago that I was beginning to think of myself a bit like Icarus. Icarus, if you remember, is the character from Greek mythology who flies too close to the sun despite the warnings of his father, and plunges to his death as the wax in his wings melt. It's a really good story, and very much a story with a message.

It was only 2 weeks ago that I drifted around Toorak shopping centre wondering if there was something I should be learning. Being in Toorak was significant. For many years I lived a stone's throw away, and knew the place like the back of my hand. I looked at the familiar, poked my head inside shops, browsed the newsagents wondering, where did it go wrong? Was it still right here? Where did I take the wrong turn?

I felt chastened. Icarus came naturally to mind as a like figure, not just for me but friends of mine once high flying now earthbound. Did I take it for granted? Did I expect it ever to be so? Yes, probably I did. Was I arrogant? I baulked at that. It was hard not to feel that we were paying for our collective hubris, yet I could not detail what that hubris was. Perhaps I was careless, but I was never arrogant.

Yet there I was, questioning, a little lost, like my friends the CFO's of yesterday, the FC's, wondering how this could be and what would come of it. I remember that day entering a deli and being greeted by the French couple running it. She was a vivacious, lively woman and we engaged in banter. She made me a coffee. We talked some more. It came out easily and well, almost too much so. Even as I spoke and smiled and browsed the shelves and sipped the coffee she had made me my mind was fixed on this one thing. I felt like I had lost. I had played, had won for a long time, but ultimately lost.

I was not bitter. I could laugh after all with the French lady. And I knew no matter how bleak things appeared it was not the end of it: the sun would rise again on the morrow, I would get another chance to play. Yet I wondered if it would be for the same stakes as before. In a sense that seemed a very true metaphor. I had spent most of my recent life playing at the big table; now I had lost my stake and had too little to buy in. Now I could only watch.

There is little sense in dwelling upon the bleak reality; just as there is little sense in avoiding it. Pragmatic but positive is the way to be, and thankfully that is my default setting - with a dash of the intense. I wondered if I would ever reclaim my place. I wanted to, if only to prove that I could. And in all honesty I hate being a supplicant, and I passionately dislike not having control over my life.

There was a larger question I asked of myself though. It is characteristic of my personality and my outlook that I pondered if there was a deeper meaning to all this. My friends in similar positions shrugged their shoulders; I had to know. I had got past the earlier reflex questions, but at the same time I wondered if in the sequence of events there was not a message for me. Most particularly I wondered if I should change my ways - strive less, expect less, lower my ambitions, live smaller. Had I, like Icarus, overestimated my own ability? Need I fly lower, be safer?

You have no idea how difficult these questions are for me to deal with. It goes against the grain to conform to some standard: that's not who I want to be. And while I admit to being ambitious and aggressive and yes, ruthless occasionally, I have always sought to be decent and honest. I believe I am a kind and compassionate man and I am happy to be that. I would be gentler if I could be, but I think I am gentler than most. So...

Where I outreached myself was in how I began to 'value' what was good and not so good in my life. I strayed from the values inside me to more conventional and materialistic values without. I have never been one to judge myself on what I have done, more how I have done it. I lost some sight of that, much as I described a few weeks back. Well, that was settled, perhaps, but what of the larger question?

A man can't be happy unless he is true to himself. It's a simple axiom but very true - and often overlooked. It's not the secret to happiness - happiness comes in many guises - but it's certain that happiness cannot exist unless one accepts that self inside.

I'm a gambler, that's my personality. I play poker and I'm a bluffer. I've spent a career defying my credentials to climb to heights I don't belong. I always go for the high risk/return option with my investments. I prefer movement to stability. I like change, mostly, and enjoy challenging the status quo. I want to push and to agitate and to apply my might, I want to be used, filled, want to be involved because to be involved is to feel alive. I want to challenge the boundaries and go by them. This is who I am. For fucks sake, I'm Icarus, and if my destiny is to go down in flames then so be it. The only way you'll discover what is possible is by testing it. That's who I am, that's who I want to be - and I guess I get to fly.

What I'm saying is being safe and conservative is not who I am, and not who I'm meant to be. I'm not crazy, I'm not about to fly into the sun to prove a point. I'm a smart man. I'll measure, I'll calculate, I'll assess, and then I'll opt for the choice which seems most fun - invariable the edgier option. So be it. I'm too old to change now, and too grumpy to try it.

That's where I am. I'm sure, for what it's worth, that I will get all the way back, and beyond. I've lost a lot, but there's no value in thinking on that - better to focus on what can be won. I believe in karma, in everything evening out within the space of a few lifetimes, I believe the wheel turns eternally and that if you're tough enough to hang in there it'll turn for you.

Too soon to say, and many years and mysteries before me, but in the last few weeks it has begun to turn. True to my spirit I went hard, double or nothing, and I look like doubling, touch wood. And from having no choices I now seem to have a plenitude of them. The trick now is to respect them, and not take them for granted. Still a long journey ahead.

Preponing

Fong has been in India on holiday. I'm sitting on my couch before watching 30 Rock when my phone beeps at me. It's Fong. I've been preponed she tells me. Preponed? What's that? Well apparently preponed is the opposite of postponed, which sort of makes sense except as a concept I didn't know it existed. Which it doesn't really, except in India, where it happens regularly.

So Fong explains, she was due to be coming home and she got told she had to come to the airport early to catch her flight. Isn't that just an earlier flight? No, it's not. She's been preponed.

I mean really, this is silly. And it would piss you off. You're having a long breakfast when you get the call. Or maybe you have a day planned at the Taj Mahal. Or perhaps you've already paid for your accommodation for another night. Then bang, shazam, you've been preponed.

I can't approve of this. Fong, who is a prickly type, seemed pretty cool with it, but that could be just India. Don't quote me, but India is one of those places that wears you out. It's an assault on every sense, and very little is comfortable or easy. Leave early? Yeah alright.

Preponed. Strange. Sounds very Indian.