How much can we accomplish?

8 

20/03/2009

Pigorilla Power! A Tale

Eight sea days is not to be scoffed at. A tumultuous conglomeration of persistent passengers...different skills ranging from none to some....all in the same class clamouring for gratification for their petty pounds offered resentfully and expecting maximum satisfaction.

The days have been separated by a couple of fine evenings ranging from a more refined dance show in the  theatre to a rather busy evening disco for St Patrick’s day in the crew bar last night. My day consisted of a couple of poorly attended classes of Computer Maintenance this morning followed by a private lesson on shooting movies with a stills camera. I had a relaxing afternoon on the deck next to the pool followed by a leisurely Jacuzzi reading my book overlooking the last stretch of the Pacific Ocean before we arrive in Honolulu tomorrow morning. Crew drills and American immigration should see us off the ship by about 2pm when I shall mount my trusty steed and cycle up the nearest volcano.

Life on the shippy continues to bring out more and more vivid flashbacks of a life well lived and fond recollections of the many people that have joined me for the journey. More and more, the people that have been part of it appear larger than life when placed next to present participants. Everyone has an agenda on the ship...more so than real life...it is increasingly difficult to draw actual correlations of what one is doing and where one is heading with anyone else as there are just so many different compositions. One of the most desirable and gorgeous of girls was telling me of her desire to go backpacking and couch surfing around the world and I almost get swept up with this notion and think that it mightn’t be a bad idea for me, when all of a sudden I am struck with the realisation that I am fast approaching retirement age and should probably be trying to make some money and settling down.

A new energy is being instilled by my latest book. Having just finished Brida by Paulo Coelho, I am now onto Rigged which was given to me by Graham Cormack on our last wild London jaunt. Rigged is about trading oil futures in downtown Manhattan and is doing a fine job of making me want to get back into the thick of things and make a quick fortune. Lying here on my bed, the sea rushing by five meters from my feet, everything is so simple, yet complex, dark yet light, friendly and sinister, possible and not. We make our own little lives on this planet. I have half the belongings I had on Oriana, and yet I am happier...less clutter can make room for more other things, but irrespective of how much or how little we have....all of it is gone in the bat of an eye-lid and even distant memories may as well be the figment of our imagination that we may have never had.

A busy life can stop the thinking, and that is why emotional responsibility (i.e. children etc)can be a brilliant distraction from the kind of incessant thinking that no intelligence that we have can form answers for. I hope Darwin was right because there is a whole lot of natural selection necessary for us to evolve into the beings (if that is what we will remain) that can survive in the future that is plummeting down on us like a meteor from the sky.

All of this concerns space and time long after we have left our bones in the earth. Perhaps, for today we should reflect on Mathew Arnold’s poem that my Aunt Doreen gave to my sister, Irene, for her birthday.

Is it so small a thing,

To have enjoyed the sun,

To have lived light in the spring,

To have loved, to have thought, to have done?

Perhaps her friend, Carlton, was correct upon reading it and immediately picking up the question that was the poem gave her a confident, “Yes”.