Combination

This random word generator exercise is stretching the brain. Each time I write for the blog I get my random word and then write a short piece based on it.

Today’s is ‘combination’. Yep. Good one huh? Starting with a piece of original fiction I will attempt to explore ‘combination’.

Dressed entirely in black, moving with catlike agility and military precision, the team of shadowy figures descended on the vault door. Imposingly robust, the door was an impressive and threatening testament to man’s ingenuity; its design and size injected a sense of hopelessness and fear into would be assailants. The only way that the team was penetrating this barrier was with the combination; a luxury they didn’t possess. However, within their team they had an unwilling participant; shackled, out of breath and paralysed by fear was the key to the door’s puzzle. Albert Koelsher was the man who had designed the vault door: the only man alive who knew how to penetrate it.

This is how I remember the heist tales of my youth – before high tech gadgetry, military weaponry and superhuman strength got in the way. Safecrackers, working against an imaginary clock, sweat pouring off their brows, attempting to crack the combination. That final click, the sounds of metal cogs turning and steel doors opening – the sounds of success and relief.

People often comment on whether another person has the right combination of skills, attributes, knowledge etc. It is this combination which some feel is the key to success, power, prosperity and popularity. Aristotle once said, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” or words to that effect. I this is so then the combination of a person’s attributes is not as important as the person themselves – however I feel the combination of the parts is the essence of the person. “We are but a sum of our life’s experiences” is another quote I enjoy and this speaks to the importance of combination. I think that Aristotle may be a little off the mark when applying his theory to humans.

Combination is also widely used in Asian food. Most of us would have experienced the westernised version of Chinese food – infused with MSG and vegetable gums so that each dish is very similar to the next – meat with gluggy sauce and rice. One of these bastardised dishes is the ‘combination’ dish, seemingly a mish-mash of last night’s ingredients  - the Asian bubble and squeak. I am sure this was not the original intention, and revered Chinese chefs would be sick to the stomach, but in Australian Chinese restaurants this is a dish to miss.

People are forever searching for the right combination – food, art, design, sport, attributes, love, work; combinations form the basis for our society. Without combinations it would be a sterile environment indeed.

Consumption

I travelled to a friend’s birthday over the weekend and the group of friends in attendance are keen consumers. Aside from the material goods they covet, this group has a shared love of consuming booze. Large quantities of it. Quickly.

No excuses accepted; no questions entertained. Simply a ruthless, devil-may-care, unapologetic consumption of beer, wine, spirits and anything vaguely alcoholic, over a sustained period. And no, we are not irresponsible teenagers out to rebel or prove a point. We are grown men, many with families, children and mortgages. Grown men who, in some ways, find it extremely difficult to outgrow binge drinking.

I am not proud of this behaviour, but will not apologise for it either. No one became abusive, rude, objectionable or anti-social towards residents of our Nation’s Capital. This was a well-behaved congregation of beer chuggers.

But it is a worrying trend. As a group we have grown out of a number of activities we enjoyed as teenagers and young adults. For example, I no longer:

steal road signs that have my surname on them,

run nude at parties,

skull jugs of beer for money,

gamble my last $10 on a pokie,

eat the same meal 5 nights in a row,

sleep til 3am and rise at midday.

And the list goes on and on and on.

I drink rarely and I do enjoy a beer with the lads. When drinking I refer to myself, and a number of my contemporaries, as ‘Pringle Drinkers’ – once we pop you can’t stop. This is possibly the worst type of drinker.

In discussions with mates it seems that most of us share the view that commencing drinking prior to lunch and finishing a few hours before most people are heading to work is something we are not interested in doing anymore, yet we continue to do it. It is a real mystery. The power of peer pressure? The need to remain young in our minds?

We all have areas in our life we can improve and booze consumption is one of mine. Sure, some of the funniest and most entertaining times in my life have been linked to booze, but also some of the lowest.

But fear not, alcohol is not the only thing that I enjoy consuming. I am an avid reader and keen eater – ‘consuming’ habits that are far less life threatening and anti-social. The key is finding a balance between the good and the bad.

Reminder

The unrelenting madness of the modern world means that every moment is accounted for, rushed, absorbed, calculated, appraised and treasured. To control this madness the modern day human relies on a series of electronic aids to attempt to control as many of these moments as is possible. Email, calendars, alarms, reminders, to do lists, personal assistants – whole economies are kept afloat through the reminder industry.

Then there are the human elements – assistants, wake up calls, secretaries; people whose lives revolve around organizing moments for others and hopefully themselves.

I am beautifully disorganized. When I know I need to be somewhere or meet someone I am always ridiculously early – but the key is actually remembering the occasion or to set a reminder. This is where, for me, the process falls over.

I have no interest in filing, cataloguing, arranging, organizing, reminders, alarms – I like my life to take a more fluid path – free from the constraints of planning. This is nigh on impossible and instead I find I am missing out on a lot as I am unprepared, disorganized and often absent.

What is the answer?

Option A: I could move into the hills, see no one, wear a loin cloth, live off the land and communicate with smoke signals but I have never liked camping and am not great at hunting or fishing so not a viable option.

Option B: I could drift aimlessly through my current life, living each moment, setting no reminders – however I would frustrate every person I know and end up alone and probably at option A.

Option C: Utilise the technology available but not overuse it. I use my mobile phone alarm and a Google calendar – this is probably enough, along with a complete reorganization of my bedroom and cupboard.

I think that C is the only respectable option. I think that reminders are tools to assist us in navigating through the confusing maze of our lives and should be embraced not feared. By using reminders I can keep on top of things, remain friends with my mates and don’t end up living in a cave and being mistaken for a yeti by inquisitive children or conspiracy theorists.

Escape

I was making my bed this morning and out of the covers flew a butterfly. It was a strange thing to appear out of a bedspread and I watched it apprehensively flutter around my room and rest on the windowsill. Try as I may I could not coax it to fly out the open window. For the butterfly, the idea of escape has not entered its mind; it was content to stay on the windowsill, in the comforts of my room. I thought that it would be happier outside – as butterflies obviously have feelings – but on the outside there are all matter of foes. Children, birds and small animals all pose a threat to the butterfly; all reside just outside the window. Knowing it would surely perish inside without food I coaxed the butterfly outside. It had an escape, even if that was not in its original plans.

I have always been trying to escape from something. For too long the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. I am not sure why; it was just the norm for most of my life. A life, upon reflection that has been a blessed one and far more comfortable and fortunate than 99% of the worlds population.

What makes our generation so restless?

What is it we are hoping to find out there?

Many of my school and university friends are unmarried, unsettled, and not dissimilar to how they were ten to fifteen years ago. They have not been idle; travelling the world, been in and out of love, had rewarding careers, cultivated meaningful relationships. But they have not settled down, laid roots, or anchored themselves to someone or somewhere. Is this a form of escape, an unwillingness to conform to society’s rules or an inability to commit? Does is matter that they are not settled? Is being unsettled the way it is now for our generation, the way it will be moving forward?

For me, change is refreshing, not challenging or terrifying. Change is an escape. The ability to live another life, see how other people live, experience their jobs, cities, friends. Escape from one thing can result in stability somewhere else. Many people fear change; they need the regularity of routine. To them the idea of escaping consists of an annual holiday or buying a different brand of cereal. There is nothing wrong with this; I envy these people to a degree. To have contentment must be wonderful. To wake up each day, doing the same routine and be genuinely happy must be a great feeling.

The search continues, and for me it is an exciting journey. Escaping will continue to be a part of my life, in many forms, and that is OK.

Oh Forty, why are you approaching so swiftly?!

I have recently read a highly entertaining book entitled “Fat, Forty and Fired” by Nigel Marsh. Former work mates gave it to me on my last day, as it was applicable to the situation I was heading towards. Although I am neither fat, forty or fired I understood the sentiment and accepted the gift. It proved to be great read, full of humour, insight, and sadness; however the ending was disappointing as for over 200 pages Marsh had strived to build a better life, be more in touch with his family, achieve personal goals and just as he is reaching the summit of his achievement mountain he accepts a job and regresses back to his former self. It was like he was saying you can attempt to swim against the tide but ultimately you will be swept back downstream. This was a devastating blow as I had followed his progress with a lot of inner “well done Nigel” and “way to go, I can do that too” – to be faced with hopelessness at the end is disappointing.

However, enough on Nigel Marsh and onto the subject of 40. I recently calculated that I am closer now to 50 than I am to my last day of High School – an interesting, sobering and in some ways, terrifying proposition. In a short 6 years I will be 40 and 6 years does not seem that far away.

I always imagined 40 as a time when I would have a house, dog (or cat), wife, and kiddies. That is not to say this will still not happen, but it is not looking that way at the moment. The key to this is that it is no longer a problem as times change, we change, and our priorities change.

In 1985, when I was 10, life was much simpler. My days consisted of eating jam sandwiches, playing run across or handball, riding my bike and fighting with my sisters. To be 35, let alone 40, seemed a world away and I guess, in a way, it was. We put a time capsule in the ground at my primary school where it was to stay for 25 years, the year 2010, when it would be opened. I imagined returning to the school playground in 2010, hopping out of my hover car, ably driven by my robot servant, and catching up with my schoolmates of 1985. I may very well attend the surfacing of the time capsule later this year, however the hover car and robot may be noticeably absent.

It is funny how much the future does not resemble what we imagined. Many times it is better than expected so it is not all doom and gloom. I think it does show that age should not be a limiting factor, an invisible barrier or yardstick we are confined or ruled by. Age is just a measurement and nothing more. How many people have defied their age to perform amazing feats?

Yes I am very close to 40, but what does that matter? It really has no bearing on my life unless I have an expiry date of November 2015 and no one has told me. If that is the case, I have work to do…you can find me in the garage, I have a hover car and robot servant to invent.