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.