So as I look at this motor scooter I always feel inadequate

 

Well here I am walking Kata Beach on the Island of Phuket - I'm just back having been in Australia  since March.

 

I've turned into the white, fat people that I laughed at back then; of course I've had a birthday since then and on that day the change happened right then and there; the fries, the chicken parmigiana, the pasta, pizza, the beers and the red wine have played no part.

 

It gets worse - now my back is a lurid pink after only 30 minutes and that would not be so bad except that I am podgy enough to have folds of skin which means the tanning - read burning - has been unequal and so I am mottled; I am like one of those dolls squeezed into a glass container; it's not an attractive sight! I am not looking like a warrior; aging yes, but a warrior, no.

 

As I rode to Kata Beach this morning my Harley snarled as I leaned into one curve after another up over the forested range that separates where I live from the beach; at least that's what my imagination was doing but in the real world my modest, and responsible Honda motor scooter did the same leaning but without the snarling; or the vibration!

 

My Honda is a constant rebuke.

 

Mr Honda was a pinup boy for the perseverance set; his first great idea for a revolutionary piston ring was rejected by Toyota; eventually several years later Toyota bought the idea and Mr Honda needed to build a factory to make the piston rings but in WWII Japan he could not buy concrete; he and friends and colleagues invented a new way to make concrete; and then he couldn't get the raw materials to make the piston rings and so he had his employees collect metal fuel cans that were dropped from bombers; and then an earthquake destroyed his factory and so he had to sell the business to Toyota. Phew!

 

But there's more. Because fuel was rationed Mr Honda could not drive his car to market to collect food for his family so he found a small motor, rather like a lawnmower engine, and he attached it to his push bike; he made so many of these bikes he ran out of the small engines and so he needed to build a factory to make more - but he had no money; so he wrote to 18,000 bicycle shop asking for money and 3,000 sent what they could and Mr Honda manufactured a first shipment - but the engine was too heavy and was a disaster; so he stripped the engines down to make the engine lighter and smaller - he named it the 'Cub' and it was described as an 'overnight' success.

 

So as I look at this motor scooter I always feel inadequate.

 

This story is told in the Anthony Robbins book Notes from a Friend; it's a great read if you think that a kick in the pants could get you doing more, and enjoying it more! I frequently need such a kick.

 

Toolkit

 

http://www.amazon.com/Notes-Friend-Simple-Taking-Charge/dp/068480056X/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1416797131&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=notes+from+a+friend+robbins

Irony #1. My writing has been hijacked.

I've mentioned the book The Age of Absurdity before; it's a marvelous text dedicated to highlighting and contemplating many of the insane perversions that have occurred to what I had long considered 'normal' life.

I know the world in which we live has to change. Indeed I welcome change. As long as the changes  makes sense for the majority, a generally long-suffering and silent community segment that is rarely considered when change is being promoted and mandated.

Much of this change is brought about by encroaching technology.

My own life has numerous, and a growing number, of examples of how nonsensical change now imposes on one's life.

For example, a few months back I decided, again, that I would place some of the pieces I have written over recent years with a service from which publishers can purchase them for use in magazines. Some handy spare income I had hoped.

I sent off a sample 500 words, edited from a much longer piece and received a very prompt response which declined my offering explaining it had been previously published.

I knew that couldn't be true so I responded and assured the organisation that I had written the words and I asserted that these words had never been published.

It has, they responded; apparently they use a service that trawls the internet and some functionary entered the text I offered into a search engine and discovered that it appeared on several blogs. And the assumption therefore is that I was plagiarizing someone else's work; a further assumption is that my assurances about authorship were lies, or at least to be doubted.

And they are correct of course, because the original text is included on this blog.

So it seems my writing has been hijacked. By me.

To me it's  another example the innocent being punished. The Age of Absurdity indeed.

Toolkit:

http://www.amazon.com/Age-Absurdity-Modern-makes-Happy-ebook/dp/B007ZCOJE4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416714058&sr=1-1&keywords=the+age+of+absurdity

I need to find a new battlefield.

 

I spend my days in commerce; it keeps me interested, satisfies my need to be useful by employing my talents such as they are and, to date, has saved me from being a financial burden on others.

I need a new way of achieving these three objectives; I'd like to share the reasons why I believe this.

Commerce. The very unpretentious dictionary on my laptop defines commerce as: noun. 1 industry and commerce: trade, trading, buying and selling, business, dealing, traffic; (financial) transactions, dealings.

And that's OK I suppose; except in my experience commerce is very few of those activities. And no matter what price I paid I don't suppose I'd find a dictionary that defines commerce as I've come to experience it: talking about doing business; meeting; planning, without executing; being careful to never offend imagined sensibilities; allowing everyone to have, no matter how little talent, experience or competence, equal say in making important decisions; confusion about purpose; obfuscation; and lack of conviction and commitment. There is more but what's the point in listing more, if these realities don't eventually kill commerce I don't know what will.

It's just possible that the idiom let's not do anything in case something happens may have become an unspoken mantra for many in commerce; when things happen there are consequences - and consequences represent risk.

So for me, as an aging warrior, I need to find a new way of remaining relevant.

I need to find a new battlefield.

A humble orange.

Don't let an old person move into your body

I'm a worrier.

That's right. I'm a worrier. 

And although I've read quite a few books about how to cope, and I've listened to a lot of advice - I still worry. For instance I'm three hours into a nine hour flight and I'm worried about the batteries in my various devices; even though I left them charging until a microsecond before I left home. And I'm typing this on my tablet; and Willie's voice is alternately rasp- and honey-like in the Sony buds connected to my smart phone. What happens if my batteries die? How will I last the rest of the journey?
 
This is not a new phenomenon; in the early days of cell phones I had a housebrick-sized unit and I had three batteries just in case; this was in about 1988 when in Australia almost no one, but no one, called mobile phone numbers. I watch the little battery indicator with sinking feelings as the charge percentage sinks from 90% to 30%, and this is all while the phone appears to be doing nothing. And when I wake in the morning I am in a fury when I discover that for some inexplicable reason it's only charged to 68% - why? 

As I watch the Australian desert slide below and I wonder whether my phone will have enough battery to keep taking photographs. And how about my emails - what will happen if I can't check them the instant we land? 

Like I said I worry. Battery panic. Device deprivation. Just two of the multitude of new causes for concern in the twenty-first century.

Escaping 2013

Does it say something about our current social environment that I am escaping by reading an adventure story that begins in Asia during the chaotic and dangerous days of World War II?


Reading The Persimmon Tree by the late Bryce Courtney. I love it after just reading the short Amazon sample and I've bought the book. At the same time I'm reading the John Lanchester novel Capital which I'm enjoying. But The Persimmon Tree talks to my heart and my spirit - not so Capital even though it is a finely told story and I'm engaged with the characters. So what is the difference? Is it the setting, or the era, or the story, or the characters, or the language? Does Courtney's restless spirit somehow ensnare me as my eyes traverse the text? Do I have a particular empathy with the characters for some reason? Is it that recently I spent a few days on the island of Java where the story begins? If only I knew the definitive answer it would revolutionise my unfulfilled aspiration to write; it's not so much about whether my stories could make money, it's about wanting them to be enjoyed by others.

There was a time when paper texture, the heft, or the binding had influence over what I selected and purchased but sadly these influences are now but a footnote because I mostly read Kindle books. Not perhaps the most elegant volumes, but very transportable.

So. What influences you in the selection of a work of fiction?