The gentrification and monetization of paradise

For a few days I've been visiting friends in Noosa Heads, a one-time hamlet or village clustered on an idyllic coastline north of Brisbane, Australia; this is where I made my home in the early nineteen eighties; when I lived here all the streets, with the exception of main thoroughfares, had grass verges, and dusty casuarina, eucalypts, banksias, acacias, melaleucas, sheoaks, and drooping pandanus were the predominant flora; now manicured lawns, smart combinations of terrazzo pavers and gravel, and palms and other lush topic plantings have elbowed their way into this Australian seaside town. Now it's as if a town planning manual had exploded.

Nowhere is this gentrification more obvious that in the jewel of the town, Hastings Street, the town's boutique shopping heart; I can't deny that to walk along this tiny narrow strip, squeezed serendipitously between the ocean and the Noosa River, with its idyllic pools of flame trees shadow, is a delight; there was a time when my life centred on plans for converting Hastings Street into an alternative version of what it has become, but what has been done, without my help or hindrance, is beautiful. You should come and visit this place if you are in Australia.

But as is often the case, there are storm clouds, every bit as large and spectacular as those that loom on summer nights, building and billowing, and the breezes are turning to gales.

Now with the high Australian dollar making cheaper-than-ever-before international holidays, tourism in the town is, unlike the luxuriant tropic plants, wilting, and this, together with the Australian economy, which has a sniff of uncertainty about it, means that while every house and apartment in town is for sale, buyers are fewer than in boom times, and they are more opportunistic.

There are many dreams at stake here; good people whose imagination was captured by the the white light, the turquoise ocean, the golden sands, the forest green of the headlands, the warm fragrant evenings, and by the promise of an easy lifestyle, dreamed of settling - and many came to stay. And for some those realised dreams of sumptuous residences, eye-pleasing vistas, and pristine neighbourhoods have the potential to become nightmares as times inevitably turn and circumstances change.

The gentrification of paradise; it's said to be progress. But now I wonder.

Hi Doe and Hi Boo.

Even in these times of increased terrorist danger, good-times, sun, sand and ocean still tend to foster easygoing environments - and yet even in such a paradise there are times when protection against all manner of events could be valuable.

Visitors and residents on the Thai island of Phuket are very fortunate because on the crest of the timbered range that doglegs along the southern end of Phuket island are two impregnable shields; each protects against different enemies - each offers a different liberation.

This low range separates Phuket Island-east from island-west: to the west is a string of sparkling bays and beaches extending from Nai Harn Beach in the south to Surin Beach mid-way along Phuket’s Andaman Sea coast; this side of the island is tourist heaven. On the other side of this range you’ll find more locals, Thai cuisine as eaten by Thais, sleepy bays and lazy villages, jetties, and Phuket Town, the administrative and industrial centre for the island.

In today’s Thailand the hip, hop into cool gobbledygook, like Hi-So and Lo-So – and I’m adding Hi-Doe and Hi-Boo to this contemporary mumbo jumbo.

The first, Hi-Doe, introduces High Dome, a white globe – a Thai military radar installation - located about mid-way between the northern and southern ends of the island on Khao Mai Thao Sip Song, a peak that rises 530 metres above sea level. This dome is presumably sniffing for military threats against Phuket and other parts of Thailand. Hi-Doe also frowns down on Bangla Road, the strip in the centre of hedonist’s haven - Patong; if ever there were a threat to holidaymakers, especially their wallets and purses, it is almost certainly lurking in the temptations found on its streets and laneways. But I imagine the radar is too busy searching the furthest horizons to be snooping on holiday dalliances and furtive fumbling!

Hi-Doe perches just above one of two low saddles in the range that opens east to west and through this gap stream trucks and tuk-tuks, cars and cabs, and busses and bikes; not content with the high-tech protection up above the majority of drivers and riders beep their horn for good luck when passing a Chinese temple on the crest of the pass – you can never have enough protection!

A visit to the high point near the radar station is worthwhile – the near 360 degree views are spectacular – to the west the slope cascades down to Patong with it’s spectacular bay, and to the beaches beyond. To the south the views are along the range to where our second protective device squats. And to the east there are spectacular views of Phuket Town, Chalong Bay, and Phangha Bay dotted with weird limestone formations, and islands.

Hi-Doe is reached by a narrow, steep and winding road on the eastern side of the range; despite this the road is well surfaced and graded and an attacking force would appreciate the high quality road that leads to the gates of this military installation; if you visit the lookout, the radar site is a little further up the hill – the armed guards are placid enough but may not remain so if you take photographs.

At the opposite end of the range to Hi-Doe, at the southern end, on peak Khao Nakkerd is a very different device - Hi-Boo, a tall Buddha gazing serenely eastwards over Phuket Town and Chalong Bay.

According to the constructor’s web site the Buddha is in honour of King Bhumiphol, and it’s to be a centre for beneficial influence in Thailand, and particularly the Phuket community. Ultimately a beautiful religious park with trees to provide shaded places for Buddhist teaching and meditation will surround the Buddha. All Buddha statues represent the dharma - the accumulated Buddha’s teachings and wisdom - and so I am content to imagine the Buddhist message of compassion and peace radiating from the giant Buddha out over the island.

I was keenly anticipating the advertised ‘big Buddha’ on my first visit and I was not disappointed by the 12 metres tall brass Buddha featuring coiled, intertwined bodies of two naga, the Sanskrit word for serpent. The Buddha’s polished surface reflected the sun and warm breezes ruffled yellow Buddhist flags.

Wandering around I admired spectacular views - and away to the north perched Hi-Doe. Sharing my dusty vantage point were numerous workmen constructing a large concrete base encased in scaffolding and eventually I realised that the Buddha I had been admiring was but the entrée so to speak – this vast base is where the advertised Big Buddha image would ultimately rest.

By mid 2007 the big Buddha, Phra Puttamingmongkol Akenakkiri, was still under construction, rising 45 metres high - that’s almost identical to the Statue of Liberty although the grand lady’s taller pedestal increases her total height to 93 metres – both are tall - and both are statues of liberty.

I am hoping the Big Buddha’s facial features will reflect traditional Sukhotai or Ayutthaya era beauty – to my eye Thai artisans have created features more pleasing than Indian or Oriental-styled Buddhas. Sukhotai and Ayutthaya styled Buddhas typically have long faces, downcast eyes, lengthened earlobes, and curly hair with a pointed flame ushnisha rising above the head.

Buddhas come with an amazing diversity of visual characteristics – in fact there are 32 great marks a Buddha can exhibit including facial and physical attributes, stance, vestments and other items of clothing, and ornaments. 

The total cost of the Phuket Buddha will be 30 Million Baht and, to help defray this cost, my own small contribution has been to buy a marble tile upon which is written my name, my partner’s name and those of her family; eventually this tile will become a tiny, permanent part of the floor around the lotus base.

I know very little about building anything – let alone a huge Buddha – but I imagine that its surrounding scaffold would have failed to meet safety standards in countries where there is greater, or perhaps any, building regulation. The tangle of pole scaffolding I observed on my first visit reached perhaps three metres; now it rises tier upon tier seeming somehow to defy any known structural discipline - and gravity; horizontal and vertical poles are connected solely with rope and twine and many of the poles have protruding stubs where branches have been chopped away.

Despite this apparent laxity and instability workmen laughed and chatted as they leaped from platform to platform, men perched in pockets where poles intersected or they balanced astride poles, and at the very top, where numerous Thai and Buddhist flags fluttered in stiff breezes, men leaned over this precarious scaffolding going about their work. Perhaps working on a Buddha construction has powerful in-built protection?

Despite this web of poles I could see that concrete was being smoothed over an internal steel mesh skeleton so, aside from the main internal pillars, the Buddha is hollow; ultimately the Buddha will be enhanced with golden mosaic.

Aside from concrete, traditionally manufactured Buddhas of considerable size are formed from many materials including wood, bronze, crystal, quartz, brick, stone, pottery, plaster – and there’s a solid gold, three metres tall Buddha at Bangkok’s Wat Traimit weighing 5.5 tonnes; for centuries this Buddha was thought to be made of plaster until one day, while being moved, it was dropped, the plaster cracked, and the solid gold Buddha beneath was revealed

The immense Phuket sitting Buddha competes with a number of other large Buddhas.

In Thailand there are several competitors including a 24 metre tall bronze sitting Buddha that was, until now, the tallest in Thailand; in the far north at Tha Ton a giant white Buddha gazes over the Kok River and there’s a 68 metres tall standing Buddha in the Khorat Plateau town of Roi Et.

In the ancient Siamese cities Sukhotai and Ayutthaya there are large and beautiful Buddhas, and in Bangkok, there are several including a 32 metres tall standing Buddha of absolutely no artistic merit; and there’s the classically beautiful, 46 metres long reclining Buddha located in quixotically exotic Wat Pho, the oldest and largest Wat in Bangkok.

There are others scattered across Thailand – but the Phuket sitting, freestanding Buddha is now the largest of all. There is one unusual competitor, a 109 metres tall standing Buddha etched into a Thai mountainside.

In other places around the Buddhist world there are giants to be found in Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, China and Hong Kong and Myanmar. The largest of all is the 120 metres tall Ushiku Amida Buddha near Tokyo, and in Leshan, China a Buddha carved in a sheer rock face reaches 71 metres; it took one hundred years to carve.

There were other large Buddhas equaling Hi-Boo’s size including the great Bamiyan standing Buddhas in Afghanistan that were destroyed by Taliban Islamic fundamentalists in 2001; the tallest was 55 metres.

Somewhat ironically, in India the land of Buddha’s birth and a country in which Buddhism is now the belief of a tiny minority, a large Maitreya Buddha – the Buddha of the future - is planned although construction is currently stalled; the planned height of 150 metres rivals the height of the great pyramid of Cheops. I’ve seen the pyramid, mysterious and inspirational, and maybe I’ll look forward to seeing the competing Buddha – or will I? Probably not!

Perhaps, unknown to those of us raised in non-Buddhist cultures, these large Buddhas scattered across the globe may have some greater purpose than the contribution they make to each locale – is it somehow possible that together they suspend a mesh of goodwill and compassion across all nations? It’s a nice thought.

Why build such Buddhas? Is bigger better? Perhaps not, because many Buddhas considered as offering the greatest protection are also among the smallest – tiny amulets or votive tablets featuring Buddha or monk images are greatly revered and are worn by many.

The first time I ever went to Thailand I was invited by a friendly bar girl (aren’t they all?) and friends to attend Loy Krathong celebrations – and I was given my first votive tablet, a small grey-ish lozenge with a Buddha image on one side. I have it still and I have added many tablets, amulets, talismans and woven wristbands since.  Although amulets are sold and exchanged all over Thailand, perhaps amulet-Mecca is found close-by the Grand Palace in Bangkok – this is where serious searchers for protection against all manner of dangers hunt.

There is no question about which protective device – Hi-Doe or Hi-Boo – dominates the Phuket skyline, Hi-Boo wins hands down – well to be accurate, hand down because he sits in Maravichai style, the common and classic pose, with one hand in his lap and the other hand draped over his right leg with the fingers reaching for the earth; this pose reflects the moment of his enlightenment.

From where I stay I can see this vast Buddhist aide-memoir framed by forested slopes and tropic skies; seen from Chalong Bay jetty the rising sun splashes the statue with a palette of gold, silver and pewter, and at day’s end nature’s most spectacular blue skies fused, like a length of raw Thai silk, with neon pink, mauve, and purple form a backdrop that somehow seems inadequate to complement the sublime essence of the Buddha.

So, with all this written, is Phuket doubly protected? And, if it is, what is it protected from? I suspect answers to these two questions will differ depending on the cultural background of the respondent. West and East will perceive different dangers and put their trust in different defenses. Vive la difference! Or, as we say in Thailand, same-same but different.

I need to see some ID before you read this post.

Just joking.

If you’re reading this post then you’ve probably flicked through a few of my others; if so you’ll know I consider myself in conflict with much of the twenty-first century; despite this I do embrace the majority of transformation occurring, including the technological. And you’ve also probably discovered that I live in two countries - not simultaneously of course! And these two realities have led me to the issue that I’m exploring here.

My mobility has forced me to embrace one distressing decision; I now almost never buy paper books anymore because their weight and volume are prohibitive. Why distress? Because I am someone who cherishes books and I’ve bought thousands which explains, in part, how I have managed to remain a pauper even while enjoying a handsome salary for years. Books have been an obsession throughout my life and even now, after taking extreme steps to de-clutter my life, I have hundreds in storage.

Winston Churchill explained how I feel about books so much better than could I: "If you cannot read them, any rate … fondle them. Peer into them … let them fall open where they will, … Set them back on the shelf with your own hands … If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances."

Alas now my books are but ephemeral wisps of digital data on by eReader, my tablet, and my phone; sadly there’s no fondling these ‘books’, and I’m not sure I can make, or want to make, the acquaintance of millions of bits and bytes - especially when they are arranged with so little attention to aesthetics. So in the search for mobility I have eschewed leather and other lustrous bindings, thick creamy deckle-edged paper, textures, the visual allure of fonts beyond Times and Arial postscript, and I’ve sold my soul to clinical technology in return for the promise of digital transcontinental transportability.

The other day I was thinking about what we consumers have come to accept as being perfectly acceptable treatment in this digital age.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that as you approached the entrance to your favourite bookstore you were asked to produce some identification before being allowed inside; few of us, I suggest, would consider this acceptable treatment.

And yet that’s exactly what happened to me the other day when I was challenged for ID as I tried to access the Amazon Kindle store on my smartphone; I meekly waited until I returned home and browsed Amazon on my laptop without needing to login.

How compliant I’ve become; and how little about this experience seems to shock, or enrage. I suppose the rationale for providing an ID is security although if some other person shoulders their way into my Kindle store what are they going to do? Buy me some books? Doesn’t sound like much of a scam to me.

And our compliant state is even more surprising because access to the world’s knowledge is rapidly being monopolised by a diminishing number of companies. And I wonder if that isn’t a cause for concern because access to knowledge is fundamental to many of the freedoms that we enjoy.

In around 50BC the great library at Alexandria, the greatest centralised knowledge repository of the known world, was razed to the ground and it plunged civilization back into an era in which written knowledge was scattered, scroll by scroll, from central Asia to the western gateway of the Mediterranean and exchanging knowledge happened at the speed of a cart, and even then, only to and from where cart tracks led.

This knowledge fragmentation had considerable impact because the educated, and their masters, were the sole custodians of, and gatekeepers to, knowledge and this created a world in which few knew what knowledge was available, the benefits to be gained from accessing it, or where it resided; across Europe the dark ages was probably extended hundreds of years by this barrier to accessing knowledge.

So knowledge dispersal worked against human advancement by promoting ignorance and perverting thought.

Then the advent of movable type and the printing press opened the floodgates and knowledge flooded the world; knowledgeflood 1.0 is perhaps how we would describe it today.

Now the Internet and search engines have enabled knowledgeflood 2.0, and we have the best of both worlds: decentralised and disseminated knowledge which is simultaneously centralised through the wizardry of the Internet; my browser converts my laptop to the world’s largest library and archive.

For me the convenience of digital books is fantastic and I have hundreds of books stored on my tablet, a device the size of a small paperback - and I also have hundreds in storage that take up the space of a two car garage; so I’ve made progress - at least in the volumetric sense. And in my life, one is carry on baggage, and the other would max-out my Visa card at check-in.

So what’s to worry about? Well - it’s not the convenience of knowledge digitisation, or the increase in the types of media upon which knowledge can now be stored and distributed, and it’s not even the capability to share using the Internet; rather it’s that once upon a time when I bought a book - I owned that book - and I could have that book in my possession. But now ownership and access is far less certain with digital knowledge.

In ‘The Googlization of Everything’ Siva Vaidhyanathan writes, ‘... there has never been a company with explicit ambitions to connect individual minds with information on a global - in fact universal - scale. The scope of Google's mission sets it apart from any company that has ever existed in any medium.

He also writes ‘ … no single state, firm or institution in the world has as much power over Web-based activity as Google does.’

And, ‘Google is the dominant way we navigate the Internet, and thus the primary lens through which we experience both the local and the global, and it has remarkable power to set agendas and alter perceptions. Its biases (valuing popularity over accuracy, established sites over new, and rough rankings over more fluid and multidimensional models of presentation) are built into its algorithms. And those biases affect how we value things, and navigate the worlds of culture and ideas. In other words we are folding the interface and structures of Google into our very perceptions’.

I wonder, is civilisation up for sale?

And how easily could access convenience be replaced by inconvenience? Perhaps digitisation is a two edged sword?

Imagine, for example, we awakened one morning and collectively tried to log on to Google only to discover that access was denied because Google had been acquired by an totalitarian regime, or access suddenly depended on a hefty fee, or that our digital book provider had gone broke, and our books were no longer available to us.

Now it would be possible to see this post as anti-Internet or anti-Google - but quite the reverse - the services that Google provide or enable are now central to my life - and that again is the point.

The other day as I explored blogging I thought I would discover what the Google AdSense service offered and to astonishment I was confronted with a message telling me that my AdSense account had been frozen due to inappropriate activity that breached my agreement with Google; this news was delivered with the reassuring words that if I wanted to complete a comprehensive questionnaire then Google may reconsider my case.

As an aging warrior I am often begrudging in my adherence to stupid laws and moronic guidelines - but even so I don’t break the law, especially when my opponent would be global giant Google so I’ve certainly done nothing to earn this rebuke - and I can be sure of this because I’ve never attempted to access the AdSense service; I’m absolutely sure of my innocence!  

Now I’m not sure if you have you ever tried to speak to anyone at Google? Forget it, they’ve never heard of the device that most of us use to communicate when it really matters - the telephone.

So I eventually sent Google this message: ‘I am astonished. To the best of my knowledge I have never given Google any occasion to treat me in any way than a valued user. I have to say that the complete inability to engage with someone also astonishes me. It is somewhat reminiscent of a 'star chamber' where I stand accused of some unknown act and I have been offered no explanation, no charges have been laid, I have no assistance in preparing or delivering my defense, and I have no way of assessing the likelihood of reprieve. Dreadful.’

Google had warned me that any plea might fall on deaf ears, that any complaint against me might be upheld and I would remain a cyber black sheep, or that I may get an answer in three or four weeks - they acknowledged they don’t have many resources dedicated to reviewing these cases of infringement. I never received a reply.

Perhaps after all this you’re thinking so what? Good question and I’m not sure I have a complete answer. In short I’m pleased that so much information is accessible. But I do wonder what would happen if our access to the knowledge base were restricted - and of course, it’s not just knowledge because Google, and the Internet, are now such an essential part of my life; I am now, as it were, ‘in the cloud’.

Now Google is the custodian of this blog draft, and the blog itself, twenty-five thousand of my photographs are out there, together with more and more of my documents spinning through cyberspace, my diary, your twitter address, and my to-do lists, the pages of my digital notebooks, and my banking details, my health records, tax records, my accounts and … what else is there?

Gulp. I hope no one pulls the plug without warning! Because if they do, the cyber-me will disappear. And I’ll be left without my ID!

So imagine, night has fallen, and beyond the outer temple enclosure in the jungle there is rustling, shrill cries, and throaty rumbling.

I’m not sure about other aging warriors, but I often wonder whether my later life decisions are sane and practical; is it practical, for example for me to move to Thailand?.

And then I get to thinking about life in the western world and the cultural differences with Asia and I perk up because I realise that staying put in Australia, for me, is not an option; and anyway discovering Asia has been a joy, and I’m always excited at the chance to return there.

One rewarding discovery for me has been the ancient Khmer empire; I recall during my mid to late twenties reading about Pol Pot and Cambodia and I remember never being quite clear about the complex drama that was being played out; I don’t know that I ever resolved the conundrum.

Flash forward to 2004 when I first visted Cambodia as a consequence of discovering a wonderful book, ‘Ruins of Angkor’, full of photographs taken in 1909 by Frenchman P. Dieulefils when the temples were probably little different from when Europeans first re-encountered them in mid nineteenth century; they were tumbling down, they were overgrown by grasses, shrubs and stained by mould, bat droppings, and by the accumulated filth of centuries. And yet, this in no way seemed to diminish the attraction of these extraordinary works of art – these great places of worship. In fact, their ruinous condition was their attraction.

Way back in a February post entitled Dames, Broads and Dolls, I wrote about apsara, celestial dancers, that adorn numerous khmer temples … and I’ve pondered on their similarity because no matter where you come across apsaras, there’s something about them – I’ve gazed at thousands. I’ve closely scrutinised hundreds of faces. There’s definitely something about them.

Georges Coedes, doyen of Khmer Empire academics until his death in 1969 wrote, ‘ … the figures of apsaras which adorn the walls of Angkor Wat are not there solely for the pleasure of the eye: their role is to transform this cold stone dwelling-place into a celestial palace’. So, it seems, he believed that these decorative girls – and all the other temple decorations - were more than simple representations of divine beings; rather he believed they were to evoke divine worlds and bring them to life - in the temple.

So imagine, night has fallen and beyond the outer temple enclosure in the jungle there is rustling, shrill cries, and throaty rumbling. Inside the temple, the great Khmer king Jayarvarman VII is making his way to the inner sanctum of Angkor Wat – his vast retinue of attendants follow although only he and the attending Brahman priests will climb to the highest terrace. The sound of the pacing thousands echo through the galleries and terraces.

Flares flicker and gutter as breezes find their way along colonnades and through windows and doors, golden thread woven into vividly coloured banners shimmer, fabric ripples, incense drifts – and across the rough hewn stone walls shadows tumble, chase and slide at the passing of this vast crowd.

Now the celestial dancers are not so inert – but rather they seem to seductively undulate, sway, and deeply genuflect - and the guardian devatas in deepening shadows alternately recede and emerge as flames flicker. Light gleams on vast golden Buddhas and Hindu deities. Bats zigzag and squeak. Bells and gongs ring, and other instruments tinkle. And fruit and blossom offerings scent the humid night.

The king strides the great encircling galleries with their carved reliefs - floating apsaras in heaven and tormented souls in hell – torture and mayhem – and scenes of the royal court - he pauses by an image his grand-father King Suryavarman II who commissioned this vast building, standing on his war elephant leading a vast army of Khmer and Siamese troops on its way to wage war – to kill and plunder, pillage and enslave.

If apsaras talked - and who knows maybe they do when the tourist hoards are gone - they would tell you they are accustomed to molestation and violence. They have been fondled by perhaps millions of visitors over hundreds of years, for centuries robbers have been hacking their inscrutable faces from shapely bodies to make a quick buck, and restoration works have deconstructed, chemically treated and reconstructed thousands.

The most recent apsara pogrom occurred in temples where Pol Pot’s armed thugs took refuge between 1975 and 1979 amusing themselves using life-sized apsaras for target practice. Happily, by and large, they otherwise left the temples relatively unharmed – a miracle given what the Khmer Rouge did to fellow citizens – these acts of temple vandalism were the very least of their mindless activities.

If you visit Ta Prohm at Tonli Bati, a tiny Khmer temple 20 or so kilometres from Phnom Penh, the smiling apsaras you see are in stark contrast to the depressing depressions of the killing fields of Choeung Ek a few kilometres away where about 17,000 were slaughtered after being brutally tortured by interrogators - fellow citizens - at prison S-21.  At the tall glass-sided memorial there are no smiles – just the bared upper molars of more than 8,000 cavernous skulls arranged on shelves as if in some library in the bowels of hell. Oh that these poor souls could be renovated as effectively as apsaras.

Fortunately, in the early nineteen-eighties the Archaeological Survey of India – the ASI - was selected to undertake Angkor restoration works; their proposals were accepted because of their sympathy with Khmer culture and similar work done on many Indian temples.

The scale of the renovation works was staggering – entire portions of the temple were rebuilt – or at least renovated. Bat nesting was eliminated and the stone-corroding acid from their droppings was neutralised. Micro-vegetation was stripped away. Damaged stones were rejuvenated. Surfaces were chemically cleaned, and protected. And inevitably, fortunately, the apsaras received the same TLC – which is why their smiles are broader than any other Angkor apsaras. Yes, you’re right – that’s not true – but it would be nice to think it was, given the difficulty involved in the restoration.

Like the ugly duckling that became a swan - Angkor Wat was transformed; and all this was achieved as a, post Pol Pot regime, civil war raged around Angkor. India’s Ambassador to Cambodia later wrote: ‘There was no electricity, no health facilities, no communication with the outside world. In short, the working conditions were extreme. But for seven to eight months at a stretch for seven consecutive years from December 1986, the ASI experts spent all their energies in saving Angkor Wat, shoulder to shoulder with their Khmer brethren’.

The work of preserving Angkor Wat – and many other temples – continues with the expertise of many nations.

However, not all the numerous temples in the Angkor region received the same focused attention as Angkor Wat. Even today, in temples where carvings are more exposed to weather, stone contours have softened and only the faintest images remain, moss coats surfaces, tiny plants thrive between blocks, and the webs of marauding spiders form gossamer veils. And in some temples it’s clear that restoration has been, at best, less than perfect – especially when Frangipani’s upper torso has lily’s navel - because sometimes reconstructions are completed with stone blocks that are available - rather than those that are missing.

If you wander through the valleys, across the plains and over hillsides of the one-time Khmer Empire you'll get to meet many more of these apsara beauties, some as fresh and clean as if they were carved yesterday and others not. Their costumes and appearance change depending on the era in which the carvers gave birth to their creations. And there is something about them – some shared characteristic.

Apsara frequently hold flowers, or their diaphanous sarongs are discretely decorated with blossoms, and sometimes they are surrounded by elaborate carved foliage, or the background from which they protrude is a field of repetitive floral symbols.

Perhaps the most common flower represented is the sacred flower of Hindu mythology, the lotus and many apsaras hold a long stem lotus that loops behind their neck.

Every apsara is unique – some barely so - but others are like chalk and cheese. They all have as much variation in eyebrows, eyes, chins, lips and mouths, gestures, body shape, hairstyle, and apparel and accessories as you’d see as any crowded mall anywhere in the world.

I am told several hold books – and that only two, among all the smiles, display teeth - I can vouch that there is one. But I won’t tell you where she is – go look for yourself.

But what is it about them? There is a consistent feature. It’s on the tip of my tongue.

In my first post about apsaras I began by writing that many Asian women have extraordinarily exotic features – added to which they frequently wear clothing that tantalises – like the Chinese cheongsam and the Vietnamese ao dais, for example.

If you hang around you’ll be able to revisit the Khmer Empire, apsaras and the similarity they universally share,  and beautiful women in another post some time soon.

Thanks for spending these few minutes with me.

Maturity is no antidote against stupidity!

So this morning as I clamber from my bed I know with a certainty that I consumed too much alcohol last night. Way too much. Stupid. Absurd.

So in my fragile state I’m tapping away at this post because I’ve missed blogging in recent months, and because my own stupidity reminds me that I have thoughts I’d like to share about this very subject.

Stupidity. I’m not sure about your world, but mine really is full of breathtaking stupidity.

More and more I see ordinary citizens of the world in which I live being treated like helpless children despite their obvious maturity; or like criminals instead of hapless innocents trapped in a mire of revenue-raising regulations; or heroes when they should be perceived as villains; or wealthy when in fact they are just making ends meet as taxes and the cost of living soar; or intellectuals when they are nothing more than pompous and misguided blowhards. I won’t go on, at 68 time is too short.

In previous posts I’ve identified my ‘PC21’ - my personal conflicts with the twenty-first century - and this list perfectly illustrates some of the conflicts that often cause me to feel disenfranchised, as stupidity gets a tighter and tighter grasp on society, and as it slowly strangles my own ability to live my very modest and unobtrusive lifestyle.

Since I last posted I’ve spent some time in my Thai home; living in a third world country is a welcome reprieve from western society.

But I've also spent some time in corporate Australia and there’s certainly no escape from stupidity there. Less people doing more and more work, multitasking our way to mediocrity while all the time loudly proclaiming corporate values of quality and thought leadership; eliminating competent employees and then immediately replacing them with more educated but less competent and capable people - qualifications are rarely a substitute for experience; demands for increased productivity and quality while acting in ways that reduce worker engagement; shunting people around organisational structures that on paper work perfectly, but in the real world defy implementation; English-mangling jargon that makes the simple incomprehensible; it’s a place where talking in meetings eliminates any possibility to doing; and, in my own area of specialisation, we’re trying to turn selling into a science rather than mastering the art. 

This is unquestioningly the age of absurdity. But there’s not much point whining - better to fight back. But what to do? What weapons do I have against this global tsunami of absurdity? Or do I have a shield large enough to protect me?

Well, I’ve already posted the steps that I’ve taken to try and counter my personal conflicts with this century.

And recently I’ve been trying to make sense of this age, and trying to discover whether others have similar frustrations to my own, so I’ve been reading ‘The age of absurdity’; for me it’s riveting and if you find yourself wondering what has happened to life as you once knew it, then this is a book for you. 

It’s one of the few paperbacks I have, given the transient nature of my lifestyle, and its pages are scored with underlined paragraphs and graffiti, pages are dogeared, it falls open at many places where the spine has been creased, and it has post-it notes and scraps of paper poking out between every other page.

If you sense that you are in conflict with the twenty-first century I highly recommend you read ‘The age of absurdity’ and react, and resist some of the nonsense that threatens to overwhelm us.

Reading it has certainly helped me see the absurdity - the stupidity - that pervades our society and it’s given me great new insights that help me stiffen my resolve to resist. 

How to resist? What to do? It’s tough because the absurdity of this age is omnipresent. But on a practical level here’s my discipline:

- I try to simplify my thinking - and eliminate or reduce the mental muddle that often accompanies anything we do in this age, and

- I try to focus on doing everything with complete attention rather than multitasking myself into mediocrity, and

- I try to eliminate or avoid sources of information, like newspapers, that cause me to confront the absurdity, and

- I try to avoid accumulating.

By applying these disciplines I don’t eliminate absurdity, but I do cause my focus to be on what I am doing, rather than what everyone else is doing; and that works for me.

As is self evident, Buddha accompanies me on this journey of reflection and in an early post I wrote that it was ‘my growing conviction is that there could be no better guide, no better plan, for responding to pc21, than the way for living life as proposed by the Buddha’; his eightfold path is a very accessible tool for living. 

Author Michael Foley writes in the ‘The age of absurdity’ opening chapter, that ‘Buddha’s metaphor for the liberated mind was a sword drawn from its scabbard’ - so perhaps Buddha’s image and my self-professed role as an aging warrior are entirely appropriate for trying to liberate myself from this age of absurdity? 

And perhaps maturity can be an antidote to absurdity - and stupidity?

http://www.amazon.com/Age-Absurdity-Modern-Makes-Happy/dp/1847396275/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308383280&sr=1-1

Wanted. Superheroes.

Just recently I’ve been reading ‘Watchmen’, an Alan Moore graphic novel first published in twelve installments during 1986 and 1987; many graphic novel aficionados claim it is the finest example of this publishing genre.

The story centres on a group of superheroes in the style of Superman and Spiderman, by which I mean they are costumed; except the ‘Watchmen’ superheroes are really just ordinary citizens, vigilantes, poncing around in spandex. The one exception is Doctor Manhattan – he’s genuinely a superhero but he spends a great deal of time naked, which maybe explains why he’s blue; but then again, maybe not.

You might be forgiven for thinking that an aging warrior should be reading a more traditional story form, just words on a page, and typically I do, but I came across this graphic novel while reading a traditional book; and I was intrigued.

I have been reading ‘Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell’, a captivating Susanna Clarke novel about magic in nineteenth-century England, so I checked out her web site and discovered she lists the ‘Watchman’ as one of the most influential books she’s ever read. I was even more intrigued.

So I had to discover the ‘Watchmen’ for myself; discovering is, I believe, one of the marks of an aging warrior.

Anyway, the story has me thinking about the idea of watchmen – super heroes by definition, if not if fact, who are engaged in watching; but what and who should they be watching?

Well, I can only speak for the country in which I live half my life – Australia; here it’s very clear that we need watchmen, and it’s also clear whom they should be watching: our politicians and bureaucrats.

In Australia our current federal government is spending our hard-earned tax dollars - some would say squandering - at a rate never before experienced in Australia.

Yet despite this, the programs launched since their ascendancy to power have been characterised by failure: school buildings constructed by companies that enjoy union or government patronage that cost more than twice comparable buildings built by companies without similar patronage; borders that are leaking like a sieve; debate in our parliament has been reduced to the standards of a vaudeville act – a bad one at that; legislation now cripples every activity – from the most mundane to the crucial; cleanup activities after major flooding and several cyclones are limping along and ordinary people sit waiting and wondering as our army of bureaucratic incompetents design forms and sip cafe latte; common sense infrastructure initiatives such as dams, which could have helped contain the waters that now flood vast stretches of the eastern half of our continent, have been dumped in favour of expensive energy-guzzling desalination plants which are no longer needed for the foreseeable future; and tax cripples business, particularly small business, which is the heartbeat of our nation’s commerce.

Yes. We need as many superheroes as we can find to watch this mess and alert the endangered citizens of Australia.

So where do we find them? Where are these superheroes?

Well. It’s you and me. Come on aging warriors: this is a battle cry.

But please don’t ask me to wear a spandex costume!

Outlaw or hero?

So, in my last post I listed what I’ve been doing as an aging warrior to counter my PC21 – my personal conflicts with the twenty-first century.

What I didn’t explain is what these conflicts are, or perhaps more accurately, what the conflicts are primarily caused by.

Here’s the headlines:

- Corporate greed, hypocrisy, and incompetence.
- Lack of integrity within, and unchecked profligacy and abuses of process and power by, government and bureaucracy.

- News media bias and manipulation.
- Expectations of the society in which I live.

These causes are like four hydraulic rams pressing in from four directions and they edge ever forward into the shrinking central space where I stand, ineffectively pushing first against one - and then another.

But I have no control or influence over these rams – so, I will either be crushed or I must remove myself from the shrinking central space; and thus from the conflict they represent.

Ekhart Tolle, modern day philosopher and teacher, offers three options for dealing with the places where we end up in life: change them, accept them, or leave them

And in a sense, after a great deal of consideration, I’ve adopted his advice – I’ve considered the shrinking space that the advancing rams have formed – and I’ve taken my leave.

I could put up with the place in which I’ve found myself, but that's the compromise I mentioned in my last post, and why should I compromise my life?

Ten years ago I stumbled across a profound remark made by Sigmund Freud that describes my whole life up until that point, and it has certainly shaped my life since: ‘Since the beginning of civilization, man has had but one choice, to conform or not to conform. If he conforms, he is a dead man. His life is over, his life's decisions predetermined by the society he joins with. If he chooses not to conform, he buys himself one more choice, to become outlaw or hero.’

I'm an aging warrior. But am I an outlaw, or hero? That’s for others to judge. Maybe you have an opinion?