Freedom Beauty Truth

The mountain whispers to me when I lift my eyes from the cityscape, and I feel at once comforted. This unfamiliar, discordant place becomes suddenly inviting, and wise...as the mountain calls to me. From my balcony, the mountain beckons - and I long to run and climb...my lazy body sips coffee, my muggy head has no desire to be challenged...yet the mountain continues to draw me. Since early weeks in this new city , I have felt surrounded...and unexpectedly alien...to the land, the culture, the very weather, which has it in for me! But the mountain - how it sings, how it lovingly gazes down at me, whispers sweet nothings into my heart... The mountain is a woman! She is mother, and dances as I circle her each day...until the evenings, when she becomes the lullaby that fills my bedroom window...and I nestle to sleep at her feet.

In the middle of an article on 'resisting consumerism', I hopped off the bus, just to buy that hat I had been thinking of for days. Because I don't have enough hats! Clearly. I walked into the shop wearing the hat I had bought there only a few days ago! Two new hats in a week - and I already had too many to start with. Not only that - I had no money, and still no job. Yet there I was again, at the altar of hyper-consumerism. This altar doesn't even require you to kneel. It's all too easy. It strokes and panders to your ego, and the more you play this game, the easier it gets to drop $200 in a week - a week in which you weren't making any more money.... The buying impulse seems to manifest most strongly at times like this, actually. Self-destructive tendencies. Infantile attempts to placate the raging three-year-old within, who is demanding to be entertained, demanding attention, demanding every toy in the shop. Or perhaps it's my crazy way of tryin...

The ocean's salty breath caresses me as I step out of my cluttered little world of cabin-fever cats and unread books piled high (their shrill voices demanding attention even from the other side of the city)... I step out, and the big wide world greets me, the moody green ocean is eager to wrap me in salty embraces - "never mind all that...come and be with me, breathe deeply, I am already a part of you...remember..."

Those stupid, plastic-looking people in the posters on the wall of the "industry medical" doctors' office!! I can see them still, in my resentful mind's eye. Smiling down on me as I sat waiting for my "pre-employment" medical. Like some sort of work horse, in days gone by, having its teeth and legs checked for any health problems, defects..."Must get our money's worth from these little workers. Don't want any hassles or issues". The poster people are all perfect little workers, "professionals" - well groomed, smiling cheesy smiles, dressed according to their professions...and   vanilla.   So vanilla, so pastel, I want to puke. One's got a headset (call centre person, like I may be soon?) and another is typing away like a good little office amoeba. Erggg. And of course there's a man in a hard hat, and another...oh who cares - they are like clones of "the ideal system fodder" in various shades of pastel. Ergg...

Last week on the bus, I witnessed the driver losing his temper, quite spectacularly. So over-the-top, it seemed to me - but then I had no idea what the rest of his day, or his life, had been up to that point... A car tried to turn at the same time as the bus, by pushing its way into the far left lane - overtaking from the inside - and the bus driver cursed him loudly (through the door he had opened, to ensure all the other motorists and pedestrians could hear, and see his gestures). This went on for a few minutes, as all around us came to a stop to watch two grown men vent their frustrations on each other in this rather strange public display. I felt a bit sad about it all, but that didn't stop me feeling a bit amused, and judgemental, at the same time. yet how many times have I lost my temper, in situations that would seem ridiculous to a casual observer? Anyway, many buses later that day, I caught myself pushing in at the frantic semi-queue, which heaves and surges as...