Monday, August 29, 2005

The Wonder Years (Part I) – My Earliest Memory

by Benji Raymond




My first memory of loss was not actually related to the literal meaning of loss at all. I don’t recall how old I was, but I can only assume that I must have been one or two. I remember my mother leaving for work and the tears uncontrollably trickling down my face, almost as if the world had ended, only it hadn’t. I recall the way I clutched to my mother’s legs with all my strength. And even though I had no reason not to believe my mother, her promises of only going to work for a few hours disintegrated through the sound waves. My mother would nod at my South African nanny, who unnaturally appeared to be larger than life, and she would come stomping towards me with her slipslops. I was terrified of her and the way she chuckled, clacked and cackled each morning as the episode would reoccur, again and again, never failing to decrease in its passion.

My nanny would clutch on to me with the strength of a bear, and it only took a second for my apparent superman strength or perhaps lack of strength to be knocked away by a hurricane of Kryptonite. She would then proceed to take a blanket and wrap me on her back and I was stuck there for what seemed to be months while she got on with her daily chores. My tears would continue to trickle down while my mom prepared to leave for work. I rested my tired eyes for what seemed to be a moment and when I opened them, my mom was gone.

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The Wonder Years - Introduction
A Woman of Virtue - To Mum
The Wonder Years (Part 1) My Earliest Memory
The Wonder Years (Part 2) Sensitivity and its Implications
The Wonder Years (Part 3) Dad
The Wonder Years (Part 4) The Sun, The Moon & Disappointment
The Wonder Years (Part 8) Chocolate Milk & The Cool Sea Breeze
The Wonder Years (Part 15) - Race, Memory and Innocence
The Wonder Years (Part 16) In Between Two Worlds

A Long December - Poetry

A Piece of What?

by Benji Raymond


"What have I got? Really? Some money in my pocket, some nice threads, fancy car at my disposal, and I'm single. Yeah... unattached, free as a bird... I don't depend on nobody and nobody depends on me... My life's my own. But I don't have peace of mind. And if you don't have that, you've got nothing. So... what's the answer? That's what I keep asking myself. What's it all about? You know what I mean?" (Alfie, 2004)

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Alfie appears to have everything. He has money, fancy clothes and the ability to charm females. He appears to lead the perfect life. He’s happy... but he’s lost...

The difference between ‘peace of mind’ and ‘happiness’ is a marginal one, albeit significant. Happiness is more likely to be short-lived while peace of mind is reliant on what you believe to be true and the way you go about being true to yourself. If a person follows what they believe to be true, there is little reason for them not to have peace of mind. And yet, what we believe to be true and truth itself are often unrelated. Time and again we consciously and sub-consciously repeat to ourselves that we are indeed being true to our beliefs. The consequence of this is not surprising. Throughout the process of cheating ourselves we gain an understanding of something to be true while it is evidently untrue. Despite the cheating, the only losers are ourselves. The struggle of gaining peace of mind is not an easy one. In fact, if you do it right, it should just about take you more than a lifetime.

One of the judges on Australian Idol once said to a contestant, “Your singing and music are like bubblegum. It tastes really good for a while, but the taste fades away exponentially.” The remark was highly unnecessary, but this judge had a particularly superior knack at being insensitive. All the same, the remark has a degree of truth to it when comparing the differences between happiness and ‘peace of mind’. Happiness feels great but is often short lived and is reliant on our degree of comfort (both physically and emotionally).

An example which adds weight to the above notion is my mid-year resolution which appears to be easy but is unfortunately proving otherwise! Before I go to bed each night, I mentally work out the amount of time I need to prepare for the following day’s activities. I take into account what needs to be done prior to leaving for work or university and set my alarm clock appropriately. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the snooze button on my alarm clock was becoming warn out and fading away (figuratively speaking). Each morning the alarm clock buzzes away and I continue pressing the snooze button for a good half an hour or so. I am happy and very comfortable having the extra few minutes of sleep despite the unwavering fear of the alarm clock going off again. The fact of the matter is I'm not even benefitting from the extra sleep since I am in constant fear of the alarm clock going off. Although a superficial case in point, in reality, I am not being true to myself and yet I seemingly appear to be happy. The happiness, unfortunately is short lived. Those extra few minutes of sleep throw the rest of my day off balance.

Often we travel so quickly through life that we forget to account for who we are and what we are doing. Sadly, we consider traveling through life swiftly to be a positive characteristic. It is futile to travel through life hurriedly when you are uncertain of the direction you’re heading in. All too often we realize this too late, and sometimes never at all. Sooner or later the truth hits us where it hurts and the longer it takes for us to look truth in the eye, the harder it hurts.

A Long December

Have you seen me lately?

by Benji Raymond




"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)

"When you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up." (Big Fish)

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While I was in Melbourne visiting my sister, she offered to take me to Gloria Jean’s coffee shop. I stood in the queue for what seemed like eternity looking at the amount of different teas and coffees and the variations between the two that the store assistant came to ask if I needed a hand in deciding what to buy. I felt like quite the fool when I noticed that the other customers were getting quite fed up with my indecision. I ended up walking out with a regular, normal tea. While sipping her Vanilla Crème De Caramel, my sister confessed that she could have made me the regular tea at home. But it was not about the type or flavour of tea I was consuming, I concluded. Surely the fact that we were enjoying each other’s company and feeling the vibrant atmosphere was enough.

Taking a deep look at myself (not fun, I promise!); I realized that the way I spend my time is mostly superficial. If I’m not watching reality TV., then I’m spending time considering alternative ways of wasting my time. I realized that we are so struck by the degree of choices in this world, that we are losing our sense of selves. Counting Crows has a song called, ‘Have You Seen Me Lately’ and while the song is not specifically about losing touch with who we are, the title itself makes it clearer what the vast amounts of the choices we have today are doing.

If I’m not walking to a lecture bopping to the beats of my 60 gig ipod, then I’m text messaging a friend while driving. We've become so scared of facing ourselves that we're constantly looking for ways to entertain ourselves and keep our mind's occupied. We've become so engrossed with choices that we have lost touch with who we are. In fact, it’s about time we all asked ourselves… “Have you seen me lately?”

I recall pondering how unfortunate it must have been that my parents did not have the choices they or I have today. I considered what an underprivileged and poor world they lived in. But on the contrary, it’s the degree of choices in this world that make our world such a superficial and external one.

A Long December

Too Obvious to Mention

by Benji Raymond


"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Kahlil Gibran
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I recall my principal at my old high school saying to the students at our school assemblies, "Remember that what is right is not always popular... and what is popular is not always right.” I also recall how the students, including myself, would chuckle at the corniness of the saying. She was, of course, subtly voicing her disagreement over the previous week where kids were doing what it is that kids do. When the saying proved to be unsuccessful in putting a stop to the hassles that almost always seem to hover above schools, the principal bought a laminated poster banner with the saying and posted it in the school library.

In reality, my principal's favourite saying is not far off the truth. Nevertheless, considering the essence of the concept, I would have preferred the saying to state, 'what is right does not always feel good and what feels good is not always right'. Humans do what feels good, and boy are we good at it.

While I was recently in Israel, I went to visit an old friend at his yeshiva. One of Rabbis had a talk and I thought I'd listen in. Nevertheless, I found what the Rabbi was saying too obvious to mention, in fact, so obvious that it struck me as corny in a sense. It was at this talk that the memory of my principal’s favorite saying came floating back to me. The Rabbi was expressing the notion that what we eat (and perhaps sometimes the way we eat it) symbolizes the essence of the world in which we live in. Ice-Cream, Chocolate, etc. tastes really good (coming from a chocolate addict!.) Unfortunately, while it often feels as though there is a party in our mouths, the food itself is very rarely good for us. On the flip side, while vegetables yield anti-oxidants, vitamins and nutritional value the majority of us would not consider the taste to be appealing.

In a similar sense, what feels good is not always right for us or the people around us. Therefore, it may be safe to say that there is no direct correlation between what feels good and what is true to ourselves. So while his talk struck me as being corny and while I felt that what he was saying was utterly too obvious to mention, it took me many nights to digest the importance of his speech.

A Long December

Crash

by Benji Raymond


"It's the sense of touch. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other so we can feel something. Any real cities you walk, you know, you brush past people, people bump into you. In Los Angeles nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass," Crash (2005)

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During my recent travels in L.A I came across a girl at a college bar and for those of you who know me, you would no doubt have heard me talk about the beauty of her sadness. Nevertheless, while I would be the first to admit that a night or two doesn't decide your love for someone, that night left an embedded imprint on my mind. I was curious as to why this girl did not let go of some sort of hurt she had experienced in the past. Eventually I decided to ask her if she had been hurt by a guy and she shot back, 'This is L.A' and presented me with a cold look that left my personal questions to a bare minimum.

Why is it that L.A has become synonymous with superficiality? Perhaps this notion is based on the parallels drawn between L.A. and Hollywood's apparent craving for box office earnings. The hunger of raising money, critics assume, is achieved through any means, even at the cost of hollywoodization. Either way, L.A. is home to many distinguished celebrities, yet also home to intense poverty. Despite this I still remain certain that superficiality exists within both these worlds.

We continuously crave depth in our lives and are so hungry for some sort of meaning that we tend to seek self understanding in alternative locations to the ones in which we currently exist. Yet the simple truth remains that superficiality exists in almost all our lives, no matter where we live. L.A. has merely been branded as the capital of superficiality and remains a solid symbolic reference to 'metal and glass', a world which is laced with misunderstanding, miscommunication and loneliness.

A Long December

There's something about reality TV

by Benji Raymond



I have a confession to make. I realize I am in the stone cold minority and will possibly receive hate mail via email bombs, but something has to be said. Here goes... *deep breath*... I've never quite understood all the excitement over reality TV. Yes, that's right... I am referring to the likes of you who are eager and devoted viewers… or voyeurs, should I say, of Big Brother, Survivor, Average Joe and the likes. Sure I can definitely understand the interest in human nature. But surely you can just go over to a friend’s house and have a beer with your mate and watch in dismay as his father parades around in his underwear. That way you score a beer, chat to your friend and enjoy what human nature has to offer, while telling your Dad, errr his Dad, to go and put some pants on.

Well, that being said, I couldn’t quite help myself watch ‘There's Something About Miriam’. It honestly was intended to be just a flick of the channel in order to escape the Energizer Bunny commercial, but it turned out to be much longer. I felt so sad for those poor fellas. After an hour had passed of watching this show… once a week… I realized that I had been another helpless victim of Reality Tv.

There's Something about Miriam

A Long December

Save the rainforest

by Benji Raymond


As I often do while driving the humble Red Stallion, I had a bit of a chuckle on my 20 minute journey into uni the other day. I was delayed by one of those nice traffic lights which seem to have a permenant red light and while I was singing incorrect lyrics to the words on the radio, I noticed a bumber sticker on the car in front. The bumper sticker read, "Save the Forests". Oh, how nice, I thought to myself. We surely need more of these people in the world. Then, after a moment of daydreaming about a possible future holiday to the Amazon, my eyes became misted and the bumper sticker faded from view. The traffic light was still of course red, so I assumed that my daydreaming was the cause of the fading in and out of reality. But I assumed incorrectly. The exhaust fumes coming out of the car of this nice lady were enough to kill the forests themselves.

A Long December