The Sense of an Ending

 

 

Julian Barnes' book "The Sense of an Ending" is so much more than the memories of a retired man named Tony Webster who recalls how he and his friends at school vowed to remain friends for life, and who now reflects on the paths he and his friends have taken.

It is a meditation on ageing, memory and regret, and hard to imagine to be made into a movie. I mean, how do you turn into a movie something as beautifully written as "Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be"? [Page 105]

"We live in time - it holds us and moulds us - but I've never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing - until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return."

And then "... you get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?"

"The Sense of an Ending" was also the favourite book of a friend who passed away six years ago this month, and whose slow decline over a couple of years I witnessed. The Sense of an Ending indeed!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Here is an Indonesian earworm for your enjoyment

 

 

Here's an Indonesian earworm that grows on you - well, it grew on me - and you don't even need the translation to enjoy it; in fact, it sounds even better if you only guess the translation as few things sound better in another language.

 

Kekasihku, apa yang kau risaukan? Kerjamu hanya melamun saja Tak berguna kau bersedih hati Tertawalah, sayang Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Kekasihku, apa yang kau pikirkan? Hidup ini hanya sementara Tak berguna kau bersedih hati Tertawalah, sayang Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Buat apa susah? Buat apa susah? Lebih baik kita bergembira Buat apa susah? Buat apa?

 

... which, ever so loosely translated, means ...

 

My love, what are you worried about? Your work is just daydreaming It's useless for you to be sad Laugh, darling What's the point of being sad? What's the point of making it difficult? It's better for us to be happy What's the point of being difficult? What's the point of being difficult? It's better for us to be happy. My love, what are you thinking? Life is just temporary It's useless to be sad Laugh, dear What's the point of being sad? What's the point of making it hard? It's better for us to be happy Why make it hard? What's the point of being difficult? It's better for us to be happy. What's the point of making it hard? What's the point of making it hard? It's better for us to be happy Why make it hard? What's the point of being difficult? It's better for us to be happy Why make things difficult? What's the point?

 

 

"Buku ini akan membantu Anda menyadari diri Anda selama 24 jam sehari, serta cara menciptakan kehidupan yang sukses dengan menjadi tubuh yang memancarkan rasa senang dan terima kasih."

"This book will help you become aware of yourself 24 hours a day, as well as how to create a successful life by becoming a body that radiates joy and gratitude."

Sing along or read the book! "Rahasia manciptakan kehidupan impian." The secret to creating your dream life.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Summing up

 

 

Most people I know spent decades in the same job during which time they looked forward to retirement as their just reward. Once retired, they never looked back and excelled at being good lawn bowlers or bingo players.

Not so for me. My work had been the greatest adventure of my life because of the speed and the variety with which it all happened. Perhaps because of lack of education I always accepted jobs that more educated men would have avoided. Because of my lack of education, I used unorthodox ways to solve problems that other men, because of their education and preconceived bias and ideas, could not solve.

Or perhaps I succeeded because I hadn't tasted failure yet. I always had the feeling that I must not pursue success, and so I resigned from one successful job after another, becoming, quite unintentionally, a troubleshooter rather than a greasy-pole-climbing company man.

Of greasy-pole-climbing company men I knew a few. Two of them I even hired to carry on after I had done the hard work in the first five months, after which they continued the established routines and reaped the benefits for another five years. Nobody reaped the benefits after I had opened the Athens office for a Saudi Arabian commodity trader and resigned eighteen months later, because for an Arab it's all about trust. After altogether three years with him I had become his trusted adviser, so that when I resigned, he simply closed the office down, and all his dealing went back to the chaos they had been when I first joined him.

In retrospect, I can see now that many employers took advantage of my youth, of my inexperience in selling myself, and delighed in my always wanting to be the fastest and the best in everything I did. I have no regrets. I did what I did because of who I am, and I probably would've done the same had I realised that I was being taken advantage of.

It has been an amazing journey. I loved it and I still miss it. Would I do it again? Anyone looking at my bank balance would tell me, "You've done enough!" but it was never about the money. It was always about the excitement and the thrill and the adrenaline rush. So, yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat but could I do it? Do I have enough heartbeats left? Anyway, I am a different man now with little hair left and fewer teeth, and the world is a different place too, with little need for a man with no more than a 'summa cum laude' from the School of Hard Knocks.

And, yes, there were two more exciting challenges once I got home - click here and here (and, of course, there was my own small practice, Canberra Computer Accounting Systems, which kept me from flying off to another exotic destination) - but they lacked the foreign location and the foreign language and the living on the edge that once whipped me along. Once I was home, I had weekends and superannuation and award wages and, if all else failed, a regular cheque courtesy of Centrelink.

It was a paradise - a Fool's Paradise!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

On this very day six years ago ...

 

Chris Mellen with his charming wife

 

Pete, I met you in the early '80s when I acted as a barley broker between various grain traders and Abdul Ghani. If this message reaches you it would be great to catch up, and I would like to get in touch with Abdul Ghani."

That email in October 2010 - see here - renewed an old acquaintance which morphed into a long friendship which lasted until - well, 'hier'.

Chris Mellen, with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Sussex and and a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, was a true renaissance man, multi-talented, multi-lingual, multi-marital (four at last count!), and, born a Jew and raised by the Jesuits and converting to Islam in 2000, even multi-religious.

 

Suave and flamboyant Chris in better days - taken from his LinkedIn profile

 

We shared many interests - apart from our past commodity trading in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - such as a love for the writings of Julian Barnes - we both subscribed to his sentiment in "The Sense of an Ending" that "... the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be" - and Hermann Hesse, with Chris sometimes calling himself Goldmund - as he confessed, "No savings left after a timetime of living beyond my means. My life has been rather self-indulgent. I rarely refused myself anything" - and, by inference, me being Narcissus.

More than a year ago, Chris was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which confined him to months and months of hospitalisation and vicious chemotherapy as well as several bonemarrow transplants - "I'm due for my tenth spinal tap; the treatment costs so far are $750,000" - and a myriad of other 'medical advances', none of which worked.

 

 

As he wrote, "I'm struggling with the discomfort, the endless pain, and incipient depression." By 14 October 2019 he'd had enough. "I am home. The cancer has morphed into acute leukemia and is incurable. I hope to see another year but ... I am trying to seize the carp every day. It's challenging. I enjoy your news and admire your energy."

A fortnight later he'd found enough energy himself to get back in the saddle: "Took the old girl out for a spin today. It's my hormone replacement therapy."

 

 

But it was not to last and he was back in hospital for more treatment ...

 

 

On 31 December 2019 he WhatsApp-ed me, "Thank you for your messages and commentaries - much appreciated. The doctors have run out of ideas and I hope to be able to go home to die in the next few days. Sorry to admit this, but I love you old bastard, and I admire you, fucking fascist that you are ☺. I'm thinking of you, you crusty old dog."

And shortly afterwards, "I'm breaking out. I've had enough. My wife will take me home tonight. Halle-fucking-lujah. I wish we could celebrate the shit and derision of this dystopian disaster together. I feel so close to you, you miserable bastard."

 

 

Back in bucolic Bussy-sur-Moudon (population 198 which, until recently, he was still trying to improve on), Chris was a happy man: "I'm home, recovering from the trauma of the last year. I am a happy man. I am a satisfied man ... no regrets ... I have been true to myself and have accepted who I am and the choices I have made. My wife is the love of my life and my kids are very close to me. Good night, my dear friend."

We kept on exchanging thoughts and ideas and I told him about the devastating bushfires which had us almost wiped out as well, to which he replied in typical irreverent Chris Mellen fashion, "I'm praying for you, Christian, Jewish and Muslim ... I am mumbling incomprehensible guttural sounds on my hands and knees with my asshole aimed away from the south-east and towards the glittering heavens, all on your behalf. I have difficulty reading. These are the side effects of the chemo. I am damaged goods after ten cycles of chemo treatment. So my current challenge is to assess what's left and accept my new me and learn to live with both the cancer and the after-effects of the chemo instead of engaging in a head-on war with a disease that we do not understand. My treatment was not the fruit of a scientific analysis but the result of the doctors' hunches. I was unaware of the primitive methodology of this pseudo-science that we call medicine. I am planning to keep going for another decade. I am ready to make big compromises in order to remain active in this new life. It's the constant pain that prevents me from having a good laugh but if that's part of the deal, so be it. I'm far from ready to go."

Suddenly, on 4 February 2020, the decade had shrunk to just a few days, " I've been given a few days to live. I just want you to know how much I have appreciated your friendship. See you on the other side, brother."

What could I say to that, other than to pass it off light-heartedly, "Don't believe everything you're told, Chris. You'll probably still sell a few loads of barley before you go (although not to Abdulghani). 'See you on the other side'. That's what the surgical assistant said to me before they wheeled me into the operating theatre which confused me no end. When I woke up again and she was leaning over me, asking for my date of birth and how many fingers she was holding up, I was quite surprised because I had always been told that St. Peter had a long white beard."

Silence for a week, and then this morning's "Chris est mort hier", presumably from his wife. Je suis tellement, tellement désolé.

They say the only death we experience is other people's, and I've experienced Chris's slow demise for over a year. See you on the other side, you old bastard! We both know we're checking out just in time!

 

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you would have never set out on the road. She has nothing more to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.                                    --Constantine P. Cavafy

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

The awful German language

 

 

Having acquired two new email friends in Germany, one some months ago in my (c)old hometown Braunschweig, and the other just a few days ago in the equally (c)old Hansestadt Hamburg — and both at their own instigation rather than mine, which means they have only themselves to blame for getting all those pesky emails from me — I am beginning to write long sentences like this one again, even though I've been a Hemingway stylist all my adult life which, thankfully, I spent in English-speaking countries.

 

In case you don't know what Mark Twain meant by this, and always assuming you can read German, here is a perfect example received in this morning's email (and no offence given to the writer and, hopefully, none taken): "Ich möchte meinen heutigen Beitrag, in dem ich ein bisschen durch die Themen springe, ohne ihnen genügend Raum zu geben, weil ich hier gerade etwas gegen die Uhr arbeite, nicht ohne folgende Bemerkung beenden, denn das liegt mir sehr am Herzen." This is perfect German - but only to another German!

 

Mark Twain had something (not always nice) to say about the awfulness of the German language, even though he became quite fluent in it. I invite anyone who entertains even the slightest thought of learning the German language to first read his essay 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖜𝖋𝖚𝖑 𝕲𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝕷𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖌𝖊.

In fact, I should have handed it out to all my would-be students when, many years ago, I volunteered to teach German at the local Adult Education Centre. All they ever learnt was "Guten Morgen" which they still wish me regardless of the time of day whenever we meet in towm.

 

Googlemap Riverbend