The true horror of existence

 

'Death of an Artist - The Last Friend', by Zygmunt Andrychiewicz

 

The true horror of existence is not the fear of death, but the fear of life. It is the fear of waking up each day to face the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain. It is the fear that nothing will ever change, that you are trapped in a cycle of suffering that you cannot escape. And in that fear, there is a desperation, a longing for something, anything, to break the monotony, to bring meaning to the endless repetition of days."

The noble art of misquoting Albert Camus is spread all over the internet. The above quote is also falsely attributed to his book "The Fall". I've just read it again and couldn't find it. That's not to say that it's not an excellent quote, just as the book is an excellent read if you are prepared for a challenging, introspective study of human nature.

 

Read the book online here

 

"You're always running away", I was once accused. But how much better it is to run away from the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain, than to have to accept that nothing will ever change.

 

 

Which is where I finished up anyway. "But let's not worry. It's too late now. It will always be too late. Fortunately!" But not too late to fall asleep to a bit of 'Sleepy Philosophy' while drifting off into the quiet, reflective world of Albert Camus.

 

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"First generation makes it, second generation maintains it, third generation loses it"

 

An advertisement in the PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY from 1977
276 Pitt Street in Sydney today

 

Morris, Hedstrom Ltd, J.C. Godeffroy & Sohn, Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft (DHPG), Burns Philp & Company Limited, Steamships Trading Company — with the exception of the last, all those other conpanies, who at one time dominated trading in the South Pacific, have disappeared, as has Breckwoldt & Co., a trading company headquartered in Hamburg in Germany, which had branches in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Samoa.

 

 

Once on everyone's lips, the name 'Breckwoldt' has all but disappeared from memory, and can only be found after some dedicated searches in long-forgotten archives, such as old editions of the PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY, the then 'Bible' of every expatriate living in the islands — which, incidentally, has also disappeared as completely as Breckwoldt.

 

 

Who would have thought at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the company that only a few years later there would be nothing left of it? What were the catastrophic events and the tough decisions that led up to this cataclysmic demise of a once so proud South Sea Islands trader?

 

Mr Friedrich Wilhelm Breckwoldt and his son, Mr Hayo Breckwoldt (right), talk with the Assistant Administrator, Dr John Gunther, and Mr Hubert Jipp, at a cocktail party Mr Breckwoldt gave at the Boroko Hotel, Port Moresby

An evocative advertisement in the PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY from the 1960s

 

In a last-ditch effort the last of the Breckwoldts, Tim Breckwoldt, of the third generation that usually loses it, has put down his 'stein' and done some heavy thinking instead of drinking to find the best way to preserve the name 'Breckwoldt' for posterity, in both German and English (with a little help from yours truly who almost joined Breckwoldt when they opened their branch at Wewak in the remote Sepik District in 1968).

 

Tim Breckwoldt, who has never been to the islands but heard a lot about them

 

He promises it to be a no-holds-barred account from start to finish, although he will keep it clean with the help of BREWO toilet soap.

 

 

Stay tuned for an update!

 

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Friends in High Places

 

 

It was early 1976. A few months earlier I had resigned from my post as Chief Accountant in Rangoon with the French oil company TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles. Twelve months behind the "Teak Curtain" and under the dictatorship of U Ne Win had seemed long enough, and so I took up a posting in Tehran under the dictatorship of the Shah of Iran.

'Out of the frying pan and into the fire' is the best way to describe this particularly ill-fated move and I left Tehran again soon afterwards, but not before I met up again with René Pain-Savanier, graduate of the 'École des hautes études commerciales de Paris', who, as TOTAL's 'chef du service du Contrôle à la Direction Financière' in Tehran, had been highly complimentary of my work during his visits to Rangoon and also in references written some years later.

 

 

M. Pain-Savanier's home in Tehran was pure Parisian elegance and chic and, on the two or three occasions when he and his charming wife Odette entertained me there, he never failed to express his regrets over my decision to leave TOTAL.

As it turned out, the Shah was forced into exile in Egypt in January 1979. Soon thereafter, the Iranian monarchy was formally abolished, and Iran was declared an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Westerners were forced to leave, and René returned to France from where he once again sent me a flattering reference together with an invitation to visit him in his retirement home in the south of France.

 

 

I reflected on all this when I found a notice of his funeral on the internet. 'Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur' no less, the highest French order! It's good to have had friends in high places, and he's in an even higher place now. Rest in peace, M. Pain-Savanier! My life has been richer for having known you.

 

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P.S. Having had no trouble reading the above two references in French, you should have no trouble counting to five in French and appreciating this little pun: A man had two cats. One was named One Two Three, and the other was named Un Deux Trois. He took them to the park one day and rented a rowboat and took them out for a ride. But a bigger boat came by and swamped the rowboat in its wake. The man and the One Two Three cat made it safely to shore, but the Un Deux Trois cat sank.

 

If watching this video robs you of your will to live, call Lifeline on 13 11 14

 

 

John Anderson sits down with former NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Mike Newman to examine the culture, size and direction of Australia’s modern public service. While both men acknowledge the vital role of capable public servants, they question whether the system has become bloated, inward-looking and detached from the realities faced by households and businesses. At a time of falling productivity and rising cost-of-living pressures, they ask whether the balance between administration and wealth creation has drifted out of alignment.

The discussion moves beyond numbers to deeper questions of accountability, incentives and institutional culture. From regulatory overreach to major project failures, Newman argues that expansion has too often come without corresponding responsibility. Yet, he also highlights examples where strong leadership and a service-first mindset have delivered genuine reform. It is a serious, practical examination of how Australia governs itself, and what must change to restore discipline, effectiveness and public trust."

 

After having watched this gob-smacking video clip, I was too much lost for words to find my own and simply copied the above text from the YouTube recording; however, on later reflection and drawing on my years living cheek by jowl with both local and federal public servants — whoever came up with the term "public servant" must have had a great sense of humour — and a brief brush with the public service during my time with ATSIC, I can confirm that everything is only oh so true!

In Canberra I lived in a cul-de-sac of fourteen houses in which I was the only one who was not a public servant and who, to put it more bluntly, worked for a living. The rest of them went to work long after I had gone, and by the time I came home again, they were already cutting their lawns within an inch of their lives (the lawns', not their lives'!)

For my six months inside ATSIC I was hired to do the work the others didn't do because they were too busy discussing what colour donut to buy for the next coffee break, and once that was done, to take the lift downstairs to stand outside the office building for a cigarette break — I even heard of people who took up smoking just to get the extra break! — after which it was time again for another discussion about donuts.

Public Service? Give me a break, but not a donut or smoko break!

 

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P.S. For equally brilliant videos from John Anderson Media, click here.

 

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The (articled) year my voice did not break

 

An excursion by the office staff to the head office in Hamburg.
'Yours truly' is at the far right in a shiny new suit and glasses.
Click on image to enlarge.

 

My biggest cock-up in life was to have allowed myself to be born to parents who were so dirt-poor that they packed me off to work as soon as I had reached the minimum school-leaving age of fourteen to become an articled clerk in an insurance company.

For three years, my fellow-articled clerks and I worked a six-day week, practically for nothing, while being force-fed on subjects such as accounting, commercial law, economics, business ethics, and more.

Being much older and better educated, they'd already gone through puberty, dealt with acne, and were shaving daily, while I was still a complete baby face who unsuccessfully tried to fill out his first shiny business suit and was yet to spend his first Deutschmark on razor blades.

 

 

At home I was known as "der Dünne" — "Skinny" — but at work I was already "Herr Görmann" and entrusted with more and more professional work despite the pittance I was paid as an indentured articled clerk. We were cheap labour, the price we paid to get our professional training.

 

 

My reference at the end of the gruelling three years mentions my 'way with words': "Viel Freude bereitete es ihm, den dazugehörigen Schrift-wechsel zu bearbeiten. Wir konnten ihm schon während der Lehrzeit gelegentlich auch schwierigeren Schriftwechsel übertragen." see Google

We were trained to dictate our correspondence, complete with full punctuation and spelling of particularly difficult words, to a typist who took it down in shorthand, or onto a tape with a GRUNDIG Stenorette.

 

 

All the typists knew my age, and were used to my prepubescent voice. Things became a bit more tricky when one client, in answer to one of my written 'masterpieces', called me on the phone. After a lengthy talk concerning his insurance claim, he followed it up with a letter which opened with the very embarrassing salutation, "Dear Miss Görmann ..."

I never lived this down with my fellow-articled clerks. I completed my articles and eventually found a new voice and new home in Australia.

 

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The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

 

 

No, this is not Gregory Peck, but Tim Breckwoldt, last of the Breckwoldts who once operated an empire of branches all over the South Pacific. Where were their branches, you asks? Perhaps it would be easier to answer the question, "Where weren't their branches?" As I wrote in an earlier post, they were everywhere.

Then, suddenly, they were all gone without a trace sometime in 1980, which was too soon for then still nine-year-old Tim Breckwoldt to step into his father's and grandfather's shoes to continue the proud tradition.

There's a German saying that suggests that "Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm". In Tim's case the apple must've kept rolling downhill as he became a public servant in the family's hometown Hamburg, which is the very antithesis of his father's and grandfather's pioneering spirit.

 

 

However, he has decided to keep the history of Breckwoldt alive by publishing, either here or on a separate website yet to be done, lots of archived material that will document the rise and rise and then sudden fall of Breckwoldt & Co. who were once proud South Sea Island traders.

I'll drink to that with a BREWO-BEER!

 

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Early morning at "Riverbend"

 

 

The river is blanketed in thick mist which heralds another hot day coming up. The house is still all quiet as I make myself my first cup of tea for the day. Padma will meet another lady from the 'bitch-and-stitch' craft group for coffee at the café in the village across the river which will give me a few hours of uninterrupted reading-time.

My old Windows 10 computer wouldn't start this morning. I 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete'd it several times, then pulled the power cord, then started again. It's getting old like me. Perhaps it's time I traded it in for a new one! Perhaps it's time I traded in my old body for a new one as well!

Anyway, Padma has prepared my breakfast; the radio is shouting out the latest news; my short reverie is over and I'm back in the land of the living. To my friends in the (c)old country, don't despair! The world hasn't ended yet; it's already Saturday morning here. Seize the carp.

 

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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!

 

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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.

 

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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!

 

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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

 

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