Unsure of their gender, I didn't include them

 

 

There I was, sitting in the bright sunshine by the blazing fire outside "Melbourne", when a man clad in a hi-vis vest came walking all the way from the gate hundreds of metres away. "Are you the resident of this property?" he asked. I was, and he handed me a twenty-six-page Census Form.

Census Night is on Tuesday, the 13th of August, but I took my chances, assuming that I will still be around, and began filling in the pages. "What was the person's sex recorded at birth?" Tick MALE, FEMALE, or ANOTHER TERM. "What is the person's gender?" Tick MAN, WOMAN, NON-BINARY, USE ANOTHER TERM (SPECIFY) - leaving space for 18 characters - or PREFER NOT TO ANSWER. As they say, "We live in interesting times."

The preprinted boxes to question 17 "In which country was the person born?" showed what Australia will look like in a generation or two from now, because the preprinted boxes, other than Australia and England, were India, New Zealand, Philippines, Vietnam, and South Africa. Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, the countries that had contributed most of the migrants in the post-war period, no longer got a mention.

 

 

The two resident kookaburras swooped on me as soon as I had started filling out the form, but unsure of their gender, I didn't include them.

 

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Go straight to page 105

 

For the full-length movie, click here

 

Julian Barnes' book "The Sense of an Ending" was made into an equally gripping and mesmerising movie; however, as always, for me the book, which is very British and very literary, wins out.

 

 

You can read it at www.archive.org, or you can go straight to page 105.

 

 

"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"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

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Für meine deutschen Leser!

 

 

Das berühmte Gedicht „If—“ (Wenn—) von Rudyard Kipling ist ein Leitfaden für Charakterstärke, innere Ruhe und Reife, der 1910 veröffentlicht wurde. Mit ihm zog ich für zwanzig Jahre um die Welt - natürlich mit dem englischen Original.

 

Wenn

Wenn du den Kopf behältst und alle anderen
verlieren ihn und sagen: Du bist schuld!
Wenn keiner dir mehr glaubt, nur du vertraust dir
und du erträgst ihr Misstrauen in Geduld

Und wenn du warten kannst und wirst nicht müde
und die dich hassen dennoch weiter liebst,
die dich belügen strafst du nicht mit Lüge
und dich trotz Weisheit nicht zu weise gibst

Wenn du dich nicht verlierst in deinen Träumen
und du nicht ziellos wirst in deinem Geist
wenn du Triumph und Niederlage hinnimmst,
beide Betrüger gleich willkommen heißt

Wenn du die Wahrheit die du mal gesprochen
aus Narrenmäulern umgedreht vernimmst
und siehst dein Lebenswerk vor dir zerbrochen
und niederkniest, wenn du es neu beginnst

Setzt du deinen Gewinn auf eine Karte
und bist nicht traurig, wenn du ihn verlierst
und du beginnst noch einmal ganz von vorne
und sagst kein Wort was du dabei riskierst

Wenn du dein Herz bezwingst und alle Sinne
nur das zu tun was du von dir verlangst
auch wenn du glaubst es gibt nicht mehr da drinnen
außer dem Willen, der dir sagt: Du kannst!

Wenn dich die Menge liebt und du noch du bleibst
wenn du den König und den Bettler ehrst
wenn dich nicht Feind noch Freund verletzen können
und du die Hilfe niemanden verwehrst

Wenn du in unverzeihlicher Minute
Sechzig Minuten lang verzeihen kannst:
Dein ist die Welt und alles was darin ist
Und was noch mehr ist dann bist du ein Mensch!

 

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance to their doubting, too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: „Hold on!“

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds‘ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

 

Heute hängt es in an der Wand in der guten Stube.

 

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Before The Coffee Gets Cold

 

 

In a Tokyo café, four visitors use time travel to confront past relationships, but they must finish before their coffee gets cold. Told with gentle humour and emotional clarity, these stories invite readers to reflect on love, regret, and the small, beautiful moments that shape our lives.

The writer of the book "Before The Coffee Gets Cold", fifty-five-year-old Toshikazu Kawaguchi, has turned the success of his first book into an industry by also publishing "Before Your Memory Fades", "Before We Say Goodbye", "Before We Forget Kindness", and "Before I Knew I Loved You".

 

 

I found "Before The Coffee Gets Cold" in my favourite op-shop. Before I pay full retail price for the others, I'll wait for them to turn up there as well. In the meantime, I have taken this now famous quote from his first book and pinned it above my writing desk inside "Melbourne" ...

 

 

... because "Life is a fleeting dance, a delicate balance of moments that unfold before us, never to return in quite the same way again. Regret is a bitter pill to swallow, a weight that bears down upon the soul with the burden of missed chances and unspoken words. So, let us not leave anything for later. Let us seize the moments as they come, with hearts open and arms outstretched to embrace the possibilities that lie before us. For in the end, it is not the things we did that we regret, but the things we left undone, the words left unspoken, the dreams left unfulfilled."

 

 

Let's drink the coffee before it gets cold. It's International Roast for me.

 

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The Good Life

 

 

Hugh Clifford Mackay, born in 1938, is an Australian psychologist, social researcher and writer of many books, including "The Good Life", from which I have taken the following quote:

"I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don't mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It's a really odd thing that we're now seeing people saying "write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep" and "cheer up" and "happiness is our birthright" and so on. We're kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It's rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don't teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say, "Quick! Move on! Cheer up!" I'd like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word "happiness" and to replace it with the word "wholeness." Ask yourself, "Is this contributing to my wholeness?" and if you're having a bad day, it is."

 

 

"The Good Life" is a welcome and much needed reminder to make the most of life not from seeking happiness or fulfilment as goals in themselves, but pursuing goodness and concern for others. Its valuable analysis draws on Mackay’s wide reading but more importantly his extensive social research and interviews with thousands of average Australians and how they grapple with living a good life.

 

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