"Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La"

 

 

Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common that they had believed they had."

So begins the Prologue to James Hilton's Lost Horizon which is perhaps best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.

I first read the book after I had come down from Burma to Singapore in 1975 and stayed in the newly-opened Shangri-La Hotel on Orchard Road. There, on the bedside table in my deluxe room in the Garden Wing, was a complimentary copy with the hotel's inscription "Inspired by the legendary land featured in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, the name Shangri-La encapsulates the serenity and service for which our hotels and resorts are renowned worldwide" on its cover.

 

"This captivating story you are about to read was written in 1933 by an English novelist who wrote of an idyllic settlement high in the mountains of Tibet. Today, even amongst those who have never heard of Lost Horizon, the words 'Shangri-La' stand as a synonym for paradise. In 1971, a deluxe hotel was founded in the thriving city of Singapore in Southeast Asia. In choosing the name Shangri-La, there was a desire to set a standard, to create an identity that would eventually produce a group of hotels unique in the world. As the group expanded, it has sought to retain all the ideals of its mythical namesake. Serenity, harmony and natural beauty, all characteristics of the Shangri-La group. This enchanting book will give you a glimpse of this world. A world once imagined, a dream that has become a reality. We hope you enjoy it."

 

"Lost Horizon" had been published in 1933, a year in which the world needed romance and adventure more than ever. As the dark clouds of another war gathered on the horizon, and as unemployment and near-starvation added to the gloom, Hilton's novel offered readers a welcome means of escape - escape into a sanctuary hidden from the cruel world. Shangri-La is not a retreat from the future men cannot endure; it is a shelter against conditions that already existed in 1932.

If Shangri-La is a utopia, it is smaller than most in both size and idealistic vision. Except for semi-immortality, it offers nothing that the world does not already possess. Happy natives provided food and clothing. The valley had its own gold mine, and the High Lama imported only carefully selected luxuries deemed truly beneficial to health and happiness. The monks had discovered the key to longevity, and devoted their extra years to the appreciation of life and the pursuit of wisdom. Rejecting the virtues of hard work and ambition, they adopted a philosophy of moderation in all things, "avoiding excess of all kinds - even excess of virtue itself".

Shangri-La is modelled on the classical Greek view of moderation, including moderation to immortality. Hilton realised that absolute immortality was unlikely to be believed by his readers. Instead, he wins them over with a more plausible dream: a long life, enhanced by good health, spent in quiet contentment. Conway, the main protagonist in the book, realises that, for all its allure, Shangri-La is a prison and he must choose between a long life as its supreme ruler and freedom at the risk of death.

Conway's dilemma is our dilemma because we all have the need for such a place, even if only in our imagination.

Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La!

 

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P.S. I even have some of my shirts still wrapped up in Shangri-La laundry bags, and never worn since. How's that for a souvenir from long ago?

 

P.P.S. The long-forgotten Lux Radio Theatre broadcast "Lost Horizon" and other radio-plays. It's what you get when you wash with Lux toilet soap ☺

 

A change of pace on a quiet Sunday afternoon

 

Click on Watch on YouTube to watch the full-length movie
Apologies for the Spanish subtitles; it's the only copy available on YouTube

 

No other novel in the canon of Hermann Hesse's fiction matches the immense appeal pf "Siddhartha". Inspired by Hesse's profound regard for Indian philosophy and written in prose of almost biblical simplicity, it chronicles the quest of the Brahmin Siddhartha for the conquest of suffering and fear.

His tortuous road leads him through the temptations of luxury and wealth, the delights of sensual love, and the sinister threat of death-dealing snakes, towards fulfilment of his destiny as a ferryman guided by the all-knowing voice of the running river ...

 

 

To read the book, click here; or listen to the audio book here.

 

 

It's low tide in the river, and I'm in need of some refreshments as well.

 

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Don't give up your day job, Bill!

 

The trip from Cape York across to Thursday Island starts at 21:30

 

I was unwashed, unshaven, and unprepared when a strange man with a white beard came strolling down the driveway, taking photos as he went. We value our privacy and I was in no mood to tolerate anyone invading it. "You seem to be lost!" I challenged him. "Hello, Peter", he replied, "I'm Bill Crowle from Canberra".

That took me back, quite a few years back, to my time in Canberra when I was still operating Canberra Computer Accounting Systems and Bill's wife Mary had been the accountant with one of my clients. I have had good relations with all my clients, and enduring friendships with some of them, but somehow Bill and Mary had dropped off the radar.

 

Mary Crowle on the phone at Punsand Bay on Cape York. Was she calling Canberra Computer Accounting Systems for computer support?

 

I don't know what made Bill drop in on me after almost three decades. Perhaps it was because, as he told me, his wife Mary had died a few years ago, and he was trying to re-connect with some people from the past. I expressed my condolences and we exchanged pleasantries, even though I still felt uncomfortable in my unwashed and unshaven state.

He left shortly afterwards but left his email address for future contact. He also left links to some YouTube clips of trips he and Mary had taken after he'd retired in 2001. The one above was of their trip to Thursday Island where I had lived and worked in 1977, and it brought back many happy memories for me, although Bill's wonky camera work didn't help.

Thanks for letting me see this clip, Bill, but don't give up your day job!

 

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P.S. Those memories made me dust of some of my old photos, including the ones I took on my return trip to Thursday Island in 2005 - click here.

 

"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink"

 

 

This famous line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" pretty much sums up the Arabian Peninsula: while it is gifted with a fabulous hydrocarbon endowment worth trillions of dollars, it has almost no water and relies on nearly 450 desalination plants to stop everyone from going thirsty.

About 100 million people live in the countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman – all now under Iranian attack. Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE are, for all practical purposes, completely dependent on the desalination plants, particularly for metropolises such as Dubai. Saudi Arabia, and especially its capital, Riyadh, also relies on them.

 

 

Take the Jubail desalination plant, located on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. It supplies Riyadh, via a roughly 500-kilometre-long pipeline system, with more than 90 per cent of its drinking water. If this plant, its pipelines, or associated power infrastructure were seriously damaged or destroyed, Riyadh would have to evacuate within a week.

Any direct attack on them by Iran would be considered a massive escalation, so perhaps it is a step too far for Tehran. Still, they don’t have many other options to prevail. Its only options are to hunker down, in the hope that a long-lasting conflict becomes economically too painful for its enemies, or go after so-called soft targets like energy sites, airports and water installations. Let’s hope the Islamic Republic, feeling cornered and fighting for its survival, doesn’t take this last step because, while oil is essential, water is irreplaceable.

So far, "Operation Epic Fury" has been a stunning aerial success, but have Trump and America the willpower and the military power to fight a prolonged war against a desperate regime fighting for its very survival? Or will they, after having bombed the place back into the stone-age, pull out again, as they did in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?

 

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I Nietzsche more than ever!

 

 

Friedrich Nietzsche lived a troubled adolescence, stemming from the intense difficulty he had in spelling his own name. This difficulty has continued to this day in the spelling of his name in bathroom graffiti and on t-shirts proclaiming "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" (neither does arthritis but it doesn't make me stronger).

As for pronouncing his name, I much rather talk about Freud - whose name is also easier to spell - but a useful mnemonic is to cast your mind back to your first girlfriend and the time when you whispered into her ear "I Nietzsche more than ever!" just before she stood you up.

Now that we have both the spelling and the pronunciation out of the way, enjoy the movie "When Nietzsche Wept" which is based on Irvin D. Yalom's book of the same name. It blends both fact and fiction and offers you the chance to nod knowingly next time someone mentions Nietzsche to you or drops the word 'limerence' (look it up, Des!)

 

The only online copy I could find is in Chinese 😁 - click here

 

For my money, the passage "It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one's germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!" gives me my much-needed excuse because, you see, I did my children a favour by not having them!

 

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