Lebenskünstler is another one of of those untranslatable German words which best describes the metamorphosis a former colleague from my days in Papua New Guinea seemed to have undergone when I met him again some years ago. Read more
We had both worked as accountants on Bougainville Island in 1973, he for Arawa Enterprises, the operators of the Panguna and Arawa supermarkets, and I for the holding company PDF Holdings, where we occupied adjoining cubicles in a large and windowless warehouse.
He was the archetypal accountant with a wife, mortgage and 2.3 kids, who stayed in that windowless cubicle for four long years whereas I stayed just long enough for an urgent appendectomy at the local hospital before moving on to Port Moresby, then Lae, and then Rangoon in Burma.
Back in Australia, I met him again in 1979 at Nambucca Heads where he had opened an accounting practice and in the eight years he was there spent more time helping out-of-work cow cockies fill out Centrelink forms than doing any actual accounting work. We lost contact again until he emailed me in 2012, "Mate, I could not drag myself away from your website the other night - you put so much thought and work into it and deserve the praise you received from all around the world. Bougainville did leave an indelible impact on everyone." Read more
By this time, with the children grown up and the marriage over, he had already retired on the Australian pension, which was generous enough to rent a small bedsitter, and to move to another place every six months so as not to get bored with life. I told him about Port Douglas and on the spur of the moment he decided to move there.
Last time I heard from him, he lived in a bedsitter in a 'resort' with a swimming pool just a few metres from the beach, swam several times a day, ate well and cheaply in the local club, and had no worries about clothes which were no more than a t-shirt and shorts all year round.
To thank me for my tip, he kept inviting me. Had I gone, would I have come back? Was I - is any of us - cut out to be a Lebenskünstler? Is he the only one who doesn't experience those dark nights that afflict us all?
