A Teeny Weeny Way

The good thing about light is the warmth it brings. But then if you live in one of those parts where the sun seeks a more than intimate relationship with the earth’s surface it feels a lot like a combustible experience.

With the heat comes noise – lots of it. Tempers are on a short fuse and aggression is often sky-high. Voices are raised, car horns scream loud and clear into the night, sirens wail mournfully and even smells cry out to you in dismay.

My friends count these amongst the delicious entertainments they would recommend to any un-impressed newcomer. This is the land I have come to know, when we stood face to face the very first time I had a certain suspicion it would remain unchanged.

Over the years, I have lost patience with the people who stick their knives into the qualities that are found in their own neighbourhoods, and yet hunger after the vices and whims of other places.

Sad though, that I am becoming one of those ‘despised many’. There was some gory detail on the news all last week and a steady stream of thoughts popped into my already over-loaded brain.

In brief, I figured the only difference between the human specimen and the base animal specimen is the level of susceptibility to delusion … self-delusion, that is.

Puddles

Yo! The animal looks in a puddle and sees the reflection of a goat, rhino, croc, heron or whatever genus it might be. It recognises itself in that reflection and acknowledges the individual and collective features that make him so. And he goes along on his happy way.

The human comes along soon after and peers sneakily into the same puddle, snorts in disgust at the image reflected and then determinedly covers it in sand. As he goes off, he is furiously  calculating ways and means to make certain that no one else ever uncovers that image.

So there we have it.

I have been round and about my neighbourhood and those other places to see if the waves of delusion are at the same level and if there are any willing to accept that we are what we are – and get on with being just that.

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