Wednesday, May 26, 2010

On the inevitability of trouble at 'mill.

Lately I've been thinking that even by modern standards of insanity, the world is getting steadily crazier. Wherever I look these days, I see a never-ending display of the extremes of human endeavour; some of it agonizing, some of it impressive, and all of it head-shakingly bewildering, even to a cynical dog like me.

What's really alerted me lately to the complete madness of modern humanity is the feat of two young kids: the (now) 17 year old Jessica Watson and the even younger 13 year old Jordan Romero. I'd been paying scant attention to Jessica's solo, unassisted sail around the world since she left on her voyage in October of last year, but it was hard to avoid the hoopla when she recently completed the job, thus becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe single-handed when she sailed into Sydney Harbour on May 15, a few days short of her 17th birthday. The record is currently being disallowed by various organisations that control these sorts of thing on technical grounds (not enough kilometres sailed or because she's under 18, for example), but that doesn't really detract from her achievement, which is undeniably impressive.

Yet I still think it's insane.

How young do record holders have to be now to impress us and where does it end? I can imagine there's a 12 year old out there somewhere who'd be quite capable of sailing solo around the world, but should we let them? The ethical and moral issues will keep people arguing forever more, but I have to wonder how we ever reached that point in the first place and why we feel the need to keep pushing the boundaries of pointless activity.

But here's the really bizarre thing: just a few days ago Jordan Romero, at age 13, became the youngest person ever to ascend Mt. Everest. Without doubt that's a brilliant effort, but some 4,000 people have now made that climb to the top of the world and according to the news report I read, conditions at the time of Jordan's climb were sufficiently good to allow a whopping 49 people to make it to the top. What really struck me about it though was that to reach the summit the climbers had to step over, walk past, or pass within sight of over 100 bodies of climbers who had previously died making the same attempt. Which leaves me wondering what would be going through young Jordan's mind as he negotiated all that.

The people who succeed in these quests return as heroes: widely applauded, they make successful films about their efforts, write books, appear on chat shows, have blogs written about them and do the speaking circuit for years on the back of what they've achieved.

And yet... if they die in the attempt, we just leave their bodies on the mountain as if it didn't matter, and probably don't even report it in the news unless it's a local or relatively famous climber. The effort required to recover the bodies would only inhibit the efforts of other climbers to reach the top, so they are left there, and the fact of so many bodies on the mountain seemingly does nothing to slow the express train of climbers wanting the glory of a successful assault on Everest. All up, there are now around 150 unrecovered bodies on the mountain.

Meanwhile, down at sea level it's a little different. Every time a solo sailor gets into a trouble, authorities are only too happy to send out a rescue team. But there's neartly always an outcry at the expense to the public of those rescues. And it's true that every year we spend a small fortune in rescuing lost and injured adventurers. Yet we treat as heroes those who succeed in their endeavours to do something remarkable at the limit of human capabilities, while condemning those who try, fail and have to be rescued.

What will it take to impress us next? A solo ascent of Everest without oxygen by a blind dwarf with no legs and multiple sclerosis? An unassisted sail around the planet by a 10 year old in an open dinghy? The madness really ought to stop.

Regrettably, madness seems to go hand in hand with all forms of endeavour - recently I've been reading about early 20th century industrialisation. One of the heroes of that era was the German chemist Fritz Haber, a Nobel laureate whose work with nitrogen enabled fertiliser to be made so inexpensively that it has been claimed the world's population in the year 2000 was nearly double what it would have been had it not been for Haber's work.

It's ironic then, and tragic in the extreme that Haber was also directly and enthusiastically responsible for the chlorine gas used by the Germans in the trenches of World War I, and a later version of it was used by the Nazis in the extermination camps of the second world war.

But as horrific as that was, here's the real madness... Haber was a Jew.

And what's the connection with our two kids? Well, not a lot really, except to illustrate that in any field of human endeavour, the point of it seems inevitably to become lost, or at best distorted, and used for the wrong reasons with sometimes fatal consequences.

Which explains, I think, the inevitability of the global financial crisis; of BP's little soiree in the Gulf of Mexico, and countless other disasters and disappointments. All of which would be avoidable but for the human condition, which is to push the boundaries of everything we ever do, and which we do almost unconsciously as soon as something proves successful. Despite the media's penchant for bad news, we rarely see a balanced view of dangerous undertakings. The general media portrayal of Mount Everest isn't one of unclaimed bodies littering the upper slopes, but of accolades and wealth for those who safely return. An ambitious 13-year-old mountaineer scanning the available resources will find far more reasons for pushing himself to climb the thing than not. Which leads to the situation of children stepping over bodies to achieve their so-called dream.

So, this insanity continues to build. The whole planet seems to be imbued with the spirit of a destructive imp; building a fine mansion, only to pull it down in a cloud of dust and rubble as it is finally finished. Or worse still, a collapsed oil rig on the ocean floor, and a gushing torrent of oil spewing forth at 800,000 litres a day, there to remind us that progress can come at a hideous cost if we don't exercise restraint.

Incidentally, Fritz Haber's wife Clara - herself a doctor of chemistry - killed herself at least in part because of her husband's weaponizing of chlorine gas. The despair at seeing talent so badly misused is of course, understandable. As would be a general malaise over a society subjected to similar horrors caused by financiers, petroleum companies, politicians and countless others looking to progress civilisation, but in doing so inflicting unendurable harm through zealousness and irresponsibility.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Writing wrongs.

There's a writers' festival happening in town at the moment and so we have a veritable flood of famous authors. Working in the media I get to meet some of them and this week has reinforced a view I've held for some time now. I've long thought that writers - even successful ones - seem to have a small black cloud hanging over them. Certainly the ones that don't have that cloud are in the minority. Matthew Riley is one that springs to mind - an effervescent, enthusiastic type who seems more than happy with his lot. Ben Elton is perhaps another, but everyone else seems to live with a metaphorical lance in their side. That is not to say all writers are morose or depressed (although it wouldn't surprise me if they were). But they do convey the impression that their lives are a little sadder than they had expected. Perhaps it's knowing that having succeeded in their quest to be published they find it's not the purpose of life after all? I don't know. But I'm sure there's something intrinsically sad about being a writer, even a funny one.

Other famous, successful people seem to have a confidence about them that writers lack. Even other artists - musicians or painters for example, have a determination that's missing among authors. Oh, writers may well have discipline; they may even have that headstrong drive to be brilliant at their craft, but still there's a Sisyphusian shadow over their persona in the way they seem to sense an endlessness to their quest, whilst yet remaining compelled to continue.

I (if you hadn't already guessed) wanted to be a writer. In fact I was one for a while. But although I was published, and made some (not much) money from it, I was crap at my trade. The stuff I wrote way back then is embarrassing to me now. In recent years I've been able to meet a great many writers - even got to know my favourite writer quite well - and I learned very quickly that I am not a writer. Apart from an acute shortage of talent on my part, I lack the ... compulsion to write to the exclusion of everything else. I suppose like many people, I have a desire to write that goddamned novel that's been kicking around my desk for years now, but I am continually distracted by other worthy ventures.

Always, I lose motivation if I focus on any one project for too long. It's an ADD-like syndrome - unable to focus on one thing for too long, yet finding life fascinating in so many ways, I jump from one thing to another, continually excited by life yet paradoxically frustrated at my inability to complete any major project.

My fear about this blog, of course, is that it too will lose my interest after a while and it'll all come to nought. Still, that would most likely be appropriate. It's not as if I expect anyone to read it of course - I'm hardly that presumptuous. It's just a need at this point to get a few things out of my head and written down if for no other reason than to clarify my thinking to myself.

Most probably there'll be a small flood of thoughts over the next few weeks, and then it may well dry up. Like my feeble attempts to keep a diary since I was a small boy, it tends to finish with a few full pages and a smattering of single lines or paragraphs and large amounts of blank space for the year. Some years there was simply nothing at all.

And yet! And yet, sometimes a simple sentence written many years ago in a moment of unconsidered naivety provokes such strong and pleasant memories! And so we begin again. But hopefully this will be a more considered blog.

We'll see.

Hunter S. Thompson once said, "Buy the ticket, take the ride." I'm on the mystery bus now. Let's see where it takes me.