In Pursuit of Happiness

In Pursuit of Happiness

The Christmas letter continues.....

This is the sixth installment of a Mills & Boonesque saga about an Elf & a Fairy who settled in the land of Normanby to live happily ever after......

Flood waters inundated the regions surrounding the land of Normanby at the start of another year. The Fairy took in refugees from a West End town. The Bug entertained Elly and B’o. Julie, Judy & Julia entertained three of their sister chooks, while the Elf took part in cleaning up the nearby City.

The changing climate brought with it great loss and sorrow, courtesy of floods and a cyclone. Yet the people of Normanby and the surrounding regions, united in a spirit of community. Armies of volunteers arose to help their fellow citizens. Some folks who could not help directly provided #bakedrelief in the form of meals and love.

It was during the time of the flood, the Elf and the Fairy were blessed with another conception. The clock started ticking for the arrival of a sibling for Bug. Not knowing whether it might be a brother or a sister, the new baby was known as “Happy”.

The Elf was quite happy spending mornings at home with the Fairy and the Bug. He spent afternoons and evenings cleaning the local City, emptying bins, picking up rubbish and cleaning the toilets.

The Bug was a hybrid of the Elf and the Fairy. She continued to spend her days eating; sleeping & singing tunelessly (just like her father). Some days Bug went to day care to refine her skills in the sand pit and caring for dolls & bears. She honed her art skills with chalk on a blackboard and paint just about everywhere. She was fond of bouncing balls and dressing up and listening to stories.

The Fairy spent her days managing the day to day affairs of the family and delivering other people’s babies at the local hospital. The Fairy was a midwife. The Elf was seconded to the local water and poo factory as a Procurement Officer and a Contract Manager, building and repairing water and sewage treatment infrastructure.

On the first day of Spring, “Happy” arrived into the world: a sister for the Bug. There was great joy in the land of Normanby. Unfortunately, Julia the chook met her untimely demise & now lives beneath a rose garden. Bug began to learn lessons of life (and death).

Happy grew.......and grew. Soon happy was almost as big as the Bug. Meanwhile the forces of darkness and evil began to undermine the land of Normanby, constructing a tunnel for infernal smoke emitting machines.

Despite the noise and the dust, the Elf, the Fairy, the Bug and Happy continued their pursuit of happiness.

To be continued.....

Gross Domestic Happiness

There are lots of things that impact on our daily lives....

Every purchasing decision we make has political, social, economic, environmental (& perhaps spiritual) implications.

The carbon tax debate seems to have boiled down to how much will it cost me (or for some, how much will I get compensated.

We (collectively) seemed to have lost track about what it is all about........it is not about you. It is not about me.

Putting a price on pollution should be about climate justice for developing communities & future generations & the species that we share the biome with.

Developing communities have contributed the least to the accumulated levels of Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, yet the same communities are already suffering the worst consequences of Climate Change.

Future Generations will need a planet that is habitable.

Humans are the only species on earth, that uses external sources of energy (apart from metabolism). By external sources of energy, I am referring to wood, coal, petroleum etc... We are the only species that burns stuff.

Our lives have become complicated. We are interconnected. We are inter-dependent......and yet we have become disconnected from the impacts that we have on our natural environment.

We flick a switch. We push a button......and we are oblivious to (or we forget) the consequences upstream & downstream.

For all the wonders, the benefits, the convenience of modern technology and modern Australian society......are we happy?

Well actually, yes I am. Yet, so many people around me do not seem to be.

RT @DalaiLama Love, compassion and concern for others are real sources of happiness.

my obituary.....a work in progress

The Jen Hansen put out the challenge some time ago, to write one's own obituary.

I added a degree of difficulty by choosing to write my own obituary in Suessian poetry.

I changed vocations a couple of months ago. In my new vocation, I do not have the luxury of having time to think or write poetry as much as I did in my previous role.

Therefore the following obituary is a work in progress, that I have been tinkering with in my spare time.

Did you ever hear of Rowan of Normanby?

Challenged to write his own obituary.

Well, he was and it wasn't an easy thing to produce.

Writing of oneself in the genre of ‘Suess’

How was he remembered? What’s his legacy?

Will he be known for obsession with poo & with wee?

Did his children grow up to be nobel & wise?

What did they say & think after his demise?

He sometimes wished he studied medicine,

Or etched a career in another discipline.

Sometimes he regretted working in gas & oil.

And sometimes he wished, he farmed food from the soil.

However, he’d shelved his regrets and learnt to move on.

He wrote lots of poetry and rewrote lots of songs.

He strove to be green. He sought to be happy.

He had tried to be clean. He changed many a nappy.

He hated shopping & cooking. He ate to subsist.

Yet he cooked for his loved ones & shopped from a list.

Happiness

Tomorrow I start a new job. It is a six week contract position with a Water Utility.

For the past two years, I have been a stay at home Dad by day.

In the arvos/evening, I have worked in a menial role, as a labourer, serving my community.

I run Sustainability Education in my spare time.

I am happy.

I hope that I am still happy tomorrow.