Like Raymond J Bartholomew, who had a glory moment years ago on Red Faces but has now slipped into a permanent role as a pretentious side-kick, I have returned from Philip Island. Before I went I was full of anguish: over work, over my writing, over my relentless back pain, over life in general. Then I had a great time on camp. It all melted away. My back did not seem so bad, as my brother in law, Adrian, had a worse case. His slipped disc is new, whereas mine is old, and I have developed all sorts of coping methods. His, being hot off the cracked-cartilage press, had him in an agony that I recognised. It’s debilitating, embarrassing, and humbling for men who are independent and self-reliant to have to ask for help. There’s a message in that right there.
Suddenly it was a work week, but only a short one because of Australia day, and the fact that the boss took extra sickies – “Nothing trivial, we hope,” was the comment. When he returned it was the same routine of playing second fiddle to ‘the great’, without benefit of purpose, direction, or even oversight. Were I a captain of industry I could have set mighty wheels in motion. The week took a year to pass, and I looked at the calendar and thought, “My God: 2010. How did that happen? It was 1986 about five minutes ago.” Mortality is a debilitating, embarrassing, and humbling thing for middle-aged men who were once dynamic young immortals. There’s another message in that, as well.
But at Philip Island something important happened, like a shit sandwich from the Negative Universe.
I discovered an unsuspected talent for murder.
Not the mundane kind of murder involving slaughtering my fellow humans (and man, that list of deserving victims nags me sometimes in the dead of night). The more primal kind of Man imposing his dominion over the animal kingdom that God placed there for just that purpose – apparently. I’m talking about fishing. In four days of fishing from the Philip Island pier I pulled in 12 fish, all but one of which I returned to the water unharmed. One, sadly (for it), was large enough to eat, so I did. It was a King George Whiting. After careful filleting I simply fried it and ate, remembering to be thankful that the poor unlucky bastard had to die in order for me to get this rush of manfulness.
Those around me caught bugger-all, if they had a bite at all. What message could I take? Luck, for one. Just plain, dumb luck. But if thousands of years of Asian culture has taught us anything, it is that you don’t want to piss on the concept of luck. Like it or not, it’s a real force. The second important thing is that I must have mellowed over the years. I once learnt from a fly-fisher that (contrary to popular opinion) fish aren’t dumb bioautomatons. They are very sensitive to the sound coming down the fishing line. Smokers, apparently, make poor (unlucky) fishermen, he claimed, probably because of the inherent nervous tension. Similarly, over active, impatient fishermen have little luck. Presumably, in this case, the rapid heartbeat is transmitted down the line and the fish can tell that there is a maniac nearby. On the other hand, maybe they are so damned impatient the fish never get a chance to bite before they down tools and storm off. One final thought occurred to me as I pondered these ideas. And that was that I liked to imagine the fish knew that I basically meant them no harm. Sure, I was going to eat them if they were of the right species and of decent size – but that’s the luck of the draw, right? What I had absolute certainty of was that anything else would be returned unharmed, with the hook gently removed. And fish jumped on my hook often. Connection? I like to think so, and it’s my universe inside my head, and that’s how I like it to run.
No such attitude from the bloke beside us one day, who pulled in nothing but Smooth Toadfish (while I was pulling in Australian Herring, and then returning them), and then contemptuously killed them on the pier. ‘They’re pests. They take the bait but you can’t eat them. They’re poisonous to eat.’
So? What has that got to do with anything?
Have you seen a Smooth Toadfish? They are a gorgeous fish. Such intense gold and red eyes. Such beautiful speckling. A cute stubby body and that adorable overbite. How could you not be entranced by them? What the hell has utility got to do with it? This was the true face of Man The Hunter, not the flaky, hippy bullshit that I had been imagining. Kill. Not kill or be killed. Not kill in order to feed the family. Just kill. This was what had raised us to our place of dominance on the planet. Not pathetic, girlie ‘respect for nature and working in harmony with the ecology’. No, just plain rape and take what you want.
Mind you. I got the eater, and all he got was a bad mood (and a pile of innocent corpses). Perhaps there is a message in this as well.
However, my naval gazing on these matters was, and remains, entirely secondary to the real triumph of the experience.
Zach was appalled by this display of wanton destruction. He revealed later that he thought he was going to cry. My patient displays of catching loads of fish and then being kind to them – but being willing to kill with my own hands if it was to be eaten – gave him a clear message. Nature is a harsh place, and you eating means killing, but that does not give you the right to treat nature like magic-pudding. It was confronting to him to discover, as we all discover every day, that not everyone actually gives a shit about anything outside themselves.
Zach discovered fishing on that trip. He discovered that he liked standing still for long periods of time casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving. Enjoying the way the light plays on the water. Experiencing the sun and the storm rain. Just being. He shook his head and tutted like any solid curmudgeon when a group of kids started to jump off the pier to swim. “Go join them and swim if you want,” I said. But he wouldn’t. They were scaring the fish and cutting off the area he wanted to cast to.
He caught four fish, one of which, a Blue Mackeral, was large enough to eat. So we did. Dad and lad.
And as I watched him patiently baiting and casting, shading his eyes from the glare, damning the pot-bellied toadfish murderer with a look, and gently slipping fish back in the water, I recognised that I was somehow over there as well. There I was: a little piece of me. My attitudes living on, with a life I’ll never experience. There’s a message in that, right there.
Zach has declared now that he wants to build a marine fish tank and keep Smooth Toadfish that he catches from piers. Little pieces of magic saved from casual cruelty. I would never have thought of that. That is true creation.
January 15, 2010
There are two generally accepted brands of ignorance
Posted by shichitenhakki under Comment, Writing[2] Comments
The first one goes like this:
“I’ve never heard of that word/event before. What does it mean/tell me more.”
The second one goes like this:
“I’ve never heard of that word/event before.” [Therefore I will attempt to crush it into a word/event I have heard of and once you have hammered in that it is something else I will denounce it as horseshit.]
Here’s an example of the latter kind:
[Holding an empty tea cup] “I’m going to get a cup of cha.”
“Jar?”
“No. cha.”
“Jar?”
“No. cha. C H A. Tea.”
“You mean chai?”
“No. Cha.”
“Chai?”
“No. Cha.”
“What’s cha?”
[Still holding teacup] ”It’s just an English slang word for tea.”
“Never herard of it.” [Dismissively - clearly you are either making it up because you are a smartarse, or even if it is true then it is an obscure piece of irrelevant knowledge that is of no use whatsoever.]
++++++++++++
The golden example of this behaviour in the public arena was the internationally famous (in Melbourne) superstar of entertainment (if you listen to Aussie Rules football radio commentary), Rex Hunt. His catch phrase, “You idiot,” generally came hot on the heels of another presenter pointing out such egg-headish bildge as, “Red is a colour indicating danger in the West, but to the Asians it is a sign of good luck.”
This contempt for anything not already known is interesting. Is it limited to Melbourne, Australia, the former British colonies, English speakers, all cultures? I wonder. Just as sarcasm does not sit comfortably in some cultures, I’m sure that arrogant ignorance is not universal.
Being stupid is not a crime, but lack of curiousity and contempt for the unknown is.