A good person.

I do try to be a good person.  I try to treat people with respect and give them encouragement and support when needed or leave them better and brighter than when I first met them.  I have little else to offer the world than kind words and my clear conscious.  But sometimes I encounter a situation which kills me inside just a little.  Or a person whom I struggle to be around.  So when I hear one of these people is being treated with the same bitterness and contempt as they themselves inflicted on others, I can't help but feel a little relieved.  Another brick in the wall separating me from such a situation has been placed and it looks like it will be finished soon. I have been waiting for Karma to dish out some justice and while it has been slow in coming I am happy it has arrived.  There is a very fine line between feeling vindicated for ones actions and decisions and being vindictive in seeing retribution arrive.  I am not sure what side of that line I am on at the moment. I do try to be a good person.

A day in the life of....

A little update on my job.  It’s great.

It’s not what I had seen myself doing or being happy in.  An office based position, computers, everyone wanting something from me and trying to keep everyone happy.  While I still recognise that there is a honeymoon period for everything, I can’t believe how much I am enjoying the environment I get to spend my day in.  I share a big office with another staff member who is not often around.  From two walls of windows I look out towards some low hills (Banks peninsula) and across a section of the airport where the International planes pull up and the planes that service the Antarctic bases stand to be loaded/unloaded. Apart from this, I hear the constant rumble of aircraft landing and taking off, giving an energy to the place which can only be described as enthralling.  From the staff room upstairs there is a sweeping vista of the airport and the snowy mountains beyond.  I have many visits to that room for a coffee break.  On my computer I have all the flights arriving and departing and if there is something out of the ordinary happening or one of the big military planes is heading off to the Antarctic I go up and watch it like a reality  TV show.   I don’t feel restricted nor confined to indoors.  I can step outside as often as I like.  I walk each day for at least half an hour, plus usually to and from work while waiting for Phil to pick me up.   What a great way to start and end the day.  Headphones on, great music, and the freedoms of life before me.  As long as I do what my job entails, I can organise my day completely as I want.  This often includes visits to other offices, or them visiting me, or a trip over to the airport terminals to stretch my legs among the travelers. And while I am there, just for a brief moment, I feel like I am about to fly off to another adventure. I have found myself in a position where I don’t feel I am struggling to achieve the goals of my job or to convince myself that I am happy here. Now then, the Emirates flight to Dubai is about to take off. Time to go and get myself a coffee.

The Berlin Wall vs. The Global Citizen

In my late teens and early 20’s. I was fortunate enough to be what I considered a global citizen.  Opening with a year in the USA when I was 16, for the next 10 years I found myself living, working or travelling overseas every year, sometimes for several months at a time.  It wasn't a lifestyle I set out to capture, the universe simply unfurled its magic carpet and took me away. Every adventure was memorable and in some way life changing.  A visit to the former West Germany was one such adventure.

Many younger people are unaware that Germany was ever once two separate countries. Time has a tendency to erase history in school books these days.  It was my first visit to Germany and I was staying with friends in Hamburg which is in the north of the country.  Unrest had been brewing surrounding the Berlin Wall and all it stood for.  The division of a nation, the separation of families, the gap between democracy, freedom and communism.  The Wall epitomised the politics of the past and offered little hope to those entombed behind.  When the world woke on 9th November 1989, it was a different place.  Overnight the borders had been opened allowing East Germans to cross freely into the west.  The destructive cracks in the facade of East Germany had begun.  People Power took over and used this weakness to physically tear down the wall.  In the smash of a hammer, families separated for decades were reunited and a new freedom was found.  Modern Germany had emerged.

Not one to miss a good party, I found myself on a train to Berlin crammed with others keen to salute the beginnings of a new nation and embrace the residents of the former East.  I experienced the throng of a reunited city and was exposed to the positively intoxicating vibes.   I grabbed a few handfuls of the crumbling wall as a memento of the greatest historical event I could imagine being part of.  In a swirl of rapture and surrealistic emotions I headed back to Hamburg.  I shared the carriage with some residents of the former East Berlin.  They being unable to speak a word of English, conversations were clearly enjoyed using gestures and expressions.  They marveled at the cars we passed, the flashing railway crossings, the petrol stations and more.  They saw everything that I didn't and thought it was brilliant.  If I had been able to copture the intense sense of delight in the rattling cabin that night, the world would never be a sad place again.

As a young person in such an intense environment, I left Germany with a new perspective.  It made me realise many things, the most basic being not to take things for granted.  Anything.  Appreciate that I can go anywhere at any time.  That I have money to do so.  That things can change in a second for the good, as well as the bad. That there is power in the common people to not just topple a government, but to build a nation. That I am lucky. Lucky to be a global citizen.