Return to Oz

I landed in Sydney at five p.m. on Christmas Day. Deep within my bones, a hunger, which had lain dormant for months, was given unrelenting voice. My stare became a search as eyes drew in every possible ray of light- which seemed to fall brighter and bluer from the broad Australian sky. In the first quiet moments, standing in front of the unusually still, Eucalypt-ringed airport, winter was forgotten and I was welcomed home. There is a universal homecoming experience, and then, there is coming home for Australians- we who've lived long from our far-flung island home.

I like to jest that Aussie's need to recharge every year or so, returning to a land where life is lived in accord, prosperity and unrivaled natural quality- to reset our guides on what is important, replenish that which we have given or the world has taken from us, and finally get some decent asian food. And from this deep place within me, this place that I only let myself listen to when my feet are moments from my native soil, it is all utterly true. An important part of my psyche needs this return, this clarity and this space, and in the final days of 2008 this need was paramount.

 

2008 was a indeed blessing. Two months traveling across Argentina and Brazil, a beautiful relationship and a parting of ways, beginning with a new organisation and a new bar for learning, the opportunity and challenge of again leading a team of brilliant minds and now managing a studio. I experienced extremes of profound insight and reflection and acute dissatisfaction and entanglement that have left me indelibly marked and already set new directions in what has been made of 2009. And after this year, I knew I needed to take stock back in Australia, to genuinely reconnect with my family and friends, to again dwell long in places that had raised me, to step outside of life's waterfall for some moments and choose which river will next carry me forward. 

It was all of these things, and more. I surfed at Manly every second day, saw Test Cricket at the SCG, took beers by the Opera House, had meaningful discussions with truly wonderful people- relations old and new. But when I sat again on the long flights back to Amsterdam- what struck me most was the time I'd spent forging meaning relationships with my family; playing golf with Dad, seeing a Monet exhibition with Mum, and taking Tilly to a music festival on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. It was these moments, and all the collective dinners and late evening discussions, that made the 34,000 kilometres unquestionably worthwhile- and made it easy to leave once again, upon this journey that knows no end. 

Reflections on a Mountain Lake

There are conversations that you know will echo in the records of your personal history, if not the pages of some broader text. One such conversation that is marked indelibly in my reflections took place in the spring of 2005, at the mountain lake of Ochrid, Macedonia. Perched on the wall of a five-hundred year old monastery, Tom Weaver, Brodie Boland and I took a break from the conference we were orchestrating to connect in the tangible stillness of the afternoon. Brodie and I were completing our term together as Directors of Eastern and Western Europe, respectively, and Tom had taken a break from his career, designing the future of schooling across the UK, to chair our leadership summit.

It wasn't so much the conversation, although it was as far reaching and honest a trialogue as any, as it was the meeting of the three of us upon this rare mountain lake, at a tipping point in each of our individual journeys. We were young and powerful with much to be proud of, yet humbled by this place, by each other's presence, and the most distinct feeling that whatever unfolded from this moment would be marked with the challenge and call that names history.

The image of those mountains towering above the water in the distance, the confidence and trust we shared, the laughter, insight and ability; these will be defining pieces of my youth. In our best of times, we may look back on them lightly, but in the cyclical moments of darkness I do not underrate how important such experiences were in helping me find the light.

Tom continued his career at the cutting edge of designing learning environments through ever larger enterprises and now has taken the entrepreneurial leap. He has also launched a phenomenal blog that puts my Codex to shame. Brodie went on to lead our organisation, join a strategy consultancy and soon enough will take an academic turn, in the whichever premier graduate institution is lucky enough to earn him. He, of course, uses his blog Kyosaku to help us realise and release.

David Foster Wallace

"(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I'd advise you to go ahead, because I'm sure going to. In fact I'm gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005... There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning." 1

Three years and four months ago David Foster Wallace, one of the most important American authors of the last twenty years, stepped aside from his writing sabbatical to share reflections on the "capital-T" truths for living. A rare, intellectual and enquiring perspective "it was Wallace's odd sense of double vision that most defined his sensibility. He was a humanist who could not help but see both sides of the story, who imagined himself into the gray middle areas of his writing." 2

Ten days ago, this man who seemed so uncomfortable being cast as the troubled genius, lost touch with one side of the story, and hung himself. He had suffered from depression throughout his life and it had intensified deeply in recent months. In this light, the commencement address is even more honest, beautiful and true. It seems not so much spoken for the graduands, as it is a final attempt for this rational mind to teach his emotional self a lesson it refused to hear.

In a quiet time read the whole thing, or if it is you are so inclined, speak it out and be a vehicle for these words who have lost their source. Maybe we can hear the voice that he could not.

A wonderful interview below, featuring Wallace on the Charlie Rose show in 1997, soon after he had been awarded the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" and the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction.

1: Keyton Commencement Address, 2005.
2: David Foster Wallace: Idealist Skeptic, LA Times

Darkness in Bahia

Fade from black.

A vague awareness of sweat soaked fabric wrapping my body drifts into view. It must be sometime in the afternoon by now. I'm in Trancoso- no.. now it's Arrial D'Ajuda. My body craves water. It must be three already. What time did we finish? Flashes of the hour long morning walk back along the beaches roll past, we arrived just in time for breakfast. Ah breakfast, hence the corn flakes I feel among the bedsheets. A momentary reflection upon my terribleness and then.. it was a wonderful party. A hundred people along the beach, with a huge moon filling the sky and the sea, the air thick with music, laughter and a sub-tropical humidity. I might just be able to open my eyes. Then shower. It would bring sweet relief from all this sweaty fabric. And thank God for this ceiling fan. The symphony of it's ticking and whiring emerges, rhythms ever changing. Kept the mosquitos away too. Mosquitos! Tens of bites, old and new, compete for my attention. Itch. Itch. I roll onto my side, forget again and find relief. To do? What to do? To stay again or continue the northward journey? Days are slipping so quickly, they feel almost stolen. It's already the full moon. Ah, the full moon. Maybe I should go back to Trancoso, for a celebration? Who told me? Which of these casual acquaintances upon the road was it? Too many voices, but I'm fairly sure. Hmm Trancoso again. Different to this place. Arrial is such a tourist village- even one day here is enough to read that. Big with the Israelis, menu's in Hebrew! A smile. Then memories of a less than pleasant run in with some impolite Israelis guys flashes into view. Probably just out the freaking army. Poor bastards... The quiet of Trancoso takes over again, the sound of a silient summer night, high above the beach. An hour away and who knows if anyone is still there? A million other doubts arise. Then a stronger voice, Eleven Days Arthur. Eleven. I should go.

Five hours later. Half watching my reflection, half gazing into the night landscape of Bahia I stare into the window as this empty bus winds towards Trancoso. The shadows of palm trees on the open sky rush by. Suddenly I realise where I am on this planet. Somewhere in north-eastern Brazil an Australian man is bridging the darkness between two towns, no bags, nothing except a little cash, water, sunscreen and insect repellent. Solution to most problems here. Again the realisation of where I am, and deeper. And what for? Decisions I suppose- the only way is to keep making the narrative as I go. Wake up one morning or another with a gut feeling that it's time to move, a hunger for another place that you never knew and another chapter is added to this story and strangely enough the themes seem to play out just right. So now Trancoso and now Brazil. And this time to think. The days become full of sun and music and food and people and reading and trying a little more language here and there, yet it seems like there's no time, no really good time, to think. But here in the buses, in the darkness, it's just me and the rushing of Bahia, and it all comes so easy. So free.

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted

"This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief. But there's a difference with this dream. Everything cruel and unconscious done in the illusion of the present world, all that does not fade away at the death-waking. It stays, and it must be interpreted...

And this groggy time we live, this is what it's like: A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living in another town. In the dream, he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes the reality of the dream town. The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities settles over us like a forgetful doze, but we are older than those cities. We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again.

That's how a young person turns toward a teacher. That's how a baby leans toward the breast, without knowing the secret of its desire, yet turning instinctively. Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are."

Rumi (مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی)

Artwork; Caspar David Friedrich's The Wanderer above a sea of fog

Reflections over Istanbul

"As my previous exclamation suggested I have been away from Amsterdam once more. Even now I can close my eyes and the rich wet canals and the full green leaves fade and are quickly replace by the expanse that is Istanbul. The city was nothing as I had thought. My frame of reference was inaccurately assumed from my experiences of Cairo- another titan of a city. However, my first three days around the European side gave me an impression that was more Parisian than Cairene."

Click for the full piece "Reflections over Istanbul".

AI Transition: Two-Years On

"Keep the glass topped up, it's not over just yet
Pull off the social bluff, celebrate your success
Turn the sunlight out, find a place in the shade
If you measure the world by the mark that you make."

- The Metre, Powderfinger

I returned late Sunday night from the AIESEC International 06-08 Transition Weekend. On one level this weekend is the handover of responsibility between management teams, on another it marks two distinct milestones in the journeys of forty-five of the world's most remarkable young people. For the outgoing members it is the end of the most intellectually, physically and emotionally intense year that most of us will ever experience. For the incoming members, it is the dream-like beginning to a journey that they simply cannot fathom.

To stand in the midst of the 06-08 celebrations was to be in a memory that was almost my own. Two years ago, I stood arm-in-arm with my team, AI 04-05, sharing our final bows together. We were overflowing with the happiness of finishing well, the liberation and anticipation over what will come next, the sadness of knowing that we will now be spread across the globe and that these days of infinite possibility will all to quickly become fond memories.

Two years later another group of young people were sharing these experiences, trying to unravel their plans for the future, celebrating together and handing something precious to a new group- something they had carried close to their heart for the longest twelve-months of their life. It was beautiful to watch all this once more- but now from the outside- as an alumni and friend.

Returning to this space brought powerful reminiscence and reflection of the way that has passed since I completed my role as Director of Western Europe and North America. Here I was called to look at myself with younger eyes, to judge the self with these older expectations and listen to a voice that had hidden in memories too close to hear. I could not have understood the challenges and pitfalls that I would encounter, but neither could I have comprehended the understanding and insight that has been gained through times both dark and light. Finally, the knowledge that the way has been furthered and the direction remains true let me return this judgement of my previous self with a knowing smile, a deeper sense of peace and another degree of closure on this important part of my history.

Many thanks to AI 06-08 for this opportunity, and for all those of who have been inside AIESEC, who have lived and wrestled with it's very core, I wish you well upon your way in this beautiful struggle.

A Rise and Fall Upon the Way

I sit next to my window- looking out between the bare trees at the quiet canals reflecting the vast afternoon sky and my thoughts turn back to the castle in Vienna, the sun rising on that perfect winter morning. I think of those hours and days and now weeks since our time together and the challenges, frustrations and new realities we have since been called to face. Some have written of the difficulty of reflection after conference- the frustration of attempting to continue their journey on this path of leadership. Perhaps for many there is the dawning of quiet doubt in the mind, of what was experienced, of what was learnt and seen in these few days only two weeks ago...

Read/Listen to the full piece...

Rain and Fire

Friday afternoon, 14th of April 2006, a quarter century after my birth. Cloudcover masks the sky as Monika and I beat our way through the wind and rain across the Bebelplatz in Berlin. The Humboldt University, St Hedwigs Cathedral and the German State Opera flank the paved square.

I steal a glance through a narrow gap between the umbrella, which is wedged at a horizontal into the wind, and the rainsoaked pavings. A small plastic window comes into my acute view- the only landmark in this open area.

"This is where the Nazi's burned the books in '33", Monika tells me. May 10, 1933; Nazi youth groups burned around 20,000 books from the Humboldt University and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft; including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and H.G. Wells.

The rain sinks deeper into my coat. I'm lost in a vision of a dark night, of rain and fire, black smoke and echoing anthems.

I peel back the black and return to the grey, now staring through the plastic window into an almost featureless chamber below- a underground chamber cloaked in an off white, featureless except it is lined with massive bookshelves. Rows and rows of empty bookshelves. They are not graves, they are not remains, they are not even nothing- they are lost.


Another couple battle across the square and look into the chamber below. "It's beautiful" says the American woman. I don't know if she doesn't get it or even if it could be beautiful. I feel revulsion. I want to get away and think about how it could happen- how a civilisation can destroy its essential treasure, its value, it's offering to the future. I want to think about why this touches me more than murder.

"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen", "Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings." Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1821.

Some Goodbye

Well, Ive just sent the launch letter for "Learning Networks" strategy Ive been trying to grow all year. In theory Friday was my last day on AIESEC International, but this was an innovation I had been chasing for the last 7 years so what is one more intense day of creation. In a few minutes I will leave one of the most beautiful environments in the world. Today is the last day I will call myself an AIESECer. It is a wonderful thing.

In recent days I've some members of the new team ask why there is no secret handover on AIESEC International. Where is the ancient sword or diamond encrusted eagle that is handed from team to team, or guardian to guardian, AI generation to AI generation- in this the very home of youth leadership. They will realise in the coming days and weeks that they stand as the new leaders of the organisation. And they will wonder where it came from, when it happened. Was it a session or a conference? They will try to trace back the exact day when they "became" AIESEC International, when they had the "full responsibility" of the organisation.

Perhaps at the end of their journey here they will realise that it happened many years ago at their journies beginning. Guardianship of our organisation is not placed upon AI or any other shoulders - it is taken by all those who lend their spirit to our vision, who are prepared to act for something higher when the world compels us silient. It can lend itself to any vessel but will be mastered by no one. It cannot be given, it must be born within.

The most marvellous people I have met in my life had such born within them. They could laugh, and cry, and work and struggle and practice all hedonistic excess, but they could not mask the life force that beat within them, and never should they. The honest and full desire to be give, to create, to help, to lead us into a world where things could be different. They are AIESECers.

Today is the last that I shall count myself among them, although forever I shall number as a brother-in-spirit. Different shores that have been calling me for sometime now grow louder. I hear roar of breakers crashing on a unknown shore and finally I must set sail.

Good luck and go well, o' guardians of the spirit.

peace
Arthur

After AIESEC; my next steps into the unknown

Photos by Tom Weaver

Since the international elections in IPM Romania 2005, my search for a path forward after AIESEC has become a practical necessity as the end date to my @ life was stamped JULY 31st 2005. I have had long term plans for the last six years of my life; since an intense period of changing environments, experiences and reflection resulted in my first major discovery moments and the beginning of this path. My plans mapped out the journey I wanted to walk in a number of dimensions, as an attempt at a holistic vision for my life, and ranged from my AIESEC time well into the future. They changed as I learnt more about my individuality and further constructed my worldview. However, the AIESEC period has remained more or less constant as I have walked it- and by chance mentions being “Director on AI in 04-05”. The plans after @ were more dynamic as my long-term career ambition evolved from working in Epidemic Disease in the WHO, to NGO- consulting, to founding a new type of University.

The search for those fabled cross-roads, where Aristotle’s says your passions and the needs of your world meet to mark your vocation, has been a vital part of my journey. This journey has, by more than chance alone, ranged across 36 countries and covered equal expanses of doubt and discovery within myself. For a long while I rested my ambition on the expectations of others- and found happy compromises that seemed to satisfy me, those around me, and the “practical reality” in which we live; economically and socially. However, in the last few months my deeper self has been growing louder in discontent. The whisper of “maybe” in a greater potential raged with equally growing waves of doubt until I have been little room for individual thought, reflection and creation. I wondered if it was the Icarus in me- or whether I was merely sharing the essence of every dreamer; those burning embers of hope which give life meaning and energy and cannot be divorced from the soul without extinguishing it completely. After much aversion I began to realize that the choice has already been made in me, and this was clarified through another reworking of my vision and plans. And thus I decided finally that I would head to Cairo on September 1st 2005 for a period of 4-6 months self-directed learning. In these months I do not plan to enroll in university nor employment, rather I will pursue independent creation, study and reflection. I shall commit most of my time to reading and writing philosophy- in an attempt to express the underlying philosophy and ideological framework that forms my understanding of humanity, consciousness and human development. I hope it will also be a remarkably reflective period of my life as it concludes a large chapter of my story and will involve planting the experiences and relationships that have marked its pages to ensure they survive well into the future.

Cairo is the perfect location for two essential and four additional but wonderfully beneficial reasons. The essential factors is that it is pretty much the only place I can afford to rent an apartment with a decent internet connection yet can still travel back to Europe cheaply. The wonderfully beneficial reasons are 1- Egypt is a country with a wealth of incredible experiences to be had, 2- gaining insights into the Islamic and Arab worlds, as well as a specific induction into a very different cultural space, 3- it will be Ramadan and a great opportunity for a physical and mental fast, 4- I have just had two incredible weeks there and there seems to be really cool people in Cairo and a electric environment. So, a few more months here, followed by a month in Hungary and Romania having victory travels with some AI mates and I will be riding a one-way ticket to Cairo.




And then? I believe the next step for me will be in applying a subset of this broader philosophy into a “practical” field. At the moment this looks like it could be in graduate study writing on learning environments and human development, or working in corporate leadership development; both as stepping stones to positions where curricula and learning spaces can be created- and perhaps even founding university in the long-term. The important conclusion for me is the realization that whatever form I find to express in my career I would essentially be a philosopher. I draw this distinction as I hold paramount the conscious and endless search for deeper understanding, to shape my life around this understanding and to communicate whatever learnings I gain in whichever way can prove more beneficial for my community. At worst after the six months of purely choice based life then this broader philosophical enquiry returns to a lifelong hobby. At best it will grow into a means where I can integrate my life more fully and study, write and speak on the field of my passion, as a student, teacher, writer and lecturer. A choice which doesn’t find an easy fit in my generation and culture; where philosophy is so academic and spirituality is so institutionalized.

I feel a calling in the world I see around me; in the wasteful divisions between our common community, in the lack of long term perspective for our common environment, and in the lack of a meaningful path for individual and collective development. I believe answers lie in renewed philosophies and that in the search for such a solution I can find the greatest contribution and the greatest fulfillment. Thus I seek this understanding with my full commitment even if it only finds benefit for me although my hope is, and shall always be, many times greater. For those seeking to share this path of discovery I hope you will join me in dialogue for at least my Egypt days where learning is paramount and all perspectives welcome.

Peace

Arthur

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep, and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I have come to die, discover that I had not lived."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Dublin Reflections

Im in Dublin on an AIESEC visit, my first time back since I finished my MCP term and left for South Africa two years ago. As I walk the streets Im bombarded by so many memories- although in my mind it's never really this sunny- I have a perpetual image of Dublin in the dark and the wet, the Liffey glowing a dull green in fluorescent reflection of towering lampposts. Two years and twenty odd countries have passed; Dublin looks newer and I feel much older.

Another year, Another dimension

I have survived innumerable opportunities for incident and disease to
survive for yet another year. I count victory over 24 of them so far and
am hoping for a fair few more. Am back in Rotterdam, the pearl of
Europe, after enjoying no small amount of medical treatment in Finland
and a visit to Sweden. I left Cairo feeling a bit dodgy and arrived to
Helsinki in a wheelchair- but nothing 1 liter of saline IV, loads of
penicillin and a few blood tests couldn't fix. Huge shout outs to the
inventor of air sickness bags, Ketofan and Gatorade- my best friends
during a 72 hour forced fast in which I visited a large percentage of
the bathrooms in Scandanavia.

Today is may be the anniversary of my birth, but less than a footnote to
the history that has unfolded on this date.
43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum. Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar's
assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the
consul Pansa.
1912 - RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg on its maiden voyage - it finishes
sinking at about 2:20 am the next day.
Black Day - informal celebration day for single people in South Korea
1986 - 2.2 lb (1kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of
Bangladesh. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
Clearly, there is strong link between these events and my appearing, not
exactly sure what it is, but the day is still young.

Being 23 kicked ass. Best year of my life. Began in Africa and finished
revolving somewhere round Western Europe. Featured 14 countries,
incredible intelligent characters and rare and wonderful opportunities.
I discovered a lot about myself in the last year, largely through
expressing myself more fully, releasing that which exists inside and too
seldom finds a way out. The Best Job in the World has been tempering and
a test, an opportunity and reward- if I can ever give as much and learn
as much I will have lived a truly happy life. Twenty-three has been a
year that will define much of who I am and where I go in the next five
years. Twenty-four will be scarier, more challenging, more unknown, it
will be another unique step- one that both builds on the past but moves
in a new and unique direction. PEACE.

Hunter's Wave

Writing the previous post reminded me of a singular piece by one of the greatest modern livers of life, a man who captured the essence of the living/commenting whole, until he recently and abruptly ceased doing so, Hunter S Thompson.

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era - -the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle - -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - -on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - -the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.