Category Archives: Wil

“But Daddy I Love Him” by Wil

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David paused. James had just asked him if he wanted to go fishing Saturday afternoon, a regular thing they’d been doing for a few years. David realized he was going to have to tell James at one point or another that he had found a new girl. He’d known James since they kept tadpoles as pets. Since their mothers arranged birthdays for all the neighbourhood kids and the present of their dreams was a caterpillar tracked remote controlled car rumoured to be capable of 80km/h. They had played under 12, then under 16, then senior cricket for their hometown together, David batting 5th and a fairly average fielder, James a wicketkeeper who batted third, on after the first wicket. They had fought over a simultaneous crush as 10 year olds, their friendship untouched only because both were rejected. Fishing was the salve of their souls, the centre of the week even though it was on a weekend. It didn’t need to be a huge adventure, it just needed to be a simple short boat trip followed by a lot of drifting on the water. The occasional shout across to another bunch of mates doing the same thing. The occasional whir of line chasing a fooled fish. The occasional shark stealing the catch, uncaring at their curses.

“Yeah see you 4 o’clock”, he said.

Simin flipped through her book with a sigh. She usually loved Gabriel García Márquez but Chronicles of a Death Foretold was just a bit too violent at the end. What was with the depressing, desperate string of love letters mentioned then too, she thought. Nothing in the story beforehand really supported such a display of devotion. Simin had grown up in Shiraz, Iran and moved to Australia last year. No one knew about Iran here, except that they were trying to bomb Israel. And that her hometown has the same name as a wine grape, something they all thought rather funny because Muslims can’t drink.

She and David had met, of all places, in a drive in cinema. She had learnt that these were very popular when researching Western culture before emigrating but on arriving found that they were very rare now. He was the manager of Salisbury Heights Drive In and handed over her and her friends’ tickets to the first Hunger Games movie. He had paused giving them to her, like a lot of Western men tended to briefly halt their activities when she was close, a look of curiosity flashing across his face. “If you wait 5 minutes, can I show you something?”, he ventured, playfully withholding the tickets. She noticed his broad hands. He was wearing Old Spice, a quaint choice. His intent was completely clear but, somehow to her on that night, probably because she’d never been propositioned so hilariously straightforwardly and also because she found herself sinking involuntarily into his green eyes, this one seemed less than half obnoxious. Explaining to her friends soon after they’d found a place to park in front of the screen that she needed to find the bathroom, she made her way back to the ticket office, where they watched the movie for a few moments from the projection room, which comically enough had a poster of Ingleurious Basterds on the wall.

She got up off the couch and unplugged her phone from the charger, wondering what David was up to.

“Simin,” muttered her father from the other side of the living room. She turned her phone so it wasn’t visible from his direction. “Mmm?” she asked, on Whatsapp with David at the same time seeing what he was up to tomorrow. “You seem different lately azizam” he went on, this time lowering the paper so she could see his face. This also meant he could see her attending to her beloved smartphone. “If it’s another one of those disgusting, beer swilling, foul mouthed Aussie blokes with one of those loud cars you know what I’m going to say.” Simin rolled her eyes and went on typing to David. “But daddy, I love him!” she cynically retorted, walking into the kitchen to fix some coffee.

Revolution by Wil

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By Wil

Cars can teach us about revolution. Without it they are nothing. For a car to move forward, the engine and consequently the wheels must have a revolution. This is usually a trouble free matter but there a few things about how it can go wrong which can inform attempts at other types of revolutions.Firstly, don’t accelerate too much. If you do that, you will do a burn out and might get arrested. For good reason. Some burn outs can cause fire… The tyres could catch alight if you spin the wheels in one spot too long, even the engine can blow up from overheating or overwork. This will destroy your chances of producing more revolutions to ultimately achieve progress.

Second, check the road surface. If it is gravel or wet, the wheels may revolve again without causing progress.

Applied to society, a revolution may be more successful in causing progress if done with some gentleness. Otherwise it might just end up being a few rioters causing fires. Also, is the place prepared properly where you want to have a revolution? If not, the people may misunderstand. Your ideas may fail to gain traction. This may stop progress through revolution.

Glass by Wil

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By Wil

I have an uncle who is a glass artist. When I was a kid, I never really had much appreciation for his work

but I used to love walking into his studio. This is not like any other studio I have seen. It had what I can only describe as a glass studio smell. Slightly acrid. But clean. The place always had a sense of calm. Three or four rooms. Bigger than any other studio I’ve been in, come to think of it. Electric and gas kilns. Within these – fire, intense heat.

A sense of danger narrowly avoided whenever I walked into the main kiln room and saw its large lid hanging heavily. Perhaps some melted colourful artworks laying inside, cooling after having been in the violent, furnace-like temperatures all night. Melted from jagged piles of glass shards and pellets into truly beautiful rainbow coloured plates, platters, fish, panels and the like. 3 phase electrical cabling snaking to fuse boxes, the sense of a complex, technical operation that my grandfather, an electrical engineer, needed to help set up.

After growing up, I remember being proud to have him as an uncle because he had some success as an artist, with commissioned works in a number of buildings in the city. I remember my first job out of university, doing disability support pension assessments. When I walked into the foyer of the big building where I was working there were three of his works on pedestals in the middle of the space, lit up. It felt special having a connection to these large artworks which the thousands of people who used the building every day must have seen.

None of this is about the actual activity of glass artwork, though. This is because, for most of my life, I never really knew what that was like. I only ever saw the products, like a large tall fountain in his garden with many long, elegant glass rails vertically arranged so the water came out the top and trickled down them. These sorts of objects were large, impressive – but not so much as to make me keen about being a glass artist. When actual glass art is being rendered, it is one of the most intense, impressive displays of skill you can imagine. I’ve only mentioned kilns so far, but glass blowing is another main way to make glass art. Imagine this. The artist gets a metre long metal tube. A gob of molten glass is attached to the end of it. They then insert this into a white hot furnace, rotating the rod to make the glass hot again. Then comes the awesome bit. The glass artist then takes it out of the furnace, puts the other end of the tube to their mouth, and blows a bubble into the glass! Yes, hot, molten glass gets blown from the end of a metal tube. Whoever initially thought of this must have been written off as a crazy. When trying to recruit their first students, they must have been accused of looking for victims.

To watch a glass blower is to watch someone playing on the edge of a cliff. Another thing is that you touch the molten glass. Almost. You put a wad of wet padding in your hand. And roll the rod to smooth the glass and shape the bubble you are blowing. All that is between the artist and a trip to hospital is a steady hand and good communication with your assistant. You go back and forth between this blazing furnace, paying close attention so as not to make it too hot and lose all your work in one quick sorry slop of molten liquid into its white hot, roaring depths. You might want to give the bubble a distended shape by making it really hot then swinging it. Yes, the artist stands there in his studio swinging molten glass around with just the right force so it doesn’t fly off the end of the tube and hit a bystander in the face but changes shape into the makings of a nice vase. Then one might wish to add layers to the shape, like some thin strands of coloured glass followed by more shaping with a wad protected hand. A keen sense of timing is required. The artist displays a impressive awareness of how quickly the glass cools, and what can be attempted sensibly during the brief window when the glass is at the right temperature. It is amazing to watch a piece take shape from such a dangerous medium. All of the tense, precise action of a glass sculptor makes their clay, stone and bronzework counterparts look like whimps, painters like timid, mute ghosts.

They get to break the glass. It gets cracked, gently, off the end of the rod. This is done with water. Rotating the rod, you chill a thin band of the glass at the end of the tube so a fracture appears. Then it easily breaks off.

You have an artwork, born from fire, sweat and danger.

Then you get to give it a name. Then you get to put it in an exhibition. If you used a new style, you get to name the style and that will be included in the description of the work in the gallery. People look at what you have done. Large gatherings come to the opening, speeches are made, conversations, ideas, laughter and wine flow. People buy your artwork and are proud to display it in their homes and offices. You get interviewed. My uncle was even interviewed for the national archives.

This makes me think about my own life and the reasons behind my chosen profession. Now, after 2.5 years of study and 2.5 years of experience I am finding none of this excitement and notoriety. I expect none in the future. I have written a poem even about how mine is a life of unerring conscientiousness. When I was deciding what to study, I had a fear that I must avoid being looked down on. That I must avoid being seen as stupid. Even if it meant I overlooked doing what I loved. What I respected others for doing. If I’d been without that fear I probably would have done an arts PhD and become a professor.

Then I remember something my cousin, his son, said when he chose to study economics and avoid the art world, despite the benefit his father’s talent and knowledge could offer in an embarking on an arts career.  They were always poor. I guess that would definitely be too hard for my fragile ego to handle. I wanted to be rich and respected. I felt that I was neither when deciding what to study at university.

Secret by Wil

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By Wil.

Archeology can change your life. Archeology can lead to personal growth. It doesn’t even have to be impressive archeology. For those particularly prone to life-changing events like me, it can be something quite minor. Like an article about excavating a 150 year old house in a small city called Adelaide at the bottom of Australia. No, it wasn’t the house of my ancestors, I wasn’t involved in the dig – heck, all they were looking for were sets of dinner plates. So what could be so inspirational about that? How could one get excited about archeology of the mundane, about a not very ancient house in the suburbs of a backward, quiet sprawlopolis, a report on a search for crockery?

‘The Ideology of Domesticity and the Working-Class Women and Children of Port Adelaide, 1840-1890’ by Lampard talks about people striving for status and respectability in the 19th Century. I discovered the article four years ago and it has stayed in the back of my mind ever since. This is despite my not really knowing why. It’s like my mind put a bookmark in my life at that point and has patiently waited for the rest of me to catch up with its significance, and go back for a closer look. Now, in 2013, I finally have.

The article is about literally digging through deposits of possessions at a few households in a dockside working class suburb. It mentions proper archeological activities like counting how many buttons and other items related to sewing exist in the deposit. They also looked for matching sets of teacups and dinner plates in these deposits of 150 year old items at each house. They inferred a family was of higher status when they found matching sets.

Deposit is quite a lovely word to use because it comprehensively depersonalises the set of possessions of a household found at a site. It makes one think of one’s own entire set of possessions within one’s house – how would a stranger, god forbid an inquisitive archeologist keen on making historical and cross cultural comparisons, summarise my life based on what items they found in my living room and kitchen?

The idea of such an examination set off a chain of reflections for me. I acknowledged something I have known, but simultaneously tried to keep secret from myself and especially others. I am desperately seeking status. I have always been vaguely, and sometimes quite plainly, aware that I am of low status. At school as a kid, it was obvious I was not from a rich family. Growing up, there was always this annoying aunty who gave my sister and I hand-me-down clothes from her own children. These were often better than the clothes my parents bought us. As a kid, I was also quite aware of the distinct groups of people based on status. The kids from richer families hung out together. They were cooler too as they had more possessions, and the possessions were more exciting. For example they had mobile phones in high school. This was back in the late nineties, early 2000s when having a mobile was more expensive.

Observing all of these consequences of status had a big impact on me as a child. It made me quite competitive. I realise now that I became from a very young age fundamentally motivated to change my status. To improve it. To essentially be one of those rich kids. I also realise that this motivation remains with me as an adult. So what are some examples of ways I have demonstrated my obsession with status, beyond childhood?

Take my decision to study psychology. I made this decision when I was 18, probably the biggest decision I first made as an adult. I was attracted to it for two reasons, it was a high paying profession and it required a high Grade 12 score to get into. These two elements of eliteness attracted me enough to enroll. What really makes this an obvious status based decision though is that I am completely incapable of reading minds and of socialising well. I had no good reason therefore to study psychology based on my talents or interests. Psychology is also highly theoretical, there is no getting your hands dirty working on a project outdoors for example. Instead, there is lots of research methods critique and analysis of thought and sometimes emotions. If I had been honest with myself I would have avoided the degree like the plague, knowing it would make me unhappy.

But I didn’t. And I soldiered through a four year degree hating it, but not allowing myself to act on this feeling – further proving my unsuitableness for psychology come to think of it! All because I thought my status would increase. And it would have, if I had liked it enough to invest fully in it, do well enough to get into Master’s, then start a career. But because I kept secret from myself my unsuitableness for the field I never could invest in it, never could feel passionate about it, and ironically never increased my status because of it. I got a horrific job afterward doing disability support pension assessments, did that for 10 months, then quit the career altogether after getting burnt out. Yes, my brief psychology career caused mental health problems.

Are there any other examples of this secret motivation? Yes! I am here. I am an expat, paid well, though living as a foreigner. I knew no one before I came and I can’t speak the language. I left behind someone I loved, whom I was beginning to think about from a long-term perspective. These are large sacrifices for anyone to make.

I left all that behind to work for a leading global engineering firm on a massive, pioneering environmental rehabilitation project. Yep, definitely sounding like this relates to status again. For sure. Funnily enough, the father of the family that I had status issues with as a kid because we got hand-me-down clothes from them also worked in Kuwait once. I feel like I am here showing I can do what he did.

And maybe that makes me feel like I’ve made it. And maybe that makes me feel like I can finally acknowledge this secret motivation. It’s served its purpose of increasing status. Since it’s made my life hell, my subconscious mind has kindly released it to my consciousness, allowed me the chance to seek freedom. Freedom from collecting matching dinner plates for archeologists to write about in the year 2163, for example.

Again I say I am grateful for this writing club. I am grateful, too, to Lampard for changing a life through digging up old cups and plates. I am grateful for the chance to work it all out, and realise it’s all going to be ok. Also, now I’m a rich person, I can finally see what I’ve been missing out on. You know what that is? It is the annoying feeling that there are yet more rich people of even higher status above me. I’m done with this. I just want contentment now, efficiently.

Socks by Wil

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By Wil

I’ve sometimes wondered what it’d be like to write an autobiography. But then I get slightly embarrassed for even thinking about it. My life is nothing like what you see on bookshelves. So why choose the above title? Shouldn’t I be scurrying along with my average anonymous little life?

 

It was June the 10th, 2011. I was trying to be better than others, as usual. One day, I won’t be, and I’ll be ok with not being. This hasn’t happened in the past 29 years though. Anyway back to my autobiography. We were walking. It was a long walk, but we’ll get to those boring details later. The walk was 100km long, the Oxfam Trail walker Brisbane, to be completed in less than 48hrs. There were 300 plus teams of 4, and about 600 pairs of bespoke carbon fibre walking poles carried by people who wanted to show that they were really prepared.

 

Actually those can be quite useful, 4-legged animals are faster.

 

Anyway, on with my autobiography. So I’m in this walk because other people were, and it was 6pm. We’d seen a guy collapsed on the nasty hill up to checkpoint 2, another nearby throwing up. We’d crossed creeks and taken The Team Photo By The Significant Location Along The Way. I’d even proven my superiority already in finding that my work colleagues in another team were hours behind.

 

Then I discovered that I hadn’t followed the instructions about socks. Actually I knew the instructions, and ignored them like the advice to bring a thermal blanket. You see, I realised this could be the crazy tough wolf hunting/killing/running with wolves initiation-type-survival-experience-that-our-pathetic-weak-modern-man-children-don’t-get-in-this-day-and-age. And I made it like that by not bringing a thermal blanket and not wearing the correct socks. Because that’s what it was like for those young vulnerable Spartan boys fending off wolves for a month during their initiation back Before Christ. They didn’t have the right socks either.

 

We were at checkpoint 5 or so. It was dinnertime. I had blisters. I wasn’t crazy with pain, just aware of the start of something. Got taped up and on we went.

 

We were going up a hill. It was dark, maybe 11.30pm. The wind suddenly picked up and blew the trees like they were grass. It whistled up the valley, pushing like a wave. We were there, in the dark, walking as a team. Silent, together. The walk had begun.

 

We reached Checkpoint 6, at the top of the hill. This was in the middle of the bush, there was a hut. I had a cup of soup in my hands, legs clamped together, knees tucked up, arms tucked in. Keeping warm, feeling ok, smile on my face.

 

Up. Down. Put my Skins on finally to keep warm. More up, down. Other teams streaming around us, we sometimes passed other teams. All walking quietly, talking was about necessities, it was getting late. There’s something about being out in the bush, walking at 1am, head torches burning through the black, listening to your breath, adjusting your beanie so it keeps you warm down the slopes but doesn’t make you too hot on the way up the next.

 

It was around about 3am on the way to Checkpoint 7. My feet. It’s something you won’t experience without walking non-stop for 18 hours. I found myself searching for the flattest sections of the track. I found myself noticing rocks. I had to avoid them. I walked in a zigzag pattern across the track, even fine gravel began to cause pain. Then after a while it just felt like my feet were cheese and the ground was a cheese grater. If I walked on the smooth, tyre width rut in the fire trail it was fine. If I so much as stood on a twig my foot caught fire. Every step. So it was late, I was by this time actually getting tired, there were other aches and pains, it was dark. And because of an item of clothing that weighs about 100 grams, my feet felt raw.

 

It’s easy when you go into one of those cool outdoor camping stores to get all excited about the shoes. There are Goretex lined ones, air soles, wicking fibre, leather, synthetic, Vibram soles, lacing systems, suspension systems. Oh My God. It’s amazing. But they never tell you about the socks. I just wore nylon ones. And my shoes weren’t very wicked either, just Asics cross trainers. So my plan for a proper initiation/life threatening adventure was going well.

 

It got so bad that I started moaning. It wasn’t too over the top, thankfully, but I caught myself definitely moaning with pain. I didn’t really care though, when you’re at that stage of such a walk, there is no expectation of real decorum or politeness. Another example of this is that everyone was pissing. Everywhere. On the side of the track – so there was some decorum… but it was so frequent. I think I probably drank a little too much water, but I didn’t want to stop either because dehydrating is worse than having to take a piss every 5-10 minutes. It was quite funny really. By this time it was about 3:30am and we were with quite a bunch of walkers from other teams and everyone was going off the side of the track all the time just to relieve themselves.

 

It’s this sort of thing they don’t talk about in the briefing session or the brochures or the testimonials from the previous event. But for me if I knew that I’d be only more keen to do it. That’s why I’m letting you know about it. Your feet will feel on fire and you’ll be pissing every 5 minutes, basically in public, as everyone else streams past you not caring because they’re in the same state.

 

Survival.

 

Socks, they’re the difference between feeling like every step is ripping skin off and going for a nice stroll. By the 80km mark, mind you.

 

So that is my microautobiography.