Letter: Life Is Too Short

Dear friends,

Why not come to China? Stay for a year, meet some new people, experience a different culture. Or you could stay even longer, but be warned: that could make your life a lot more complicated.

I've decided that life is too short, by about 10 years or so. The problem is, there is so much I would like to do in China if I could. If I had those 10 extra years, I would certainly spend a few of them right here at SDA. After that, perhaps I could lever my new-gained experience to find another job in the same field (rather than switching careers yet again. The problems with changing jobs frequently is that you never have time to become really good at any of them). And eventually, when my chinese is close to fluent, it would be time to make my debut in high society, a big city with coffee shops and art exhibitions and sub-cultures and all the things that I miss from Australia. My sister ended her last email like this: "Have been seeing political documentaries at Luna and live music in Freo. Just to make you feel nice and homesick." I assume (hope?) that these things exist somewhere in China, but with my present level of chinese I wouldn't be able to enjoy them properly anyway.

Volunteering at a grassroots NGO in western China: after four months, I still haven't got over the shock of finding such a cool job! Sure, my workmates are not without their idiosyncracies, and I have complained before about losing my personal space, but that's all just part of the experience really. I can sum up what's good about this job in one sentence: volunteering at a grassroots NGO in western China!

On one hand, this job gives me an insight into rural China, and a better understanding of what "development" is—something which, after all, affects everyone in the world (even if they don't realise it). On the other hand, when I'm not working I'm learning things like kitchen culture: how people wash dishes, what they do with left-over food, which rag or cloth is used for what purpose, and so on. Arguably the most useless knowledge in the world, and I love it. More usefully, I'm learning to cook Qinghai food.

By now you might be thinking, if you like living in China so much then why don't you damn well stay there! But no, that's not what I want. Pleased though I am to put as much distance as possible between myself and John Howard, I do like Australia. One day I want to go back and live there, work there, heck even have a family there. And not all of these things can be put off indefinitely. I know I'm not old (actually, every time I tell people that I'm 26 I wonder where all the time has gone, but then I remember that in Australian years I'm only 25 and I breath a sigh of relief), but if you add those extra 10 years that I wish for then the total is, er, rather a lot of candles for a bachelor.

And before you ask, no, I don't want to marry a chinese girl. Not because I don't like chinese women, and not because of any over-rated "cultural differences", but because taking her away from her home to live in a foreign country would entail a lot of inconvenience, for me and even more so for her. I must admit, doing a quick count among my Australian friends I find that the majority of them are first- or second-generation migrants. Welcome to Australia guys, but I would prefer my own life to be simpler.

My parents were a bit smarter: they got married first, and then spent a few years overseas. But even so, one of the reasons they came back (after four years in South Africa) was because they wanted their children (they arrived with none, but left with two) to grow up in Australia. You only get given one short life, and sooner or later you have to decide whether you want to live it in this country, or that one.

This letter has been in my head for a while, and now that it's finally written down I find that I am already having second thoughts about everything in it! Once again I am reminded of the perils of looking too far into the future. Have faith: everything will sort itself out in the end.

Love Todd

From a 40-year old bachelor who has learned the hard way not to look further than two or three years in the future: Life is what happens while you're planning.

tuur [homepage] 26.11.2004 , 01:29

Interesting that this should lob into my In Box at the moment ... I have just celebrated my 47th birthday and feel the "youngest" I ever have in my entire life. A somewhat difficult concept to explain, but I believe I have often had some sort of hidden (hard-wired?) script running in my head that has made me think that (whatever my age at the time) I _should_ have "achieved more by now". Suddenly something has flipped and I'm now thinking "Wow! What a life it's been (big-picture-global-wise as well as on a personal level) ... and I still have probably another twenty, maybe thirty good active years in front of me!" (Yes, I know active life can go on WAY after 77, but I'm trying to be a little conservative here :-)) Mind you, I've never heard any sort of "biological clock" ticking, telling me I want to have kids of my own .... Plus, there is no room for complacency. Life remains a continual study-case of "So much to do, so little time in which to do it." ESPECIALLY when you want to CHANGE the world as much as _I_ do!!!! :-))

David Tehr [] [homepage] 26.11.2004 , 07:14

Hey, its pretty hard not to think about the future when the future holds the promise of holidays while the present only holds the promise of... yet another day at the office!

Geoff 30.11.2004 , 14:25

God bless, friend. Have a joyful, wonderful Christmas.

BoxxaRox [] [homepage] 02.12.2004 , 03:20

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