“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact it falls in with our instinctual desires.” Freud

The wide-eyed black woman, dressed in her Sunday best of twin set and pearls, gripped mercilessly onto the handle bars of the bus as though she was clutching on for life over a trap door into the fiery flames of hell.

The sharp bends the driver took didn't deter her from barking out passages from the bible to a small and mostly apathetic yet no less incredulous bunch of bemused passengers; mainly pensioners and teens. I was compelled by her sudden and frightening imperiousness which betrayed her very ordinary and warm facial expressions. She may as well have been invisible though, except to her young daughter who sat before her looking up at the pathetic figure shouting to be heard.

This incident reminds me of another, a few years prior, when on a train heading back from Kew, a middle-aged man standing in the aisle started what can only be described as apocalyptic messianic raving – you know the sort – to such a creepy extent that it reduced a young child in the seat beside us to tears. I was incensed enough to gather the whole carriage into a jubilant sing-song of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (it was Christmas after all) to drown out his anger-filled sermon. It worked a treat, and only made me wonder why born-again people make you wish they'd never been born at all.

This is the aspect of religion which is anathema to me; certain fanatics insistence on ramming it down our throats rather than retaining their beliefs as a personal and private matter. Common sense would tell you the former is the wrong method in which to extol any benefit of religion. That is, of course, if there is. Atheist and philosopher Alain De Botton seems to think so. In his new book 'Religion for Atheists', he believes in the need for religion's host of “consoling, subtle or just charming rituals” to restore a sense of community in a fractured society. Although ultimately a “convenient fiction”, he says religion “teaches us to be polite, to honour one another, to be faithful and sober.” It's essential, he suggests, for promoting morality and instructing us in the “charms of community.”

But for all the many optimistic arguments put forward to justify individual belief systems, there is also, just as pervasive, many a dissenting voice. I think in anyone's life comes a time when one starts to think deeper about the bigger questions, particularly in light of world events. And when those feeble explanations given to us in our formative years just don't add up, its inevitable to look beyond scripture and medieval texts, and open our minds. Sometimes though, those fanciful and farfetched religious tales, and the people who insist on promoting them, leave a bitter aftertaste. An aggressive atheism is often the subsequence.

These are hard times for those who question mainstream religion. We live in a world inflamed by the Godly; from rabble-rousing Christian fundamentalists to Muslim extremists. Scepticism, which was endemic back in the 60s and 70s has been replaced with the modern day God Squad and while the problem rests mainly in America and the Middle East , its effects resonate globally. With this new advent of fundamentalism in the post 9/11 era, its only the brave or foolhardy who risks its wrath.

In his book 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon' writer and intellectual non-believer Daniel Dennett admits: “By asking for an accounting of the pros and cons of religion, I risk getting poked in the nose or worse. Yet I persist. Why? Because I believe it is very important to look carefully at the question: are people right that the best way to live a good life is through religion.” Both him, and Lewis Wolpert in his book 'Six Impossible Things: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief' don't hold back in being outspoken about the subject and not so much float carefully in these troubled waters but lunge head first into what amounts to a polluted bog of piety. Both look at religion as if it were an unwanted growth. “I know of no good evidence for the existence of God” writes Wolpert, a developmental biologist. "I am an atheist reductionist materialist."

Nonetheless, Wolpert and Dennett provide new insights into understanding belief in God by looking at it from an evolutionary perspective. For Wolpert, religion is a by-product of the mental changes our species experienced as we evolved from grunting apemen to reasoning Homo sapiens. In short, it has much to do with our urge to make casual connections, find easy answers and seek explanations for bewildering occurrences. “An inability to find causes for important events and situations lead to mental discomfort, even anxiety, so there is a strong tendency to make up a casual story” he says. “Ignorance about important cause is intolerable. Our ancestors needed to account for events rapidly even when they had little knowledge.”

Emerging from this 'urge' came the creation of deities, which fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Thus, God wasn't just invoked just to explain thunderstorms or shooting stars to a species that was evolving a deep need to understand the natural world but also to explain our very existence and further, the creation of the universe. Belief could be seen as a form of mental protection against the intolerable reality of not knowing; the absence of fact. And there is, and always will be, a vast spectrum of unanswerable questions.

So why did religious ideas stick and persist, in the face of more convincing explanations? Dennett put it down to the idea of memes; first outlined by Richard Dawkins 30 years ago. Memes are persistent convincing ideas (think mental viruses) that have evolved and passed from one individual to another, from one generation to the next. “It is not surprising religion survives” says Dennett. “It has been pruned and revised and edited for thousands of years, with millions of variants extinguished in the process.”

Surely though there has to be more to religion that mere evolutionary opportunism. After all, it clearly does not change to keep up with the times. Let's look at the Bible; a book of fables? A morality instruction guide? Or a lifestyle guide for surviving the vicissitudes of the Levant thousands of years ago. It condones slavery (Leviticus), exonerates murder for not observing the Sabbath (Exodus); and reviles those with eye defects. Leviticus is not a book for the faint hearted. Nevertheless, hundreds of millions of decent, law abiding people claim every word is true.

Is it any wonder Richard Dawkins claimed the God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Thank 'God' then for people like him, and the late Christopher Hitchens, both of whom spent a career packing a wallop against the God-obsessed. It's turned the tables at long last after years of us having to endure the hysterical tooting by the rigidly religious self-righteous (or the Unco Guid as Robert Burns called them.)

It seems de rigour of late to seek alternative explanations other than Jesus and the big man in the clouds, and this bourgeoning thirst for more clues can only be a good thing. Though it's unlikely things will change. The believers will continue to believe, and the doubters will continue to doubt. I guess us sceptics can live with that. No doubt though, I and the great majority of other heretics, will still be subject to the vociferous few who insist on proselytising. Whether on buses, or trains, or on the local high street, where only last Saturday my ear drum was almost shot by mic-wielding teenagers screaming about “going to hell” and cursing us to eternal damnation for our 'sins', in a fashion akin to a more socially acceptable Tourettes syndrome. I'm reminded of a quote by Philip Roth who described these types as “hideous”, before adding “I'm exactly the opposite of religious. I'm anti-religious. I find religious people hideous. I hate religious lies. It's all a big lie. It's not a neurotic thing, but (it is) the miserable record of religion. I don't even want to talk about it, it's not interesting to talk about the sheep referred to as believers. When I write, I'm alone. It's filled with fear and loneliness and anxiety - and I never needed religion to save me.”

Roth's view, like many others, laments the diminished role played by reasoned debate. As we know, when logic and reason are withdrawn from the public sphere, a vacuum is created into which ideology and extremism rush in. To me, Satan is a metaphor for that dark force that is within all of us. We are all capable of employing such tactics to recruit others into the army of darkness which operates within that satanic framework. By this I mean the the misuse of power, the domineering, the brain-washing, the promotion of bigotry, injustice, discrimination, subjugation, inequality and the restricting of human rights, and at worst, violence and war, all in the name of, and justified by, religion. The force takes no responsibility for the suffering it causes.

If people can resist that dark pull, then people can take from, and be consoled by, the best bits of religion so to speak; the rituals, the art, the meditative qualities, the architecture, the community aspect, and leave the rest to those who wish to worship an actual God and become fixated on the small print. This takes us back to De Botton's argument: “Can we take things from religion in order to remake society and fill in the gaps that are missing” he asks hopefully, while convincing us that religion provides a message of love and cohabitation while acting as a utility to deal with fracture in societies and all the problems which beset us; whether it be death, pain, loneliness and fear. In short, its saving grace is to act as a good host of a party; getting everyone together in a room, engendering a community spirit and allowing everyone's sociability the chance to flourish. He concludes: “Religion makes us work out our minds in a way in which otherwise would atrophy. It puts us into a cosmic perspective, under the stars, and allows us to see we are a tiny thing in a much bigger picture, where our worries are very small, and insignificant, compared to the universe; a cosmos that's been around a long time, and will continue to be long after we're gone.”

And lets not forget death. Believing in a higher spiritual realm is reassuring. It satisfies a desire to be reassured that if you have a religious life, you’ll get to that great oasis in the sky. Which is surely better than the unknown, and the uncertainty that just perhaps when you die, you die, and life will have been just, well, a great joke. People embrace religion because its less depressing than it would be if it were all a conspiracy which has merely snowballed. That is the sad conclusion.

I didn't notice the day light fade. It happened inconspicuously, leaving a swathe of meat pink sky over the Hollywood Hills. There's a buzz in town, for Oscar preparations are taking place behind the metal railings on the sidewalk. I write to stay awake; jet-lag slowly picking at me and my eyelids becoming heavier. Soon I'll sleep but first perhaps I'll take a drive up to Laurel and Tobago Canyon in my silver Pontiac. I'll cruise the anfractuous roads of the elite neighbourhoods up there, and on Mulholland drive I'll step out to absorb the calm dusky night of Suburban Hollywood contrasted with the frenetic sounds and lights of Los Angeles spread out in the valley below.

Freed from the systematic tedium of work for five weeks, I've come to LA with no real purpose or plan other to see where I end up. In my mind I'll drive east across states and desert, taking in the Grand Canyon enroute. I'll arrive in solitude there, like an early pioneer, and see the greatest natural wonder of all; two billion years of the earths history, seen through its red layered rock, remnants of oceans, swamps and giant desert dunes. It will be awe inspiring and liberating.

The iconography of America's West had always been a seductive proposition. As a child, I eschewed the past-time of pinning posters of anodyne singers on my wall, opting instead for masterly portraits of American landscapes; epic vistas of verdant prairies, lightning storms over bleak highways and arid deserts with straight endless roads like black masking tape disappearing into stormy horizons. Such photographs were enticing by their promise of freedom; of expanse, mystery and beauty. For a young sequestered teen growing up in the suburban north west, they awoke something far greater than that of the forced smile of some vapid pop star.

Through my teens I hungrily devoured a diet of books which mythologised the great American road trip by the likes of Kerouac and Hunter S Thompson. I'd watch films like Duel, Feris Bueller's Day Off and Thelma and Louise. For me, the American road came to life through those photographs on my wall, those movies and that evocative prose by the aforementioned writers. While friends see the road as monotonous and functional, a path in which to travel from one place to another, to me it has been appealing by its offer of possibility; the unexpected and the ever changing. The ultimate rites of passage; allegorical and spiritual.

**

I'm floating in a hot spa outdoors on a hill-side in San Luis Obispro, 192 miles north of Los Angeles. Night fell hours ago and now the lights from Highway 101 in the valley below are ablaze. The magenta and amaranth pink pool lights illuminates the ash which is falling from the sky due to the nearby raging forest fires. It's a magical scene.

A quarter of the way into the Californian road trip I've pulled into the The Madonna Inn for the night. Located on the Central Coast, it's reputation precedes it, and for good reason. Established by Alex Madonna in 1958, this old world inn is a wonderfully eccentric fantasy palace (once described as the hotel equivalent of Barbie and Fred Flintstone's love child) and a legendary local landmark. Every room inside is individually themed; garishly bold, kitsch, loud. Flamboyant is an understatement. They have names like Daisy Mae, Jungle Rock, Hearts and Flowers. I choose the Floral Fantasy for its evocation to childhood nights spent at my late grandmothers.

In LA I'd stayed at The Standard Hotel, on Sunset Strip; a white sixties modernist building and the epitome of insouciant LA cool. Perfect for a few nights to introduce you to this most famous of towns. A large waterless fish-tank housing a bikini-clad woman nonchalantly reading a book sits behind the reception desk overseeing the swish interior of the lobby. Yes, welcome to Hollywood.

You'll know the Beverly Wilshire hotel from the film Pretty Woman. Standing regally at the end of Rodeo Drive, and home for A-list glitterati in bygone decades; Warren Beatty, Judy Garland and Jack Nicholson to name but a few. Rumour had it that wondering off the street and up to the roof top terrace pool and bar wouldn't be a problem. And so the first day was spent on plumped up lemon sun-loungers where friendly wait staff buzzed around eager to provide complimentary strawberry lemonades and frozen grapes; a great jet-lag comforter.

**

The search for a motel marked the first night in Santa Barbara; a town resplendent with the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture giving rise to the thought one is in an affluent Spanish resort; all boutique shops, galleries and pricey restaurants. Like Sitges, but with more obesity. Perched on the stretch of coast often referred to as the American Riviera it's easy to see why it became the winter destination for the titans of post Civil War America. The Santa Ynez mountains rise dramatically behind the city marking a famously scenic backdrop to the town.

After a hearty lunch at Brophy Bros fish restaurant on the harbour, the road awaited and we headed north to Solvang, founded in 1911, and offering a taste of Denmark thanks to the Danes who settled there having escaped the harsh winters back home. The town is noted for its traditional Danish style; all mini windmills, quaint little shop fronts and even a replica of the famous Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen. I discovered from an elderly gent in a local bakery that Highway 1 along the Big Sur coast is closed due to the forest fires. The highlight of the road trip was doomed. Could this be the end of the dream before I’d even begun?

**

Having left San Luis Obispo rejuvenated, if not a little startled by the Madonna Inn, the next stop was Hearst Castle near San Simeon, the palatial estate built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst high up on a hill overlooking the Pacific and now a state historical monument and national landmark. Formally named “La Cuesta Encantada”, the Enchanted Hill, or informally “the ranch”, it covers 90,000 square feet and was designed by architect Julia Morgan as a pastiche of the historic architectural styles Hearst admired in his travels around Europe as a youngster. Like a more flamboyant Rupert Murdoch in his day, Hearst was also the alleged inspiration behind classic movie Citizen Cane.

**

We did make Big Sur eventually, albeit after an inland detour through Salinas County and onto Carmel from where we ended up taking Highway 1 South as far as it would allow. Minimal development and mostly state parkland or national forest has ensured that this part of America remains one of the most beautiful and dramatic stretches of ocean coastline in the world. The Big Sur is specifically the Santa Lucia Mountain range and notable for its redwood forests, parks, hiking trails and desolate beaches. Point Sur lighthouse, built in 1889 and perched atop an impressive 361 ft high monolith in the ocean, assured me we'd arrived at the climax of our trip. And it was beautiful.

We pressed on going South travelling along thin straight roads, white knuckle blind corners, sweeping curves and cascading bends. And onwards across Bixby Creek Arch Bridge, one of the most photographed bridges in the world, past the Big Sur shops where we stopped and happened upon a local woman, a rancher who drove in a beat up pick-up truck with her dog, and bemoaned the terrible events of the last week, berating the local affluent denizens of the area for not doing enough given the state of emergency.

**

For a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of a California condor reaching lofty heights before disappearing into ocean mist but I think it was a trick of the light. The end of the dream was a road sign truncating our grand plans, like an ominous figure tempting us ever so slightly further to see what's around that next corner beyond yet spitefully denying with three short words: road ahead closed.

**

Yosemite marked the end of the trip and the penultimate chapter of a long held dream. 150 miles east of San Francisco, the park itself covers an area of 761,266 acres (1,189 square miles) reaching across the West of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Designated a world heritage site in 1984 and recognised for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves and biological diversity, most tourists focus on the valley. Many opt for hiking trails, but we hired a raft and spent an afternoon floating languorously down the Merced River which runs through the valley, stopping along the way for swimming and sunbathing, the latter on a sandy beach near Sentinel Bridge with its terrific view of Half Dome.

Before leaving the valley I took a walk up to the rocks at Bridalveil Fall, which flows from a U-shaped hanging valley that was created by a tributary glacier. The Ahwahneechee tribe believed that the waterfall was home to an evil spirit, Pohono, which guarded the entry to the Valley and that those leaving must not look directly into waterfall lest they be cursed. They also believe inhaling the mist of the waterfall would improve ones chances of marriage.

**

Oh, and I did make it to the Grand Canyon in the end. We travelled there from Vegas. Vegas is perhaps best enjoyed from up high, if only to avoid pavement trolls flicking cards promoting bikini babes at you. 1,149 feet high is a good enough escape, at Stratosphere, the tallest observation tower in the US with not only breathtaking 360 degrees of Vegas, but decorated with a hair raising roller coaster ride on the top (I declined). For the more refined, The Mix atop THEhotel at Mandalay Bay is a rare find and ideal for evening cocktails. 64 stories high, this restaurant and lounge is the brainchild of Alain Ducasse and the neighbouring glitzy bar and outdoor patio with outstanding views of the strip and beyond is a must-see for any visitor.

Gone are the halcyon days of first class Vegas night-life entertainment. The Rat Pack, Elvis and the like have long since made way for chart-dodging has-beens (Matt Goss), tribute acts and marquee style cabaret. Since Bette Midler had ended her run, and Cher was yet to begin her umpteenth farewell tour, we saved our money.

Vegas is the kind of place where one must subsume their idea of what civilisation really is. The place is the king of illusions, in a fake reality where artifice is paramount. Suffice to say, one quickly tires of it. Hence, 3 days is enough. And here must live the most illiterate of America because to find a newspaper or magazine was akin to finding Bin Laden among the slot machines. The town's disdain for the printed word resulted in a laborious trek to the Barnes and Noble store on the edge of town near the airport. Hasn't anyone spotted the gap in the market?

**

As for the Canyon, there's a sort of incredulity that arises when one is confronted with a wonder of the world. More so when it's not within the frame of reference one ordinarily associates it with ie. Red rock and blue sky. On this occasion, snow, and lots of it! Metallic clouds dumped the white stuff on us until we felt we were on a foggy Yorkshire Moor. And coming after a 5 hour drive, it seemed terribly spiteful of the cosmos. Eventually though the cloud lifted and parted to reveal an unbelievable awesome sight which will be ingrained on my mind forever.

**

People take to the road for numerous reasons; to escape, discover, to find the truth, or just to find themselves. Whether that particular road is travelled in hopeful anticipation or melancholy, ambivalence or joy, many have taken the trip before us and many will do so long after we’re gone. We collect our memories along the way, and they’ll occasionally flash before us as we journey to the end of our very own road. A travel writer once summed it up as thus: “The road is both a fact and an allegory of liberation, and you feel both as you move over it.” As I travelled that journey, I felt it. Those wall photographs become a reality. I stepped into those celluloid scenes, and felt the wind from thousands of years of history. The dream was lived. Normal life back home beckoned. But I knew my own life was a little richer for the experience.

"Hmmmm", she began. Which was most disconcerting, followed by: "It's a bit near the knuckle isn't it." I assumed by this she meant it was too close to the truth. She had a point of course, but I responded by quoting Phillip Roth, as you do, who claimed that "the actuality" is more interesting than fiction. Fifty years ago he made a statement about living in an age in which the imagination of the novelist lies dormant before what he knows he will read in tomorrow's newspapers. He felt real life is "continually outdoing our talents (as writers)" and this infuriating development is "even a kind of embarrassment to ones own meagre imagination."

This perspective back then was rather prescient since fifty years later you only have to watch the news to realise. The main headline today for instance being the trial of Josef Fritzl who kept his daughter locked in a cellar dungeon for 24 years; raped and abused her, and fathered seven of his own grand-children with her. Then it was on to another cheery tale about  an everyday middle-aged couple in suburbia that fostered a young male teenager. The boy went on to rape and abuse the couples other young children. The final news story I should mention to justify the point has been the inevitable canonisation of Jade Goody as she deteriorates daily with cancer.

Emerging into the public consciousness from the council estates of Bermondsey thanks to the popular cultural power of reality TV (Big Brother), she became famous for, well, being thick. Reality TV has a habit of glorifying the stupid to lamentable proportions. However, her care-free lack of self-consciousness ingratiated her to the public and later she showed a shrewd business acumen which saw her build a multi-million pound empire around this comical, yet flawed, figure. Then we were privy to her spectacular fall from grace as the hysterical puritans of the Great British public deemed her to be a 'racist' bully whilst back on the aforementioned 'celebrity' version of the show. Oh, the irony.

Time, contrition, and now cancer has redeemed her, ensuring her legacy as an icon of the vacuous D-rated celebrity set, and she'll die, at 27, a Warholian-reality TV superstar and dare I say, icon. You couldn't make this stuff up. When Roth said that the culture continually creates characters which are the envy of any novelist, Goody is a prime example. But I also can't help but think of my actress friend whose life plays out often in a way which would make Eastenders seem like one of the more banal instalments of The Archers.

In a recent interview to promote her latest autobiographical novel, Diana Athill makes no apologies for only wanting to write memoir. She said: "I have never been moved to write about anything but my own experience (a narrowness I regret but am unable to remedy), and including the very personal is simply necessary."  It is a narrowness I too seem only capable of.
Writing, after all, is truth-telling. So when explaining to MB why the play may seem too close to home for comfort, I told her all this and concluded by informing her of something John Berger once said, that was: "Imagination is not, as is sometimes thought, the ability to invent; it is the ability to disclose that which exists." She seemed satisfied with my perhaps lame excuses and decided she'd like the part.

]]> http://www.robertince.com/journal/three-minutes-slow/feed/ 0 http://www.robertince.com/journal/ute/ http://www.robertince.com/journal/ute/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:28:14 +0000 robert http://www.robertince.com/?p=398 To beat the post-New Year comedown, I hire a Ute at Taren Point and drive 3 hours down the South coast to Sussex where friends of MH have a holiday retreat. The guys are already there and have been since before the festive season. It's the first weekend of 2009, and after the tumult of the holiday period, I jump at the invite to escape.

Sussex is on the Shoalhaven Coast, south of Nowra and Jervis Bay. The lights are on my side as I leave Sydney, not  that I was in any rush since the heat wave of the last few days had created a soporific urgency. The afternoon had been so hot even the bitumen was bubbling. Tears of sweat trickled down my inner arms in rhythm to Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits that escaped through the open window. It was nice to be back in the driving seat; alone, free.

The town is charming in that small town kind of way; a tiny coastal resort where fishing enthusiasts, surfers and the retired go for weekend breaks. The only nightlife on offer is in the local RSL club, and on Sunday mornings the local Op-shop becomes the main hive of activity, before everyone moves on to amble around the outdoor market, stopping to take brunch on the bakery’s deck, as we did.

The people in the house are friendly and hospitable, and at once I feel welcome. I'd met them before, but only in passing. Adjacent to the house is a double garage; one housing tools, a green hammock, and an old orange speedboat, while the other one has been transformed into a holiday flat, which is where I stay. There are bunk beds against the wall, beside them two singles pushed together, a small shower and toilet room separated from the bedroom with an old floral curtain. The open plan kitchen and living room is inviting and cosy with a 70s decor; a lime green velour sofa sits under a large floor lamp, it's shade a burnt orange with tassles, and an old painting of a desolate beach during a twilight storm hangs lopsided. It’s a home away from home.

In the mornings I make valiant attempts at surfing on the nearby Cudmirrah Beach while in the afternoon we go sunbathing or fishing on the inlet. I catch nothing of interest, naturally. At dusk I go into the woods to see the wild kangaroos that come inland to graze. They're wonderful creatures, particularly this close and in their natural habitat. It’s a picture postcard scene as the rays from the falling sun shoot like laser beams conspicuously through the branches of the gum trees.

We shun the RSL each night in favour of a BBQ in the garden, playing guitar and harmonica around the fire into the early hours. At one point I overdo it on a doobie and end up on that hammock, watching entranced as the flying kamikaze beetles bounce into the fluorescent lighting strip before plunging to their deaths on and around my lifeless state.

I drive back to Sydney stopping along the way at Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay where the sand is white as talcum powder and the breeze like hot air from a hair dryer. I avoid Berry, where I'd hit traffic coming down, instead taking the scenic route along the quieter coastal road of Grand Pacific Drive; all hair pin bends and sweeping cliffs, joined at the bottom by the wild pacific ocean, which spreads into the twinkling horizon like blue leather . I continue the journey to a soundtrack of Hawaiian classics from a cassette I'd bought at the Op-shop, heading north through Bolong (Aboriginal for Bullock) then past Mount Coolangatta and through Girrengong and Kiama, before reaching the city at sunset.

Four years previously I'd been here with LG who lambasted my cowardice, coercing me to jump in. He was prone to pushing me out of long-standing comfort zones promising me that by challenging myself I would invariably benefit on some more fulfilling and profound level and just perhaps my soul would flourish. Back then I'd mistaken his use of the term soul for ego. But now I understand. He was such a character that for long after his departure his name became an adjective for certain behaviour types in others.

Recently I'd thought how every chapter of my life had been defined by my relationships; all the people who'd come and gone. From those who made a significant impact on the emotional Richter scale to those who barely registered. All seemingly at first appealing due to their joie de vivre, yet slowly exposing the darker traits born from tragedy, sadness and insecurity; The qualities, I suppose, which make us all human.

On the plane over I'd read an interview with an ageing Hollywood movie star who ruminated on his past affairs and his inability to have had a long successful marriage. He'd come to terms with it by saying mourn not for the various losses, but celebrate all those many great loves one has had, as by doing so makes you more accepting of your defeats and failures.

I've digressed. Knee deep in the bracing water I notice a sinewy man with a tattooed torso, half submerged in the water and hanging precariously off the fencing with one hand, holding with the other a large silver snapper. He hollers to a friend in board-shorts clutching a fishing rod on the jetty before they both turn in my direction eyeing me suspiciously, amused no doubt by my reluctance to move. It galvanizes me and I dive in. The coldness engulfs my body yet awakens me.

Under water ones thoughts migrate inward. The mind starts freeing itself until all that remains is that which is visible through the cerulean lens of the goggles. The coral and barnacle mounts on top of itself like brown prefabs in some deserted township. Under the surface I swim further to the wire fencing from which undulating algae unfurls like a fist opening and closing.

The water is warm now. I can't breathe. But I am free.

It's easy, and perhaps natural, to become oblivious to the beauty all around us, instead preoccupying ourselves with the futile and faintly ridiculous. You know the things; those irrelevant and ultimately time-consuming concerns which we allow to pollute our minds which drives us to distraction. Here, each night, the song of the cicadas soothes me into unconsciousness while the shrieking of the cockatoos in the eucalyptus trees brings me back to life. In doing so the first thing my eyes slowly come into focus upon is the agapanthus outside the patio window, its lilac leaves nodding in the breeze and its pleasant fragrance seeping in through the mesh of the screen doors.

My sister and her family live in a large house rising into the hillside overlooking the Port Hacking River, an hour south of Sydney. Even its name, Lilli Pilli, evokes a fabled isle in an exotic far away land. Being in possession of what one could describe a hermitage gene, this is an idyllic monasterial retreat in which to escape to. And here it is where I've come, ensconced in this leafy eucalyptus haven, to reflect, lick my wounds and yes, perhaps convalesce.

I'm the first to rise here. Jetlag, afterall, does not discriminate and while the neighbourhood sleeps, I take my coffee to  the balcony to watch the day break over the bay; the kaleidoscopic colours of morning iridescent with the exotic hue of Australian Summer. For an aesthete like me, its a theatrical experience. I'm reminded of a quote from Goethe who said: "A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of Spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine."

That is until my niece's tiny footsteps hastily approach, like a herd of baby elephants in the Serengeti, thundering towards me shattering at once the tranquility. Normal life commences.

It was 26 degrees on Christmas Day, which is mild for this time of year. The turkey was barbecued and we ate outdoors. The typical British post-dinner slump in front of the telly is replaced here by taking to a lilo in the pool in languorous fashion. By 4pm I'd yielded to my lassitude and sneaked into my room to nap. When I woke it was pitch dark and the house was silent. I lay motionless on the bed, transfixed by the fairy lights wrapped around the railings of the pool twinkling into, and out of, life. I was too exhausted to move. I thought about the vivid dreams. The train had missed the platform. I was walking on the tracks to reach it. I was taking risks. It's meaning seemed clear.

The house was empty when I got up. I ventured out, disoriented, for some air, and down the hill to where the land meets the shore of the river, upon which all the affluent denizens of the bayside suburb moor their boats with names like Lady Blue, Fantasea and Cabo Wabo. I tried to be only with my senses, soaking outwards the beauty and savouring the magical night. I sat on a bench and looking out, saw a lonely buoy on the other side of the river which occasionally flashed it's white light across the water, creating every so often a glistening silver road on the black surface.

The hillside houses were all lit up, and spoaradic laughter and voices echoed out from within and down to where I sat. A boat came around the corner from Buccaneer Bay, it's music disturbing the peace, it's red lights throwing a section of the water a deep cerise in it's wake, before disappearing around another corner. Then, silence again, save for the creaking of the boats. The looming blackness of the Royal National Park across the river was as dark as the water that meets it on the other side. With a relentless flow the warm breeze flooded through my emptiness and in that moment, on that bench, knew myself to be totally alone. So powerful was the feeling, that it had to be accepted rather than evaded.

I thought about the year, and how nearing it's end is a relief. How the latter half was like the slow culmination of a trashy novel's final chapter; predictable revelations, masks unveiled and villains banished. And a brighter ending in the sunshine; not so much a 'happy ever after' but more an inevitable denouement.

Some novels betray us by way of their enticing covers or inviting premise. Yet delve further and before you know, its too late to have left it on the shelf. Before long, the content becomes meaningless, carried along by one-dimensional characters, personified by arrogance, self-absorption and phony turns of phrase. Sitting there I decided there are better books to read, regardless of how popular the others often are. But regret is futile. This is how it was meant to be. And it was with a weary recognition that I saw that if this could be endured, then anything could be.

I also thought about the blessings of family and friendship, and how every moment with them counts. I thought about the comfort of strangers. And how just one touch can revive you. Earlier I'd put my hand on the bourgeoning stomach of expectancy where a tiny heart beats inside. I marveled at the thought of new life there, growing slowly. It reminded me everything is cyclical, not just happiness. My introspection was limitless, but it was not an epiphanic moment, merely a wistful reflection on what I have known all along. I was sure my family would have returned by now so I walked back up to the house along the empty street, as a kookaburra in a tree somewhere let out a frenzied laugh, like a hysterical monkey in the confines of a zoo. It seemed even the wildlife was responding to my lot. But this time I laughed back.