The duster smashed into the side of my head and chalk dust slowly settled on my hair, in my eyes and on my face. Too shocked and embarrassed to speak, I silently endured the laughter and sniggers of the students around me. Then a heavy, uneasy silence. A pen rolled onto the floor. Deafening. “Stand up Wilson. Go to the back corner and face the wall. Don’t move or speak or there will be more trouble.” Anger flared off his words. He was shaking with rage.
I admired many of my teachers but this one was a humourless bully and he proved it often. He was also a fitness fanatic and a squad trainer of Melbourne based commandos. He left me facing the wall and to sweat for the remainder of the lesson.
Then he was almost gleeful as he made me kneel facing him. Rising up onto his toes he brought the heavy leather strap down on my raised hands. Not a whisper from anyone. Three numbing blows then I had to reverse the hands so the damage was spread. Then he made certain that he hit my wrist veins as well so they swelled and popped like they were infected.
Dead, burning things on the end of my arms. I couldn’t use my hands for two days. That night my furious Dad wanted to see the Principal to lodge a complaint but I didn’t want that kind of on-going attention so it was dropped.
The middle of a stunning Canberra spring day and I had just finished a sixteen km training run. I ambled along the path of the house I rented feeling pleased with myself. I had a mate from Bristol staying with me for a few weeks as he travelled around Australia. In my lounge room there was Mark sitting in the lotus position silently facing the wall or, to be precise, the corner of two walls with his eyes shut. Deep silence. I was the intruder. Fascinated by his stillness I left him and his wall to have a shower.
He travelled back to the UK soon after but he left me the gift of meditation. Now I’m the one who faces the wall regularly in silence but this gives me nothing except endless good.
The wall of discontent is invisible but beware that it can strike rapidly and unexpectedly. It
is a cousin of depression and can inflict anyone without cause or preparation. You’ll be trapped and surrounded by a wall you can’t climb over or walk around. It is a scourge of modern Western life and its attacking more and more of our society.
There is little doubt that discontentment and depression will increase dramatically in coming years as our secular modern society displays the empty and meaningless lives that confront us. Tweeting and going viral won’t be enough to sustain us and nor will having lots of clothes and selfies. Beware of this wall which at times will appear to be insurmountable. Beware also that you are the one producing your own wall brick by brick.
One of the most infamous walls in history was the Berlin Wall. It was a profound example of man’s inability to compromise. The US, Russia, UK and their Allies divided a city in half by erecting a wall. It commenced as a barbed wire fence in 1961 but quickly became a huge concrete wall. (It was actually two walls with a no-mans-land of one hundred metres between them.)This bitter barrier separated a population with a shared history, religion and work ethic. It stood for almost thirty years before Germany was re-united again in 1989.
Sporting commentators regularly show their lack of knowledge as they cover live events but none more so than when describing a marathon. I’ve heard “experts” talk about “running
through the wall” and on they splutter about how “intestinal fortitude will kick in and you can recover”. They have obviously never “hit the wall”. Usually it strikes around the thirty five km mark with only seven km to race but it can hit anytime. You can’t run through
“The Wall”. You can’t climb over it or run around it. It’s all over because your body has run out of fuel. The tank is bone dry. You can walk to the finish but it is a running race and your race is done.
Invisible walls are prevalent. We are masters at erecting them around ourselves.
Barricades abound as we lock ourselves behind high gates and higher walls. Many of
us don’t even get out of our cars until we are locked away for the night in our “safe
houses”. Yet all walls come down in time or crumble to dust including the Great Wall of
China (also described as the longest cemetery on earth) and Hadrian’s Wall
dividing Scotland from the Romans. Now, of course, we have the U.S. President
trumpeting on about the wall along the Mexican border. Does anyone ask what we
are doing to one another? Protecting ourselves or imprisoning ourselves? Some will be locked in while others will be locked out. More will be apart inside the wall and we haven’t asked why and we certainly haven’t established who will be paying in the long run.
Australia doesn’t need a wall as we have a moat surrounding us. But the craziest wall (or fence) on earth is along the Indian and Bangladesh border. Over 4100 kms (2500 miles)
long it was erected 1947 by the Indians to keep out their neighbours. It is patrolled by armed Indian guards and is comprised of barbed and razor wire. Within the fences are 50,000 inhabitants who have been locked into enclaves which are invisible on maps or even from the ground. The result is that all these people are stateless. The two countries did try to fix the problem of stateless enclaves around 1974 but both refused to allow the other to administer these areas so the standoff continues. In spite of increases in information and technology mankind hasn’t advanced very much in understanding and trusting one another. Much easier to put up another wall and the never ending costs of maintaining it.
Gold Coast, September 2017
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