Shouts From Down Under

Illusionist extraordinaire of literary puzzles, with no clue

I once was lost, but now am sound, of mind and currently (this grab of time) do have a clue.

There was a time, once upon one, when I thought something unthinkable. Now that seems to be a paradoxical conundrum.

I thought there was only one world, and we as humans all existed within those parameters. Perhaps I was aware that there were two worlds, that of adults and that of children.

Then it dawned, soon after I became aware of having to pay my own expenses, and speeding fines, that there was a world of those who have, and those who have not. Another of people obeying the law and those breaking the law.
Those people making the laws, and those people frustrated by the laws the first group spent hours at their committee meetings thinking up.

Later still, in life, I became further enlightened to more worlds that exist. Worlds of employed and jobless, cashed up and flat-broke, tired and flat tyred, electricians and electrocuted, plumbers and poo-looted, bankers and bonkers, winkers and wonky thinkers.



There was the shock of the married and singlets.
Socks, undies, ties, hankies, frosty mornings and engaged toilets. Teenagers and tantrums of terrible tenacity.

I was now considered old and boring. They were and are in their world, and I am firmly (they said, thank you very much) in my old codger world of planning easier ways of doing things, shorter distances to walk, lists to remember stuff, leaving earlier to provide time for forgetting things, being frugal so others could be wasteful.

But seriously, there is another couple of worlds that do exist, that I never knew did.

One is the world of people who are hearing challenged.
I became very aware of this when trying to learn Auslan (Australian sign language) a few years ago, and understanding how they live in their world and get along just fine.

It is us people without these challenges who seem to be ignorant of this hidden world. These people talk together quite happily, and "under the radar" for the most part.
We may mistakenly think they are isolated. In a sense they are too. But it is really us that are isolated. We are shut out from their world. We don't know their language.

We might as well be on the moon as far as being aware of this hidden world goes.

Then there is another world. The second one I'm becoming aware of these last few days. Yes, I've know about people with disabilities, of course. I'm one of these.
There is a complete world where many of these people live quite happily, and separately from those unaware of them. They do have their frustrations and difficulties, problems and pain. But they are vividly alive. They are hidden from the view of many, and are far smarter that given credit.

We know from being writers, what it's like to be in a different world. Unless people have experienced sitting down and writing they may not relate to this world.

Other worlds exist quite close to us. And I feel the reason all these different worlds and groups co-exist and get along without any drama, is that people are happy to do their thing. They are happy to understand their world.

Obviously worlds overlap.

Especially when entities in one world overlap, and are so pleasant that they are out of this world.

Wouldn't it be good to write something that overlapped into all the worlds. Something unifying, something universal, something understood by all, something pleasant to every taste and ability, something that helped each world relate to all the other worlds.

What would we label that thing, that article, that idea?

Magic? Trickery? Con? Invention? Translator? iPhone App?

What if it were merely called helpfulness, comradeship, engagement, positiveness, compassion, loyalty, trust, forgiveness?

What if that thing was Love?



Sparky