Unleash the Monkey Army

Going back a few years now I first came across Dale Winbrow's poem in a book by Wayne Bennett (as much as I'm a blue rather than a maroon, I admire his work) titled "Don't die with the music in you". The title of the book itself speaks volumes to me, and periodically I look to literary works for reassurance. Here it is, as I first saw it: "When you get what you want in this struggle for self And the world makes you king for a day, Then go to the mirror and look at yourself And see what the man has to say. For it isn't your father, your mother, or wife, Whose judgement of you - you must pass, The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life, Is the guy staring back in the glass. He is the man you must please - never mind all the rest, For he's with you clear up to the end. And you have passed your most difficult and dangerous test, When the man in the glass is your friend, You can be like another and chisel a plum, And you think you...

Ordinary people leading ordinary lives. We look for the extraordinary out there to give us a sense of something more than this. But quite often we end up putting our faith in the witless, the feckless, the pointless, believing them to be something more as a result of how we come to be aware of them. Glossy and distant it seems is better than gritty and close to hand. Familiarity breeds contempt? A prophet in his homeland? Or perhaps that people on our level make us think too much about our own part in all this... Even in the drab ordinariness of it all we plant and nurture the seeds of the very thing that could lead to our own accomplishment of something grand if we would but just point in that direction. Our ability to confront and endure a job; a relationship; a friendship; a life which by all accounts is manifestly unfair and beneath us should give us a sense of pride. OK, so it is not a fate borne with good grace but while not stoic, it is an endurance that most would not ...