In no particular order ..
I suppose that the motive behind this posting is a brain dump of some description, or, to be more precise, a vent out of ideas that have grown congested since my last posting to the point where the burden of carrying them inside the gray matter of one "Persian", as one very close person used to refer to me, became both weary and bogged down with carrying them around.
While on the subject of that man, giant, controversial, up-and-in-your-face, it's worth mentioning that he has perhaps touched my very being in a way that I very much doubt he ever realised or, knowing him, would have been too precarious of his own apparent detachment from everyone and everything around him to entertain - a state of conscious or deliberate encapsulation. In any case .. just being around him, having the chance to rub shoulders with him has been a privilege, and without being conceited, coming from me that's quite a personal achievement of admission.
Still, no regrets admitting that or, indeed, standing by any particular path I have chosen to tread, usually the less travelled, usually the least popular and almost always with devastating and disastrous personal consequences. Perhaps the one bitter hint of times gone by is that no matter how hard I have tried, it has proven an almost colossal undertaking of difficulty to win him back some how. I don't know if the right expression is admiration, but the encounter with this giant on a professional level has made me rethink entire parts of my own approach, values, evaluations and courses of action on both a personal and professional level too.
I feel like I'm babbling, but what the hell ! this little space has become my only refuge of escape in the midst of all the rubble I feel being snowed under.
Any way, back to him .. since our very first meeting, there was I, surrounded by "hostiles", in a manner of speaking, who grew in number and aggression with every successful delivery of a work item, however small, being met by this ever present, seemingly irate, sharp, straight-talking Aussie, who had asked my arch rival at the time whether I had "cocked up yet", and the ice was broken forever.
This is to you SM, and you know exactly how I feel about you, and how much of an admiration I have for your person, and perhaps little you know how much I feel the battles you fight inside of you to keep your sanity, your sincerity, your decency, and yes: your emotions from ever surfacing, perhaps even to those closest to you like your equally wonderful family; logical to the last, even when loosing your temper at the little people the likes of PF and EW; rational to the last even when having the biggest go at me and shots being fired left right and centre; and composed to the last tiny bit of reason arguing for and against an outsider, a foreigner in every sense, like me, to deliver when the other failed. And here is one for the record: never once have I taken a word you said to me lightly, and never once have I been more hurt than when they got to you after they have run my post over, and the flag was down.
May you live a wonderful, fulfilling life .. always .. may you, wherever you go, be the giant that I have come to respect more than I have ever respected anyone, and love like a brother that had been hiding for millennia somewhere, like Enkidu, shining his light in Gilgamesh's quest for immortality, and the tragedy that was to prove his downfall. Here's to you, from humble me.
Always,
"The Persian"
I suppose that the motive behind this posting is a brain dump of some description, or, to be more precise, a vent out of ideas that have grown congested since my last posting to the point where the burden of carrying them inside the gray matter of one "Persian", as one very close person used to refer to me, became both weary and bogged down with carrying them around.
While on the subject of that man, giant, controversial, up-and-in-your-face, it's worth mentioning that he has perhaps touched my very being in a way that I very much doubt he ever realised or, knowing him, would have been too precarious of his own apparent detachment from everyone and everything around him to entertain - a state of conscious or deliberate encapsulation. In any case .. just being around him, having the chance to rub shoulders with him has been a privilege, and without being conceited, coming from me that's quite a personal achievement of admission.
Still, no regrets admitting that or, indeed, standing by any particular path I have chosen to tread, usually the less travelled, usually the least popular and almost always with devastating and disastrous personal consequences. Perhaps the one bitter hint of times gone by is that no matter how hard I have tried, it has proven an almost colossal undertaking of difficulty to win him back some how. I don't know if the right expression is admiration, but the encounter with this giant on a professional level has made me rethink entire parts of my own approach, values, evaluations and courses of action on both a personal and professional level too.
I feel like I'm babbling, but what the hell ! this little space has become my only refuge of escape in the midst of all the rubble I feel being snowed under.
Any way, back to him .. since our very first meeting, there was I, surrounded by "hostiles", in a manner of speaking, who grew in number and aggression with every successful delivery of a work item, however small, being met by this ever present, seemingly irate, sharp, straight-talking Aussie, who had asked my arch rival at the time whether I had "cocked up yet", and the ice was broken forever.
This is to you SM, and you know exactly how I feel about you, and how much of an admiration I have for your person, and perhaps little you know how much I feel the battles you fight inside of you to keep your sanity, your sincerity, your decency, and yes: your emotions from ever surfacing, perhaps even to those closest to you like your equally wonderful family; logical to the last, even when loosing your temper at the little people the likes of PF and EW; rational to the last even when having the biggest go at me and shots being fired left right and centre; and composed to the last tiny bit of reason arguing for and against an outsider, a foreigner in every sense, like me, to deliver when the other failed. And here is one for the record: never once have I taken a word you said to me lightly, and never once have I been more hurt than when they got to you after they have run my post over, and the flag was down.
May you live a wonderful, fulfilling life .. always .. may you, wherever you go, be the giant that I have come to respect more than I have ever respected anyone, and love like a brother that had been hiding for millennia somewhere, like Enkidu, shining his light in Gilgamesh's quest for immortality, and the tragedy that was to prove his downfall. Here's to you, from humble me.
Always,
"The Persian"
