I am my neighbour's keeper!

I read somewhere recently that doodles are now being touted as the latest insight into the psyche. I didn’t have time to read further (note to self — then do so soon!), which is a pity because I’m an exceptional doodler.

Doodlers, real doodlers, are probably a marginal class of nut, schizophrenically able to synchronise several senses simultaneously in a kind of sentient ballet of mental multitasking. I can concentrate in a seminar or lecture while creating works of art all over the page. In fact, sometimes the artistic output enhances the clarity of the input. The article in question reinforced this Krielism — doodling seems to aid retention and even the cognitive analysis of input. Weird, hey?

But proofreading or subbing copy demands complete sensory isolation. Not even Mozart can trespass. Only absolute silence will do.

I suppose it’s another paradox of this queer condition of being human which the BBC or National Geographic or Discovery Channel will produce a programme about some day.

I came to musing about this after reading a fine piece of writing (online, of course) in Rapport by freelancer Jaco Kirsten. What makes it extraordinary was its subject matter — the sheer ordinariness of the lives of our generation. Don’t ask me to define “our generation” — probably between 60 and 30-ish.

Ordinariness is a perennial frustration to columnists, writers, journalists, orators and bloggers because they are so damned, well, ordinary. People want to read or hear about the extraordinary — the blind yachtswoman who sails single-handedly around the world, the child who can compose a symphony or recite Hamlet at 11, the 92-year-old man who takes up skydiving. The journalistic maxim of newsworthiness applies equally uncompromisingly here — dog bites man is not news; man bites dog, that’s news.

And yet, in contradiction to this cornerstone of our craft, sometimes the simple act of not keeping up with the Indiana Joneses and looking at what we have become accustomed to and thus call “ordinary” is an extraordinary experience. That’s why Kirsten’s article is so compelling. Men of our generation understand it completely and see our own lives reflected in his words. I’m not a woman so I can’t conjure up an analogy. This is where the schizoid paradox of being able to doodle creatively while absorbing intellectually comes into effect.

Amid the hurly-burly of the madding crowd it is all too easy to merge with the traffic. Of course, one person’s ordinary life could be another’s idea of heaven. An office worker might covet the dangerous din of a gold miner; the domestic worker might envy the gritty life-and-death routine of a nurse. Seen another way I wouldn’t swap my very ordinary life as a nanny to my grandson for a nanosecond as a politician or a banker or a long-line fisherman — it’s not that they’re bad jobs, I just could not imagine myself living those lives. But “when it all comes down to dust” whatever we do becomes ordinary after we’ve been doing it for a while, doesn’t it?

And the blind uncritical repetition of actions or attitudes inevitably imbues them with a blissful comfortable drowsy ordinariness too. That’s exactly what the controllers of our lives would have us be — placidly accepting the abuse of their power, docilely agreeing with every inanity they concoct, being team-players and not rocking the boat.

Until we’re suddenly shocked out of lethargy or complacency by the way ordinary, predictable events serendipitously align themselves in an extraordinary fashion. Suddenly we see the “face” in the clouds, suddenly we see the other 3D picture within a picture, suddenly disparate dots connect in a stunning moment of clarity, suddenly we experience something akin to what Saul of Tarsus did on his way to Damascus. Or the opposite.

That’s what the global recession has done to us.

That’s funny-peculiar, isn’t it? A few short weeks ago we were being warned what seems to have been sparked by the sub-prime was serious, yes, but it wasn’t a “recession”. Now that semantic silliness lies outside the overflowing trash can with the other crumpled bits of paper saying things like “Don’t panic”, “It won’t hit us as badly”, “Our banking system is fine”, “The fundamentals are sound. Trust us” and an interminable list of equally placatory piffle.

The writing was always on the wall: this is one gigantic global fuck-up and everybody is getting hurt.

How long will it take us to realise we are now one global community living, mostly by pure chance (or so Richard Dawkins would us believe & in this sense I agree with him), in a very thin, narrow, fragile and precariously interlinked envelope of existence? If the combined effects of the global recession and climate change cannot yank us out of our lethargy and comfy ordinariness, we have forfeited the right to exist. At all.

As you read these musings written a few miles south of the most powerful city in the world on a warm but overcast Saturday afternoon, the bourse of the most powerful city in Africa more than 7 000km is suffering the effects of financial crises happening in places all over the world from Reykjavik to Rustenburg to Rio de Janeiro to Reno. And, shame, it wasn’t even their fault. They’re not their brother’s keepers.

Their only “crime” was that they inhabited the same planet in a remote and unlikely part of the Milky Way. For every wasted piece of paper, every lazy drive down to the shops, every thoughtless cigarette stompie flicked out of the window — they all come home to roost. And they’re coming back quicker and in greater numbers and with greater ramifications and ferocity than ever before. Nothing is too big or too small to kill the planet.

Omar al-Bashir flips the bird at righteous global rage. Kim Jong Il watches another missile launch. Jacob Zuma stands for president. Bernie Madoff builds another pyramid scheme. A lone-wolf fanatic says prayers as he straps a harness of explosives under his jacket. The boss of a Wisconsin bank realises his greed has overtaken him and files for bankruptcy. A Siberian poacher, his eyes glowing with the prospect of untold wealth, carefully waits until the tiger’s head is clearly in his crosshairs.

All seemingly disparate, disconnected, isolated, ordinary events. All morally indefensible. All threaten you and me — directly. That is not good neighbourliness. And I really think we’re better than that, don’t you?