As I am writing this I am again at another remote mining cite talking with people who have experienced an unexpected loss. I often take the diversity of my work for granted. Recently I have been feeling lethargic, laconic and very very relaxed about the work I do. There is very little which surprises me any more and there is very little new about what I am doing. I know I haven't done it all and I know that there is more I can do. There is that book I started years ago that I haven't finished. There is the Journal article I haven't started, a number of them in fact. There are the cases I haven't concluded and the fights I still need to have. There is a broken system here and there which I haven't fixed or even dented. There are people still needing to be heard but have no one who will act for them. There is the publishing company which needs to have a presence on the Internet. This list seems endless.
As I sat in the desert pondering the issues which concerned me and feeling unmotivated to do anything about them, I considered the most important issue of the moment "where do the flies go when night falls?". So this has where it all has lead me - to pondering something as bewildering and as insignificant a question as this. As I was boarding the plane to return home I had to enter the aircraft cabin through a wall of flies eager to attach themselves to sweaty, clammy bodies. Some flies were captured in the plane and as we took off and rose higher and higher I was watching a fly on my window sliding down into the ledge at the bottom of the window. I surmised that this was because of the pressurised cabin or the change in temperature or that he was just a bloody lazy fly that wanted to have a break. This entertained me for some minutes until we were at a hight which allowed me to turn my ipad on and commence watching the video I wasn't able to complete on arrival.
Where has all the preoccupation gone concerning conflicts, client dilemmas, ethical issues and STRESS. It has all vanished into a fly dying on my window and pondering where they go at night.
Tony Tonkin
Accredited Mental Health Social Worker
International Counselling Service
Ph 0414 883 153
Location:Australia
