Destiny: the reflections of a surfing professor

David Robinson, Bond University

Abstract

There once lived a soul, who journeyed on this planet.

He was a learned man, through his own sweat and toil over the many years he had been a student of life. Yet he was reluctant to leave the world of his youth, a world of dreams, of sunshine and surf.

His was a world where thoughts filled every moment, where the occasional respites of physical inactivity served to usher in waves of choices, as endless debates, internal dialogues, were fuelled by indecision combined, paradoxically, with an innate sense of urgency. This goal-oriented achiever seemed compelled to pause every now and then as if needing to explore whatever options appeared before him, like a marathon-running, hundred metre sprinter, pausing to smell the roses.

And he questioned life itself, and its meaning. And as he questioned, he formed opinions that were different from others’, for his opinions were original, not regurgitated. Through continuous discussions between the protagonist-optimist and the antagonist-pessimist of his dual-self, he engaged in synergy-seeking intellectual turmoil. And with the passage of time and the wisdom of his own reflections, he became a master of the complex web of dichotomies that defined his very existence.

Thus, he evolved, not as one man, but as many.

And he lived many lives, in one.