The View From Here

​The View from Here
The more we holiday here the more I realize why we holiday here.  The view is spectacular.  I saw something today I had not seen before.  People in kayaks with sails.  We see people in kayaks regularly.  We also see people in boats and paddle boarding.  But never had we seen people in kayaks with sails before.  I thought it was a neat idea.
We also see a couple of guys I reckon are really onto something.  They are riding bicycles that have catamaran bases on the water.  They have fishing lines with them and regularly ride out to go fishing.
I have a brother that lives up this way.  Sometimes what he says is him saying the exact opposite of what he means.  He visited the other day and said he hates this view and asked how could we live here.  That was his way of saying he loves the place.
What got me thinking along this track was something I have seen here and elsewhere.  We are near a park that is near the water.  Often people come and fish from the shore or have a party in the park.
What I seem to be seeing more and more regularly, is that new Australians seem to appreciate this place more than we do.  Often people come from conflict zones where staying alive takes precedence over viewing a sunset.  At lunchtime today the people fishing and those having a party in the park were obviously recently from somewhere else.
I have it so good.  I would go so far as to say there are few places in the world that have it better.  Yet so often I complain rather than am thankful.  I concentrate on what I do not have rather than being thankful for what I do have.  There can be, and are, legitimate causes for complaint, yet it seems the emphasis is on lack rather than sufficiency.
I know I need to be careful.  It is so easy to take the good times and good things for granted.  As the song says, “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”  It is all to easy to lose freedoms and realize what has been lost too late.  I have seen that in my life and those around me.  Freedoms taken for granted and only appreciated when they will never return.
They reckon a boa-constrictors modus operandi is to squeeze.  Every time a victim moves in an attempt to escape, the boa-constrictor tightens it’s grip.  Soon the ability to move at all is gone, and it is just a matter of time before life is gone.
It seems to me that all too easily the same thing could happen here.  We enjoy freedoms few places in the world enjoy.  But not everyone is happy for us.  Hong Kong to me is a case in point.  The freedoms of the people are diminishing.  It did not happen all at once, but they say inch by inch everything is a cinch.  So often freedoms are freedom in a cage.
I cannot solve the worlds’ problems, but I can solve my own.  For me, being thankful means heaps.  Perhaps the world is in a downward spiral, but all that can be taken from me is my freedom without – my freedom within cannot be taken.