Chapter 1

In search of meaning

The origins of

Permaculture

What Do We Remember, What Do We Forget?

Some days are lost to us, blanks in our life; they never happened. I think all of my school days lie there, in the vacuum of time; there are days that we dream, and know not where we are, days lost in routine, and indoor days that leave us with a feeling of frustration, but no memories.

Pain and fear, great happiness and sagas tattoo themselves on our memories, as tattoos were used for memory cyphers by the Polynesians; pain is good for recall, as is a familiar smell, a photograph, a sudden find like a nest of blue eggs. And some, mostly shocking events print themselves on our memory like a photograph; we can call up these horror albums, or they may begin to display themselves on the screen of darkness. On nights when we are depressed, alone, suicidal, lost.

And people like myself carry a zone of amnesia around us, so that all who enter forget where they are now, and live in some other place. So we miss turnoffs and lectures, weddings and shops, and find ourselves gone past in time or place. It was fatal for Prof. V.V. Hickman (the spider man) and myself to catch the same tram to university; we always ended up at the depot, and so left classes of students bereft. Eventually, we had to agree to sit apart due to our powerful mutual amnesia fields, which totally engulfed us if we dared to converse. Never mind, nobody ever evolved much while waiting for the bus.