They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

69 Autumn 2011

My afternoon session — at the start of which I noticed Santa Claus had seated himself as far from me as possible — began tediously and got rapidly duller. I wondered how Bruno was getting along, if his day was any better. If this morning we had had the induction, this afternoon looked like we were getting the indoctrination.

It was presented by a tall, thin, sanctimonious man in his forties, with a shaven head, a goatee beard and a reedy voice that I could barely hear and I couldn’t understand as he was speaking in German. Then I realized — duh — I needed to put my headphones on. But again I wished I hadn’t bothered. He appeared to have had both a personality and a humour bypass, and like the lady this morning, he used a PowerPoint display to ram home points, in both German and English, in large CAPITAL LETTERS.

The International Association of Free Spirits, he informed us, adopted some of the principles of Scientology, which our Hochmeister admired, but with many differences. The Scientologists espoused the Clear, under their banner, THE BRIDGE TO TOTAL FREEDOM. The International Association of Free Spirits offered similar mental regeneration, through a different process. Which he proceeded to explain over the next two hours.

All around me people in their white tunics, some wearing headphones, some not, were busily — eagerly — taking notes, just as they had all been doing this morning.

I’d not yet heard anything I thought worth writing down. I noticed someone I’d not seen this morning, who looked as bored as me. A nice-looking guy of around my age, with shambolic fair hair, seated in the row below me, along to the right, past a couple of empty chairs. His notebook appeared blank from here, and I saw he was surreptitiously texting on his phone. Then, I don’t know what made him do it, he suddenly glanced over to his left and caught my eye.

He must have seen something in my face because he grinned and I grinned back. Like we were two co-conspirators. The first two members of the Escape Committee?

Then finally the speaker said something that made me smile and I did write this down, as best as I could remember it.

So many of us spend so much of our lives doing jobs we hate, in order to earn money we do not need, so that we can buy things we do not want, in order to impress people we don’t like.

And suddenly he had my full attention. I liked what he had just said, even though it was a bit strange watching his mouth then hearing his words, out of sync, spoken by a female — but her English was impeccable. Then I liked even more what came next.

‘The Dalai Lama said: The more you want, the unhappier you will be.’

He stood in silence, as if to let this sink in. ‘Here at the International Association of Free Spirits, one of our key messages is to learn to be happy with what we have. Wanting what we do not have is a dark path, one that leads to discontent, jealousy and ultimately to unhappiness. Think about this for a moment: why do any of us here in this room want anything? Yes? What is it we want and why do we want it? Will a new car change our life? A new fridge? So my neighbour has a bigger house than I do. Is he or she happier than I am? Or does this person simply have bigger bills and has to work harder than I do to pay them?’

He paused then went on. ‘You are all intelligent, cultured people, wanting to change your lives, otherwise you would not be here. I’m sure you will all be familiar with the name Oscar Wilde, the genius Irish playwright, poet and wit. Not noted for his punctuality, he once arrived extremely late to a dinner in London. His hostess pointed at the clock on the wall and said, angrily, “Mr Wilde, do you realize quite how late you are? Do you have any idea of the time?” Oscar Wilde glanced at the clock and replied, “And how, my good lady, can that nasty little machine possibly know what the great golden sun is up to?”’

This produced a ripple of laughter — the first time all day I’d heard such a reaction. Even my new friend smiled.

The presenter looked pleased with himself and moved a few steps to his left then to his right, putting me in mind of a ballerina elf. He opened his arms expansively and continued. ‘One thing you will all take away at the end of this session is the awareness of the tyranny of one simple word. And that word is how? “How?” is where dreams go to die. “How?” is the question asked by people you should never waste your time with. Think about this carefully for a moment. How many of you in this room have had a brilliant idea that you’ve told someone you respect and they’ve used the how word in their reply? How on earth can you achieve that? How can you ever finance this? How can a heavier-than-air machine ever fly? How many of you ever got beyond that question: “How?” Do you think Bill Gates baulked at that question, which he must have been asked a thousand times. Or Richard Branson?’

He paused for some moments and performed another elfin balletic movement. ‘If every visionary of the past five thousand years had been cowed by that word, then today we might still be living in caves and throwing rocks at each other, instead of intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. I’m going to leave you with that thought. Have a good evening, everyone — and sweet dreams!’

On the PowerPoint display behind him were the words: SCHLAF GUT!

SLEEP TIGHT!