A Different World

Imagine if people inherently were naturally compassionate and avoided all conflict.


When Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas they landed in peace and were accepted in peace, and the same happened with every discovery that has ever been made in the world.

So taking the Americas as an example. When Europeans came across to North America, they shared their skills and produce openly and willingly, and likewise the North American Indians did the same. Each culture embraced the others and never tried to instil their own culture on another. Trade was always equal and fair. Nothing was traded without consent. No conflict existed on either side. No wars had ever taken place. No thinking creature was ever killed by another. Man existed on crops only.

Humans still developed everything they ever have in a sustainable way but never at the cost of another. Everything was created wisely and with careful consideration to everything else around it. Nothing was ever done to cause negative impact on anything. No crime existed. No Murders existed. No abortion existed. No police were needed as there was no crime. No soldiers existed because there was no conflict. No lawyers were needed. No pollution existed as nothing had been created that caused harm to anything. No bankers existed as no monetary system existed. No hotels existed, only places that were developed to share and people could come and go as they pleased. No religion existed, there were no need for rules. Everything was shared.

Machines were created that ran on efficient unlimited resources, such as water, air, wind, solar and geothermal energy. Nobody ever went hungry. Poor never existed. Humans focused on the betterment of everything. Science, Engineering, Technology, Education, Health, Farming, Travel, Entertainment and the Arts were the only things that were focused on. Anything developed or created by any human, anywhere on the planet provided benefit initially to those close to that individual and eventually to everyone in the world. Natural selection was the order of the day. When one species became over abundant, Humans would develop a way to cope with the abundance until that creatures natural selection took control again. There was no culling. There was no use of animal hides as alternatives had been sought out and created.

No rules existed as no conflict existed. Everything anybody ever did was acceptable to the other because it was achieved with compassion and without conflict. People could come and go as they pleased. Could work on whatever they pleased. No deadlines existed. People focused their attentions on the betterment of the whole, and what they wanted to do. Some people would be more productive, some would be less so, but the abundance that the world exuded meant that every type of person was catered for.

Children were looked after by their mothers unconditionally, but were free to move off into the world when they felt the need to do so. Chores and tasks were willingly shared by communities. Aged people were looked after as their own. Nations developed in their own areas for the most part but no rules existed to segregate anybody from anything. Skills were utilised in areas where the person was happiest in. Youngsters would try all sorts of activities until they too found their own unique niche in the world.

Children were created out of loving relationships. Love was different. It was truer and it was more real. Marriage didn’t exist as no conflict existed so people naturally shared. Nobody was dominant over another. Everything was mutually agreeable. People chose to stay together and share each other by choice. People would naturally co-exist and build homes together as they wanted to share children, time and space with each other. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be there. No arguments happened as everything was shared and everything was mutual, everything was dealt with compassionately, the impact of everything was considered in this way.

Time didn’t exist in the same way it does now. No industrial revolution happened. Everything evolved in a calm compassionate way. Nobody or nothing was ever exploited. No forced labour ever existed. Things that required hard labour were done because they were designed to meet a focused benefit to the community or individual and ultimately would be shared for the benefit of all. Things evolved in realistic time frames. Nothing was rushed, everything was designed with care and no wastage is evident. Everything is used optimally.

If you came up with an idea, you willingly shared it and everybody who could contribute to the resolution of that idea would come forward to take it to it’s natural fruition. Every idea was expanded upon.

Bison, Whales, Rhino, Sharks, and the hundreds or thousands of now extinct species flourished. The Great Amazon Forest, Giant Redwoods continued to grow. No pollution existed in the oceans and skies. No trees were exploited for paper as alternatives to paper were discovered. No old trees were exploited for building as sustainable alternatives were found. Nuclear energy did not exist.Guns didn’t exist. Bombs didn’t exist. Oil didn’t exist. Politicians didn’t exist. Priests didn’t exist.

Wise people existed. The Aged were cared for and were an active part of society for as long as they cared to be a part or as long as they could be a part. The elderly were treated with the utmost respect and kindness and were revered for their contributions to the world. If something was developed that someone didn’t like they chose to exclude themselves from these things. The people who had niche trends that weren’t to everybody’s taste took that into account and developed their niche’s in such a way that they didn’t offend anyone, but were still free to develop their own tastes, likes and dislikes. Everybody has the choice to be a part of whatever they wanted to.

Education was a choice. Everybody could be educated in whatever they wanted to be educated in. Everything learned was shared to anybody who wanted to learn. Everything that was known was willingly shared freely amongst whoever wanted to learn.

Nudity, Sex, Pornography only existed by choice. Whatever people wanted to be a part of it was their choice. No exploitation of anybody or anything existed. Excess was minimal as there was no point as everything was freely available. Unnatural conditions were readily treatable, so long as compassion and choice was exercised. Attention was given to the betterment of all life on earth. Everything was given attention, everything was optimised, everything was respected.

• When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. When we dig roots, we make little holes. When we build houses, we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine nuts. We don't chop down the trees. We only use dead wood. But the newcomers plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. ... the Newcomers pay no attention. ...How can the spirit of the earth like the Newcomers? ... everywhere the newcomer has touched it, it is sore ~

Wintu Woman, 19th Century

Drifter

I have seen the magic that lies within. Is this or anything ever real? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is but a wish, a dream, a fleeting moment, an internal vision. My life is so beautiful, and at times so similar to a Salvidor creation. Dripping shape. You cannot imagine the passion of moments of brilliance that you bring to me. I wonder if it is sometimes real? Please let it sometimes be real.

The Drifter

Lonely on the top of my hill
I look out across the air
flickering flames near
electric lights afar
noise yet silence
I hear the quite
Flying stone temples into the night
and a jam fills the air

The life and times of one Rod

There are times in a man's life, when he needs to spend time on reflection. I had a dream the other night where my late dad and I were trying to jump up and touch the ceiling of this room we were in. No matter how high the ceiling was, I was always able to reach it. What the fuck does that mean? That seems to be the way of life for me I suppose. Even when the odds are stacked against me, I somehow always find a way around the obstacle, so long as I wanted to that is. 

When dad was faced with one of my crises situations throughout my life he would sagely say in his vaguely odd familiar Pommy minutely infused South African accent, 'That “alles sal reg kom”'. And the amazing thing is that despite what you were facing, it does somehow always come right, even although you might not think so at the time.

My life started in 1959 where I was born to Claude William Nichols and Irene Mary Nichols in the Mary Mount Nursing home in Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa. I was given the name, Rodney Stuart Nichols, the fourth ‘R’ in a row of sons spread over sixteen years. The nursing home was run by none other than nuns and I was apparently the only baby at that time that didn't pick up yellow jaundice whilst there. Maybe that’s when it all started. A lifetime of things somehow working out.

My family and I grew up for the most part in the South African city of Germiston which is an industrial mining city in the old Transvaal, about eight miles as the crow flies from the city of gold, Johannesburg. I was the youngest of four brothers, who like me all went to the local schools and where we all experienced growing up in the stench and filth of the Driehoek to Wadeville Chemical factories.

In the early stages of my life, we used to live in the suburb of Driehoek, where the premium soccer team of the day, Germiston Callies, had their home ground. Our house was in my moms name road, Irene road, a rented house that I think used to be an old hospital of sorts in the early mining days of Simmer & Jack Gold mining, or maybe a field hospital during the Anglo Boer War. The house was white and green, single storied and had a typical green tin roof that rattled and dripped in the hi-veld rains and had a mosquito meshed in verandah or ‘stoep’ as the locals would call it surrounding the entire two sides of the house. My oldest brother, Robert used to ride a 350cc BSA motorbike in those days, and had a set of drums set up down his side of the house, where he used to practice drumming to his favourite bands like, The Shadows, Cliff Richard and the early Beatles seven singles of the day. He didn’t have much to do with me, and used to call Roger my brother of three years older than me and myself 'the brats', and wouldn’t have anything to do with us if he could help it.  I think that Robert used to go to Eden College for his Matric in those days as he wasn’t cutting it at Germiston Boys High were he had done most of his high school years. Soon after leaving high school Robert started to race bikes at Kyalami, which was the main racing track in South Africa at the time. I remember my dad telling me once that Robert came sixth in one of the races against the Bosshof ? brothers who were the biking greats at the time. Robert had three really strange friends at the time, called Timothy McGettighan, Gary Van Der Merwe and George Taylor. The Taylor bloke was alright from what I can remember but the other two were major dick-heads, who I suppose by today’s standards would be called nerds or geeks, which thinking about it, was pretty much what Robert looked like most of the time even although he wore leathers and raced bikes for a short period of his youth. Robert was not very tall, had straight black hair and was pretty skinny in those days which is something he used to be really pissed off about, and I can remember him drinking a chocolate mixture that the body builders like Charles Atlas used to drink for weight gain. I remember how he was always in a lousy mood around me and didn’t really give me any notice whatsoever, treating me pretty much like turd stuck to his shoe. He basically didn’t like the sight or sound of me and used to make it perfectly clear by telling me to piss off whenever I came into earshot.

In those days I had to go to a government run nursery school while mom was at work all day. Mom was a great sales lady, who always worked at Chemists or Furniture Stores in Johannesburg or Germiston town itself. She always worked as far back as I can remember and only went to school herself until about twelve or so, spending part of her early life in a London Orphanage, where she was dared to fetch postage stamps from the trunks kept in the dungeons in the dead of night. The journey was steeped in terror of the nuns, that your candle would go out, that you would meet the convent ghosts or that you would get lost. Somehow Mom was always able to get and keep excellent jobs (considering her youth, minimal education and training) and would work her way up her little career ladders wherever she was.  Mom used to make Robert come and pick me up from the Germiston Crèche up by the Germiston Railway station, something he must have really hated, but something I quite enjoyed. I remember at about four thirty or five in the afternoons, Robert used to roar up to the gates on the BSA, where I would be waiting alone as all the other kids and my best friend Karl Faber had by then already been picked up. Me with my blonde curly hair standing there anxiously in the fading cold winter light waiting in my little blue plastic anorak and red Wellington boots. Funny how my memories of that gloomy predominantly Afrikaans spoken crèche are always in winter somehow. I think the only good thing I got from my two year stay there was my mate, Karl, teaching me to tie my shoelaces on top of a brightly painted disused water pipe that served as part of the crèche’s jungle gym. How I used to hate going there and having forced nap times when, as all I wanted was to hang out and play marbles with my friends, instead of lying stiffly silent on my thin blue, red or green plastic coated mat on the hard cold green painted floor.

When Robert used to pick me up, he would tie an open faced black AGV helmet on me and hoist me up onto the tank in front of him, where together we would roar off down the roads, with Roberts arms either side of me, gripping the handlebars of his BSA through the tunnel on the way home which always gave your belly a turn, like the roller coaster rides that would come once a year to Germiston Lake, taking us back to the dark house in the road that was mom’s namesake.   He would always enter the property up the drive way next to the house where passing under the rows of gum trees he would park the silver, red and yellow bike at the top of the drive in front of the green wooden doors of the single garage, where I would climb off of the bike’s tank wiping my wind streamed eyes and enter the house via the barn-like back kitchen door, first opening the swing fly screen that screeched loudly whenever touched followed by the creaking solid green painted back door. Ill kept gum trees used to surround the entire verandah side of the house, looming over the tin roof which made the inside of the house very dark and gloomy, and made the ground underfoot silent and soft with seasons of dead fallen pine needles.

Inside the house, there was a central narrow passageway that ran the length of the house from the front door all the way to the kitchen at the end. The passage was lit by two single naked light bulbs at either end, which needed to be on even during the days, causing shadows to pass eerily along as you made your way down the passage, passing the darkened rooms on either side. Rooms led off from both sides of the passage with most of the bedrooms leading off to the left. As you came in the front door you would pass Roberts room which was down the front of the house and my mom and dad’s room next to his, followed by Richards’s bedroom, a Dining Room and finally the kitchen and scullery. The other side had a massive lounge, sparsely furnished, another sitting room with even less furniture, an empty dining room, then my Gran West’s smoke filled bedroom and finally Rogers and my shared bedroom right down at the end. Thinking about it, we were probably put there to be away from the noise of Roberts drumming and the late night adult sounds coming from the lounge and bedrooms. I remember at the time wondering why we had been put so out of the way down there. All the floors were uncarpeted, although Mom had put loose carpets and off-cuts in most of the rooms, and the floors were made of aged Oregon pine which over the years had darkened and blackened giving the house a further aura of gloom and dullness, fighting for life against the light green textured walls and faded floral wall papers in most of the rooms. Anybody walking down the passage could be heard immediately as the floorboards would creak and moan, resonating with each and every footfall as they made their way either up or down the long passage.

  

The house it turned out after we had left had many strange stories about it, which only once we had left and moved on, came out around the warmth of the fireplace years later at my dads first owned home in Vimy Ridge in Delville which was a more up market suburb closer to both Germiston South and Germiston High schools. One of the strangest was when Roger would complain to mom, that she wasn’t to hold his hand late at night as she was making him cold. Mom of course told Roger she wouldn’t do so in future, knowing full well that she hadn't been holding his hand at night. She had to conduct some form of motherly exorcism to stop it from happening. Many years later she told us of coming into our room late one night to observe Roger and climbed into my bed to keep a vigil into the night. Apparently late into the night she felt a coldness enter the room and realised that something other than herself and her two baby boys was in the room with her. Mom bravened from her orphanaged years of collecting stamps stood up and spoke into the coldness, asking in her prim English manner whoever it was to please stop holding the children’s hands as they were becoming frightened, going on to say that she knew the person meant no harm but that the children weren’t to be disturbed any further. From that night on, Roger never complained about the cold hands again and it seemed that mom had resolved the problem. Mom had another experience there that only came out much later as well. She told us of the time that whilst she was getting undressed in her room one night, somebody playfully slapped her buttock, upon which she spun around thinking it was dad having some fun with her only to realise that he wasn’t in the room with her. Dad also reported that he had seen a woman in a white uniform moving into Rogers and my bedroom late one night and on investigation found that nobody was there, and the scariest story of all came from Gran, who said that one night she was lying in bed, and heard somebody walk across her bedroom towards her and sit on the end of the bed where she could clearly see the depression of someone sitting at the foot of her bed and hear the faint sound of breathing. She told us that this had happened on several occasions but that she never mentioned it whilst living at Irene Road for fear of upsetting the rest of us with her experiences.

  

It was around about this time of my life that my dad decided to call it quits after having spent about five years in good old SA, and move back to England to find a proper job. So the whole family with the exception of Robert packed up their stuff, caught a train from Germiston to Durban and boarded the Pen Dennis Castle, stopping over in Cape Town where dad got off to finalise some things back in Germiston joining us a few weeks later whilst the rest of us headed back to dad’s dads council home at 82 Hargwyne Street, Stockwell, London. The house was one of those typical low income English homes where every house in the street looked almost exactly the same as the one next door. Even the front doors were all painted the same dark blue in those days. Each of the houses shared a common wall down the side with each house being a mirror image of the one it was attached to. The house had several levels starting with a cellar, the ground floor, the first floor landing which led off to the master bedroom and a further set of stairs which took you to the room at the top of the house where Gran West used to live years before coming out with us to South Africa. Coming in the front door you were met by a tiny entrance hall where people took their coats and scarves off and hung them up against a wooden row of pegs up against the side wall. The door was directly in front of the front door and this led into the passageway of the house. To the left was the lounge and to the right a small bedroom which served as the main bedroom of the house. Beyond these rooms was the stairs leading up to the levels above with a smallish cupboard under the stairs and beyond that a kitchen which eventually led onto the back garden. The garden had a small vegetable patch running along the one side to the back wall, which was filled with runner beans, and a few other seasonal vegetables that Granny Nichols used for her cooking. The outhouse was next a small shed in the yard. Upstairs was another bedroom and above that a final bedroom that was used during our stay by Richard who was about 14 at the time. Roger and I shared the room below Richards with my mom and dad and Granny and Granddad Nichols lived in the room up front of the house on the ground level.