What is it that you ensure that you must have with you everyday? I guess that for most people these days, their mobile phone must be at the top of the list. The things that are most important to us are dependent on what we are doing at that time.
When I was travelling, my most precious possession was my Bowie knife, or Booo eee knife as my American companions called it. The Bowie was as sharp as a razor and was the do-everything accessory. It was about seven inches long with a wooden handle. The blade curved towards the end and the last three inches was double-sided and very sharp. Above the curve was a serrated section and above that, a thumb rest. Between blade and wooden handle was a guard. It lived under my left arm on a shoulder holster in a leather, and was, in the main, hidden from view.
The Bowie went everywhere with me and was my best friend. I used it all the time. I prepared food, ate food, built shelters, dug holes and even defended myself. It was, at that travelling time, my best friend, and I was never without it. I would even sleep with it under my pillow. As a traveller, there was a hierarchy of needs. It went Bowie, water bottle, bed roll, canteen and then, my copy of the Gita. There was also a change of clothes, but I could survive without those if needs be.
When I listened to the Hitch Hikers Guide on the BBC, I made a connection between the need to carry a towel, which was rather like my bed roll, and the Hitch Hikers guide that was like my Bowie, the do-everything accessory that you couldn’t leave home without. And then I discovered the iPad.
Now, I am in severe trouble of becoming an iPad bore. Rie thinks I have another woman and people have started to make comments like, “Don’t you ever put that thing down?”. The bottom line is, “Right now, no”. This has become the accessory that I don’t leave home without. The joke about “we have an app for that” is true. I haven’t found anything that it can’t do; it has taken the place of three computers, my two ipods, my Sony book reader, all email functions from my Blackberry, and two recording consoles, oh and the Altman clock, television, radios and DVD player. I even read the newspaper and have found wonderful apps showing the most beautiful pictures.
I had a dream when I was young that there would a be device that would do everything, and I have found it, oh and it also does Skype and facetime so in any one week I am in Brussels, Spain, New Zealand, Russia, Australia, and different parts of Britain, seeing clients for Skypeotherapy. And, needless to say, I am tying this blog on the on screen keyboard, the enhanced version, because we have an app for that.
Ok, I know it can’t make love, or even a cup of tea. But it is loads of fun and I will get over my infatuation, just not yet.
So,what wouldn’t you leave home without?
Sean x
