Just small human interactions can turn the bleak into bright.

We don’t need a whole ocean of beauty, not even a bucket, just a thimbleful each day. Better still, a shot. Something beautiful to keep deep inside and glimpse at sideways to endure the bleakness.

The Story Bridge. Picture: Donna Parkin

Under the Story Bridge, Brisbane, late afternoon. My girl is back in town and we’re walking the small, scruffy dog to a tiny tidal beach on the river. He’s pulling like a runaway caboose, so they sprint ahead: “See you there.”

I come around the corner of Dockside. A breeze curls up the river from Moreton Bay as I look down to this small strip of sand dotted with people, squinting. Where is she?

Then this lanky person waves, long, skinny arm like a pale pennant. She yells out and it carries on the breeze.

Her long hair is flying and I see her laughing and the dog ecstatic as he herds the waves the CityCat kicks up and the silly old heart inside my ribcage physically hurts with the pleasure of the recognition, being claimed.

Kathleen Noonan

I am utterly ambushed by the joy and my eyes prick with tears. The good kind.

Jeez, we don’t need much, we human beings, do we? A quicksilver moment of joy or beauty in a day is enough to keep us going through all the boring, the mundane, the awful.

We don’t need a whole ocean of beauty, not even a bucket, just a thimbleful each day. Better still, a shot. Like vodka, a pure spirit. That’s all. Something beautiful to keep deep inside and glimpse at sideways to endure the bleakness, is how French mathematician and all-round wise guy Pascal described it more than three centuries ago.

It’s just a moment, a look, a laugh, a shared thing or a droll exchange with a stranger to make this big and untameable world seem human-sized.

The truth is, all is interaction – with others, with ourselves, with our natural world. All is interaction. Irish philosopher John O’Donohue said everyone is an artist, involved in the construction of the world. It’s never as given as it looks.

We’re all shaping it and building it. Now, that’s not just the Pollyanna stuff of pretty, flowery words.

In a world increasingly addicted to drugs, alcohol, overeating, anxiety, something that can change your day that is not pharmaceutical or illegal, I reckon, is pretty bloody good.

A few years ago I am running over the bridge in a Brisbane summer downpour. Raindrops as big as mice, sodden running shorts inching over the hips, shoes awash, thinking what the hell am I doing out here on this dumb run, I’m tired, didn’t stretch, have just come back from shin splint injury.

The bridge never felt longer. Then out of the grey sheets of rain come three blokes running and, as they near, before we cross paths, one throws his arms in the air and says: “You are a warrior!” I run on, tasting the delicious rain.

We love receiving gifts like that, but how good are we are putting it out there?

To get on in this world – whether at school, university, in the workplace, relationships – I’ve always followed the general rule that you need to have what might be described as an armoured personality. Be a bit of an armadillo, with that magnificently evolved leathery protective shell.

You need to know how to protect yourself emotionally and not be one of those precious thin-skinned people who are just drama queens. Yet maybe (she says reluctantly), maybe that theory wasn’t exactly spot on.

Possibly, we need something in between. Modern thinkers now tell us we need something called “robust vulnerability”. It is the best way to be, to conduct discussions with opponents, to have relationships, even – believe it or not – to lead.

The word vulnerability is ultimately derived from the Latin noun vulnus, “wound”. Hearing that description, I immediately thought of how a wound is something to be concealed, tended, taken care of.

But the other day I heard a bloke explain it differently: vulnerable, or its Latin root “wound”, means “open to the world” – a positive, not a negative. So “robust vulnerability” means actively staying open to the world and facing it with strength.

Following that theory, the armadillo must go. What? I’ve spent a lifetime trundling along with armoured plates, keeping those tender places well covered. Hearing that take on vulnerability challenges all that.

I have to think about it for a while. Life is, after all, a work in progress.

Down at the beach when we reunite, as the dog at our feet tries to grind as much sand into his coat as possible to take home, my girl says, your eyes are glassy, have you been crying?

I go to say, nah, it’s just the wind, but catch the words in my throat. “Yeah, saw you and felt happy.” Maybe you can teach an old armadillo new tricks.

AND ANOTHER THING …

We’ve had a couple of self-serving political memoirs landing with a heavy thump recently. Everyone likes to rewrite history, in which they are the hero.

So, for a more accurate account, let’s turn to someone whose job it was for decades to be wary and questioning of the powerful.

Kerry O’Brien, revered journalist, has had a front-row seat watching Australian prime ministers come and go.

With the release of his self-titled memoir, he is speaking in Brisbane as part of Griffith University, Integrity 20, Monday at the Queensland Conservatorium, South Bank.

He’s also at Toowoomba Wednesday, Maleny Thursday and Noosa on Friday.

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