Looking for the space between the clouds

I love science fiction films. As a young boy growing up in the tropic of Capricorn, I used to escape the teasing of the Aboriginal children by hiding between the shelves of the school's library. I would go straight for the science fiction section. I knew everything about the planets and how stars worked, but what I remember the most were these short stories with pictures of spacemen landing on Mars. Later, I got interested in the whole UFO thing and I would sit dreaming wildly out the school window about being a little green man in a flying saucer ... until Nun Superior came my way bearing her vinyl wiping strap. That's probably when I gave up on God (I was educated a catholic) and when I decided that I was tired of reading. Then I saw Blade Runner. People always talk about Star Wars, but for me it was Blade Runner. It's what made me think, shit, the future is beautiful. Set in a red, barren, dusty landscape similar to my childhood and the constant whirl of ventilators, here was a film that painted the agony and loneliness of life against a background of technology, levitating devices and the hopelessness of humanity.

My parents were, and still are, hard-core idealists. Now they are full-time members of the Green Party in Australia and live a frugal energy-reduced life. I suffered under the weight that they demanded from the world to be more responsible, less rich, less greedy. If there were two people who demanded 100%, it was my parents. The problem, though, is that they didn't demand it from me. They just showed repeatedly how 80% the world was. So what did I do? I hated the world back!

I now live in Israel. I'm no Jew and I still don't believe in God, but I do believe that the world is what you make it and that if you live where you live, it has its reasons just as your children are here to teach you something and not the other way round. If I had to describe what it is like to live in Israel, I would immediately jump for the word "hardship". Here is a country that demands a high level of living while paying below average salaries, above average working hours and taking half of what you earn to fund the war effort and pay for the practicing Jews who don't work. If I hate the world, then I came to the right place to fuel my anger.

But here is the catch. I actually came to the perfect place to learn one of my biggest lessons - to stop trying to be perfect. Sometimes the only way to learn something is to go into the lion's den. I am unable to give less than 100% and it kills me. I don't even know how to have fun anymore and the usual distractions that I came to enjoy in Europe - good restaurants, good wine - are all 80% or overpriced. It's true, this young-old country along with the Jews and Arabs in it have a few problems to solve. But just as the Blade Runner is saved from the mire by the object of his obsession, maybe I'm hoping that through all this self-imposed toiling, I'll wake up one day and say, fuck it, I've had enough of being 100% for everyone else, including the environment, and I'll decide to give myself at least 80%, or if I can't give 80% because one does need to put the bread and butter on the table, then I'll settle for 60% of my time to enjoy whatever I want to whatever degree of perfection I desire. For me, being 100% leaves no room to breathe.

Marc