Let's hear it for compassion

OPINION: Being drummed out of a book-reading group could be ugly. They probably slap you around the cheeks with a grubby paperback and send you packing. Or sit you in the corner with a Jeffrey Archer novel.

Expulsion loomed because I had not read a book in months. A few lay abandoned at page 40, destined to collect dust on the coffee table for half a year while I kid myself that I will finish them. Who has time any more for reading? Or housework?

Then fate intervened on Wednesday in the form of another bout of flu. The usual body aches were spiced up with sharp chest pains. That catches your attention. It could be a coronary, or it could be muscles pulled while hefting a full gas cylinder out of the boot. Blast this late blast of winter. We can be sure it's not my prostate, unless the little menace has migrated north. No cause for alarm, then. Uncross the legs and whistle my way through it.

Guys love playing roulette with their health. Symptoms are like gardens – best ignored until the neighbours complain. No call for medical intervention.

Bundled up in a dressing gown, I prescribed myself the sunniest spot in the lounge, shunted the dog aside and opened Slow Travel by Mari Rhydwen. She and husband Allen, in middle age, quit their university teaching jobs in Perth, sold the house, bought a boat and sailed off for the Indian Ocean. Your classic armchair adventure for less adventurous types.

My idea of adventure is cutting my toast on the diagonal. I snuggled in for a good read. Mari says their plans stunned colleagues.

"At work parties when I encountered grown men in dark suits they would sometimes shudder. `I couldn't do what you are doing. I like to have my life under control.' `It's never under control,' I told one of them, `so I prefer not to pretend to myself that it is."' Mari is a Zen devotee who aspires to living in the moment.

While I sat reading this, events in Samoa were underscoring her point. The earthquake and tsunami had ripped the place apart. I was catching every radio news bulletin because I could put faces to tragedy. Beautiful Lalomanu Beach, where we stayed a few months ago, had been flattened by the huge waves, and I hoped Lydia, Joe and the other resort staff managed to get out.

A Kiwi staying in a beachfront fale just like ours was describing by cellphone how they had no warning. He and his daughter saw the water coming over the reef and they bolted for the hills. I would have been in bed scratching myself and thinking of breakfast. You'd be reading my obituary here (presuming I warrant one).

Lives under "control" trashed. And Mari argues that it doesn't take a large-scale disaster. Ill-health will destroy the best-laid plans. Unemployment can bring an orderly and mortgaged world down around your ears. Mari and Allen chose to carpe the old diem. They cruised to the Seychelles, then Kenya and Tanzania, staying for long stretches in each place. I like her. She has compassion. The inequality of rich and poor, the oppression of women in Muslim cultures, the racism among ex-pat communities (and fellow yachties) – they all disgust her. Compassion is almost regarded as a weakness by the business zombies who rule us, yet it glues the whole shebang together.

Our adventurers sailed back to Indonesia, then home to Australia. The book ends on a subdued note – when you've done the grand gesture, it's a hard act to follow. Mari equates all mental suffering to desire. I would argue – affably over a glass of red in the cockpit – that the absence of desire is a miserable state. Wanting can be quite pleasant. Wanting is what drove her and hubby to take their leap. Desire is as good or bad as you let it become.

Books that leave you thinking are the best kind. Slow Travel was a delightful way of restoring my credentials with the reading group, and it contains a nice surprise in a snippet of poetry from Nelson's very own Brigid Lowry. My desire to run away to sea has been sated. It was never particularly strong – I'd much prefer to go cruising in a campervan, as thousands of "grey nomads" are already doing, and having a ball.

As for my spiritual health, how Buddhism, or any religion, would explain the misery inflicted on Samoa, and now Sumatra, I don't know. New Zealanders can only empathise and dig deep in our pockets for the cleanup job. This is our backyard and we look after our own. We might all be at the mercy of fate, but that doesn't mean you have to lie down and take it.

Stand back and watch a miracle of compassion. Meanwhile, I don't suppose it would do any harm to have the quack plant a stethoscope on my chest.

- © Fairfax NZ News