Relativity and diversity

You're busy going about your business, maybe even patting yourself on the back for being so brave, or possibly thinking the sky is falling on your head. Then something small happens to make your own existence seem so relative. We are a diverse bunch, huh.

I got an email this week from someone I knew back as a teenager (when I frequented bogan keg parties and sported a mullet). He's now either a para trooper for the French army or a bullshitter. Regardless, it got me thinking about it. What sort of person joins the foreign legion? Is it really such the enigma of the urban legend? Are they mercenaries in the common sense of the word? I thought http://www.foreignlegionlife.com from the horse's mouth made really interesting reading.

On the same day I read a fellow student’s post on my Open Poly online forum. Now in his sixties, he was born with only 3% and 1% vision in his right and left eyes respectively. He told a few funny as stories about amusing and embarassing situations in his life that his severe short sightedness had brought about. These days he can only see vague shapes through a white fog, but he nevertheless works a desk job. He uses a closed circuit TV which magnifies printed material onto a computer screen and other software that magnifies and speaks various application’s information. Definitely an interesting guy with loads of interests, including photography and movie film production. He posted up a really large photograph, which I thought was a nice touch. It has a really clear and graphic picture on the tv behind where he is sitting. It’s pretty gory, of someone with blood all over them collapsing in pain. I’m not sure whether he has no idea because he's never seen it, or it’s his black sense of humour. But it made me smile. In a nice way. Regardless.

Then the bogan in me thumped my touchy-feely self for being too out there. Diversity is everywhere.