The ancient Greeks believed that when a person is under intense pressure the soul leaves the body and literally stands beside itself.
I think that we live in a world where the souls actually put a little distance between themself and themself - just to be safe.
On the eve of Cyclone Yasi while north Queensland was bracing for impact, some people were worried about the price of bananas.
Just like Cyclone Larry a few years back, Yasi flattened Australia's biggest crop.
And you know I'm struggling to keep all of this in perspective too because I'm sick of listening to all the news about disasters - it feels like the dominoes are falling around me and I can't stop the chain reaction.
I don't know if the ancient Greeks were right. They say that you should cultivate the ability to objectively observe the world and your ramblings through the world: i.e. stand outside yourself and watch.
Years ago I did a course called The Centre Within at the Relaxation Centre which talked about examining other points of view when dealing with stressful situations, rather than just reacting to events.
People go on and on and on about the importance of resilience - how do you teach resilience? Researchers build careers on how to build resilience and they are still talking about it.
Well, resilience is the opposite of "churn". Last week I was doing some data entry work - the annual update of an email mailing list of thousands of email addresses.
It was weird to see how people swung between Optus and Telstra.
And how many email accounts people have and how many times they change their email addresses - these are small business doing this and virtually engaging in suicidal behaviour.
I suspect that people may be the only animals on earth who demonstrate this "churn" behaviour - it makes people and businesses vulnerable doesn't it?
Watch any nature documentary and there's a predictability, a continuity of behaviour - unless there's an evolutionary change.
Evolution. The ability to adapt is the key to survival - that's a great theory but exactly how many species are extinct, hey?
Maybe teachers can use Spike TV in the classroom to demonstrate resilience - you get hit from all sides but you have to learn where the obstacles are to avoid them.
I wrote a series of feature articles for the Courier-Mail year ago when they announced the six Queensland Greats - Great Queenslanders who were all high achievers.
I asked all of them one question: What's the secret of success? The answer is resilience.
They said they just kept getting back up when ever life knocked them down - resilience is enduring the put-downs, the bad luck, the prejudice, the loss, the grief, the feeling of being beside yourself.
But to me it's summed up in one word. Steadfast.
That's the motto of Mansfield State High School - it's something that stuck in my heart when I wanted to give up when something I really wanted was just out of reach. Doesn't mean I got it.
And I'm going to make an utterly ridiculous suggestion here but how can we think that animals don't have souls?
If they weren't wired together body and soul then they could not survive - even those silly banana birds stand beside the body of their friend who's squashed on the side of the road.
It was instinct that brought people together en masse in the Great Floods Clean Up - social instinct. What a great collection of souls that was!
Fall down seven times. Stand up eight. _ Japanese proverb.
