My friend Steve Smith II

I want to tell you a little more about my friend Steve Smith. Since I returned to KL, I think about him alot. I wonder what he would look like in this city, this landscape - in a coffeeshop, in 1 Utama, in a car stuck in 6pm traffic. I wonder what he would think, and what he would say to me if we were walking side by side, as we did on that sunny day in Sydney. I wonder if he would understand me; because this place is so unfathomable, I want it translated to me by someone who seems to comprehend everything. But I have to tell you that my friend Steve Smith isn't one of those quiet listeners, full of empathy. He talks, I listen. Or we can be silent together. No, the comprehension is a way of being - when you look at a mountain, you understand it and it understands you. Mountains make us know ourselves better. My friend Steve Smith is as solid as a mountain and as clear as a bell. I think the reason I'm thinking about him so much is because I feel despair. Personal despair over the task at hand, which I realize now is action. Action is the task. To do, to work, to change, to imagine, to reach, to fail, to learn. And that's why I'm here for now, because to simply be here is to act. Hardships leave their mark, as does despair - different marks on different people. I think about despair and Steve Smith because I know he knows all about it. Yet here he is, a mountain in my mind. More bitterness in me than you'll ever find in half-century old Steve Smith. And from him I know that there are other outcomes to despair besides bitterness - wisdom, joy, strength. My friend, simply by being who he is, teaches me that despair is action denied.