Mischief – sans victims – is a mechanism by which a person can assert their individualism in the face of the relentless mechanistic mold the institutions of life try to force upon him/her. Mischief of one sort or another is essential for our identity or even our sanity. Getting up to mischief is an essential survival technique for all of us. It is both a vehicle on which rebellion can ride forth, and a means of taking the piss out of rebellion.
Animals know about mischief and are great practitioners of it. Domestic cats in particular epitomize mischief. Just the look on a cat’s face should be enough to alert its human companion that mischief is being hatched.
And beware any human regime, especially at a national level, that doesn’t condone mischief. These are the people who would go out and kill six million Jews or the like. These are the Putins and Netanyahus of today’s world.
Decades ago, as the most junior of office boys at the Shell Company in Melbourne, I was sent on a mission to find a ‘verbal agreement form’ and to deliver it back to base. I duly scoured the metaphoric countryside in search of the coveted article, before realizing what I was searching for was an oxymoron. The whole exercise was a most valuable lesson for me in so many different ways …
… so that these days, I’m capable of perpetrating my very own mischief.
On a recent trip to Brisbane for a friend’s wedding, I was billeted at a group house in Fortitude Valley for five days with a mob of New Zealand musos who were due to play at the wedding. They were fun to be with, but of average talent only.
Except for one.
Known as J T, and of Samoan extraction, he was more than twice my weight. His musical specialties were jazz and Blues. His guitar technique was superb, something akin to classical guitar. And he had a good singing voice. We took to each other immediately.
When we sampled the night life of the Valley, we would pose as a team. I was a nuclear physicist of some note and he was my bodyguard. We looked the part. And we fooled any number of bartenders, baristas, Uber drivers, and other unsuspecting dupes.
We took great pleasure in our mischief. Childish? Yes. But I don’t apologize.
As all cats would attest, this is the stuff that makes the world go round.