Of Landmarks

land·markn.1. A prominent identifying feature of a landscape.2. A fixed marker, such as a concrete block, that indicates a boundary line.3. An event marking an important stage of development or a turning point in history.4. A building or site with historical significance, especially one marked for preservation by a municipal or national government.adj.Having great import or significance: a landmark court ruling.The other day I happened across a website showing pictures of some cool landmarks around the world - places I want to visit: The Pyramids, Petra, Easter Island, Machu Picchu etc.Of course it was de-powered somewhat by including Auckland’s Mt Eden crater. Really? Not Rangitoto? Not the Skytower? (oooh we’ve got a Skytower!).Anyway, it got me thinking. Not in terms of geographical or architectural landmarks but more life landmarks. What are the landmarks from my journey that I can look back on and say, yes - that event or person or place or experience contributed to shaping and defining who Simon the person is today?So here's a short list of the biggies.My birth. I was given up for adoption by my mother and raised and loved by God-fearing, pragmatic Baptists who lived in Palmerston North. This environment was hugely influential. I grew up missing out on nothing, but not having a lot. It meant I learned a lot about not worrying about the small problems in life. Just dealing with the issues as they arise and getting on with things.The Church. This was hugely influential. I learned to lead. To organise. I learned to not talk to girls in any sort of intimate manner (damnit!). I was very much a part of a system that I have now, in later life, come to hold a lot of contempt for. Whilst there was a lot of good, it is now offset by a whole lot of bad. In fact, I do still carry an amount of shame for the role I played in supporting the activities of the Church in general, and some church organisations specifically.Y-One. This won’t mean much to most, but I was the bass player in a Christian performing team that toured New Zealand (2-3 live school concerts every day, 1-2 full-length concerts every weekend in the local theatres/opera houses) in most towns around the country for a year. And then also for a number of months in Sydney and Melbourne the following year. It’s where I learned the craft of playing and performing. It’s where I learned the technical requirements of touring. I learned to collaborate with 20+ different personalities (not all of them within me!) when exhausted, and learned to deal with the highs of a successful show and the lows of a disastrous one. It was a major landmark and one that I have no regrets about. With the exception of a) a mullet, b) John Lennon glasses, and c) a pink Ibanez SDGR 1000 bass.I am enormously grateful that this tour predated the Internet and YouTube.Marriage and Separation. Oh absolutely a landmark. I married at 22 with little or no idea about who I was, who she was, what Marriage or life in fact was all about. Regrets? Perhaps. There is a lot of good to be taken from those years. It took much time for me to learn what I could accept and what I could not accept as far as those external influences impacting me were concerned. And it took a lot of years and support from some outstanding friends to gain the strength to be able to make the decision, and then take the action to part. I knew clearly that I was changing for the worse and would be, by now, a truly awful, bitter and resentful human being If I hadn’t worked through that lifetime of moral conditioning. Who you now are getting to know was masked and crushed only a few years back. Importantly, I also take responsibility for the part I played in the erosion of that relationship.Fatherhood. Yay. A happy landmark. Two glorious children. Products of the IVF process. I am grateful to have them in my life and I am loving getting to know and to shape, positively I hope, their lives. They inspire me. I love seeing the world through their eyes and sharing in their discoveries.There are a number of other, lesser, landmarks which don’t need to be covered off here.Curiously, school and university don’t really rate at being all that significant. I coasted through both of those institutions. I had no motivation to excel when I absolutely could have (and should have?).I am very interested in seeing what landmarks are around the next corner. I suspect that the evolution of Social Media is going to be a definite landmark with the benefit of hindsight. It certainly has enabled me to find my ‘voice’ and has introduced me to a collection of wonderful people with disparate ideas. Fantastic.So. What are your landmarks? Feel free to share!- S