Basic

As mentioned, I took a recent trip to New Zealand’s national park. On the coastal trail in the park, I carried with me the sleeping bag and stayed in the basic hut.

I said that the hut is basic, and it is. In a nutshell, bunk bed and mattress. We didn't have to share shower facility or electricity because there is simply none. Not much to share with each other really, except the sound of someone snoring.

You're probably thinking that I was having trouble to stay there, but I wasn't. For most of my memorable years after graduation from medical school, I used to sleep like a primitive man at the Stone Age. I simply slept around a humble corner at my hospital – be it the sofa at the office or the patient's bed at day care centre. For goodness' sake, I didn't have to hide from predators as in ancient time, but had to wake up before six thirty, when the hospital amah comes back in the morning.

After all these years, I cherish the gypsy memories of sleeping at any place I can find. Not that sleeping in a basic hut or a corner in the hospital is cozy in itself. The idea is that we might be happier not to bother too much, or, in Henry Thoreau's words, "Man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can do without." I have come to believe it's so.