Streets, sounds, chatter of London...

    So a week has come and gone in London. Brilliant times... so many observances of difference both in terms of unique Englishisms as well as from the swell of London’s cosmopolitan life style. My life has taken on the exuberance and speed I like. Maybe its evidence that my mind is slightly ADHD as I love the pace of the action – people here act, think, and react fast. One’s wits always have to be ready conversationally and for the litany and sheerness of action occurring both in the pubs and on the streets.  I couldn’t help but think during a long walk last week through central London and seeing so many baby prams how lucky these wide eyed kids are. Their early subjectivity is being moulded in this molten furnace room of life. That’s a life advantage.

      Going out in London is more fun than anywhere I’ve been. There’s always ample opportunity to chat to interesting people, to chat to girls... I once said – per capita the most interesting people in the world are living in London. Everyone has come here to look for that allusive something. Even the English people usually aren’t from London...  Out on Bricklane in East London Wednesday I could see the grittiness of the streets. Chavs mixed with hipsters to form a bi polar street dynamic. Then on Friday I was out in Clapham Junction - very different vibe there. A lot more gentrified English, it was younger, posher, people wore shirts and proper shoes. I've done a night out in Primrose Hill - the beautiful oasis like escape from the grit of nearby Camden. There’s a place for everyone to go out here...  all demographics are caterd too. The secret is investigating the different areas then finding your own niche.

     Conversations in London are flippant, funny, and range across the gamete of topics. Out with some English friends on Saturday, I love how rhetoric is rewarded. The rant is appreciated. People, for the sheer fun of language, are willing to follow a topic right down the proverbial rabbit hole. The fun is in the word play and the artistic feeling of creating an amusing antidote. I saw topics swell and twist in morphed form for ten, twenty minutes on Saturday night, then often comeback for a punch line an hour later. Now, I know why my talking style doesn’t quite match my home city of Edmonton – my time here in the past changed it. It feels like, I’m rediscovering things. The feeling is as if I’m watching an old movie I loved previously ten years on. There’s recognition of everything, it isn’t new. However, the second viewing still brings forth new insights. The love affair between me and London is still passionate and going strong.

Death of Delusion, Birth of an Artist

Odd and hilarious times. Right now, I’m in the basement of a hostel having slept – after a shut in – in the laundry room. So my comment of the day - I have incontrovertible evidence that love is a sham... My dear readers for the sake of privacy and personal boundaries I can’t fully divulge the intricacies of this story, but I will say... I just tried the most romantic move of my 33 year life. EPIC FAIL! I told someone I’ve known a long time that they were perfectly imperfect in my eyes- a position after much thought I arrived at - and that I wanted to meet them in Trafalager Square at 3 pm. No show... I waited. I have to say, this moment is changing. I always believed that if I really tried, I would always be able to make what I want happen. I couldn’t, I can’t... I’m just a guy walking alone in a dark, dank, and for the most part scary world. Reality is not about connection and coming together. The truth is it was always a game and it always will be. So now there is comfort in knowing I’m alone again. I want to be alone without a concern for how I am regarded. I want to just write my thoughts with no care how they are perceived... I want to be authentic. Without fear maybe art can be created... after yesterday, I know no fear anymore.

First Moments Back in London...

    Sitting in the hostel I’m staying at in London. All twisted up from no sleep after my flight, but really loving it. This is the stimulation I like – the streets of London teaming with movement, people, edge...

    When I took the train in to central London from Gatwick Airport memories flooded back to me. I’ve been in this city so many times at numerous different stages of my life. There was the historic first time here when I wandered the streets after partying the whole night previous in Brighton -everything a blurry impression. Then there was my first official move here penniless after leveraging everything on a trip into continental Europe. I stayed all over the place. Carried food in my pack... and was on the edge till I got a bartending job in Primrose Hill then a nice little gig in the offices of HMV on Oxford Street. Every stay another adventure and story – whether it was Christmas in Acton on Knights Ave with my best friend from Canada Shane; the month waiting for my Dutch visa in posh Hampton Court/ Richmond. or a couple blurry stays for a week or so with my first travel friend Adam in, ironically, a place called  Canada Water, near Canary Wharf...  

     How’s this story going to unfold?... probably with sleep at some point, but not before I meet an old mate for lunch and some pints. I’m meeting my roommate Trevor from when I lived in Edinburgh ten years previous! Serious, I already love this. Life in motion is life lived...  Not to mention it’s the best to reconnect with people you have history with. At the end of the day that’s what it’s about!

Fortune Favours the Brave – and the prepared!

    
I sit here with another expedition on the launching pad. I have a ticket purchased for London on the 19^th of this month. It has been four and half years since I left my last extended travel behind me. Things have changed... time has moulded me and refined my perspective for this trip.  Previously, I felt that I had just the past and the present fuelling my actions... my thought was that this allowed the future to unfold without expectations. This time, I’m incorporating a new aspect – a plan for the future.  Reality will not hold me back from taking as much as I can from my life. I’ve discovered in the last year that I have only one thing to fear; myself, and regret for not doing things that I think will make me happy.

       I believe steadfast that fortune does favour the brave. The result is not always what you want, but something is always to be gleamed from taking chances. I’ve been on both sides of the coin. As an example for the positive, I was offered 1000 pounds per week to tend a shop, and basically get well fed to do nothing, at the Royal Bank of Scotland through the night. I replied to the offer– “ a thousand in the hand – or are you going to tax that?” Final offer – 1250 per week – no tax! It was life changing. I ended up earning more than 10,000 Canadian dollars in a month. Adversely, I’ll never forget laying on my back in Kensington Gardens my backpack under my head, my visa maxed out, all accounts -Canadian and foreign - empty, and 3 pound 50 in my pocket staring up at the, ironically..., clear, blue London sky. I laid there for hours paralysed by the weight of reality. What I learned from those moments was that when you’re high in life you can exalt in it – literally soaking in the shimmering brilliance of being alive!  While in contrast, and even more importantly, when you are low – you have the chance and the necessity to learn.  Both moments inherently are positive.  

      Previously, I always felt the future would work itself out. I still do in some ways – but this time, I’m equipping myself differently. I don’t just want to be a leaf blowing in the wind allowing chance and the vaccinations of the moment to purely direct me. I need direction. I want to commit to an idea for my future. Without all three aspects – past, present, and future working together the result will be confusion and uncertainty. Right now I feel they’re coming together. That fusion is giving me confidence.  I’m optimistic and excited! Backing me is my past wealth of travels and adventures, the impending present and excitement of living in Europe again, and the future plan of graduate school.  I’ve never felt so ready for an expedition.

Snow Day

     Snow day! I was up at 6 am, a bit early to try to shovel the drive way better so my car wouldn’t get stuck on the way to work. It got stuck after ten feet. Two hours of shovelling, trying to drive, then shovelling again I managed to get back to the garage! So now after the trials and tribulations of the morning I realized I wasn’t going to work.  In honesty I feel a bit bored and isolated; I’ve started thinking about life unhindered and the concept of my last blog - living one’s life authentically as if it were art. In these thoughts the champion of that pathos, and one of my personal heroes, Ken Kessey immediately came to mind.

      Lots of travelers idolize Jack Kerouac for his stream of consciousness writing, but Ken Kessey, the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, has always been my guy. Not only was Ken a writer of superior imagination and talent, OFOTCN is one of the quintessential novels of the individual standing up to society, but he was also an individual who was unashamed to live life with pure authenticity.  His wild experiences during the 1960’s were chronicled in the classic of new Journalism “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe. (A book along with OFOTCN I recommend to anyone to read in succession)Never one to preach how to live specifically, his only rule was to live unhindered by society or the media and to be true to yourself. What I took from him was the idea to be myself no matter what and to live each day with passion.  Though I often may not succeed at those ideals they stand above me as my own personal idols in the sky.

      Back in 2000 I wanted to escape the forces of vanity, materialism and most importantly external expectations so I went traveling. Of course, it was somewhat a flight of fancy to believe those forces would disappear once I stepped on a plane, but life abroad was mainly about establishing relationships, unhindered conversation, and new experience. Fast forward to 2011 – the snow day – with the spirit of Kessey above me, I can feel the compulsion to try to live this way again. To step away from the reality I am in and return to Europe once more. I still do want to weigh my actions with thoughts for the future, but really I just want to live. I’ve felt so restrained, snowed in if you will, for too long.

Perfectly Imperfect

     While I was at work doing my menial, boring job I got to thinking about what is it that makes a person like someone else? Often people think of others in terms of specific traits. When I was younger, like many I suspect, I judged people in terms of absolutely positive attributes. I’d see people as intelligent, pretty, outgoing, etc. etc... and generally take a positive view of people who had traits that I held highly. However, time and experience has come to show me that without the negative - positive can’t exist. If a person was fully graced with positive traits than what could stand out from the rest, what would define them? They’d seem plastic and unreal.  Really it’s the flaws that make people interesting.

     Considering that last comment deeper...   every person sees things different and has different distortions of self and reality. I love people that are willing to show that inherent uniqueness; people who aren’t afraid to be different. By doing this they highlight their flaws, they show everybody that this is me and this is how I see the world.  The converse of that is the person that actively tries to be like everyone else. Where’s the audacity in that? To me beauty shines forth when a person presents their truth for all to see. In those moments they become as if a prism for reality allowing it to shine through them in a unique translucence.  A person who lives this way lives art and in a way is art. For me that effort is guaranteed to get my respect and admiration.

The Gamble

     Time to hit the gym, buy that fresh top, and feed myself positive affirmations to build up my game: you’re the man, woman are powerless to you, blah, blah, blah.... Such is being single as a guy in this day and age. Since our culture generally still puts the onus on men for approaching woman a large aspect of being successful at it is building up both the mind set and the strategy for attracting woman. A lot of it has to do with the image one puts forth.  At the end of the day it can feel a little like crafting yourself into a product for consumption and acting...

    In North America being blasé is king when meeting girls. The key is never show too much too quickly, or ever allow yourself to show to much attraction. Romance in the new millennium is like a poker game where one’s hand must be hidden till it’s ready to be laid down. Showing interest then pulling that interest back is a regular strategy. This tactic creates a vacuum of uncertainty in the other person and often may lead them to lean forward out of their own enflamed insecurities. The dividends are twofold for this approach; first, this gives the risk and work of showing attraction to the other person, which of course secondly protects you from emotional risk yourself. As a ground rule, authenticity and openness are to be avoided... unless they can be used strategically to gain more trust from the other person. The key is to establish “hand” in the relationship by inflating oneself in the other’s eyes while chipping away at their confidence slowly as to maintain the pattern.  This can be maintained indefinitely or till something better comes along. If the latter happens the above procedure is repeated as the previous person is sent on their way – probably feeling a lot worse about themselves. Kind of whack, hmmmmmmm...? Well personally I believe there is another way.   

     Authenticity and being genuine can also be the central tenets of a single guy. Contrary to the more combative style of relationships just detailed one can also put honest presentations of the self forward. In doing this the girl you’re with can get an accurate sense of the person you are. With the right girl this approach would allow her to feel comfortable and safe to be herself too.  Another important dynamic is to show the same protective concern you would for yourself for her – if not more. Really the goal should be to see her come out of her shell – not so you can exploit it, but rather so you can bask in the knowledge that you are meeting the real person. 

    Are there risks to this approach? Most definitely – and there is no assurance either that in being authentic that the other person will, or even if they do that the connection will truly be there. We live in a world of so much variation that the “right” match is elusive – especially when the dynamics of physical and sexual attraction also come into play. The latter attributes are inherently binary in nature and really are there or not there. The most pressing danger of course is the possibility of being rejected for your authentic self. However not to put the real you out there is a sure fire way to end up with the wrong person for the wrong reasons anyway. Naturally one cannot be reckless in this regard as the pain of true rejection is as sharp as any feeling there is. Again though as the saying goes “without risk there is no reward” and the possibility of true intimacy and passion is a reward beyond anything material tenfold. Really it’s the only chance of making a true connection and because of that a gamble worth making...