While I was only on holidays a couple of weeks ago, I feel like they were years in the past. I’m back into that frenzy zone where it’s life in the really fast lane, and everything can become a bit of a blur.

Then this morning my excellent friend Sandy sent me this small peice of wisdom from Paulo Cohelo (a favourite author of mine) by email, which comes as both a reminder, and lesson in life; that choosing to be still is such an important action, we should try to do it more with our time.

I was so touched by it that I wanted to share this around, because I think it’s wonderful message from a wonderful girl!

Thanks chick! )

And here it is!

One day in January 2006, Paulo Coelho.

It is raining hard today and the temperature is close to 3ºC. I decided to go for a walk – I feel that if I don’t walk every day I won’t be able to work – but the wind is very strong too, so I came back to the car after ten minutes. I took the newspaper from the mailbox, nothing important in it, except the things that journalists have decided we should know, follow up and take a position on.

I go to the computer to read my e-mails.

Nothing new, just some decisions without any importance that I can see to later.

I try a little archery, but the wind is still blowing so strong that it’s impossible. I have already written my bi-annual book, which this time is called “The Zahir”, and there is still weeks before it comes out. I have already written the columns I publish on the Internet. I have already written the newsletter for my page on the Web. I have had a check-up on my stomach which fortunately detected nothing abnormal (they really scared me with all that business of sticking a tube down my throat, but there is nothing so terrible about it). I have been to the dentist. The tickets for
my next trip by plane, which were taking a while to arrive, have finally got here by express mail. There are some things I have to do tomorrow, and some things I finished doing yesterday, but today… Today I have absolutely nothing to concentrate my attention on.

That scares me: shouldn’t I be doing something? Well, if you want to invent work, you don’t need to make much effort – there are always projects to be developed, bulbs that need changing, dry leaves that need sweeping, books to be tidied up, computer files to be organized, and so on. But how about just facing a total void.

I put on a cap, thermal clothes and a rainproof jacket, and go out to the garden – like this I’ll be able to stand the cold for the next four or five hours. I sit down on the wet grass and begin to make a mental list of what passes through my head:

A] I am useless. At this moment everybody is busy, working hard.
Answer: I work hard too, sometimes twelve hours a day. Today, by chance, I have nothing to do.

B] I have no friends. Here I am alone, one of the world’s best-known writers, and the telephone does not ring.
Answer: of course I have friends. But they know how to respect my need for isolation when I’m in the old mill at St. Martin in France.

C] I have to go and buy some glue.
Yes, I have just remembered that I ran out of glue yesterday, why not get into the car and drive to the nearest town? And that thought brings me to a halt. Why is it so difficult just to stay as I am right now, without doing anything?

A series of thoughts goes through my head: friends who worry about things that have not happened yet, acquaintances who know how to fill each minute of their lives with tasks that seem absurd to me, senseless conversations, long phone calls to say nothing of importance. Office bosses who invent work to justify their jobs, employees who are afraid because today they were given nothing important to do and that could mean that they are no longer any useful, mothers who torture themselves because the
children have gone out, students who torture themselves over studies, tests, examinations.

I wage a long, difficult fight with myself not to get up and go to the stationary to buy the glue that is missing. The anguish is immense, but I’m determined to stay here without doing anything at least for a couple of hours. Little by little the anxiety gives way to contemplation and I begin to listen to my soul. It was dying to talk to me, but I’m always so busy.

The wind is still blowing very hard, I know that it’s cold and that tomorrow maybe I’ll need to buy some glue. I’m not doing anything, and I’m doing the most important thing in a man’s life: I’m listening to what I needed to hear from myself.

Padwanna!

It’s late, damn late! Really goddamned frigging late!

I got back from work about 40 minutes ago, which was the end of a sixteen and a half hour day. Tomorrow is going to be another one like it. There isn’t any end in sight either as it looks like we are going to have to work the weekend as well.

Life is getting consumed by… “The Project”!

“The Project” has become this blackhole entity that sucks paperwork, bandwidth, moral, and all my gaming, exercise, blogging and writing time into it, never to be seen again!

It is a force beyond nature; it exists only in the minds of the people assigned to it, and the company that relies upon its fruits for revenue, but it’s momentum is more powerful than a runaway train!

“The Project” feeds off others souls for it’s own life force, and in some individuals cases, it leaves behind empty husks that have been drained of their vitality and fun!

I can feel myself slipping away sometimes; becoming like the others that walk like zombies through my office, devoid of any sign of fun and joviality, but I shall not succumb! No I shall fight, and I shall win out in the end, and have a life after “The Project”!

And now I must rest, for tomorrow will be another gruelling day!

Padwanna!

*cue Mission Impossible theme tune, and that guy who gives those bastard missions to Jim*

Andy, todays mission, should you choose to accept it (I will cause I’m sick of walking everywhere) is to buy another bike from a legal seller for 50 euros or less within 2 hours! This message won’t self destruct in 5 seconds because then you would have to buy another computer and I know that’s out of your league right now!

*sound of a record being scratched in the background as I take that stupid tune off the imaginary record player*

So once again I have to go and buy another bike because my last one got stolen. I only had the thing for 3 months too. Probably by some crackheads, but more likely by well organised crackheads with a van and electric bulkcutters and angle grinders who steal bikes for a living! See Amsterdam is not only famous for tulips, windmills, hookers and hash, it’s also the bike theft capital of the world! Mind you, that’s because it is the bike capital of the world as well, so one goes with the other. You can buy a bike off any street junkie for around 20 euro, and it may last you 10 years, or it might fall to peices right out from under you 50 meters up the road. That’s the chance you take with a quick junkie sale. You also gotta be a bit careful with the cops, if they catch you buying a bike from a junkie they’ll take you down to the station and you’ll get stiffed with a fine while the junkie fella will go about his day free as a bird. More than likely laughing his head off at the nice smelling bloke who got busted buying some overpriced peice of shit that didn’t have a chain anyway! No point busting junkies is the attitude here, it doesn’t matter to them. Honest (or semi-honest) citizens really get peeved over this sort of thing though and might actually not do it again after the first time if the fine is right!

So yeah, the great bike hunt has begun! I have a few starting criteria to narrow the search down.

* No cable brakes – They rust and stop working after a time! Generally you find out at speed approaching a 5 way intersection with a crazed turkish cab driver lining you up for a roadkill using his mercedes symbol as a targetting sight!

* No gears, just the one is fine – Gears tend to shred with all the work the bike does, and the maintenance it doesn’t get! The last time I had gears on a bike, I was going up a slope and the mechanism broke and I started to freewheel. I totally wasn’t expecting it and fell forward into the top frame bar using my testicles as an airbag! I don’t know which scream was louder; the scream of pain from my balls being crushed, or the scream of terror from the oncoming traffic as I was now in the middle of the road half blind with stars in my eyes. No gears!

* No leather seat – while they do mould to your arse and feel comfortable, the black leather dye also rubs off onto your pants and makes you look you shit yourself! Nothing turns a woman off faster than the thought of an adult man who is isn’t toilet trained! A vinyl seat will be just great, thank you very much!

So the rules of hunting are

* Never seem to keen, they’ll keep upping the price until you are shocked and going to walk away. Just look shocked straight away, grab your head and scream “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?! WHAT ABOUT MY CHILDREN! I COULD BUY MICROSOFT FOR THAT FUCKING AMOUNT OF MONEY”!

* Always pretend you are dutch, as locals get a cheaper price. Shrug off not being able to speak fluently as some kind of mental retardation caused by a crack/sex overdose. It sounds half plausable – I’d believe it if someone told me that – and will likely get you sympathy and perhaps a little envy from the ubiquitous male second hand bike retailer!

* Appear like you know everything about dutch politics and Queen Beatrix (bless her heart for she is a sweet woman). If your broke retard act doesn’t work, you can go to plan B and ingratiate yourself with the seller by chatting about the Dutch folks two favourite conversation topics!

* Insist on a test drive! Extensive NASA research has shown that most peices of shit bikes will disintegrate to dust in the first minute of use. Get this first minute out of the way before giving the snake any money. If the worst happens you can just drool down the front of your jacket, smile and walk away and leave him with the mess. If you pay first, then he’ll be doing the same thing to you, in which case you’re fucked!

The hunt is now officially on!

Padwanna!

I had one of those days at work where I was talking to people throughout the whole day. It wasn’t just the usual inane chatter either about work or those coffee machine conversations you have when you’re all standing around getting your caffene fix. No, it was really personal stuff about peoples lives and what they were doing, and the problems they were facing and even the fears they are having about the future. I was really touched by some of these discussions too, as it showed a couple of these people had a lot of personal trust in me to open up the way they did. I thank my mother for that quality in me really. She works as a social worker on the Gold Coast, the town I grew up in as a kid, and is one of these people who has a huge empathy for other people. Within five minutes of meeting my mum, it’s not unusual for a person to be telling her deeply personal details that they wouldn’t at all tell others about.

It’s kind of bizarre though that this happened today, at a time when I have been thinking very deeply about my own life; where it is, and where it’s going. After each D&M (aussie slang for a “Deep and Meaningful” talk) I had this afterglow where I would feel really good for having shared something with somebody. I would look at them differently too; see them in a different way is probably a good way to describe it. The reason was because they weren’t strangers anymore, I felt some connection to them, some bond, that wasn’t there before. I felt like in some small way, now I knew them better, and they knew me better, and it felt good.

There is a joy in knowing people, and in that deeply personal process of getting to know someone. It’s not such a common thing either, to connect with someone, that you can take it for granted. To have a day where you have that happen with four or five individuals is really special.

If I didn’t know better I would almost say there was some fate involved in it. I’d almost believe it too!

Padwanna!

I go through these times in life where I feel sorry for myself because I feel life is such a big struggle and there’s so many problems, that even to do something simple requires so much effort. I was (am) going through one of those periods now, where everything feels like so much fucking effort. But then, I don’t think I’m alone. I know that for those of us living in the northern hemisphere, many are starting to get tired of the long winter and short days. February always seems hardest, you’ve had enough snow and ice already by this time, the novelty has worn off, and yet you know there another six odd weeks to go before there is some easing of the sub zero temperatures outside.

Ahh, it’s more than that though, when I am going through one of these feel-sorry-for-myself periods I spend so much time being angry it scares me. I wake up angry; I go to work angry; I come home angry; I go to sleep angry. My whole life seems angry because everything seems out of control to some degree. It’s at times like these that I can become very introverted and self centered. In years gone by I’ve looked for answers in strong liquor and white lines, even though I’d know it’s the worst thing you could do, and there’s no answers to be found. I’d do it anyway!

Then something happened to me on wednesday night that made me realise something about life. But I’ll get to that in a minute. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. As I was lying on the couch staring aimlessly at MTV a tune came on that I hadn’t heard before – Big City Life by Mattafix. It had this slow easy electronic reggae beat that kind of wraped around me like a blanket making me feel warmer somehow. The voice the singer had I could only describe as beautiful; it was strong and yet soft at the same time, the kind of voice that can really travel deep into your thoughts with its haunting tones. The tune itself tells a story of how life (in the city of London) can be a hard struggle each day filled with hardship, but for all that, life is short and the struggle (and the city) are worth it because it’s all over all too soon.

I downloaded the track and just set winamp to play it on repeat… over and over and over again. I must have lay on the couch for two hours with this tune going on repeat as I channel surfed on the TV with it’s sound down. The whole feeling and emotion of the song seeped into me as images from the TV played in front of me eyes.

Time passed and I started to see something; a message in the words and pictures that amalgamated in my conscience. All life is a struggle; all of our lives are a struggle; all the people in the world struggle each day! Some people struggle more and some people struggle less, but we all struggle. Then a memory from many years ago came to the front of my consciousness.

It was a bright sunny day of summer back in ’01, and I was down the park with a friend of mine, Nick. I had just broken up with my then girlfriend because I had found out she had cheated on me with another guy, and the news had broken me inside. Nick was a good mate and sat there listening to me as I pissed and moaned in his ear for a couple of hours about the whole thing. At some point I said to him, why the fuck are there so many obstacles in life and why does everything have to be such a struggle? He thought about it for a second and then looked at me and said, you know you have these people who are always saying, next month when I get paid and buy a new pair of jeans or shoes, or whatever I will be happy. In six months when I have gotten past this obstacle or this issue in life I will be happy. Next year when I get a new car, or a new girlfriend or boyfriend I will be happy. These sorts of people will never be happy because they don’t understand that life isn’t about getting past the obstacles and the struggles; obstacles and struggles are what life is all about! Without them, life has no meaning! Simply living means we will always have obstacles and struggles, but if we look at them as giving our lives purpose, instead making our lives shit, then each day you can find happiness no matter what the circumstances. That was one of the wisest things anyone has ever passed on to me. It’s such a shame I can’t remember this every day of my life, instead of every few years.

In some way that I really can’t explain to you, as I lay there watching different channels playing different stories of life across the world, I started to feel better knowing that I don’t struggle alone. We might struggle with our own obstacles and problems alone, but we don’t struggle alone in this life. For the first time in a few days, focusing on something other than my own life, I could feel some of my own anger slip away. Just the act of empathasing with someone else made me feel better about myself. Perhaps I will never understand why, but really, I don’t need too because in the end life is too short to lose precious moments trapped in bubbles of sadness of our own making.

Life will always be a struggle, but you know I wouldn’t want to give either of them up. I like my big city life too much!

Padwanna!