Mentalechoes

I was going through my mobile phone, deleting out old entries and shuffling new ones when it struck me that once more I have gone through another cycle of revolving my friends. I seem to have this habit of changing friends every so often, which is normally after a couple of months of getting to know someone new. Generally the pattern is, make a new friend, see them a few times, and then not call them again for some reason I usually invent. It’s ironic that I usually find making new friends very easy, and yet holding on to those friends very difficult.

I’m lucky enough to have a core of friends whom I have known since the last year of my teens and who have all by luck or design, ended up living in roughly the same part of the world. This has been the source of some very cool times, but also can be quite hard as I expect to make new friends who are like the old ones, which of course, just isn’t going to happen.

I have seen that I do need to make more of an effort in keeping in touch with the new people that I meet. After all, it almost seems selfish in some way to be anti-social. Why selfish? Well it’s because when you don’t make any effort to stay in contact with people it’s like you are saying you want the world to revolve around you, and you’re only willing to meet the world on your own terms. Mind you it can also mean that you don’t like people in general, which in my case isn’t true at all.

While we’re talking about it, in my case it is also a bit true that I am shy and a bit nervous around new people, though people who meet me generally don’t believe that to be true due to me being very over the top and quite loud in a group. It’s the same though for lots of comedian types who are brilliantly funny on stage and yet socially inept and awkward in social environments.

I’ve always believed though that social skills, like any other skill can be practiced and improved over time. If you keep meeting new people and spending time with new people, you will invariably get better at being around new people. Or that’s my theory anyway.

So I’ll put this at the top of my todo list for the start of next week; call up new friends, and meet for a drink.

Padwanna!

The last couple of days have been a time of pleasant contentment. Two mornings in a row I have woken up next to someone lying next to me that to see and touch has given me a feeling of blissful happiness. There is something exquisite in the warmth of her smooth skin and the feel of her body first thing in the morning. It’s intoxicating and very addictive. I could get used to it if I am not careful.

Spring finally seems to have woken up and is making its way around my little bit of Europe where I live. Yesterday was the first day that I was able to walk around in my open collar gold indo shirt (a shirt from indonesia) and not have to have a jumper and coat on over the top. People literally seem to be skipping about with new found energy and restrained happiness. You can see the new leaves and flowers beginning to bud on the trees and bushes around town and in the parks. This very act of blossoming is a wonderful thing to watch because it seems to mirror the feeling of the people that pass them by in day to day life. I see this and think there is still some connection between us and nature that hasn’t yet been all but disconnected in the digital world.

One morning earlier this week I watched a mother duck navigate a busy road with a gaggle of little ducklings in tow. She was trying to get from one canal to another seperated by this road, and I was amazed at the courage she showed to cross a stretch of tarmac busy with speeding vehicles. Happily she made it to the other side with all the little ducklings accounted for, however it really showed me just how difficult natures struggle has become in the face of humanities need to modernise our physical surroundings.

I’d very much like some time off for summer this year I think. And I’d like a tan too. I haven’t had a tan in what feels like decades. What a difference it would be to look at the mirror and see a nice lightly tanned face looking back, rather than that same pale white one that vaguely resembles a vampire from a schlocky b-grade horror movie.

I’m happy the summer is on the way!

Padwanna!

It’s funny how life twists and turns at time. At the beginning of the week I said goodbye to my idle distraction; it was another parting in a life long filled with memories of saying goodbye to women. I did not expect to hear from her again, because she and I really do walk two very different paths in life. But as it turns out, the goodbye was short lived and as chance would have it once more we enjoy a closeness together that brings a smile to my face whenever we talk.

It’s wonderful the affect she has on me. She makes me feel like when I am lying on the top of a grassy hill in the countryside on a cool autumn day watching the clouds race by to a cold wind, and then the clouds break for a brief time and you are bathed in golden bright sunshine that infuses you with warmth all over, and makes you laugh at how good it feels.

Time will come soon enough when things will change and we will go our two different ways, but for now, I’ll enjoy the sunshine she brings and leave thoughts of tomorrow on the whispering winds.

Padwanna!

It was the middle of the week and I was at gym, as usual, doing a brutal workout as usual when I saw a friend over by a peice of equipment. Well maybe friend is a bit too familiar for how I really know this guy, he’s more like an aquantance, whenever we see each other we usually spend a bit of time chatting in between exercise sets. He was telling me about his experience trying to get a job with google here in Amsterdam. It wasn’t going so well because they are pretty much about as unorganised as you can get and still be called an “organisation”. He asked me how things were going at my work and I responded with, “aaaaahhhhhh… yeeeaaahhhhhhh… surrrreeeeee… it’s alright”. Which is what I always say when someone asks me about work. We chatted a bit more and he asked would I be looking for another job soon, and I said to him, no not really I’m comfortable where I am so I don’t have a lot of reasons to move. He laughed and looked at me and said, “Yeah exactly, same for me. You know I’m 35 years old now and I wonder if I’ve got any ambition at all”.

Those words struck a resonating chord within me, and I’ve been wondering ever since if I have any ambition at all either. A little while later he came over to say goodbye and left, yet that discussion has been ringing in my ears ever since.

Do I have any ambition? Well I know I do on some sort of intellectual conceptual level, but I can’t seem to focus the massive amounts of motivation, energy and willpower to create a systematic motion of achieving goals that is the reality part of realising ambition.

A lot of my life is spent trying to put together lifestyle components which will lead to goals being achieved; I’ve intensified my exercise routine because I have a very specific level of health and image that I am trying to reach; I write here on this blog and in a journal to hone my technical and artist writing skills as a means to reach a level of proficiency that I can undertake a novel project, and a screenplay; I even try to interact at the fringes of certain society groups to find experiences to write about. But somehow, there still seems to be lacking certain elements that are key to actually achieving the high level ambitions I have in life.

I’m 37 now. For the first time in all my long life I am aware of the press of time, because I am neither young nor old. I sit in this sweet spot where I have as assets, wisdom, knowledge, skill, experience, a couple of ideas, and time. The thing is it won’t last. Time is ever moving, and to sit idle in contemplation for too long could very possibly see the sun set on any opportunities I want to create.

So I guess for me now, this is the time where I get to look deep and hard inside of myself and find out if I actually do have any ambition at all.

Padwanna!

I don’t get sucked into TV too much these days, most of the time the stuff available to watch on my free cable is so appallingly suckful that it’s more entertaining to make kissing noises while pushing my two index fingers together. Then a friend of mine suggested to me to watch Lost. Actually I think his recommendation went along the lines of, “this series is so fucking fantastically good, it will totally blow you away and have you begging for more like a hot chick in your bed”. Okay, I’ll watch it, I agreed.

So I grabbed the first series from a friend at work and pretty much saw the whole thing over the easter break during recovery days after a couple of long nights out. Right from the first episode I was totally swept into the lives and events on the island after the plane crash. I got completely absorbed into each of the characters in such a big way that after 12 episodes straight, I started thinking of them like old buddies. Perhaps the biggest thing I like about it is the way that you have no idea what is going. In that way it reminds me a lot of Twin Peaks that was on back in the late 80’s from David Lynch. Mind you, that series seemed to lose the plot of the plot pretty badly towards the end. I wonder if that’s what will happen with Lost if they try to keep it going just one season too long.

Yeah, so I’m totally sold on this series, and I can’t wait for Season 2 to finally make it out on DVD. I just hope it doesn’t take too long.

Padwanna!

During the last couple of weeks someone came into my life for a brief time, like a fresh sea breeze on a hot summers day. They brought a smile to my face and made me laugh with their wonderful sense of humour and quirky outlook on life. And then as quickly as she came, now she’s gone again, and I’m left with idle memories of the moments we talked; moments which were such pleasant distractions from days which had been dull and grey for a long while.

Perhaps the most important thing for me was the feelings she stirred inside. I thought I would never feel such things again, that such feelings had died when another left my life so long ago. Now I know that feelings never die, they just settle for a while inside of us waiting for the light of a special new day to grow again.

A time of winter inside my own heart has come to an end, and spring has begun. How fitting that it comes with the first days of spring to the place I call home.

Padwanna!

My social life seems to be picking up quite nicely these days. All of a sudden and out of the blue invites for parties, concerts and social gatherings are coming my way. It’s a welcome change from the sedate life of a self confessed computer gamer geek. I hope this is something that continues because I like it when my mobile phone rings.

My second dutch lesson was tonite. For some reason my brain seems more receptive now to the nuances of dutch language. The first two courses that I did were a real struggle. Everything new peice of knowleddge that I learned was done the hard way, like pushing square pegs into round holes; it can be done, but you have to do it with lots of smashing motions and be prepared for some pain. I think perhaps it is the teacher Yvonne, she is quite different from other teachers in that she has a sense of humour (a trait not commonly attributed to dutch teachers), and uses it a lot in her teaching methods. To her credit she’s making the learning fun, which is resulting in me actually learning! I figure I might even try speaking some dutch to one of the locals one of these days, to make use of my new knowledge. Or I might wait a few weeks more; after all, you don’t want to rush these things.

There is a storm tonight outside. The wind is wailing past my windows making a low pitched moaning noise as rain patters against the glass. My heart is filled with a feeling of coziness and safety hearing such sounds, while I sit inside my nice warm flat very soon to be lying on my couch under a blanket to watch a dvd. This feeling mirrors how I feel about life right now; finally in some way I feel the personal storms that I weather – that we all weather – are outside of the emotional space that my heart and mind occupy, and I have some feeling of peace and safety.

This week I also tamed the dark beast within myself. A dark and destructive influence it is too, and finally I feel that it is not running free within my psyche anymore. I only hope that this balance can be maintained.

Padwanna!

It’s friday night and I really had the feeling to go out for a few drinks tonight. It’s not like that every friday, a lot of them I am content to sit in and have a quiet one, but tonight I really had the feeling to sink a few beers, maybe have a line or two. It’s been one of those weeks, lots on and plenty of pressure to get releases done to put into the production environment. Being a manager type isn’t really my scene so it was a lot of effort for me because I had to force myself to be responsible. That’s not something that comes easily or naturally, so I have to fake it a lot of times. Fortunately I do a good responsible person impression and managed to pull off getting things done to a deadline, but by the end of the day I was all out of seriousness and I was badly in need of destressing.

I really wish I knew a few more people who liked to have some drinks on a friday afternoon. The crowd I know don’t really seem to do this kind of thing for some reason. Could be time to shop around for some end of the week drinking pals I think. Maybe it might be worth just finding a local brown cafe and becoming one of the regulars. I’ve never been the barfly type but I reckon with my personality I could slide into the lifestyle pretty effortlessly. That’s what scares me about myself sometimes, just how easily I seem to take up bad habits and bad lifestyles. Half of my energy is taken up with trying to keep this inner beast restrained in a place where it can’t run free and cause me to do damage to myself. Why do other people all seem so in control?

This week I’ll make the excuse that I was suffering from an express case of depression; it hit hard on monday, and started to fade by thursday. Largely it was because I let someone down last weekend, and I know it hurt their feelings, and I couldn’t bring myself to apologise. My male ego getting in the way once again. I didn’t want to face having to hear her tell me how she was hurt by what I didn’t do. I have great fear of such things.

I’ve noticed that I haven’t actually been writing much either. I can’t make this a habit, otherwise it’s just one more thing that I let slide in my life and then I look back in six months wishing I had done something constructive with the time.

Now about that drink…

Padwanna!

My kitchen and I are currently on non speaking terms. That’s probably because I just couldn’t be arsed to go in and clean up the same dishes that have been sitting there for the last 2 weeks. Dunno why really, I guess I am just going through one of my “disgustingly horrible typical man” phases, as chicks would call it.

We’ve all noticed how guys have this massive tolerance for mess, and girls don’t! I’d like to actually know how that worked out, because as far as I can see, there isn’t any survival advantage from the stone age attributable to living in messy caves. Not that stone age man ever lived alone like modern SNAG man. They paired off early, even earlier than dutch couples, by finding a hot and hairy cavechick, thumping her over the head and dragging her off to a nice cave in the burbs. Strangely enough, the cavechicks probably liked it. That whole mating ritual showed her the caveman was strong enough to hunt down food for her and the cavekids, and so would make a good cavehusband. If he could drag her to a cave, then she was happy, and would most likely set about making a nice art deco home (keeping the natural rock interior design) for them to enjoy. I bet there was even a stone age Ikea somewhere that she would drag him too on a sunday to look at the latest in genuine fake Italian marble floors and kitchens.

For those of you who think this a totally inaccurate depiction of cavemen and cavewomen life, you should watch this fine documentary film for some factual research on the matter!

Getting back to my kitchen, I just can’t find the motivation to go in there and do the dishes. It’s not like I’m a complete man-pig or something though. I don’t live in a total mess, I just can’t seem to find it in me to go in there and roll up my sleeves and actually do anything about the mess that’s in the kitchen. The rest of the flat is okay (seriously). I’m a bit like Withnail right now, out of Withnail and I; sort of pissed off with my place and couldn’t be bothered expending any energy on it. Mind you, even I thought him and Marwood really had to do something about that shithole they lived because it was such a fucking mess. How could anyone let a kitchen get to that point!

Well like everything to do with guys, as soon as the moon shifts phase so will my attitude and I’ll do something about it. Till then, I’ve got better things to do than dishes… like sleep!

Padwanna!

It struck me at 2.30am on Saturday morning while I was drunk and shouting over the top of very loud industrial music to a girl at the Korsakoff bar somewhere in Amsterdam central, what it is that artists do.

If you imagine that life is an orange, and you squeeze it with all your strength, all of the stuff that comes out and dribbles over your fingers and falls to the floor, that’s the essence, this is the stuff artists capture without losing any of the colour, feeling and smell. They capture the essence of life, and they distill it into a form that we can absorb.

Well I guess you probably knew that already, but I really liked the analogy I came up with using the orange.

I tend to think that this talent for feeling and seeing the essence of life is not something everyone can do. It’s not something that comes naturally just from simply being alive. Just like you don’t automatically become wise just because you make it to 60 years old. The essence of life is only found through heavy soul searching and pain. That’s why artists have to suffer; it’s only through the process of sacrifice and the ritual of pain that their minds are sufficiently enlightened to see through to the mysterious center of our mortal existence.

Something I saw on TV recently really had me thinking about all this. About a week or so ago I managed to catch the start the movie, Frida about the mexican artist Frida Kahlo who was made a walking cripple in a bus accident when she was only 18 years old. The beautiful and powerful images – not necessarily at the same time – that she went on to compose throughout her life were montages of her deep feelings and experiences rooted in her suffering. Undoubtedly the woman was possessed of a very high degree of ability concerning the technical aspects of painting, but would she have been able to create the same intensely emotional art if she had not had the accident and suffered such terrible injuries? Well Frida is just one example, history is littered with the names of great artists who lived very intense lives that the mainstream simply could not, or did not want to experience in the same way.

The essence of life then seems to be something that reveals itself only to a very few who are willing to look for it. Like I said, I don’t think that just by point of fact that you are alive means you know something about the essence of living. So many people will go a whole lifetime and not come close to squeezing the orange so that the essence will pour over their hands making them sticky and pungent, and deliciously dirty.

It reminds me of something Hunter S. Thompson wrote at the beginning of Fear of Loathing in Las Vegas; He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. It makes more sense to me now. It’s not just about the freedom that comes from liberating yourself from society through totally antisocial behaviour, but also about being able to see into the heart of life and to see the essence that flows through it with every beat. After all, once you’re not part of the mainstream anymore, you can finally step back and see what it is the mainstream really is, which gives you a perspective for what you really are. Mind you, I guess that works the other way as well, as people from the mainstream who look at you will see something that will give them perspective on their life in turn.

This is why art is so important; it awakens the sleeper inside of us!

Padwanna!