Tag: delivering bread

Renovating The Mind

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Depending on how we live life it can appear that our existence is just one long series of bubbles. I’ve left my previous bubble in other words and found myself in a new one. I say too about how we live our life because for some they only ever experience one bubble. I don’t suggest that is a good or a bad thing, it is just another experience. The two versions of experience can allow us to put differing importance upon a variety of things. For the last ten months I have been working in a bakery making pizzas, driving vans and doing some renovations. In that time I existed in a little village by the sea. It was very difficult not to get caught up in all the little drama that involved and I both thrived on it and was broken by it. Now I’ve followed a familiar path I know and moved on. I’m in Greece living in a boatyard with the intention of doing some work on a boat. Shall we say renovations in a different form, of boat and mind. My bubble is changing and evolving into something else. I am rediscovering different types of importance.

As I look back on these previous months I realise how much I got caught up in an entire world of small things. That isn’t to say they weren’t important because clearly they were at the time. Some I wish in hindsight I hadn’t got so involved in or reacted to in the ways I did, but all it shows is how easily we can get lost in the worlds we inhabit. In a way it could be argued as a good thing, was this an example of me living in the moment. The intensity of the bubble representing how present I was. In truth I know I wasn’t that present as I spent large chunks of the time fantasising about being anywhere else. But that didn’t stop me putting value on what I was experiencing. Now having left and with the time to step back from it all it seems so unimportant. All the things that caused anger, stress and anxiety. What were they for, what was their point and why did I allow them to engulf me.

This is one reason I enjoy moving so much as it allows me to be able to observe things in at least a physically detached way. Mentally I am still not objective but I can see now having left that the fears and stresses were not important, at least not in the way they felt at the time. This detachment then allows for perspective. As I said it isn’t to entirely devalue these moments but perhaps it’s about being able to better understand our own reactions in them. I was thinking recently that surely old people should fear nothing having experienced so much and survived it all. Evidence suggests otherwise but theoretically I like this idea. It fits then with the one that this chapter I have just stepped out of was challenging but I survived it. Maybe not intact but I survived it still. Any damage can be understood, resolved and released, used as experience if and when similar arises in the future.

I know this is entirely about me but my intention is to use my experience and hopefully help another understand their own. We’re never as unique as we like to think we are and simply see, understand and experience moments in our own ways. I take from others my own version of their version and someone else will do the same of mine, relating it in a way that they can understand and learn from. Is understanding and learning not the whole point. Everything else is just a tool for that end surely. One more thing to help us unlock the key to step from one bubble to the next. Another brick in the development of understanding.

One Moment, Four Eyes

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There is a saying out there in the ether that goes along the lines of ‘no two people experience a moment the same way’. At about ten o’clock this morning I scribbled down ‘narrative confirming events & narratives to mould events’. Unfortunately the precise meaning of that seems to have slipped my mind in the time between but it was undoubtedly wise in one way or another. At this time I had just finished delivering bread having got up to do so about seven hours earlier and after three hours sleep having finished making pizzas late the night before. When people sleep this little, and what appears to be quite regularly these days, they have a habit of being a little grumpy and irrational. This morning was one of those days.

I can’t remember exactly what I meant but I think it had something to do with one of the people I was delivering to asking the annoying “Have you done this?” Have you done that?” despite the fact I always do this and that, and haven’t not once. I gave a pretty straight “Yes, no and I will” but really I wanted to let her know I didn’t appreciate her accusing me of not knowing how to do my relatively easy and straightforward job. Had I not been so tired and grumpy I suspect I wouldn’t have even noticed it as an issue but the mind can play tricks on you when it’s stretched.

This then was one version of an experience. Later as I drove away I mumbled to myself how she was rude and probably an idiot. This is most likely unfair and I suspect this is the case because I attempted to look at it from another perspective. Namely, hers. I remember when I was attempting to make a little sense of the world in my twenties I discovered the concept of compassion. To be able to experience compassion, one technique is to put yourself in the other persons position and view the event through their eyes. Maybe this is giving her an excuse and she was just being rude but perhaps there was a reason she was being so specific and direct with these questions. It is possible the other drivers haven’t always done these things requested but there is every chance she has been told by her boss to make sure of this and that, and she is stressing them to me because she knows she’ll get grief if they’re not done. Whether this is simply me giving her an excuse and letting her off I will never know. Also, she may have not even been that rude and I was just overreacting in my mind. Really though I don’t need to know because it doesn’t matter. The moment I thought that this may be a reason for her attitude my own anger towards her dissipated and I felt what can only be described as compassion. I had let go and the chain of negative emotions had been broken.

This was one moment and those were two ways to experience it. How narratives come into it is arguably less clear but most likely had something to do with allowing the idea that everyone and everything was out to annoy me. This shaped how I felt the situation unfolded and how I viewed it. It could be a good idea to write down a few notes alongside the main note for understanding purposes but one step at a time. I’ve been writing this blog so long and I can count the amount of times I’ve written notes like that on one hand. Still, there was something in there worth writing about I’m sure. I’ll keep my eyes peeled and try to spot a more suitable example for next time.

To Endure The Discipline

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There are probably a few things wrong with this blog. Firstly it’s a blog and I know blogs are not always viewed upon in the most appreciated of lights, I assume this is because of the potential for a little self-indulgence and self-aggrandising. I don’t dismiss that, and while I try to avoid doing this I know I am probably guilty sometimes, especially the self-indulgence. The fact I write from the first perspective quite often probably doesn’t help. There is something else about this particular blog though I know definitely doesn’t lead to ease of anything.

Because I write every single day, there are numerous days in which I force myself to find both the energy and the subject matter to write about. I doubt anyone has read every piece I have written, I wouldn’t blame you for not as there have been a lot and I know I wouldn’t have kept up were it someone else’s project. One thing that is clear though if you have read a few is that there are a lot of pieces in which I have written just about anything to complete the task of writing something every day. Not that that isn’t a problem because ultimately the first and really only priority was to write each and every day, after that writing well and about interesting things could only ever be a secondary. I don’t doubt there have been days in which I can be proud of both my writing and the content but there are too some which are quite the opposite.

It turns out it’s quite difficult to write something on a daily basis and I’m impressed that some professionals manage it so proficiently when they do. Admittedly being professionals they make the time but still it is an achievement I am recognising more as this year has progressed. I struggle because not being a professional writer means I have to be a professional something else and for me that is making pizzas in the evening and delivering bread in the early morning. I wasn’t expecting to drive tomorrow but events have allowed such a scenario to happen, so having finished pizzas I know I need to be awake in about four hours. When you throw in the lack of desire to talk politics, the lack of brain energy to talk philosophy not that I do on here very often despite my original desire to do so, and really a lack of desire to talk about anything, I find myself writing pieces like this. Now this could appeal to the people who write about writing blogs, and what I am doing is a great experiment in blog writing I’m sure, but it’s not the kind of thing that would garner great attention and back slaps.

I would love to pretend I am above back slaps but let’s be honest if I’m willing to publish this every day it’s not just because doing this publicly helps force the discipline to continue. We all love being told we’re doing something well etcetera etcetera. I have mentioned before that when the year is up I’ll perhaps write one or two pieces a week but hopefully make them really interesting and thought out. In a way that is even more challenging in a disciplined sense and also sometimes I feel my best pieces come out in those late at night forced moments. It’s strange like that. Writing this has so far been a very interesting experience and I know I’ll elaborate more as the days tick down towards the full year. Thankfully though that is more than enough of a piece for tonight and I hope someone somewhere managed to appreciate just slightly the insight into the life of someone who is enduring a blog. Enduring sounds perfect as my eyes begin to close.