Tag: Greece

One Day At A Time

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As some may be aware I am currently in Greece and for the last few days the idea of where I will go next has been on my mind. The exact details of where are not important, that isn’t going to be the point but more everything that goes into making these decisions. In the past I have stressed about where I will go next and over the last ten years there have been a lot of ‘nexts’. As I’ve got older these have evolved from thinking it would be pretty cool and exciting going somewhere to viewing a place with eyes aware that I may settle there. This idea of settling somewhere stresses me out. It influences my decisions massively and it shouldn’t because so far I haven’t stayed in any of these places but also because it’s completely pointless overly concerning yourself with such an unknown.

The problem with this particular unknown though is that it is enormous. When something is enormous we are bound to become overwhelmed by it and allow it to take over our minds completely. Of course you can’t pick somewhere based upon your entire future, it’s an impossible decision to make, too many unknowns and you’re not only choosing an idea but arguably a fantasy. Everything has to be a one day at a time thing. Right now spending too much time thinking about something like this is a waste of energy because you’re currently doing something else and if your mind is absorbed with a future fantasy then you’re not being present. You’re not doing what you need to be doing and you’re not giving what you should be focusing on the time and energy it deserves. Life inevitably starts passing you by as you’re never there to see or experience it.

There is one other slightly unrelated part but I have in the past thought I should return to cold northern places, like Scotland, because we need a little misery and suffering to appreciate real life. Appreciate in the sense of understanding and thinking but I suspect that misses the point. If you’re Nietzsche perhaps this makes some sense but his reality was only one version. The great thinkers so engrossed in the inevitable suffering of existence weren’t all Scottish, Scandinavian or German. The idea then is can you have fun in the sun while at the same time comprehend the pointlessness and absurdity of life. It does conjure up a strange and amusing image. Perhaps you would start comprehending life through a different lens. Maybe all Nietzsche ever needed was to take up windsurfing.

Fishing

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I’ve gone and taken up a new hobby. It involves fishing. Not me fishing of course, I tried that once and as I didn’t immediately master it, I dropped it from things I might do twice. It does turn out though that I’m really good at sitting in my car and watching others fish. I mentioned the other day about my surprise at seeing a relatively young and attractive woman fishing, it turns out I was correct as she was an anomaly but as I’m not here to watch women I don’t mind. I have no idea what anyone is saying and know they look at me slightly bemused, perhaps they even discuss who this strange tourist in his car watching them is. Perhaps they don’t give a shit. This being Greece they likely don’t give a shit.

I’ve so far not seen anyone catch anything. I’ve also not spent hours sitting and watching so likely that’s more of a reason than much else. It got exciting once when it looked as if I was about to witness my first catch but all that happened was someone caught their other line. As I write that sentence it makes me think I should probably go out and make some friends. Relative excitement shall we say.

It could be that it’s just fun relaxing by the sea. I know I’m sitting in the car but genuinely I quite enjoy sitting in cars by places. I don’t always feel it necessary to get out. What am I going to do, walk around for a bit, stand somewhere and watch or maybe even sit somewhere and watch. At least I’ve got my comfy car seat and a holder for my beer. It’s much easier to sit with the laptop and write this in a car too. Maybe I should get a chair like the fishermen and sit beside my car. I might feel the necessity to buy a fishing rod then though and that would change the entire nature of this experience. When I get bored and need an upgrade maybe.

One of the fishermen is vigorously making himself a frappe and watching me. This is Greece after all, nosey bastards. It’s really hard making national stereotypes when everyone acts as they feel fit. Perhaps that can be a Greek stereotype, doing whatever the hell they want. Why must we take the unknown out of the world by putting people in boxes though. The unknown is scary I guess, it makes us feel safe to box it up. Like being scared of the dark, the unknown without lights. If we can box an entire people then what can be safer than that. It seems a little ignorant though, and I can say that as someone who has done that far too often in the past. It might just turn out people are people. What a whole new world of discovery that would involve. But anyway, enough of this. Back to the fishing.

To Become A True Disciple Of Discipline

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It can be hard finding the discipline to do things you don’t want to do. There has been some discipline involved in writing this every day. I am a little surprised, I am less than two months from the one year finishing line and still going. It’s not a stubbornness that has got me this far but certainly once you’ve put a certain amount of energy and emotion into something it can be easier just to carry on than stop. The public shame of stopping also plays a role and there’s no coincidence I published originally in this knowledge. Creating a habit of easier just to continue than stop is also easier said than done.

Currently a catamaran in a boat yard in Greece is my home. I am fixing a few things that need fixed and waiting around for a professional to fix the odd thing I can’t or am probably better off not trying. There have been moments in which I’m happy to get on with things but sometimes, these last few days have been a challenge. One job I have to do is antifoul the bottom of the two hulls. It turns out that the painting part is going to be impossible for now as it must go in the water shortly after being painted. It’s not going back in until probably April next year. I can prepare it in advance though. That means the dreaded sanding. I hate sanding. I have sanded plenty of things in my life and I hate it.

It turns out sanding a hull is even less enjoyable than normal. You need to be fully decked out in a protective suit, a mask and goggles. This is for my health which is important but the goggles don’t seem to do much judging by my facial resemblance to a smurf – the hull is blue – and it gets bloody hot at this time of year. Throw in the fact the previous layers are proving rather difficult to get off and I am aware I don’t want to sand too deep so in itself it is pretty challenging. The point is that requiring the discipline to get up and do the job has been an issue. I have struggled. Yesterday was good in a way, although frustrating as it rained and I had to stop, I at least had an excuse. Today though has been a lovely day and the only obstacle has been myself. This is discipline, or at least another type of discipline, one requiring a different type of effort to that needed for writing in here. You think you’ve taken steps learning something but it’s a case of then discovering the thing you think you are getting to grips with has an infinite amount of variety.

I have discovered though that like everything we just need to look at it all one step, or one day, at a time. If I look at the entire two hulls it becomes a huge task and a hugely off-putting one at that. If I just say today I will sand for the morning or until X o’clock then suddenly I am more inclined to crack on and see the morning through. Like everything, if we ignore the enormity of any task or issue and take it one day at a time it all seems much more manageable. I say that, the theory sounds nice, I’ll let you know how I get on and whether I’m simply talking out of my arse once more.

A Toxic Storm

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I sit tonight with thunder and lightning as a backdrop of sorts. I say of sorts because I am in a taverna and despite attempting to position myself looking outside there are still too many lights and people around to feel the full affects of such weather. In fact all these people and children kill any mood I felt prior to entering. There is always something atmospheric and intense with thunderstorms, especially those in hotter countries not used to rains all year round. The intensity is understandable, I imagine if they could measure the energy build up inside a storm, they probably can, maybe that’s what weather balloons do, they would discover it to be powerful. I suppose it is that strength which creates the burst of electricity that is lighting. Is the lightning a release though, is there a decrease in energy once it has struck. Can we compare this to the human mind?

I can use Greeks as an example. It is probably a little ignorant and lazy. Greeks are known for let’s say having an argumentative character. It is a lazy stereotype but for the sake of this argument, let’s assume it is true. It has felt when I’ve been embracing elements of this culture in the past, that the loud arguments have been a form of release. That sometimes we wouldn’t even be arguing over something we were actually angry about but simply looking for this excuse to release a build up of energy. The stereotype about the Greeks then is lazy because this is clearly something done by all, this is a game played in Scotland too for sure. The point is though that this energy must still go somewhere. I don’t know what happens once lightning strikes. What happens to the power that fires towards the ground. The power in an argument is hardly visible but you feel it and you hold onto it, perhaps it’s the same with the lightning strike. This I clearly don’t know.

I do know arguments though and I do know that I am capable and therefore others too of holding on to that energy. We see the other person relaxed and happy after their release but we’re a quivering ball of someone else’s anger. Our own toxicity levels increasing in the moment. Perhaps this is why some people are described as toxic. Toxic substances poison just as toxic people do too. We can’t ignore the fact if others do it to us then certainly we do it to others too. We can’t just spend our lives avoiding those we deem toxic in the hope of not becoming part of some cycle though, this is no way to live life. We must learn to live and not absorb, don’t take in their bullshit. See it and brush it off. I’m not sure why I got into this. I just wanted to talk about thunderstorms. It’s amazing how the mind wanders and relates.

The Storm Of The Mind

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The first time I came to Greece, perhaps it was about four years ago now. Time is strange, it decides itself how fast it moves. It may have even been five years. The destination was Lesvos and it was with the intention of being some kind of hero, there to save the refugees. Actually I’m not entirely sure what the intention was, it was just suggested to me by a friend as something to do and I thought why not. We arrived in a storm. For about four days the island was battered as people slept rough, they slept wet, they slept on hillsides that resembled rivers. The scene was destruction and devastation. It was post-apocalyptic in everyway except that I was able to return to my little hotel room once all the heroism was done for the day.

There is a lot that could be said about that time, little of it positive in a way but there are always things which shine through the clouds. I made friends who will be friends for a lifetime. That isn’t always something you can say. I also saw the world in a way I hadn’t previously, and I understood seeing truth in another form, despite being hard to take, was a good thing for the mind. These things are all about me though because to view it from any other perspective is too much of a challenge. Thousands of people passed through everyday. The fate of nearly all of them unknown to me. Many survived but I don’t doubt many didn’t, their fates too horrific for these words here.

I’m not sure why I’m going into this. I always feel so self-indulgent. The knowledge I’ll likely always have a hotel room to go to if I need devalues something of any assistance I could give. The words become hollow, if they ever weren’t. That and the knowledge I could also jump on a plane with relative ease and go to any of those countries people were dying just to reach. There is probably a sense of guilt in a way but we shouldn’t feel guilty when ultimately we’re powerless. It is also a completely pointless emotion as we can’t help the lives we were born into. We can help what we do with them but even then we’re limited in anything genuine. It does make you grateful for a bit but that slowly passes as you start casting envious eyes around once more. I can understand how people become detached when they exist in that world for so long. Or maybe they’re detached when they begin and that is how they last. That is unfair. People do what they can. What they have to.

I know why I’m going into this. I’m in day three back in Greece and it’s currently day two of Storm Ioannis. Apparently there will be a day three and day four will be the day the world comes back to life. The scenario couldn’t be further from the last and I am as much a different person as those people I now meet but arriving in a storm seems familiar enough that it has made me reminisce. Reminisce in the most miserable and sad of ways but then weather can do that to you. Our moods are so very defined by the nature of our environment. What is important though is to remember to come out with the sunshine once it returns. It’s best not to leave yourself in the storm.

Yassou Old Friend

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September along with April and May is probably the best time to be in Greece. The second half of September in particular. The most extreme elements of the Greek summer have subsided; the heat, the tourists and the stressed Greeks trying to make money. This year is a little different but it seems to be following the usual pattern. There is a lot in this country that can frustrate a person, Greek or non-Greek, but it has more than enough to keep bringing people back. Secretly I love the place more than I’m frustrated by it but don’t tell anyone, sentiment like that gets in the way of being able to complain which is a favourite past time out here.

The plan is to fix up a boat. I’ll be sanding, painting, servicing engines and trying to work out why there’s water in the sail drive. The last will be the most challenging mentally but I’m not looking forward to being stuck down in the tiny engine compartments under the baking sun trying not to flood the engines with my sweat. It’ll be a good boat learning experience though. I’m a believer in the holistic approach to life so it is important to understand sailing isn’t just trying to catch the perfect angle to the wind with our sails or drinking gin and tonic in the sun. Watching everyone on their boats doing exactly that in the port today did make me a little envious though, there is something slightly unnatural about a boat out of water.

These thing I can worry about tomorrow though. Today has been about catching up on and ruining any notion of a sleep pattern as well as getting my bearings in this new place. In a way I’m back where I belong. I know despite my desires for a normal life I thrive in new lands. I enjoy finding my bearings and working out what is going on. I’m not always the best at chatting with everyone but I wouldn’t say I’m unsocial either. I got a good deal on a car rental and spent too much in the supermarket on food. In response I decided not to eat dinner in the taberna and ate a couple of kebabs washed down with a couple of beers in my car while watching people fish. It doesn’t sound like it should be a stand out thing but there was a reasonably attractive woman on her own fishing. It stood out because usually it’s old or middle aged couples and single men doing this kind of thing. It’s not a big thing and perhaps a subtle example but somehow Greece manages to find a way to provide moments which make you take notice. It’s what makes the place so interesting, and admittedly occasionally frustrating.

It would be nice to be out on the water though. I have some slight ideas of plans forming but will keep it all open. Jumping on a boat would certainly be an option I’m open to once I finish these repairs. Anyone going to the Canary Islands? I will say though as my feet and ankles experience that familiar feeling, I don’t miss mosquitoes when I’m not here. They do serve a purpose, I’m not someone who thinks they should all die but certainly I’m ready to discover the secret to what it is they’re attracted to and make the necessary changes in my life. The boat is at the far end of a huge boatyard and I’m hoping they don’t know I’m there. There’s nothing worse than one of those night sleeps. I’m sure it’ll give me something to complain about. Well, it is Greece, you have to do something in between all the enjoying life.

On The Road Again

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“See it. Say it. Sorted” says a message on the loud speaker after telling passengers to report anything suspicious. Don’t get me wrong there have been situations involving public transport in the past but the constant need to remind people of the fear they should be in, the potential that there could always be something to look out for, makes me far uneasier than any possible – I’m assuming terrorist – danger does.

I just missed my mouth slightly and spilt beer on my face mask. We can add that to the drawbacks list. I’ve never quite understood why when drinking alcohol is illegal in outdoor public places, on buses, even as a passenger in cars apparently; it is perfectly fine to drink on a train. I can only assume it has something to do with them being able to sell alcohol themselves and it being impossible to regulate train beer from carry on beer. Maybe it’s just a throwback to dining carts. I’m not complaining. Few countries in the world seem to allow such things and I see it as a genuine positive of what is already probably my favourite form of transport. I’ll take a bus if I have to, I’ll avoid the train if it’s too expensive and I’ll take the plane if it makes more practical sense but there’s still something I enjoy about a train that I’m yet to put my finger on entirely. Comfortable, fast, easy, goes through scenic areas. Maybe I should go on one of those long train journeys like the Trans-Siberian or across America, the Andes, Australia and anywhere else that begins with ‘A’.

Despite spending the last few months delivering bread and working in a bakery and pizza shop I seem a little more nervous about this virus though. The little Northumberland seaside village and the Scottish countryside of my parents feels like a little bubble I’ve stepped out of. I’ve gone south where bad things happen. I’m now in the real world. A world with dangers.

I can still only smell beer. This is going to make me paranoid. Is it me, do I stink of beer or is it simply a drop on my mask leading to a false reading. I’m not sure if I can spend the next twelve hours breathing beer fumes.

I’m on the move again then. Off to Greece. I’ve mentioned it previously but I doubt anyone reads every post every day so this is me informing you all I’m off to Greece. I had a short break in Dublin over Christmas but it does feel like I’ve not been abroad for a year now. This virus really has made us change our way of existing. I’m a little nervous actually and I’m curious how I’ll feel about it. I have a habit of wishing for the sedentary life when I travel a little too much and the travelling life when I’m in one spot for too long. Considering it has been a long time since Christmas and an even longer time since my last adventure, the wishing became a slight insanity.

It can be hard to leave though. We become comfortable and after all these years I do wonder if maybe I am getting a little old for all this. Ten years ago I did meet people in their thirties just starting out so perhaps age has little to do with it. We just experience things in a different way. I do find it harder to leave my parents each time though, especially now in this present virus related fear period. I don’t give a shit about potentially suspicious packages, I give a shit about my loved ones coming into contact with a deadly virus. Leaving them at the train station questioning whether it will be the last time I’ll see them but knowing I have to leave regardless. The truth is, life goes on. The whole world ground to a halt for a few months once already and now we just have to get on with it. It is easy to blame the economy and capitalism but it’s human nature. We can’t stand still. Sometimes it’s not always easy though.

A Harmonious Existence

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Having walked into the living room and seeing the television was on, in particular the news, I was left in no doubt we live in disharmony. This does sound like one of those “well duh” statements but then as we seem so determined not to do anything about it maybe it isn’t quite so obvious as first thought. The headline story was a fire breaking out in Moria refugee camp on the Greek Island of Lesvos. They avoided throwing accusations out there but it’s pretty clear there will be plenty of legitimate ones involving local fascists, and that is what they are that is not hyperbole. What happens next as over ten thousand people, including thousands of children, spend the foreseeable future living rough on the local hillside is anyone’s guess. This story was followed by a quick report on wild fires raging across California and on the fact they have so far destroyed five whole towns as well as the resulted in the largest financial cost from fire damage in the states history. After this I left the room.

Fire may be the main focus of these stories but one represents our inability to coexist as a species and the other to coexist with the planet. The end result of both will be our own destruction. There is a George Carlin joke about the Earth and humans, I have probably mentioned it on here before, but he suggests the earth will be fine it’s us who’s fucked. The earth will just shake us off like a bad case of the fleas. That is paraphrased of course but the gist is a familiar one. If we’re not living harmoniously with ourselves or our environment we will be the ones to lose out. Countless memes describing the human species as nothing more than a pestilence, the earth has caught a human cold. In a contemporary reference the earth may have just contracted a virus.

How can’t we live in harmony then. It is easy to point out what is wrong with the world and ourselves but to suggest ways to fix this are infinitely harder. We are becoming more polarised and disharmonious on a daily basis, despite the facade of action and rhetoric we’re actually doing less to combat the environmental damage we’re responsible for as a species. Somehow we need to come together once more. Unfortunately we only seem capable of this in times of crisis and while these things are a crisis they perhaps don’t quite seem so in real time. Somehow we need to allow people to continue living their comfortable lives while reducing the harmful affects of them or make them realise other people entering their society are not going to take everything they hold dear. Really I have no answers. Living as an example is one and showing examples on larger scales would be another but all it takes is a few weeks of intense media pressure and all the good work would be undone. In fact about one day would probably be enough. We are so individually disharmonious that how can we ever expect anything to change on a macro scale. Look within you say. Well that’s an interesting angle.

One More Piece Of Track

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I sometimes wonder if I’m obsessed with habits. Partly this comes down to spending years moving around and in a way desiring the time for routine and such things. Not being fixed like a robot but just having a familiarity with how the day will unfold and what that means at certain times. Had I not been in one place these last ten months this whole experiment would have unfolded differently. Certainly I thought the summer pieces would have been full of travel and sailing adventures which would have been interesting but there’s every chance life would have been busy in a different way and possibly affected what has still managed to be one piece a day. Having a routine these ten months has helped this to happen.

I left yesterday then as I mentioned, well, yesterday, and am now at my parents until late next Tuesday. I have plenty of time on my hands now so no excuse not to write this but I am having to adapt to a new routine. That’s not overly challenging but it does require discipline to sit down when I don’t know how the day will unfold. You can’t wait until later in the day because you don’t know how later will unfold. This will likely become even more apparent next week when I find myself in Greece. How my days will unfold is anyone’s guess and like over Christmas when I was in Dublin it will likely be a case of grab any opportunity I can.

The reason I go into this is because I found myself watching random television tonight and being unsure when it would allow me the time to sit down and do this. I was going to write about the documentary on trains I watched but like happens regularly I end up just rambling as I begin writing. Trains are really cool. They influenced local and world events. The Indian railway system allowed for Indian Independence while also in a way being a positive of British rule. That’s one way of spinning it at least. The Brits also tried to build a railway from Cairo to Cape Town and got about half way, through some of the most beautiful and arduous terrain. The Russian Revolution became a possibility as the Railway Union backed the Bolsheviks during the revolution and subsequent civil war. That’s without even mentioning the remarkable Trans Siberian railway. I really want to do the trip from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. Trains are probably my favourite form of transport because they take you through wilderness in a way that roads going from town to town can’t.

I watched this program then and it reminded me how much I enjoy doing things and going places. Is that a habit? The habit of choosing the adventurous option. In a way it’s probably something learnt from what life has provided me until now. I’ve learnt this is not just an option but an option I thrive in. It could also be the habit of running away from the challenge of living a life of repetition and work, the struggles that that involves. Life is but nuance and a multitude of credible and rational explanations it appears after all. And like a slow steam train ambling through countryside, this is but one more section of track in search of the elusive final instalment.

A Night Ramble

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Well the summer is coming to an end and I fancy a little ramble in nature somewhere. I have been trying to think of something to write tonight, nothing has taken my fancy to be horrified by in the news. I was horrified by someone I know being morally outraged on his Facebook wall by someone else with an admittedly unsavoury opinion leaving his ideas in the comments section of a post. The moral irony was missed as he screen shot the comment, told everyone to share it and revealed he had already spoken to this bad mans employers. These are the moments you realise the baying mob should stop believing in their own hype. We are going to finish the pizzas at the end of this bank holiday weekend. The kids go back to school and the tourists disappear from the village. I’ll have a couple of weeks to sort some things out and rest. I’ve already booked my tickets to go to Greece in the middle of September. Don’t worry you’ll hear all about it when it’s happening.

I wonder what it’s going to be like going abroad again. I mentioned in an early post back in November or December I think about how many flights I took last year. Spain a few times, Ireland, Sweden, Greece, Sardinia – actually maybe not Greece, I can’t remember – but my carbon footprint must have been horrendous. The amount of meat I would have to stop eating just to bring balance. I’m not quite sure that’s how it works though. I’ve made up for it this year. Zero flights so far and I’ve barely left the village. Covid has been good for my carbon karma. I’ll make up for it next year don’t you worry. It is good to take a break though, change some habits. I mentioned previously how I have been looking back, not nostalgically but almost remembering and experiencing certain elements once more. It brought a contentment and allowed a certain re-evaluation of certain ideas I had. Who I am. Such a cliche. In many ways this year has not always been easy but it has been incredibly beneficial. I doubt I’m alone in thinking this and I doubt I’m alone in thinking I am a different person now to pre-lockdown me. Total cliche. The talk is of the world and society being different permanently but the idea that individual people may have taken the time to understand themselves a little more without the pressures of normality. What a wonderful experience all round. Time with the family. Time with yourself.

But now that is all in the past apparently. A friend of the unbelieving nature suggested a new Europe-wide lockdown has been planned for the 18th of September and he used a random article in a random newspaper to prove it. I suspect that date may pass without incidence. It doesn’t mean winter won’t bring a spike though but can you imagine going through all that again in a miserable British winter. Fuck that. The British people are not mentally strong enough for that. And deary me I just remembered a no-deal Brexit will be happening then too. That’s probably a good time to stop this little ramble. It’s not quite nature but it’s the best I can get this late in the day. There’s no need to even go anywhere near that little rabbit hole of a shit show. Good night.