Tag: romanticism

To Find True Freedom

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We get used to things. I’ve discussed habits probably as much as anything else on here but this is slightly different. This would be more about adapting. We adapt to our environment then. When we stay in one place or in one environment long enough it becomes normal and we find a way to at the very least survive. In the extreme you could have someone going from a position of power and wealth to one of poverty and subjugation, think of any successful class based revolution for example. If they didn’t end up getting their head chopped off, end up in front of a firing squad or find a way of smuggling themselves out of the country; there is a good chance they would have to either adapt to their new way of live or die. That then is an extreme example and for me right now I am as far from that as I can think. I have adapted to my surroundings though, my admittedly comfortable surroundings.

For me this adaptation has been more about a change in a way of life. Having spent ten years as a traveller living wild and being free – that is the version my romanticised ego would like to portray – I found myself in this little village by the seaside. It was only supposed to be a couple of months, the winter at most with spring bringing new adventures. There is no need to go over this years events but as I’ve previously discussed they have been habit changing to say the least. Now though I potentially change these new habits again and see whether further ones are created or old ones return. Today is Friday, on Sunday I leave my home by the sea.

Undoubtedly there has been a lot I’ve enjoyed about life here. I’m beside the sea and when not rammed with summer tourists it’s slow and chilled out. It is though a bit backwards and insular which is enough to push me away, but it has also shown me enough to imagine a new way of life is possible. There were many times in my past travelling in which I openly admitted to being exhausted and tired of constantly moving and packing but I also really enjoyed the discovery and constant new in front of my eyes. I’m still after all this time like a child when I see something previously unseen. This time has made me realise I am in my heart a wandering traveller. It has also made me realise how easily I could settle somewhere too given the right conditions. It’s all about balance apparently. This mythical never been seen or fully understood beast called balance. But you can’t have balance when you want it all.

As I pack my now enlarged pile of stuff I realise I am happy to move on while also not being entirely keen on the exhaustive side of this moving on. The stepping into the unknown excites and the prospect of being free is overjoying. As I would have discussed yesterday though had I not got distracted by Miley Cyrus, freedom is an entirely mental construct. We need to find freedom internally, allow the mind to accept the ever increasing randomness of existence and responsibly live in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether you’re stuck in the endless toil of menial labour or sailing the ocean. Admittedly one is probably easier to feel free in and we can do ourselves favours with the environment we exist in, but as I said, it’s how we approach existence that matters. One more moment before the next then in this constantly testing journey to free the mind. Maybe that would be a good habit to create. I already have the key after all. I could get used to finally being free. Just be careful not to want it too much.

Split Peas & Split People

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This might end up being one of those pieces which becomes a few random thoughts that aren’t related but I feel are worth mentioning. To begin with I’m having a nightmare trying to cook split peas. I was hoping to make a nice soup with sweet potato and carrot but these bloody peas just won’t cook. I soaked them for over twenty-four hours and have now had them boiling away for at least an hour to no avail. I enjoy cooking. I also enjoy eating and this enjoyment of eating and of having no money over the years means I’m not a bad cook. I don’t make enough soups though. A split pea soup sounds just lovely.

I’m a total romantic. I’m listening to Spanish Civil War music and dreaming of what could have been. It was such a glorious and horrific time. We like to imagine antifa and the antifascist as some new phenomenon but it’s been going as long as the fascist gave themselves such a name. I have mentioned this particular war a few times but it really is another example of the people being screwed over by power. Not just power in Spain but through the neutrality of countries like the UK. Franco had Hitler’s Germans and Mussolini’s Italians, the Republic ended up having no choice but relying on the Soviets who took over as best they could and did more damage than help. France may have been a Republic but it was never built on the ideals of decentralisation and the anarcho-collectives. The European powers as ever showed their true colours, for old powers like the British, Fascism was infinitely more palatable than people having true power. These things are contagious, they must be quashed.

The Twentieth Century was just a long list of outside interference with vested interests. Allende, Chile and Pinochet is always an easy one to bring up but let’s not forget Cambodia and Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to recognise the new communist government that replaced the genocidal maniac Pol Pot. She was also a bit of a fan of apartheid South Africa. Let’s not forget the British influence upon the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran that wanted to nationalise oil production, the dictatorship of the new Shah, a western puppet, more agreeable. General Suharto in Indonesia who killed a quarter of the population but who provided the Australians, as well as the US and Brits, with cheap access to natural minerals. Yugoslavia, the last Socialist country in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union was never allowed to exist. It is always easier to control smaller broken up and angry states than one larger one.

Talking of apartheid, Palestine is another obvious one. Obvious because it is still going on not because it is ever really talked about. You wouldn’t know it if you just watched western media but Israel have been bombing the shit out of the Gaza Strip for eight straight days now. Apparently Hamas fired two homemade rockets out and the Israeli’s felt the need to obliterate them in return. Eight days and not a peep.

Anyway my split peas have burnt. I got carried away and forgot to check on them. I give up.

BR#Ten – The Old Man & The Sea

Hamar Williams1 Comment

There is a certain romanticism in literature. Not always the stories themselves but sometimes the stories of the stories, the stories of the creators of the stories. I understood that for the first time when a friend of mine told me the life of Lord Byron and proceeded to explain why I didn’t need to read any of his work, his life was the work. Ernest Hemingway is one of these people. He is there in the echelons of folk lore, another author to define an art and inspire a craft. This is actually my first Hemingway and considering my interest in and admiration for those involved in the Spanish Civil War, how I’ve not read For Whom The Bell Tolls is beyond me.

The protagonist is an old man called Santiago who has now gone eighty-four days at sea without catching anything and is seen as unlucky. On his eighty-fifth day, which is also a number of special significance apparently, he hooks the largest Marlin he has ever seen and allows it to pull him and his skiff, tiring itself out in the process for three days. This is a titanic battle between two great warriors who have lived and survived in their respective worlds up until this point, finally coming face to face. He needs this in a way and while he talks to himself of the money he will make it is evidently never really about this.

The Old Man & The Sea is a fable. There will surely be multiple essays and books upon what the lesson within it is but for me it is one of heroism, determination and acceptance. Acceptance in a way despite the fact he doesn’t accept defeat at any point until he has no choice. His acceptance comes from life and experience at sea; knowing that defeat can happen, but we fight until our last and then some more and if success doesn’t come we just carry on as it’s all part of everything.

Hemingway creates an air of romanticism around Santiago and it is easy to imagine him sitting by the harbour when in Cuba and watching the weather beaten old fishermen going out and if not knowing their stories then creating them. It is one of epic proportions in three days and one hundred pages. His simple use of language allows for you to easily get into the story but it is also this language which reveals all the hidden meaning as the story progresses. It definitely makes you want to jump in a skiff and set sail. The sea is a powerful and unforgiving mistress but she will teach you all you ever need to know.

An animation by Aleksander Petrov

Night Shift

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There are certain jobs that suit different people over others. I’ve done a few bread deliveries over the last month and it is one of those jobs that would be either perfect or a nightmare. Getting up early is a total nightmare of course when you’re not in that rhythm and you end up doing the shift on only three hours sleep but it doesn’t take a lot of thought so you can get by. It is one of those jobs that gives you the opportunity for some peace and quiet as you rarely speak to anyone until a few hours into the shift and even then it’s only a few sentences of routine greetings and jokes. I can imagine there is a certain repetition and they must love it when a new guy comes along. The roads are empty, it is dark, quiet and you have time for yourself. There’s also another world of things and people going on that over time would give opportunity to the most interesting set of stories. Without the interesting random events though it would probably become tedious like any job and if I’m still helping out here in ten years doing this then please somebody come and find me. There’s also the possibility that these interesting stories are only comparatively interesting and are few and far between. From time to time and in the short term though there is something interesting and enjoyable about it, but then you could say that about virtually any job if you were the sort with a curious mind.

I would be interested to know what a night shift stocking shelves in a supermarket would be like. I hope to never find out, let me make that clear, but the curiosity is more that I wonder if I enjoy the van driving at night over the working at night, I suspect I would hate every second of stocking shelves no matter the time of day, or the packing warehouse, or especially the cold outdoor work in the winter. So perhaps it has nothing to do with the night time but more with my fondness for driving around and feeling all warm inside my van. I do prefer the night hours more though. There is also some romanticism going on here and I have always imagined lorry drivers have been the types who love the solitude, the long endless nights and being left alone. In fact I have met a few, I have hitched with a few, and while I can’t confirm they enjoy being left alone they can be total oddballs for sure.

Ultimately it takes a certain type of person to work nights, to work such unsocial hours which seem to conflict with our natural rhythm. I have a lot of respect for nurses and doctors in that case as not only do they work nights but sometimes days too, and even then there shifts are long and intense. People are generally amazing I think is the conclusion and by amazing I mean they are all so varied there is always something to discover. Why we seem so determined to pander to our fears and box everyone away, especially in such enormous generalised boxes is beyond me. There may be jobs out there but try getting everyone to work a night shift unless they love it or are desperate and you can see why people don’t want to just work any job. If people were just given the education to discover there own paths then what an interesting workforce we would have. That and a bit of variety I would imagine.

Lovely Books

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There is something romantic about books. The smell of a new one. The smell of an old one. The clean, crisp cover of a new one. The worn, well read cover of an old one. The aesthetics of a well designed cover. The feel of a well made specially designed book. Browsing in a bookshop with an idea of the type of book you may like to buy, finding one by an author you know and getting caught up in the excitement that follows. Going off in a different direction and finding a completely random book on a topic you hadn’t previously thought may be interesting but somehow in this form all of a sudden became desirable. Why not buy them both. End up buying two more on top of that. The physical pleasure of holding a book as you read it as opposed to one of these electronic readers. While life may be more technological these days in many beneficial ways, nothing will be able to replace the simple pleasure of holding and reading from a book. Sitting in a cafe reading a book as you drink your coffee. Sitting in a cafe looking cool as you pretend to read your book. One thing in the same situation, appearing to all the world to be playing out the same way but completely different. Books even help people with our most base desires. Books are amazing.

There is one thing about owning books too and that is the ability to fill a book shelf of all your proudest ones. There is something incredibly appealing about this but I suspect there is a part of us driven by the same instinct that allows us to feel credible sitting in a cafe and not really reading as much as we like to imagine we are or were going to. The danger with books is that they become another aesthetic possession. There are plenty of really cool people out there with great selections of books positioned on very prominent shelves. I know I haven’t read all the books I own. Does the book become more that just a physical copy of a series of words formed in an interesting manner? Well yes is the short answer. You can’t have all the romanticism of the first paragraph without trying to impress people with your cool book collection. Be honest, only your very best make the public shelf.

Currently I’m going though what I can only describe as readers block. Like I said I love books, but what I didn’t say was that I love reading and this is an important distinction to make. There are times I love reading but right now I’m struggling. The desire is there but I keep on allowing myself the distraction of something else. Readers block has ahold of me. But I still love books and even if I am continuing to struggle I know this will pass. In the meantime I bought four books today when scouring the charity shops, great ones too, I’m really pleased with the finds. I will put them next to the ten books I bought two months ago, last time a went to the charity shops. Maybe I’ll actually read some of these ones this time and not just position them strategically around my flat for maximum impressiveness. I hope so because I miss reading. We have so much to learn and it’s all out there if we take the time. It may just be another part of this journey into discipline I seem to have found myself on but good things don’t always come easily to us even when we enjoy and benefit from them. I promise you there is a book review coming one day, let’s hope it opens some proverbial floodgate of sorts

Nomads

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Everyone has an idea of a perfect life. One part of that perfect life is the perfect home and this is something that comes in all forms. Over the years I have fantasised about pretty much all of them, usually the random interesting ones or even better the non-permanent structures. While I am enjoying living in an actual flat, and have enjoyed living in the little cottage I grew up in, there seems to be something lacking in living in such places. Perhaps this will change as I age, or if I have a family, but there is something too fixed and permanent about it that never sits too easily for me. Of course were I to acquire an old house that needed renovating, and which I could create something cool out of then things may change.

I don’t deny I am a total romantic. I also make fun of romantics for being romantics and find myself being completely practical and unsentimental whenever possible just to convince myself and others that I’m not a romantic. I then go and fantasise about living in a horse box lorry similar to the one I saw in Nepal, or the sailing yacht traveling the world. Even when fixed the romantic dreams of the hob house surrounded by a permaculture garden. The sailing boat actually isn’t that far fetched it’s just I haven’t got money to buy a van let alone a boat. Talking of water though, my most favourite dream has and seemingly continues to be the canal barge.

About four years ago I very nearly managed to acquire a narrowboat but backed out through my own fears of living such a tame life, more than some external thing preventing it’s happening. That fear seems to have passed as I move deeper into my thirties, but I’m now stuck with the issue of the Scottish canals being tiny and expensive to live on and having absolutely no desire to live much further south than I am amongst the English. About a year ago some plans were drunkenly drawn up with a cousin to build something really cool on a barge and sell it’s produce on the canals running through Dublin. I would mention what it is but seeing as I still think it’s a great idea and nobody has done it yet, I’m not so silly to just reveal the secret.

Anyway the point is that the more I’m in Dublin, the more I’m finding myself romanticising over the prospect of living on the canal here. It seems cheap, 175 euro for a one year license apparently, although I’m sceptical there aren’t other costs, but even then with it being over one thousand in England and anything from one to five thousand in Scotland, Dublin all of a sudden starts seemingly looking like good value. I enjoy Ireland too, and a large part of my heritage is from here, I could even get over the fact it’s a poor mans Scotland. It’s not something that will happen immediately but with seeds planted already they have now been watered, certainly a watch this space moment.