The Waiting Game

Replaying, repeating, cycling through my head the same scene from different angles, over and over again while the second hand takes an infinity to run its race. What now?

The dream scape is cluttered with vague recollections of things said, unsaid and better forgotten. Analysed and inspected, every piece discarded to the garbage dump of the soul. Merging, fusing, recalibrating and fermenting into something unfamiliar, something frightening. A daemon of the mind raging through the fragile logical framework erected there by man.

Madness never knocks.

The uninvited guest who eats your food, consumes your drugs and drinks your booze. The lodger, too terrifying to chase out. His arguments and eyes too intimidating to challenge. He is chaos. Worship him, for he will release you from your bonds. Worship him and be spoiled.

Hope cried herself to sleep. She was near the snapping point. The hooks in her flesh tearing her in a dozen different directions. Her emotions leaking out through the holes in her skin. Tears and tears mingling into a ghastly roadmap of the cosmos. Purity is nowhere to be found. She ran at the first sign of trouble.

What now? Now we wait. Is there anything better to do? Sometimes we must believe the lies, swallow the discomfort and accept the deception. Good things come to those who wait, they say. Well it must be true, sometimes.

Hikaduwa duex

I just sat in my room and typed an entry for my blog on my laptop. Then, I pull out my disket, which I had cleverly brought to transfer my files from my laptop to the internet cafe. i life up the laptop, with the intention of slotting in the disket when I realise something quite significant. My laptop has no disket drive.

Drat.

I need to buy a thumb drive, but I don't know if they sell those here in Hikaduwa.

Anyways, so I'm in Hikaduwa. I'm staying in the infamous 'Why not?'. When Banana and myself were last here we spent quite a few hours there drinking their liqour. Now, with it being low season, the Why Not? is closed.

But not to worry. The people that run it in peak season are still around and have absolutely nothing to do for six months. They are up for anything, which fits quite nicely with my current mood.

I've met Rasta again (he was mentioned on Banana's old blog) and we hung out on the beach for a nice civilized cup of tea. We had a tray with a tea towel, tea pot cups, saucers, sugar and milk; but we had no table. Instead we just sat in the sand.

It was one of the best cups of tea I've had in a long time.

I have to say, I love the horizon. They couldn't understand what I was babling about when I talked about how nice it was to see a horizon again, but then none of them have ever lived in a city. Singapore is in large parts horizonless. I wonder what that does to our thinking process?

I'll keep writing to this blog and I'll soon find a way to transfer text from my lappy up here, in which case it will be even easier to get stuff out.

PS: I will send a card and I did bring my underwear.

Final Preparations

Two packed bags behind me, butterflies in my stomach and a head full of ideas. Four hours before I fly. What have I packed?

-Clothes (one neat shirt, lots of t-shirts, swimming trunks, etc.)
-toiletries (wax, shavers, shampoo, real poo, aerosol, etc.)
-A laptop
-Two laptop batteries and a power cord
-One diskette
-Five books (Lonely Planet, the ‘Leviathan’ by Thomas Hobbes, ‘Why I’m not a Christian’ by Bertrand Russell, ‘The Meme Machine’ by Susan Blackmore and ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ by Wittgenstein)
-A deck of cards and poker dice
-A note book
-Enough store bought drugs to (humanely) kill an elephant
-my writing samples
-my lucky (security?) blanket
-condoms
-swiss army card (like a swiss army knife, only flatter)
-flip flops, timberlands and some brandless pair of running shoes
-two locks and a chain
-LED flashlight and reading light
-universal power transformer (Transformers! Power sockets in disguise)
-perfume as a present for Shazam’s mother
-traveller cheques
-a wallet full of cash, credit cards, bank cards and other stuff I probably no longer really need
-passport
-print out of my online flight ticket
-a new hand-phone
-and more

Sounds pretty prepared, right?

So why do I feel completely naked?

The Growing Storm

Last day in Singers. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving the country at 2:30. Sorting out my last little details. Saying my last goodbyes. It seemed years away, two weeks ago. I can’t quite believe that it will all be over tomorrow. Goodbye Singapore.

And what next? Well, first a little beach in Sri Lanka. Then? I have no idea. It’s brilliant and frightening at the same time. A little like being in love, except less sex.

In my story I’ve also progressed to the leaving day. That’s moving along quite nicely. Only 15 pages, so far, but I’m quite happy with (some of) what I have. I’m sure it will all change before long, but at least I’ve got an idea of what I’m doing.

People have started asking me what I’ll miss most from Singapore. I have answered back that except for my family and my friends I really don’t know. I guess the efficiency might be sorely missed. I missed that when I went to Australia. Of course, is Ausie land I was very much dependant on efficiency in order to survive (I was that poor). This time it’s a different matter. This time the cash is there.

Am I prepared for my trip? Physically, I’m more prepared than I’ve ever been. I’ve got cash, equipment, virtual copies of all my documents, I’m in good health, I’m physically fit and a I’ve got a goatee. What more could I need?

Mentally? Well, I’ll just have to wait and see.

Many people have expressed their admiration and concern over the fact that I have absolutely no plans. They say things like ‘I can’t travel like that’ or they just look at me strange after I shrug my shoulders to their question ‘so, where are you going?’. It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve just killed the conversation (very unsocial of me, I freely admit), but I think it’s more than that.

‘If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable."

-Seneca

That is, of course, unless you’re just willing to go where the wind wants to take you. Where, I wonder, will this gale blowing through my life take me? Where will I be beached next?

I’m still alive (I think)

The last few weeks have been very hectic. I’ve been in a sort of frantic pause, in between my old job and my new journey. It’s been wild. I’ve basically been trying to say goodbye to everybody, with many people more than once. It’s a time consuming, energy eating and liver killing process.

The drinking has been horrendous. Last night, on yet another alcohol accompanied goodbye, I was looking at my beer (a Kilkenny, I had had quite enough of Tiger, Carlsberg and Heineken all) wondering to myself ‘how the hell am I going to get you down?’.

On Monday I went out with a friend from Holland who’s in town for a few days, after which he will go back to China. We started at two thirty and finished a bottle of vodka, with a bigger group (not just the two of us) at about 12:30 that night. I went home and felt pretty crappy the next day.

On Wednesday, however, not having learned from my Monday, I did it again, only this time I started at noon and ended at four in the morning. I didn’t have time to feel crap yesterday, however, as there were yet more people that wanted to say both hello and goodbye, so I was forced to rely on hair of the dog.

Hair of the dog is the trick where you drink to get over your hangover. Yes, those sound like the words of a true alchy, but I promise you, it actually works pretty damn well. That first beer is a rough one to drink, too. Every part of your body is screaming ‘no, not again!’, but you do and after that you do ok.

But anyway, I have no idea what is in store for me today, but it’s going to be another hectic one, by the look of things. It is Friday, after all. My last Friday in Singers. Groan.

Exerpt from Chapter 1 of 'The' story

Disclaimer: This story is fictional. None of it is real, even the bits that are. None of the characters mentioned, discussed or ridiculed actually exist; even if you think you do. If you think that these characters are based on you, it's not true but thanks for inspiring me. If you see anything up here that seems to be directly quoted from you, that's just a coincidence and I'd already thought of it long before you said it, so there. If you have any complaints, suggestions or ideas; don't hesitate to keep them to yourself. Thanks for your time and enjoy the story. Or else...

The story starts on the seventh day, of the seventh month, of the seventh year of the second millennium. According to some people since it was Saturday it was even the seventh day of the week, with the week starting on a Sunday, according to them. Of course, that was a bit strange; after all, God is generally described as a hardworking fellow and probably didn’t start with his day of rest. That is, unless he invented pot first, in which case all seven days would probably have been days of rest and none this would have been around in the first place, something that would certainly have cut down on the suffering.

The reason the story started on that day was that a few days earlier, on his farewell lunch (a pleasant affair, including another teacher that was leaving, the boss and a fourth person, who wasn’t actually sure why she was there but wasn’t complaining as the company was paying), events had been kick started by food poisoning. It wasn’t intentional food poisoning. According to the words spoken that day they actually rather liked him at his job. It was food poisoning, however, and not just a mild case of it either.

When he reflected on it later he came to the conclusion that it had probably been a bad idea to order the lime crab. It was a strange combination, with the lime’s overwhelming strength hiding the taste of the crab, something he remarked on during the lunch (he wasn’t always the most tactful of people). He had said it could just as easily have been chicken. Of course it could have just as easily been bad crab, which is exactly what it was, but he hadn’t thought about that while he was wolfing it down.

He became fully aware of this on that most auspicious of days, his first day when he was no longer working, when he was forced to sit on the toilet, bucket in hand, heaving and spraying. The reason he needed the bucket was that people had not yet bothered to put two toilets close enough together for just such an emergency. That wasn’t really that surprising, as this kind of a situation wasn’t really that common, but it was still inconvenient for our poor main character. Not that he was really giving what had and hadn’t been invented a great deal of thought at this time.

No, his mind was elsewhere, leaping from topic to topic, sometimes dwelling on his discomfort, sometimes on what was at the bottom of the bucket and sometimes on rather deep philosophical subjects (in order to not think about what was at the bottom of the bucket).

In between bouts of self-pity and moans he slowly but certainly came to a realisation. The world was screwing with him. Something, somewhere, had it in for him. These kinds of things always seemed to happen and he always ended up in situations that were massively humorous for other people, but rather painful and embarrassing for himself. What was it about him that made him so susceptible to providence’s evil stare? What provoked the world into making sure nothing was ever just normal in his life?

It wasn’t that he was unlucky, that wasn’t it - though he was often unlucky, he was just as often lucky – it was just that he was such an outlier. It was like fate had picked him to suffer through a great deal of the unusual situations, so that others, elsewhere could lead a more normal life. Someone, somewhere, he realised, must be in exactly the opposite situation; they must be wondering ‘why is my life always so normal, why is my life always so plain?’

‘Something’, he realised with absolute clarity between spasms, ‘is fucking with me.’

A moment later the thought was driven from his conscious mind as he projectile vomited largely into his bucket, but also partially onto the dingy mat at the foot of his toilet. The thought was replaced by a slightly more practical one, which went ‘Does bile wash out?’

But just because the idea had momentarily submerged, it hadn’t disappeared. This idea, though not yet fully conscious, was a patient idea. It could bide its time. There was no rush, there was no over urging need to push ahead too fast. It was better, according to this idea, to nudge than to dictate. It believed in guerrilla propaganda. It would gather intelligence, make occasional surgical strikes at essential mental processes, it would scout out the mindscape, find evidence and other ideas to support its cause. Then eventually it would emerge with an army of arguments at its back, too powerful to be ignored.

This thought would eventually provoke a chain of events that would ultimately lead to his true discovery of his own nature, a discovery that would have massive ramifications for both him and this story. But we’ve jumped very far ahead. At this point he hadn’t even left on his trip yet.

Distracted

Last Friday was my last day of work. Today is the first day that I can make myself sit down and actually write on my blog. How, in fortune’s name, did I manage to find no time while being unemployed to write on my blog? I’m not exactly sure, but time has flashed by.

Saying goodbye, I’ve found out, is a time consuming (and money consuming) business.

Writing on my story has also been a very good way to take up a great deal of time. When I want to write, it’s now a choice between writing on my blog, or writing on my story. Today, fortunately, I’ve hopefully found time to do both. That is, if my laptop battery doesn’t run out. Mental note to self, buy an extra laptop battery.

I think in the future I’ll just start posting short excerpts from my actual story up here. I realise that’s a bit of a cheat, but nobody ever said I have to obey some set of rules when I’m writing for my blog.

As for the deep thoughts that I normally (try to) write about, I’m a little too busy living my life to think about too many other things. That, and the book I’m currently reading (Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond) isn’t that inspirational. It’s interesting, granted, but it is very repetitive (as a colleague warned me when she found me reading it). The author apparently thinks it’s a very good idea to hit you repetitively with the same fact in different forms, in order to make it sound more convincing.

All I’ve noticed it making me is sleepy. Every time I pick it up, within half an hour I need to take a quick nap (which is kind of nice). So read, nap, wake up, yawn, read again, nap again, get coffee, read a little longer, get up from the couch, shuffle around, check E-mail, try reading again, throw the book away in disgust, go over to the corner, pick it up, try reading it again, realise I’ve read a page without remember any of it, realise that it probably said the same thing as the page before, shrug, keep reading, fantasize about beautiful lesbians suddenly deciding they are bi in my presence.

You get the picture.

I love my life.

Why I'm against the death penalty

The Death Penalty (DP from here on in) is a barbaric, archaic, cruel and unnecessary form of punishment. It is morally abhorrent and, what is more, largely useless as a deterrent of crime.

Let's start with the moral argument. The state says to us 'don't kill'. There is no 'unless' or 'however' involved. They just say it to us and expect us to obey. In almost all countries Euthanasia is illegal. In a large number abortion too is still outlawed. What ever you may believe about the rightness or justness of those two forms death (murder?), they are pretty obvious examples of how the state demands that we respect human life, whatever the circumstances.

So from where does the state then take the authority to kill its own citizens? The DP is, to strip away the euphemism, murder. It is taking the life of a defenceless individual (death by combat has been all but eliminated worldwide), however tainted his or her soul might be.

Now many might argue that an army should then not be allowed to keep an army. That is something completely different, however. It would be nice if our neighbours wouldn't want to invade, but sometimes they do and there is no deterrent, other than force, that will keep them away.

Not so for the death penalty.

There are equally useful deterrents, such as prison sentences or (and I'm not for this) corporal punishment, which are equally effective and don't require the ending of human life. So why do we have the DP?

There are four perceived reasons why we have incarceration and the DP. These are:

Deterrent (i.e. 'if I do that, I'll die!')

Punishment (i.e. 'if he doesn't suffer he won't understand it was a crime')

Prevention (if he's dead he can't do it again)

Revenge (i.e. 'if we kill him, I'll feel better')

Many people have long contested whether the DP works as a deterrent. If we look at states in America where there is a DP (such as Texas) we find that many of those states also have very high murder rates. What is more, many people have argued that most people do not think deeply before they perform a crime. Only a criminal that calculates and considers very carefully would be deterred by the DP. Criminals who act on impulse wouldn't consider the consequences and would therefore not be deterred. Some people even argue that subconsciously people might reason 'if the state kills, then why can't I?'.

In terms of punishment I really wonder if the DP is really that effective of a punishment. If you believe in the afterlife, well then a few more years on this planet won't matter all that much, considering that the person is facing an eternity of damnation. If you don't believe in the afterlife, on the other hand, then the DP is better than life in jail. After the DP that person won't care one whit about what happened (after all, he doesn't feel anything), while he'll have a whole life to regret his actions in jail.

In terms of prevention, a lifetime in jail is just as effective in stopping somebody from committing further crimes as their death.

As for revenge, that is a base emotion that shouldn't be encouraged in any form, especially not by the state.

The DP is, in most cases, more expensive than life long incarceration; so that too is no argument in support of the DP.

The strongest argument against the DP hasn't even been mentioned, however. That argument is: what if the state is wrong? It has happened on numerous occasions that later evidence proves an executed person innocent. When that happens the state has murdered an innocent person. Let me say that again, they have murdered a perfectly innocent individual. How would you feel if you knew you were innocent and were still being executed, regardless? If that man was in jail he will have lost a number of years of his life and that's bad enough, but if he's been executed the best the state can do is say 'oops, we made an error there, sorry about that dear fellow.'

The state, too, is made up of normal people. They make mistakes. Those mistakes shouldn't cost lives. The arguments against the DP are numerous and convincing. Fortunately, slowly the world's politicians are being convinced and the DP is being phases out in most places. Hopefully the DP will disappear completely in my lifetime. When it has, we will have taken a large step forward in our development as a species.

Crossroads

Not even a full week of work left. A little more than three weeks left in the country. Am I ready to go? There’s really little choice in the matter, the ticket has been bought and the plans have been made.

There’s a lot left to do. Today I went out to buy a new backpack (a small one, I’m going to continue to use the large one that I’ve had for more than fifteen years). I tried finding a bag that doesn’t shout ‘rob me, I’m rich!’ though I guess my face already does that. After all, in most developing countries just being white is the equivalent of being rich.

I also got my visa, which unfortunately ends just a few days before the new years (it’s a six month one). That’s really annoying, as I’m supposed to be spending my new years in India with some mates. One friend did have a good point though, I should see it as an opportunity, rather than as a draw back. In this way I’ll have extra motivation to visit a neighbouring country (I’m not allowed to extend my visa in India. I have to leave the country first, for some odd reason.)

What I’m worried about right now is that I won’t have enough to do while I’m there. I’m so used, now, to working ten to twelve hours a day, how am I going to cope with having so much free time? Won’t I feel like I’m wasting it? That’s a real concern for me, the idea that time is being used inefficiently.

For that reason I’ve started writing a fictional semi-autobiographic story. It will incorporate elements of me, but will not really be me. The character will be a more extreme version of myself, incorporating some elements in my character that I’d like to have and some other elements, which I would like to avoid.

The reason for that is that I want to be able to write, without always having to worry about modesty, decency and expectation. In this way I can write something and say ‘but it’s fictional! It’s not really me!’ I can steal ideas from other people, change elements in my story so that it becomes more exciting than real life, and so forth. Still, by keeping it close to my real story, it will be easy to include my own thoughts and ideas into the storyline of my tale.

Will that be enough? I’m not sure. The last time I was in Thailand I was never really bored, but at that time I didn’t feel guilty about doing nothing. Maybe I’ll adapt soon enough to a life of leisure. Maybe I’ll find ideas inspiration on the road, that more than balance out the supposed time I’m ‘wasting’. I mean, really my time teaching wasn’t the most efficient way of spending time, either. It was repetitious and largely a routine (I’m convinced routine teaches a great deal less than original and unexpected situations).

So I guess I’m really not sure what to expect. I guess the best idea is to expect nothing and prepare for everything.

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done.