Third Time Lucky

“The end is Neigh!” the little girl shouted, on her corner, where she’d been for twenty years, “the end is Neigh! Don’t forget to pack.” The people passed her by, throwing small change. What she was going to do with it after lunch time – when the world was set to implode – nobody knew.

Everything was dirty, everything had turned to filth; a war of colours. Laughing desperately, they fought on; wounded and beleaguered, surrounded and encircled by beasts of their own design. Nobody even understood the point, anymore. Nobody could grasp how something so beautiful had turned so ugly. They’d laugh about it in times to come, history having scrubbed clean the memories; but the villagers would never forget.

It began with a simple gesture, so childish and yet so out of place in this refuge from maturity. It began with a single little thing. It always does, it always will. The little things provoke change. Chance and Providence do the rest, playing with the strings of reality till the least likely becomes a near certainty. That’s the way reality plays out, with little Gods cackling behind the sc(re)en[e].

The vortex dances ballet along the edge of our free will. Will we be absolved of all when the void pulls us in? Will we be forgiven our sins when nothing remains? Sketches of an artist plying her trade; infinite recession as she draws ever smaller pictures of herself. The frame changes, the point of view swivels and the drawings spiral out of control.

How can we portray ourselves?

The Vortex

I’m back in Palolem. I’ve always seen other people get sucked back, but I never thought I would be back here. The exit permit is going to take till Friday and flying on the weekend is expensive, so I decided to fly next Monday. I had a week to go and didn’t want to spend it in Bangalore. We (as in the person I came to Bangalore with) decided to go back to Palolem. We grabbed the night bus, which cost us 13 US. 13 hours later (nice coincidence) we were back in Palolem. Sunday evening I’ll do the same thing back to Bangalore, pick up my exit permit and fly to Frankfurt.

Was it a good idea? We’ll see.

My first aim is to stay away from everybody else. That might be a bit of a challenge, seeing as news about who leaves and comes back travels fast on this beach; but I’m still going to give it a try. I am really going to try to take it easy and write the things that still need writing. Fortunately, that will be a little easier than last time as the beach has really nearly completely emptied. There’s not a lot of temptation when there’s nobody left to tempt.

Plus I picked up a whole bunch of books that I really want to read, so hopefully they’ll keep me out of trouble. A couple more days no the beach, while I wait for my exit permit to be processed and then back home with everything ready and done.

Today I spent most of my time trying to fix the pump to my old house. Other people have moved in, but I’ve convinced them that it’s a good idea to let me share the house with them; much cheaper and a great deal of fun. We had to make a whole bunch of trips to Chowdy to get everything together (Chowdy being the nearest town) and still we couldn’t do it, but fortunately the villagers took pity on us and decided to help out. Now, with a few extra parts, we’ll have water again. Then we can cook, live cheaply and banter endlessly.

Slowly my letter of motivation is gelling together in my head. I’ve already got a whopper of a first paragraph. When I finish it I’ll be sure to throw it up here. The only condition being that you only use it after I’ve been accepted into Uni. After that it’s free game, ladies and gentlemen.

Today I left my book lying around somewhere and somebody asked ‘who’s reading physics for fun?’ It was a book about why, for scientific reasons, computers can never become sentient like we are. I guess my reading of that book just reaffirms my status as geek. The great thing is, I get to hide it and people think I’m actually cool (and ultimately, being ‘cool’ is just a subjective matter anyway, so I don’t even have to discuss whether I’m cool or not; the fact that they think it makes me so.)

And that’s it for the disjointed thoughts spewing forth from my head today. Oh yes, my leg is much better, thank you.

City Talk

This city is driving me absolutely up the wall. Fortunately I’m here in the company of a girl who also needed to get her visa sorted, so I still have somebody with me whom remembers the Palolem spirit. Of course, this being India, getting the visa sorted is taking much longer than it should and we’re being forced to wait around. We’re now considering disappearing off, out of Bangalore for a couple of days while things get processed. Our idea is to go to the airport and just buy a cheap ticket to somewhere less city like. Possibly back to Palolem.

That might mean I can’t celebrate my birthday with my parents, as I might come back only the day after or the day after that. Roll with the punches, as they say. No, don’t worry, this won’t impact my university application. I’ll still be annoying the piss out of those people even from the other end of the world (There is one thing that India has certainly taught me and that’s tenacity. If you’re not tenacious in this country, you can forget getting anything done.)

I used to be a city person until a few months ago, but living on the beach in Palolem I’ve really got a taste for smaller, more tighter communities, a calmer life and the ability to actually walk everywhere. Cities (especially Indian cities) are dirty, crowded, smelly, crazy, hectic, anonymous and oversized; Until recently that was exactly what I liked about them, but now I’m not so sure anymore.

Truth be told, that might just be a phase. As you all well know by now, I continuously and constantly go through different phases (almost all tainted with negativity). I wonder if that’s the same for everybody. I don’t really know, to be honest, but that might well be because I don’t really have (take?) the time to read other people’s blogs. For somebody that claims to be a people person I realise I’m very self-absorbed.

Just look at these last couple of entries on this blog. All they’ve been about is me; which isn’t that unusual, but normally I like to throw a little bit more philosophy, psychology and general thought-analysis in there. Oh well, when this hectic time is over (and I’ve finished Pinker’s book) I’ll have more time to talk about those types of things. If I get into university, I’m pretty sure I’ll drive everybody absolutely insane with my philosophical ramblings.

So don’t give up on me! I promise I’ll post more regularly and more interestingly in the future. I’ll get back to my old self. Actually, you never stop being yourself, really; who you are just changes (day by day, if modern psychology has anything to say about it).

So be good, be patient and be happy with who you are; after all, you don't get to be anybody else. God, that sounded like it came straight out of a fortune cookie.

Bangalore the Third

I’m back in Bangalore again. I’ve been back since Monday. The only reason I’m here this time is purely to sort out my overstayed visa and make sure I don’t get arrested when I leave the country. A girl got tossed in prison for trying to leave the country with an expired visa a couple of months ago. Fortunately, since I’ve got a few connections over here in the ‘Garden City’, that won’t be happening to me. I’ll get out alright, but until I do I’m forced to stay here in Bangalore; waiting for them to approve my leaving.

I don’t get to spend more time in Palolem and I don’t yet get to see my family, who I haven’t seen for seven months; instead I get to hang around in a city that I’ve seen and I don’t really want to be in. I’m not in a city mood, you see. I really would like to just sit somewhere – quite-like – and just read. I didn’t really do that at the end of my Palolem trip.

Fortunately there is a lot of good book shops here, so I’ve managed to pick up a couple of interesting books; unfortunately, I’m being forced to run around and go see many Indian officials (who all want Baksheesh) to convince them that it is alright for them to let me leave.

It is so annoying that they can keep me in their country against my will. I guess I did technically commit something akin to a crime, so they have the right to; nonetheless, I’m wasting time and money, while losing my patience and my calm.

It looks like I’ll get to leave early next week. One more weekend here. Hopefully I’ll get back before my birthday. It would be nice to spend it with my parents, eating nice food and being well behaved, for once.

Even here I’m being surprisingly well behaved - less than five cigarettes in a day, only one beer since I’ve arrived and no night past midnight. That’s probably pretty normal for most people, but for me that’s quite an achievement.

There’s some bad news, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get into university. I’ve been getting back a lot of feedback that suggests that getting into a Social Psychology Masters degree in Holland is a very difficult thing. You basically need to have focussed very much on getting into Social Psychology in your pre-graduate days. I didn’t know that I wanted to do anything in the field of psychology when I was in Uni. Hell, I was just focused on getting through the damned thing in one way or another and little else. The fact that now I’m fascinated in the field and very driven apparently doesn’t make any difference; instead, all that matters is what I did seven years ago. Not surprising, really. It is a bureaucracy, after all.

I have no idea what I’ll do if I don’t get in; for the last six months I’ve been gearing up to getting in. I better start thinking about it though (even as I send in all my applications and hope for the best), because it’s a real possibility.

If I had similar connections in Holland as I had here, I imagine I could get in. Maybe I should look into building those up; though rumour has it Europe doesn’t work the same way.

The End

The last week in Palolem has been an insane rollercoaster of bickering, altered perceptions, body painting, rainy days, sleep deprivation, cancellations, good food, booze, hammock wars and that’s just telling you about the stuff I can feel I can write about here.

In three word, it was nuts. The group I was hanging with was basically cobbled together only in the last week of my stay in Palolem, so we had to condense all the fun we wanted to have into the time that was available. As usual, one of the first things to go was sleep.

It was amazing how well we got along, considering that we were about as dissimilar as possible. I think the thing that made our group work was that we were all up for everything; which included the Holly festival that happened last week, despite the fact that it was raining buckets. We didn’t actually know what the Holly festival celebrated, but what we did know was that it was celebrated by throwing huge amounts of paint at each other.

We stocked up on a couple of kilos of the stuff and attacked the town, coming out of the night as bandits and fighting skirmishes with the local village boys (who were damned good shots), we ran the gauntlet of the village’s main street (where the rain ran purple, yellow and red) and then we fought it out on the beach with other willing – and other not so willing – foreigners. Suffice it to say that my backpack is now not quite as heavy as when we first arrived, but a great deal more colourful.

There was also my farewell party which was originally meant to be a pre-party for my last Silent Noise, but turned into the main party for a great deal of people when the Silent Noise party got cancelled (officially because of the rain). Of course, it still being Holly as well, my living room got painted in many livid colours. I had to pay the maid double just to get her to clean up the aftermath.

Then there was the dinner. One of our group was a passionate cook who hadn’t had a kitchen in months; my place had a kitchen; I imagine you can see the reasoning. The food was lovely and it was here also that a great deal of the hammock wars took place (that is, until somebody was smart enough to go and buy more hammocks). The cook is now living in my place, having taken it over with a friend now that I’ve moved out. It feels good to leave the place in the hands of people who will utilise it well.

All in all a very good last week, though I’ll probably need to sleep for days just to recover from it. Hopefully I’ll manage to snatch some more moments of writing between moments of sleep. As you might have guessed, my work did suffer under the pressure of the fun.

Still, there is enough time to write in the weeks ahead. There won’t be a great deal of time to spend at the beach. Well, except for in Portugal, but that will be an entirely different experience. It will be brilliant to get to hang out with the whole family again. It must have been more than a few years ago since I saw my sister.

But first, university applications.

Next Year?

I just paid my landlady the last of the rent I owed her. She asked me if I would like to rent the house again next year. She said I was a quiet tenant and a clean tenant; much better than the run of the mill (aka British) tourists that normally come through here. I said I’d probably not be coming back next year.

Then I got to thinking, why am I not coming back? The obvious answer is, of course, that I’m going to university. It’s damned hard to be in two places at once and in this case university takes precedence.

But that’s not all. I don’t feel I should come back. Though I loved my time here, I don’t feel it is the right course of action to return. The Palolem chapter is finished and I don’t think that a repetition of the place will in anyway create a repetition of the time. What’s more, I don’t believe the time should be repeated. This experience should be unique; individual and un-diluted. I believe I’ll be doing all I’ve learned here a disservice if I return.

That doesn’t mean I’m done moving around, it just means that I will have to move somewhere else next; somewhere new, somewhere undiscovered (by me, anyway). I think the next trip (which will probably be two years away at least) will either take me to South America or to Africa.

I think right now I’d prefer South America. I’ve met a lot of South Americans over the last few years and I have to say, they are absolutely fabulous people; insane, dangerous, disturbed, loud lunatics with a propensity for the dramatic and a nose for trouble, in other words brilliant.

Maybe when I move next I’ll be going somewhere where I will be working, rather than only hanging. Then I’d move from the category of traveller to expat. A little worrying, as most of the expats meet are wankers who can only ever bitch, while they get opportunities thrown in their laps abroad that they could have only dreamed about at home. Sometimes we become what we despise; but I hope all of you will be kind enough to execute me in some absolutely dreadful way if I do turn into one of those unappreciative, overweight, sweaty, beer guzzling monsters. I’m rather particular to putting me on top of a bus, with only a length of barbwire to hang onto and then going down some really windy mountain road at high speed. That will teach me.

So, to return to the topic at hand, I don’t think I’ll be back in Palolem next year, but I’ll directly admit that this is probably the worst time for me to decide anything like that, seeing as I’m just at the end of this stay. Seven and a half years ago I thought I was done with school, this year I’m going back. Now I think I’m done with Palolem.

I’m sure you get the picture.

Imperfections

I’ve got a hole in my leg. It’s about as big as your average coin. I managed to get this addition (subtraction?) to my anatomy on Sunday morning. I was still up from Saturday night and my reflexes were dulled from too much drink and too little sleep. I made a joke at a girl’s expense and in retaliation she flipped my sun bed. I hit the table on the other side and got cut in several places. Most of the injuries weren’t in any way significant, except for the chunk of flesh gouged out of my leg. The girl was suitably contrite and very apologetic. She was only trying to tilt it, she promised. I guess she didn’t know her own strength.

Funnily enough, it has only affected me a little. Though it still bleeds occasionally when I walk around, showering is difficult and it will doubtlessly scar, my mood has barely changed. Yes, I have to walk very slowly now, yes my life essence is staining my clothes and yes I can’t go swimming in the last few days I have here; but somehow I’m managing to take it all in stride (no pun intended).

The scar will be a permanent reminder of this journey. It’s quite suitable that it happened right at the end. It’s almost like a mark of a right of passage I’ve completed; which is quite fitting, seeing as I have certainly learned (evolved?) a lot since I’ve come to this country. I might as well see it as a mark for the entire time I spent in Asia. Seven and a half years of travelling, living, experiencing and moving. It was a time of a great deal of movement, which makes a scar on my leg quite symbolic, really.

Still, I think I’d prefer it as a reminder of Palolem, with all its trails and tribulations. This place – which looks like paradise but was in so many ways the hardest part of my journey – has left its mark on me.

Maybe I’ll also finally slow down a bit. Not only physically (which is inevitable as I have to limp to not put any strain on the injured leg) but mentally. In many ways I think that’s already happening, but maybe this will be a catalyst for further slowing down. Maybe once I’ve slowed down enough I’ll be able to find the time to actually get things done. It’s funny, but it really feels like the more frantically you try to do things, the fewer things you ultimately get done. The little things swallow up your time, so that there’s nothing left for the big things.

Eight days left. Eight days to limp around this place of bright sun and deep shadow. Eight days in this tainted paradise. Maybe that isn’t fair, maybe it isn’t the place that is tainted but us; maybe we carry it within us and bring it here. We are, after all, only human; we thrive on creating drama and conflict where before there was none.

I imagine that it only becomes starker because it seems so out of place. We’re the same, but we somehow assume that we should be different. We ask ourselves ‘how can things go so wrong when we’re in such a beautiful place?’ when a better question would be, ‘why do we expect our location to influence our nature?’

We are subtly changed by where we are, but we remain fundamentally the same. There is no perfect place, because we are not perfect. It took me nearly eight years of travel to realise that. And with that realisation I'm now finally ready to go 'home'.

Assumptions

I had an interesting train of thought earlier today. It went something like this:

Logic is faulty. We know this through such logical paradoxes as Zeno’s Paradox, in which Achilles races against a tortoise. The tortoise gets a head start of say, 100 meters. Achilles is twice as fast as the tortoise, however, so it shouldn’t take him long to catch up. Achilles starts to run and covers the 100 meters to where the tortoise used to be, in this time the tortoise has moved on 50 meters. Achilles then covers those 50 meters, in which time the tortoise has moved on another 25 meters. Every time Achilles catches up to where the tortoise used to be the tortoise has moved on further again. Using this logic, Achilles can never catch up; with the two instead stuck in an infinite loop.

Of course, in the real world one object can pass another moving in the same direction, like you in your convertible past that lumbering truck on a mountain road, preferably with your top lowered and your middle finger raised (fucking truck drivers). So if we have a choice between the real world and our logical model, most people would say ‘let’s go with the real world’.

What’s more, logic is based on a number of assumptions. For example, we have to implicitly accept that 2 + 2 = 4. Yes, so far that has always been the case, but we can’t be certain. We assume it’s true because it has been true so far, but we also used to believe the world was flat, that gods lived on Olympus and that Father Christmas was more than just a hobo on minimum pay, with a red suit and a toilet paper beard.

We assume these rules hold true – even if they might well be proven wrong or only rough approximations – and we apply them in almost every facet of our lives.

That train of thought wasn’t exactly new to me (I’d followed a similar path before), but the next part was: What if faith in God was such a similar assumption? Similarly implicit as such assumptions as those that logisticians make in regards to logic?

The interesting thing about the assumptions the logisticians make is that they will find as much evidence as possible to support their position, while trying to ignore anything that might prove them wrong (like Zeno’s paradox). I think we do that with everything that we strongly believe in. It takes a very strong person to take to heart counter evidence to something they truly believe in.

That suddenly gave me an insight into why you can never debate faith. For those of you who have never tried (and I imagine you’re few in number) the problem with debating faith is that the people that have faith sooner or later use the fallacy of the impenetrable castle. This fallacy states that somebody accepts a belief based on arguments that are outside the realm of logic (i.e. they accept something as true without having any logical arguments to back it up).

I always thought of that as a weak argument, but now I realise that logic is in some ways just as much based on assumptions as faith is. To try to understand faith through logic is like trying to understand gravity through biology; it doesn’t work, for the simple reason that we are using the wrong tools.

Does that mean I’ve suddenly found faith? No, I remain an Atheist, as secure in my assumptions as the religious are in theirs. It just means that I have slightly more respect for the religious. That’s not a bad start, right?

Days end

Today I’m going to buy my tickets. I need two more to connect everything together, one to Bangalore where I need to sort out last visa things (India really needs to work on its approach to Visas. It’s like they don’t actually want people to come to their country) and then another ticket from Dubai back to Frankfurt.

Things are moving steadily, with university matters slowly sorting themselves out. I’m pretty confident I’ll manage to get into a Uni somewhere in the Netherlands. That’s a good thing, because I’d have no idea what I would do if that plan goes awry.

For the rest I’m just enjoying my last days on the beach. It’s much better, now that I know what’s going to happen afterwards and I only have a little time left. I don’t have as much guilt or angst, so in a way I’m actually enjoying myself more than previously. There’s this thought process that goes ‘yeah, I really should be or shouldn’t be doing blah, but it’s only for a few more days’.

Yes, that does mean that my time of reflection and research isn’t quite as quiet as I would have liked. Still, there will be enough time for reflection and research when I hit Uni again. I’d hate to spend my time here reflecting and then end up wishing I’d spent more time partying when I’m in Uni. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should really use a place in the way it’s meant to be used. Palolem happens to be a place for socialising, partying and drinking. Hurrah to that.

I talk about the fact that I’m leaving, but I really wonder how I will feel when that day finally arrives. It is unstoppable now; I have to go back. My visa can’t be extended any further, my ticket can’t be moved, my parents can’t be convinced and my money can’t be made to last any longer.

Well, actually that last one isn’t exactly true. I’ve still got some money due to me, but unfortunately, though I’ve been trying to collect for a few months now, I haven’t had a great deal of success. That is – as I told a friend – probably a good thing, because while my friend owes me the cash it is still owed to me and if I would have had it, it would probably be long gone by now.

Hopefully I’ll get the cash when I hit Europe, so that I can use that as my seed money to get myself set up. Otherwise it will have to be a matter of tightening the belt and living like a pauper for a while. Well, actually it will more likely be a matter of living like a pauper for about the next two years.

Poverty with purpose does have its uses though. It makes one far more aware of the value of money and how to get cheap deals. I was really good at that when I left Australia, but these last couple of years I’ve let my penny pinching slide a bit. A penny saved is a penny earned, right? On the other hand, a penny spent is a penny enjoyed. The latter is currently my philosophy, but somehow I suspect I’ll have to slide over to the former in the foreseeable future.

Oh well, Ce La Vie.

Humour

I have a ‘friend’ down here who manages to get under my skin nearly every time I meet him. I realised yesterday evening that the only real reason I hang out with him is that my friends hang out with him. I should say ‘was’, of course, because the last two mates of the group I hung out with for the last two months have left. There were six of us, a week ago. Then four left in groups of two, while I realised that the last one wasn’t really a friend at all.

Now I am alone again.

That suits me fine, to be honest; drifting around the beach with no interaction lasting more then a few minutes; time to be with myself.

I got to thinking about why this bloke manages to get under my skin so easily. I came to the conclusion today that there are only two people I know at this time who can get under my skin and that’s this bloke and my dad. That my dad can get under my skin is easily explained, it’s because I love him and therefore he can hurt me; but why this near-stranger, this person I don’t even like?

I thought about why that was and a scary thought jumped into my head: maybe I had lost my sense of humour. The reason that it’s scary is two fold: 1. It rings true; and 2. I’ve always believed that it is my sense of humour that protects me from the bad things in life.

Of course, I’m not sure yet if it’s true – it is still very much an idea bouncing around my head – but in playing with the idea I started thinking ‘if I’ve lost my sense of humour, why?’

It might have been January. That was a terrible month for me, which somehow took away a great deal of my confidence. Maybe I haven’t recovered from it completely yet?

That probably has something to do with it, but I also think it has something to do with this feeling I’ve spoken about in previous entries, where I feel the inexorable rush of time passing me by.

From that sprung another thought, what if I’m not as smart as I think I am? What if I don’t have the ability to actually fulfil my ambition? Or, even worse, what if I’m smart enough to come to the conclusion that I’m not smart enough? What if I can see a large part of the picture, but never the whole picture? What if I’m permanently stuck in second place?

I’ve said this before: a person that finishes in third place is happier than a person who finishes in second place; the reason being that a person in second place will always wonder if he could have been in first if he’d tried a little harder, while a person in third place is happy to just be on the podium.

I don’t want to finish in second place, maybe that’s why I’ve lost my sense of humour.

Peace and Purpose

A little more than two weeks to go before I fly back to Bangalore. Then four more days and off to Dubai. I don’t have my ticket from Dubai home yet, but chances are good that I’ll be flying on straight from there to Frankfurt. Have to get my money together for the flight first, but hopefully that will all sort itself out without too much trouble.

Then I’ll probably get a few days rest and I’ll be off to Holland to sort out my application, then off to Portugal with my family for a bit (more) time in the sun. After that? Work away the summer while I wait (and hope) for my acceptance into university.

I have no idea what kind of a job I’ll be able to find back in Holland. Will my weak grasp of the Dutch language interfere with my chances? Or will I be able to find something that will let me utilise my strong grasp of the English language? I hope that, what ever my job may be, it won’t be boring. I guess that’s what we all hope.

I was talking the other day with somebody about the ability to turn off you mind and just do something mind numbing, like packing boxes, working on a production line or standing guard. I know that anything monotonous drives me absolutely up the wall within minutes. If I don’t have variation and change, I start going mental.

It kind of ties in with my inability to actually just do nothing. I can’t sit somewhere and watch the world go by, I have to always be actively involved. It always impresses me that people can just sit there, all content, while doing absolutely nothing. I often wonder who’s got it better, them or me? Is it better to be able to switch off and do nothing of consequence, or is it better to always want to be active, always want to be involved? I imagine that I get done more, while they have more peace of mind.

And peace of mind – I admit – I rarely have. I almost always feel haunted and pursued by the thoughts in my head. If I oversleep, I feel guilty for wasting my day; if I go out and party, I hate myself for wasting the time the day after. My entire time here in Goa has been tainted by an undertone of ‘maybe I could be doing something better with my time’. Not a great feeling to have, to be sure.

But then I’ve already spoken about that before, haven’t I? I think this feeling will probably leave me when I’m back in Europe, sorting out my university, because I really do believe that is the best thing for me to do right now. I certainly hope it leaves me, because I can’t imagine running around for the rest of my life wondering ‘what if’.

Who am I kidding? A huge chunk of the population spends the majority of their time wondering ‘what if’. Why do I think I’ll be any different? I shouldn’t be scared of it, really, I should instead be utilising it to make the best of myself.

Maybe once I’ve done that, I’ll be more at peace with myself.

Happiness

Today I was walking on the beach, handing out flyers when I was given something back. It was entitled ‘what do people get high on’ and it was full of pretty colours and pretty pictures. It was also a bit of Christian propaganda, supposing that everything that people get high from (drugs, fame, power, possessions, etc.) will lead to a crash; except, of course, for Jesus. Get high on Jesus, the pamphlet claimed, and you’ll never need for anything again.

I could go into another bible bashing bit here, but I won’t. I’ve done that quite often enough and I’m sure I’ve already offended more than enough religious people’s sensibilities. Instead, what I’d like to get into is the ‘high’ that they were talking about and how it is basically impossible for us to be completely happy. Why? Evolution, my dear Watson.

Okay, so why does evolution not allow for complete happiness? Quite simply because complete happiness is not evolutionarily viable. As long as we have aspirations we cannot be truly happy (as the nature of aspirations means that there is still something missing from our lives). The moment we no longer have any aspirations we are no longer looking to get ahead in the rat race. And those people that are not looking to get ahead in the rat race are less fit to survive and bring forth healthy, successful offspring.

Any person that is born truly happy is, in other words, not going to spread on their genes as much as somebody who isn’t completely happy and still aspiring to greater things. So any gene for raised happiness will be selected against. On the flip side, any gene for great unhappiness will also be selected against (as people stuck in depression and despair are also less likely to bring forth a lot of offspring).

We’re at a perfect equilibrium, a state where we are not so depressed we give up, but not happy enough to not want anything more. Any massive variation up or down will ultimately not exist for very long.

Some people find this a very depressing thought (which is quite ironic, really). I don’t. It makes me feel better when I’m unhappy, as it’s just my genes trying to kick me into reaching greater heights and nothing more. In a way the unhappiness isn’t really a part of my conscious mind, instead it is just my nature trying to control my actions. Once I’ve realised that I can then put away that unhappiness. Lock it in a little box, if you will, with the knowledge that it can be safely ignored. Often, soon after I’ve done that, I actually feel happier.

It’s just a matter of realising that we are put together near perfectly for our environment, not for ourselves. Evolution only asks that we survive and gives us the traits to do that. Beyond that, it really doesn’t give a damn (no, evolution doesn’t have any emotions, feelings or ideas, it’s just easier to personify things sometimes). If we want anything more then we have to consciously change our instinctual behavior; which includes realising that we can’t be truly happy and being happy with that.

Flop

The party was a flop. In hindsight it was to be expected, really. After all, two weeks ago they tried to have the same party and the cops came around with clubs to chase everybody out. That is not really the best reputation to have associated with your party, I’m sure. Last time the Silent Noise team had the party they had gone through more than half their headsets by twelve o’clock; this time around they didn’t go through half their headsets all night.

One of the emotions I hate most has to be boredom and last night I was bored. The people that had invited us down had set up the headset station away from the party, so we couldn’t even look at the people dance. Instead we were forced to spend the whole night reflecting about why things weren’t working and how we had nothing to do. And it was a long night. I was only able to finally crash out in the cab back down south, at six in the morning.

If I have a choice in the matter I’m not going up to the next party they have up there. I’d rather sit somewhere quiet and try to work on the things that I really should be doing; writing, completing my university application and studying.

Of course I say that now. The truth of the matter is that I’m finding it very hard recently to actually be on my own. I guess that has always been the case, but these last few weeks I’ve become keenly aware of my need for other people around me.

Does that mean I have demons that I’m just not willing to deal with? Possibly. Is it interfering with me getting the things done that I’m supposed to be getting done? Definitely.

I know it sounds silly, but I’m starting to feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. Of course I’m not sure if you can call what I’m doing a vacation. I mean, all in all I’ve been working pretty steadily for the last six months.

I find it quiet amazing how the people around me are satisfied doing as little as they are doing. To me that just seems, well, wasteful. I never seem to be able to forget that a clock is ticking away in the background; that the egg timer of my life creeping towards zero. I’m constantly driven to do things for fear of the guilt that I might feel at the end.

I’ve known for a while that I’m motivated by guilt more than anything else. Specifically, the guilt of not using what I’ve got to make a difference. I guess the real problem isn’t so much that I don’t do enough, but more that I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing and as a result am trying to do it all.

Comment

I’ve decided to change my comment setting on this blog so that anybody can comment. The reason? I’ve come to realise that most of the people that read my blog aren’t actually bloggers (or have a google account, for that matter) and that even if they do want to say something, they obviously can’t. Since I’m a feedback junky (a quick bit of feedback in the morning to get me through they day) that won’t do at all. Besides, I’m sure lots of you people wildly disagree with a lot of what I say. So now, have your say. Come on, don’t be shy.

Hopefully I won’t get attacked by spam, trolls and nonsense; if that’s the case, I guess I’ll just have to switch it back. But I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Two days from now I’ll be heading up north to help organize a party in the Russian controlled area of Goa. The story is that that should be quite an adventure. The last time they tried to organise a headphone party up there another club owner got jealous, paid the police a shockingly big amount of money and had the entire thing closed down; despite the fact that the police had no actual valid reason to do so.

Of course, the police are the biggest organised crime group in Goa, so they don’t really need to give any real reasons for anything they do. (I’d go so far as to say that if I’d have a problem in this town I’d go to the crime families before I’d go to the police, as you can simply trust the families that bit more).

But back to the party.

so they are going to try again, with the Russians that own the club forking out a sizable sum to keep the police off their back (I have no idea about figures, but it’s a lot) and the Russian party crowd getting ready for a night of fun and mayhem (I think in the Russian mind those two ideas are unavoidably linked).

The guys that went up there before say it is quite a sight, especially considering the Russian’s interesting fashion sense. Women in skimpy clothing gyrating on bar stools, men with one pant leg rolled up and tied off with a handkerchief (weird!) full makeup on the beach, big beefy guys that are completely involved with the mob (and are completely off their heads on their day off) and, of course, the Russians are absolutely loaded. There were some at the party last night and where the rest of the tourists bitch and whinge about the cost of one headset, they’d just get seven and pull the seven thousand rupees (about 200 US) off a stack that didn’t look any smaller for it.

Different cultures, different norms; and what intriguing norms they are!

Thinking long term

I’ve got offered a full time job next season here in Palolem. The people organising the parties I’m helping out with decided that when they expand next season they need experienced, good staff to help them out and apparently I fit the bill. Nice bit of stroking my ego, that one.

If I don’t get into the uni of my choice, it might actually be interesting. I’d go back to Holland for six months, stick away a whole heap of cash in a bank account and then come out here, miss the European winter and make yet more cash. Yes, obviously I would be making more cash if I stayed in Europe the entire year around, but how often do you get to work fulltime at a cool job in a place that is absolutely beautiful?

I wouldn’t just be in charge of promotion anymore, either. My job would expand to include organisation, PR, media and so forth. You see, they’re trying to expand the entire concept to become much larger and Goa wide and the most integral part of expanding any business is finding the right people to help you expand.

That can be quite a challenge in India, largely because the Indians have just such a different work culture from the Europeans; especially on the beach. The people out here in the beach villages are, unfortunately, not terribly educated and quite short sighted as a result. They’re more than happy staying exactly where they are, as long as nobody around them manages to improve their lot either. They’d often rather sabotage others than work harder themselves.

For example, some people tried to organise a party in the jungle at one point and they hired busses to cart people back and forth from Palolem to the party (as it was some distance away). The rickshaw drivers would have none of it, however, as they weren’t making any money out of it. So they slashed the tires of the busses.

None of them considered the extra people the party had brought in. None of them considered that the reputation of Palolem might be damaged by something like this, which would bring fewer tourists. No, all they cared about was that on that night somebody else was making money while they weren’t and they had to be stopped.

Another good one was when the restaurants and bars on the beach were angry at the Silent Noise parties, because the cops weren’t telling them to turn the music off at ten; instead letting them go on till eleven. They paid the cops, the cops came in early and the Silent Noise crew switched over to headphones (no real problem).

The unexpected consequence was that the cops felt that it was now their duty to close down all the parties for the next week, so as to appear even handed. As a result all the restaurants and bars on the beach were closed down at 10. They, of course, didn’t have headphones and had to continue the evening music free. That one came right back to bite them in the ass.

The question I often ponder over is ‘will they ever learn?’ I guess they might, but it would require a better education and I don’t see any chance of that happening any time soon.