Back on the Beach

I’m back! Palolem hasn’t changed a great deal since I’ve left it, except that a couple of the friends I had down here have moved on. That’s alright, it just means that I’ve got to make new ones. I’m not just back in that way though, I’m also back in Spirit. I’m back on top of the world and rearing to go.

With a restricted budget, anyway. That’s the way the cookie crumbles of course (I’ve been using that saying far too much). Things were going to be relatively comfortable, but then I used up 20% of my remaining cash on traveling. So now I have 20% less cash every day. Not a pretty way to look at it.

Still, it is better to be poor on a beach than poor in cold, horrible Europe. Besides, it means there is less temptation for me to go out and get plastered. Instead, I can read, write and generally try to be intellectual.

I actually only drank two beers, smoked ten cigarettes and did nothing else for the whole week I went around working. It’s certainly been a very long time since I’ve done that. Quite proud of it. Even since I’ve been back here (which was yesterday afternoon) I’ve been well behaved. Not as well behaved as the week before, mind you, but certainly better behaved than the week before that.

So now it’s a matter of working, reading, relaxing and waiting. Hopefully one of the jobs I went to look at in Bombay will pan out and put me in a comfortable position again. I just need one and I went to about five castings (plus the jobs that my pictures were sent out for, but I know nothing about). That’s not bad odds, right? Especially if it is actually true that there are very few foreign models out and about in Bombay.

I’m still a bit sick, though. Physically I don’t feel much trouble, though I feel a little uncomfortable when I eat a big meal, but I still do need to go to the toilet a little more frequently than is perfectly normal. That is compensated by the fact, of course, that when I do go it all comes out a great deal quicker than normal. Good in terms of the time I spend in the toilet. Not so good in terms of my physical wellbeing.

Oh well, what to do? I’ve thought about going to the doctor, but I do seem to be improving, so I don’t really want to fork out money for a doctor, when I’m already naturally on the mend. If I take a turn for the worst, I’ll have to go get an antibiotics cure, until then it’s just a matter of waiting to see (and watching what I eat). Still can’t go to the gym, though. Exercise weakens the immune system for a short while and that is something that I definitely should avoid right now.

A day in Bombay

This morning I arrived at 7:30 in Bombay, to do that I needed to get on the plane at six, to do that I needed to be at the airport at five, to do that I needed to leave my friend's house at four, to do that I needed to be up at three. I only bought the ticket at ten last night. I’m proud to say I at least got three hours of sleep, better than nothing.

And I need it, because today is one mad day of running around. This evening at eight I once again leave Bombay, to head back ‘home’ (Palolem). In the twelve hours I’m here I’ve basically got to get the modeling thing in Bombay started.

There’s people helping me an awful lot with that. I’ve met a major agency here and they directly sent me out to meet a bunch of people. I met the agency through contacts in Palolem, who also sent me out to meet a few people and some of those people, in turn, have sent me out to meet a few people. All in all I think I’m meeting about twenty people today. I’m not sure how I’m finding the time to write this.

That’s the great thing about being busy, you can be tired and busy and manage perfectly well. If, on the other hand, you’re tired and bored, no way you can last the whole day.

I actually quite like Bombay. People here are telling me I should stick around here if I really want to work. Now that I’ve had to run up to Bangalore and down here, I really do need to work. The money would have been fine, if I would have stayed put, but of course I didn’t. The travel bug is definitely as strong as ever. Of course, it was a work trip, so I can use that as part of the excuse (why do I need an excuse?)

I’m really looking forward to hitting the beach again tomorrow. Then I can finally rest out this bug and recover my full health. I miss the gym. Yes, I’m sure you’d never expected me to say something like that (mister ‘pass me an empty beer bottle, I’m too lazy to get up from this couch to take a wee’ Symbol). I had never expected myself to say something like that, but truth be told I like being in shape and, what is more, I like the buzz you get from exercising. It is, strangely enough, quite energising.

I also managed to pick up a whole range of books in Bangalore, while I was there. The problem with Palolem is that they only do beach books. I don’t do beach books. If I want entertainment I pick up popular science, psychology, economics or anything else that I feel I can learn something from. That’s not to say that you can’t learn anything from beach books, it’s just not what I want to learn right now. (was that a good escape?)

I directly started in on Nicholas Taleb’s book ‘Fooled By Randomness’, which has been quite enjoyable so far, though I’m either stupider, more tired or the book is more complex than his second one, because I’m not finding it as easy of a read. It’s probably a combination of all three.

So, tomorrow back to the beach, back to my stories and back to good health. Until then, meet greet and, for god’s sake, smile!

Editing Suite

Today I’m in the editing Suite for the second day. It’s been going a lot better than expected, actually. My fever broke during the night, before I started the editing and though my stomach is still giving me trouble, medicine has kept the pain from the spasms down, while will power (and enjoyment) has managed to keep me focused. True, pretty much the moment I arrived at the place I was staying last night I crashed out, not to wake up for ten hours, but that’s ok. It means I’m spending less money.

When I saw the original rough cut, which was done without me, I actually despaired. I broke down and believed that I had let everybody down and that everybody has mistakenly put their faith in me, when they obviously shouldn’t have. For two weeks I refused to look at, or think about, the short film that I’d been given. Then I realised that even if my short film might have let people down, what I was doing right there was certainly letting people down. So I bit the bullet.

My solution was to try and massacre my original script. The idea was to cut out as much as possible, so that even if it wasn’t good, at least people wouldn’t have to suffer through much of it. I actually thought I’d done a real good job cutting it down to half the length. Unfortunately, when we put it together in the editing studio it turned out I’d only managed to cut away about one third.

Still, I had managed to cut away some of the scenes that offended me most, as well as the verbosity that got to me in the original showing. Of course, now I’ve been stuck with my nose glued to the screen for many hours, seeing the same footage again and again, so there is a good chance I’m not objective, but at least I have the feeling it is better.

I’ve moved from never ever directing again (the decision I had made deep down inside) to maybe directing again, if somebody pushes me hard enough and gets me to agree while intoxicated.

The current version I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to show my friends.

It really was terribly unfair of me to leave others to edit my work. They didn’t feel right about cutting out scenes that didn’t work (they really stuck to the original script), nor did they exactly know what I had in mind with the different shots. They didn’t want to move shots around and they didn’t run with their own ideas. As a result, it was a compromise of what they wanted and what they believed I wanted. Compromises might work in politics, but they rarely work in art.

Still, if they hadn’t done what they had done, then I wouldn’t have realised what didn’t work and cut mercilessly into the script. Their work was immensely valuable for the simple reason that it showed me what didn’t work and sometimes eliminating what doesn’t work is the first step to finding out what does.

Hopefully all of you will get to see the short film soon.

Ill Feelings

I arrived in Bangalore a few days ago with a very busy schedule. I have a short film to edit, a visa to extend, people to meet and so forth, and so forth. Of course, January being by far one of the worst months I’ve experienced ever, it wasn’t going to be that easy. There’s a bug going around here and, of course, I got it.

Frustrating, especially seeing as I normally almost never get sick. It’s about a once in a year thing (and that’s mainly because I don’t live quite as healthy as I should). I remember when I heard about the bug thinking to myself ‘oh, I don’t have to worry about that! I’ve been healthy and I’ve taken good care of myself, lots of juices and vegetables, this bug won’t affect me!’

Obviously spoken too soon.

Yesterday I basically spent a whole day on bed with fever and diarrhea (I did get out of bed for the diarrhea). Today I have to spend a good solid working day (possibly a working day and a half) working on the second edit for my short film. Fortunately, I do feel a bit better today so hopefully it won’t be too much torture. Still, there is no choice. Most people that have had this illness have been floored with it for five days to a week, I don’t have five days or a week.

So it’s once again one of those times where we have to survive on will power and stubbornness. I’ll probably feel the consequences of that afterwards, but if everything goes well I’ll be back on Palolem and even illnesses don’t seem quite as bad on the beach and in the sun (though I have noticed toilets seem to be a little further away, on average.)

There’s only ten days left to January. Somehow I’m going to have to hang on. Hopefully fate/god/chance will have lost interest in me by now and moved on to torture some other unfortunate soul.

All things said and done, however, I’m still relatively up-beat (though not yesterday, to the chagrin of those people taking care of me, bless them) I refuse to be beaten down and even if this turns out to be a terrible year – instead of just a terrible month – I’m going to make sure I come out of it with a smile on my face and laughter in my heart.

Besides, they say it’s the bad times that shape us, teach us and make us who we are. The good times are just the interludes in between where nothing much changes. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is then I’ve definitely been shaped these last twenty days. Into what, I wonder? A triangle or a parallelogram?

Taxi Ride

I’ve just left Palolem, hopefully not for the last time. My taxi – a little Indian car with a brand name that I’ve never heard before – is taking me through a landscape of hills, jungles, rice paddies and winding roads. I thought I should do one last post before I hit the airport and leave this place at least for a week.

I’m not looking forward to Bangalore one bit. For some reason I see that chapter as closed and do not look forward to reopening it. As if I actually have a choice. We should make those decisions that we get to make and accept those paths that we have to take. I’ve met a few people in the last few days who can’t make decisions and yet bitch about those things they can’t control. Now that doesn’t seem very grown up to me.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about today, I wanted to talk about Palolem; more specifically I want to talk about the place where I laid my head down to rest for the last 12 days. It was almost like being 21 again and staying on Ko Lanta, Thailand. There I stayed in a bamboo hut, on the beach with a view of the sea for less than five dollars a day.

Here I stayed in a bamboo hut, on the beach, with a hammock (some of the time) and it cost me about eight dollars a day. Not a terrible inflation rate in seven years, aye? My hut here was a ramshackle affair on stilts, which shook if you did anything too active inside. The walls were made of a mixture of criss-crossed bamboo lattice work and those reed mats that you’d normally find on the ground in poorer Asian households (they were on the ground too). My only electrical point was actually under my hut, which meant I had to run extension cords out of my front door, over my porch and under my own floor. Charging my laptop took a bit of inventiveness.

Every single day I fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves. Most mornings I woke up to the same sound, though on the last few days it was the sound of loud music from the hut next door. I guess they thought it was reasonable to play loud music at 10 in the morning. And it was, it was just that I often went to bed at unreasonable hours.

From my hut you could see beach, rocks, water and waves. That’s why I picked the place. I wanted to be able to see the sea when I opened my front door.

Most people wouldn’t have been caught dead living in a place like that. There were no amenities (the toilet was shared and about 20 paces away), there was no real privacy, you were basically almost sleeping outside, if it would ever have rained (which it didn’t) I would have got wet, sand got in everywhere and slamming the door too hard made the room shake. There were no cupboards, there was no night stand, there was only one light and often there was no electricity. There was a fan, but it had only two positions; off or way too fast.

Most people are fools. This will be one of those memories of a place I stayed in which I will cherish for decades. I miss it already.

On a positive note, though. The owners thought I was fantastic renter and said that when I come back they’ll drop the rent drastically, just as long as I stay there again.

Palolem, don’t forget me while I’m gone.

January

Loneliness, worry and depression watch the sun set in paradise. She left them there, fleeing back to normality; leaving them stranded in this place of dreams. They walk the shore, stepping gingerly among the fish carcasses. Fishermen with dynamite.

How are you, my friend? Would you like to buy something? They shake both their hands and their heads. Good, they say, while they keep on walking. The meaning of the word friend so far diluted that they are no longer even an acquaintances.

They almost wanted him, but not quite. That’s how it always went. He hadn’t even got his hopes up. He’d long since accepted his fate as runner-up. It filled him with a kind of peace, knowing that the best had to struggle to beat him, even if they always did. It wasn’t so bad being a second.

Sanity had run off together. It had left them somewhere on the second day. That’s why he too had tried to run away. It was cheaper that way. If they ran off together, they thought, then everybody will know. It would be a story to tell the children, even as they gibbered on about the shadows and the shapes that chased them through the night.

Giggling paranoia consumed their world.

Death in the family. It was difficult at dinner parties. He didn’t say very much. He just sat there, chewing his food, a bucket at his feet to catch the things that fell through. There the dog could eat it. That way it wouldn’t steal a part of him. He’d lost more than enough already. Somebody had given him a party hat.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back. Normality frightened him. The ordinary drove him insane. ‘Mundanity’ he called it, that affliction of man that made them accept ignorance and mediocrity. It was an insidious disease, closely linked to fear of failure and it was spreading, growing stronger by the year; slowly snuffing out dreams and feeding on ambition.

Just be normal, that’s already strange enough.

The hooks of commitment and responsibility were firmly lodged in his soul, pulling him this way and that. A network of cords and bands that kept him firmly lodged in the fabric of society. It made him feel safe, these chains of expectation and obligation.

I wonder if all marionettes think they are free.

The Plan

I’m not going back. Not yet. I’ve decided to extend my stay in India by another two months. That way I’ll be coming back right at the beginning of spring; which is a hell of a lot better than the middle of winter. This despite the fact that I didn’t actually get the job with the agency. Still, the agency says that it really shouldn’t be a problem for me to get a bit of work while I’m here. That should make the finances at least a little easier. Still, even if I don’t get any work I should still be able to survive, though it won’t exactly be comfortable. Well, rather poor in paradise, than poor in Germany.

Mentally I’m pretty much on top again, though in the real world not that many good things have happened to me. I didn’t get the job, my grandmother passes away (though I wasn’t that close to her), and a whole bunch of women related nonsense that I’m not going to bore you with up here (even though that might be one of those things that some of you would find interesting).

Still, things are on the mend and once I’ve got my positive, go-get-em attitude back I’ll be well set to tear up Palolem. The question of how I will tear it up hasn’t quite settled in my mind, but I think it’s best to just see what happens. I definitely want to work a whole lot more (working on a group of short stories now) and get back to reading. Basically haven’t read a book in a month, which is really odd for me (and might actually be partially responsible for why I’ve been feeling a bit down; reading is important for me).

Palolem is still as idylic as ever and just watching the sun set into the sea every day is great way to gain perspective. The sea has always had an amazing calming effect on me. It’s hard to worry about the small stuff when you’ve got this huge, almost unending expanse of water in front of you. In fact, the sea is one of the few things that I can stare at for hours without getting bored (I unfortunately get restless easy, which is probably part of the reason I can’t stop moving around).

It’s going to be a good few months. I just hope that it will be reflected in the work I produce.

Improvement

Things are starting to improve, at least on the inside. I’ve had two good nights sleep, relative calm and some pretty good people around me. My head’s starting to calm down and I’m once again starting to enjoy myself. A shame I’ve only got four days left before I once again have to go to chilly Bangalore. Of course, I’ll only be there for four days, so it shouldn’t really be that bad.

After that I’m still not sure what’s going to happen. I hope to find out by the end of today. I’m very undecided about whether I should head back straight away or spend another month out here. I’ve mentioned that a bunch of times already, I know, but it’s one of the biggest concerns in my life right now, so obviously I’m going to want to talk about it (yes, it might not be interesting, but then obviously some of you disagree with me about what is interesting, anyway.)

The good thing is that it isn’t really my decision which path I take. That is now firmly in the hands of an advertising agency in Bombay; a group of people that I’ve never met, in a city that I’ve never been to and with intentions that I can’t even fathom. Brilliant, in a way. Sometimes it’s nice to let your fate be decided by complete strangers. At least they don’t have any preconceived notions about you, or any desires to screw you over or ‘help’ you.

I often find a compliment from a complete stranger far more rewarding than a compliment from somebody I already know. The complete stranger has nothing to gain by giving that compliment, while your friends almost always have underlying motivations that have nothing to do with that actual trait being complimented.

Wow, I’m making odd observations again, things must be improving.

Another day in Paradise

And then I once again had friends, acquaintances and a reputation. Just a few days on this beautiful beach and I’ve already become involved in the lives of people in ways that are both unexpected, interesting and (in some cases) worrying.

I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking in the last few days. That is, of course, what you (or at least I) do when you’re in one of your less positive phases. You think about what things you should change in your life to make yourself once again more positive. I’ve succeeded to some extent, though admittedly I’m still not in the happiest state I’ve ever been, which is kind of funny because this is possibly one of the physically most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Light and fun on the outside, but still a hint of shadow and melancholy on the inside.

Basically it’s still up in the air as to whether I’ll be off on the 22^nd, or if I’ll be able to stay an extra month. I think that might be all that I do, though if more work opportunities present themselves I might go for two more months. It would be brilliant to arrive back in Europe in the spring rather than in the winter. After all, one of the big reasons I fled Holland to begin with was the horrible winters. If I go back now, I’ll basically be arriving back in Europe seven years after I left (I think I left somewhere at the end of jan).

I’ve accepted that I’m going back to Europe now, however. I think it is time to actually really sit down and get my masters. That is one thing I agree on with all the people that are critical of the way I’ve decided to live my life.

Of course, I’m no longer sure my masters will actually help. It has been a very long time since anybody I’ve worked with has asked me about my degree. They normally work with me because of who I am, not because of the piece of paper I hold; that, I have to say, is a beautiful thing. I’ve met far too many people that have been screwed over because they didn’t manage to get that piece of paper, and that while they were absolute gems with ideas that the world will now have to lose, because it doesn’t give enough credit to people without degrees.

But I digress.

My life

Two days ago I decided to get up and go from Anjuna. I realised that I really just didn’t want to be there anymore. It just wasn’t any good without my mates. So I packed my bags and pushed off. It was one of those impulsive decisions. Those always seem to work the best for me. I’m now a couple of hundred kilometers further down south and I’ve found the most idyllic beach I’ve ever seen.

The place is called Palolem and though I might well help destroy it by talking about it here, it is a place that all of you have to see. It is truly stunning, with a curving beach that ends on one side with a rocky outcropping and on the other side with a place called ‘monkey island’, though half of the day it isn’t really an island, but more of a peninsula.

I was walking along the beach a couple of times, scouting out my new home for the next days when I got tackled by an English bloke who wanted to know if I had ever considered modeling. It seems they are looking for a model to take part in a TV advert and I might just fit the bill. That would make things a great deal easier for me, with a bit of extra cash and the possibility of earning even more. Will it happen? We will have to wait and see. I’ve now learned not to get my hopes up. Half the time they’re dashed anyway.

Yesterday a good mate of mine commented on my blog, saying that ‘it is time to settle down’ or something to that effect. He seems to be of the opinion that I’m wasting my life with parties, drugs and loose women.

He doesn’t seem to understand that a) I don’t actually do that many drugs, parties or women. It’s just that when I do them I talk about them here (more interesting than talking about going to the grocery store) and b) that you can still live a perfectly happy and profitable life on the move. Moving is in my blood. That will probably never change. It isn’t a sign of immaturity; it’s a sign of a different way of life.

I could never imagine a ‘normal’ life; wife, kids, car (probably a Mitsubishi), mortgage, house in suburbia, one and a half children. Christ, that would drive me absolutely up the wall.

There’s a great little analogy I picked up along the way. ‘Imagine you’re in an apple orchard. Every day you wake up and go to the same place to pick apples. What will happen? Soon the apples will run out and you only get tough little ones that haven’t ripened yet. If, instead, however you decide to go to different places in that orchard then you’ll always find new apples and your basket will always be full.’ I’m making sure I see as much of this apple orchard as is humanly possible and I can tell you I’ve picked some mighty fine apples.

The world is moving; the world is changing. Trying to live your life the way your parents did is like trying to ride a horse down the highway. You’ll get where you’re trying to go, but that guy that just passed you in his Ferrari will certainly get there faster.

I am alone again

My friends have pushed off, back to Singapore. Both of them I will probably not see for a while, chances are that one I might not see for years. Last night I went home alone, I slept in the room alone and I got up alone. A few weeks ago that didn’t bother me one bit, but last night it was really hard. At the moment in time where I needed some company, unfortunately the company I’m in had to depart.

The problem is, that if I didn’t care about being alone no doubt I wouldn’t be alone for very long at all. I’d end up speaking to people within no time and hanging out with them. The thing is, when I do care about being alone and I actually want to be in company people to hang out with are a lot harder to find.

It’s completely the fault of my mood, of course. When I’m up and happy, people want to be around me. When I’m down and out, people have better things to do. And even that isn’t fair. Yesterday I went to the night market here in town and spoke to at least a dozen people.

There was the Japanese couple who I talked into sharing a rickshaw into town with me, so that we all had to pay less. There was the three Australian hippies who were discussing how much Goa had changed and who’s conversation I joined in on. There was the people from Bangalore I knew who walked up to me to say hi. And there was the group of Israelis I had met on the beach who I hung out with for a few hours.

The truth is probably that I’m not seeking their kind of company. The conversations seemed stilted and not completely natural. I wasn’t in my normal talkative form, where the words flow naturally. I didn’t feel that either they or I were making a significant contribution to the other’s evening.

It’s funny. When these two mates left last time from Sri-Lanka, I also crashed out. For two weeks I locked myself in my room and just read. That was at the beginning of the trip. Interesting, that now near the end the same thing seems to be happening. Maybe this is a good time to just sit on the beach, read and work on my writings.

But somehow that doesn’t feel right. These might well be the last two weeks of my last world trip. After this it might well never be possible for me to do this again. I certainly don’t hope that’s the case, as these trips have always made such a massive difference to the way I operate and the way I interact with the world around me, but I must accept that that might be the case.

Do I really, in that case, want to spend my last bit of time in voluntary isolation? Do I really want to lock myself away again and remember the end of my trip alone? Or would I rather do something with my time that I’ll remember more fondly?

It is, of course, a semi-rhetorical question. I shouldn’t waste these last few days. I should fight my way out of this pit and make these last days matter; now to find a way out of this pit.

Maybe that Russian folk-tale I was told might help. ‘A hedgehog is walking through the forest, when he falls into a pit. He sits at the bottom and looks at the sky. One day passes, then another. Finally the hedgehog says ‘what am I doing at the bottom of this pit?’ He then climbs out, to continue his walk.’

Choice

My future is so wonderfully undecided that it would drive a normal man crazy. Fortunately, I’m already mad as a hatter and insanity is second nature to me, so no real worries.

It looks like Dubai is falling through for me. The plan that I had of heading down there and making back some money so that I could continue my travels seems to have been a bad one. That leaves me in the position of having to re-evaluate what the hell I’m going to do now.

The problem is, I don’t really have a clue. While I was making the short film I didn’t get any money paying work done (completely my own fault, I might add, I should have looked harder) and now the finances are stretched a bit thin. The next stage of my trip needs to be either making me a great deal of cash or needs to take me home.

Home is in Europe. At least, that’s the feeling I’ve now got. Home is in Amsterdam, preparing for my university. Home is a place where I can study and learn. Home is a place that will make me enough money to let me leave again in a few years time without any need to ever come back, unless I want to. Home might well be a place that I now have to go to so that I’ll have the choice never to come back again after that.

Do I want to go back to Europe? I used to violently against the idea, but slowly it is starting to grow on me a bit. It might be nice to see the place and get a feeling for the European mentality now that I’ve been as asianised as I’ve been. See what does work and what doesn’t, get to understand what has become distorted and warped by distance and what I still remember correctly. Come to grips with the place that a great deal of my ideology was originally shaped in.

Fortress Europe.

That strange place that so many people are so desperate to become a part of, while I’ve been so desperate to stay away from it. That place that first colonised and conquered the rest of the world and now believes that the it is being colonised and conquered in return.

Am I ready to go to Europe?

I think the real question is, do I have a choice?

Crash and Learn

The last few days we’ve crashed hard. I guess that’s the consequence of partying non-stop, without sleep for two weeks. We just got hour from a 15 hour sleep. We were only supposed to sleep for one or two, get up, have dinner, possibly a few drinks and only then start our night rest; but it seems our bodies thought different.

I do feel better now. I’m almost back to normal. Still, I’ll be sure not to do anything like this again. It just isn’t really worth it, if you ask me. Admittedly, it does look like we picked up a bug at the end. Two of us had bad stomachs, while one of us couldn’t even really eat. For me, turning my head to fast made me light headed, which is really annoying when somebody calls out your name behind you and you turn to meet them. I think I’ve had that feeling before, somewhere, but I can’t remember when.

When my mates have buggered off (which will be tomorrow) I’m going to commence a period of isolation. I haven’t really had a great deal of time, lately, to be on my own and consider the lessons learned.

I’ll have till the 18^th of January to do exactly that. I was thinking of hitting the gym every day, eating healthy, wholesome food and spending time only with those people that I actually want to spend time with. What ever time remains I’ll spend on the beach either writing or reading (more of the former right now, it seems, because I have no good books and I haven’t seen any book stores that might help alleviate that problem).

There is a bit of a sense of guilt that I’m feeling over the last few days. One of my mates from Singapore just rocked up and said exactly that. I told him that it wasn’t his fault, but logic rarely actually changes how you feel. I know that, because I feel the same way. There is a sense that time was wasted that could have been so much better spent. Where were the new ideas, the new amazing friends and the new dreams that were supposed to arise out of these last days?

I guess I’m actually getting older; not old, mind you, but older - more responsible. The time to fuck around seems to be passing and I feel there is much more of an urge to actually really get a move on.

Of course, apparently I didn’t feel that way two weeks ago when I first hit Goa, otherwise I wouldn’t have done the things I did. We’ll see if I remain this ‘wise’ when the next get together comes along, but for now I’d like to think that I’ve finally taken to heart the lesson ‘everything in moderation’.

2008

I’m going to start 2008 with an apology. If been taught by many argumentation teachers and other figures who try to teach you how to be persuasive and convincing that this is exactly what you shouldn’t do, as it makes your case weaker, but sometimes you should throw the experts out of the window, along with their ideas.

I’d like to apologise for my long silence. A week has now gone by and I haven’t told a thing, that while my life was wildly exciting. I’ll try to do it some justice in this first post of 2008, but I don’t know if I can.

I’ll start with the dead body.

Some poor bloke didn’t make it past 2007. We know because we nearly stumbled over his dead body on the beach. We had been warned that there was a dead body somewhere on the beach, but with us all being used to western ways and western practices we hadn’t expected quite what we found.

In the west they would have covered the body cordoned off the area, closed the nearby restaurants, had police all over the beach and checked from commutable diseases; but of course we aren’t in the west, we’re in India which means that all that had been done was to put a young excitable bloke with a flashlight, to watch over the body. The problem was that he was far more interested in freaking people out than actually protecting their fragile sensibilities, so he’d let you almost stumble onto the body, then come out the darkness and made sure you got a really good look at the ghastly sight by shining his flash light all over it.

Some of our company didn’t take too well to that.

Then there was the lap dog.

We were sitting in a little restaurant, as you tend to do a great deal of the time while you’re on the beach, when we heard a huge commotion. We ran over to the side of the restaurant and found two dogs that had apparently taken a disliking to each other. The problem was their size. One was a little fluffy critter that I always refer to as ‘please kick me’ dogs, while the other was one of those dogs who could easily chew through a grown man’s arm, even while it was still attached to a struggling man’s body.

The big one had the little one’s head in it’s mouth and was being pounded over the head with a stick by the little one’s owner. It was the look of absolute and complete surprise on the little mongrel’s face that really turned the situation from ghastly into wildly hilarious.

We were actually disappointed to find the little mongrel scampering over the beach the next day, none the worse for wear. Not that we’re sadistic and cruel, but it just seems a bit of an anti-climax after such a wild scene.

The Russian mob boss was also interesting.

We met them at club. It was a very beautiful Russian girl, who was attached to a group of Russian men. One was paralysed from the neck down. We never asked why, but we assume it was violence. The girl was his wife and the other Russian men his body guards. We originally thought that she was completely off her trolley (aka high, for those not into drug speak) as her eyes were huge and she was hugging herself.

We soon found out that she was completely terrified. Her eyes were that big because she wasn’t off her head, but because she was like a doe in the headlights; realising the destiny was coming but too paralysed by fear to do anything about it. We talked to them for a while and discovered that the girl didn’t even know the body guard’s names, only their nick names. That way she obviously wouldn’t be able to harm them even if she was caught by the police.

That bothered some of our group as well, but what were we to do? C’est La Vie. That does sound terribly blasé, I admit. I guess I have become pretty insulated over the years. Sometimes that seems like the only way to survive in a semi-happy state.

Don’t hate me because I’ve learned not to care. Happy 2008.

Normality in Goa

This is the first time I saw eight o’clock from the right side, as in I’d just woken up. Finally our bodies couldn’t take it anymore and a three hour sprint nap last night turned into a full on 12 hour sleep marathon. We woke up at eight and, not surprisingly, felt a great deal better for all of that.

It’s nice to feel human again. Near the end of the hard party, hard living, little sleeping thing that we were on I had forgotten what normality was like. I was actually starting to worry if I’d ever actually encounter normality again. That’s the funny thing about me, I can never party too long. If I overdo anything then very quickly I start to no longer enjoy it and that’s with everything, from partying to reading, to drinking, to dancing, to women to everything else you can think up (including work).

Hopefully a day of rest will give me the energy for when the rest of my friends arrive. One is coming in tomorrow from Singapore (thereby reuniting the group that did both Sri-Lanka and Vietnam) and two more arriving the day after from Bangalore. Then we’ll be six and a party force to be reckoned with. We’ll suck the resources of this island dry, I tell you!

Well, anyway. I’ve now found internet so I’ll be able to keep you better up to date as to what’s going on in my life. So on that note I’ll end this one and go have my breakfast. Food has, unfortunately, been one of the things that has been left out of the last few days.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Goa

Goa has so far been a hedonistic, insane ride through a space that is both joyful and frightening, but that’s jumping ahead. It starts on Friday, when I was still in Bangalore. It was my last day so we had to celebrate it. Since we were leaving at five the next morning we wisely decided to stay up the night. That was the first night missed. We cat napped in the car for a bit (it took 15 hours, the driver took the wrong route) then hit Goa at 10 in the evening. We drove straight down to the beach, after having dumped our bags in the hotel (we’re searching for a new one) and we prowled for a party. We bounced around between a few bars and people on the road, which led to Paradiso.

Paradiso is on Aljuna beach, so it has everything associated with Aljuna beach; beggars, pushers, gawkers, poppers, snorters, drinkers, stoners, dancers, consumers, pervers, talkers and wankers. Plus you could drink what ever you wanted for a thousand rupees. Bonus.

That closed at 4. From there we went to Paga and hit an all night bar there. It was actually a club, but nobody paid the entry fee, with everybody hanging in the bar section out front. Here the drinks did cost money, but Goa is known to be the cheapest state to drink in in India. Next came the actual beach, where they were just starting to put out the beach chairs. Sunrises are fantastic if you’ve partied the whole night. We stayed there till about three, headed home and slept for five hours. Some of us ate, other didn’t.

We decided to hit a different party. We ended up at West End, which was kind of cool; stayed there until six. They were playing pretty good trance. We got talking to some guys that have been coming here for a long time and they told us where they hung on the beach. That was our next destination.

Once there we sat around a table in that beach hut the whole day and soaked up the Goan atmosphere. We didn’t sleep, we just kept going. Slowly the beach hut got fuller and the party more frenzied. It’s all a bit of a blur at this point, but the day lasted somewhere between a minute and an eternity.

Then, finally at night we went to a club further down the beach. There we partied till about six but I can honestly admit that by the end of it I was sleep walking through life. We finally went home and crashed out for a good length. I actually already fell asleep in the taxi back, with my self so far unconscious that I didn’t even notice that I was banging my head into the window.

Will I be able to survive this for a month?

Plans and Reality

I’m sitting in the car, a bit punch drunk from too little sleep, too much alcohol and too many hours on the road. We left at six in the morning. We were told that it would only be a six hour journey, ten if the traffic is really bad. The traffic has been great and it is now three thirty. That means we’ve been going for nine hours and we’re not there yet.

Originally the plan was to go down to Goa on a bike with a friend. This is the same friend who drove us to Nandi Hills. Then we somehow arranged a car and were planning to drive down (four of us plus the driver) and then he went and got into a fight. He broke his nose and he’ll be coming down to Goa four days later.

This guy has a natural talent for having weird things happen to him. That’s part of the reason he’s fun to hang around. At least you know it won’t be an ordinary experience. I’ve done ordinary and I’m all game for new stuff. In this case the new experience is that he’s not actually here with us in the car.

He was also, however, the person who told us that we’d be on the road for only six hours, so that I’m not too terribly happy about. I think if it takes us much longer I’ll wait till his nose is healed and then break it again. I can’t imagine having to do this trip on the back of a bike. It would have been quite a drain, I imagine. It’s been more than draining enough already, though admittedly drinking all night last night and not sleeping might have something to do with that.

We weren’t able to do the editing yesterday; so now the producer, the assistant director and the director of photography are sitting together in an editing booth doing the editing. I wonder how it will turn out. Sometimes they call me for advice on specific shots, but in general the ball is now in their court.

Personally, though this was not the desired situation, I think it might actually work better this way. These guys don’t know the stuff that’s all going through my head, so they can judge the material much more objectively than I can. They can say ‘but wait, this doesn’t make any sense’ and then try to do something about it. I’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out. Its kind of nice not to know what it looks like. Then I can imagine it’s absolutely brilliant for a while longer.

It might actually be absolutely brilliant, the only thing is that it was my first time out so it’s very possible that it isn’t. I’ll have to wait and see, probably for quite a long time too.

The shooting

After a creative process is finished I always feel kind of empty. Understandable, really, seeing as I’ve basically just invested a huge amount of time (and above all thought) into it, to ignore such immeasurable like passion and soul.

Sometimes it’s a bad empty, but this time around it is a good empty. It’s the kind of empty that I can now fill in with the good things from life around me, knowing that I did my utmost in the last stage to create something good. Will the end product actually be good? I don’t know. It was my first time out as a director and I’m sure I made a bunch of mistakes that experience would have eliminated.

The shoot itself was a grueling affair. We started at seven in the morning (though we were supposed to start at six, go figure) and were officially supposed to end by six in the evening. We didn’t. In fact we didn’t by a long shot. We ended at 1:30 the next morning.

This was for a ten minute short film!

As the director of the short film I had a whole bunch of people looking to me for final decisions and directions. Somehow I made them all, without thinking too long or waffling too much. It was really mind boggling that I was pretty much the youngest on the set, yet everybody was looking to me for guidance.

Not once did anybody question me either. They would offer alternative suggestions, but this was always in the spirit of aiding the creative process, rather than undermining me. (I believe I am now a good enough reader of character that I can figure out when somebody means something positively and when they mean it with malice in their heart). Hell, some people were even trying their hardest to impress me.

I too tried to impress everybody else, of course. Mainly by working twice as hard and being twice as positive. I don’t know if I succeeded in either, but I know that my feet hurt like hell, by the end of it. I ran around giving directions, looking at different angles and making sure that the effect I wanted was the effect I got. I think by working as hard as I did I motivated everybody else to continue working, without complaining, for 17 hours. I’m sure that in the movie industry even that isn’t that regular of an occurrence. It could also just be that I had an amazing crew, put together by an amazing producer (who worked three times as hard and was three times as positive as everybody else).

All in all it was an exhausting but inspiring day. I just hope it shows in the final product.

Beginning of the End

Last Saturday was my full last Saturday in Bangalore and we celebrated it in style. First we went to probably the coolest party I've had a chance to see here in the entire four months I was here and then we partied till dawn on my roof top. We had the necessary enhancers to make the party (trip?) very memorable. That's good, because I decided somewhere in the small hours that this would probably be my farewell party.

It's always funny when you're walking around a city for the last week. You walk around and constantly think 'this might well be the last time that I come here and do this'. It makes you really pay attention to what's going on and what had become just mundane, suddenly gets a new dimension.

How does it feel? Bitter sweet, I'd say. I've been talking about leaving this place for the last month of posts now, but it's only when it comes to the crunch that you realise what you're leaving behind. I still have no regrets about going (Bangalore should not be my home) but I'll certainly miss some places and, more importantly, some of the people that have become my friends while I've been down here. Fortunately almost everybody I know that I've come to call a friend is also leaving the city, scattering around the region and indeed the world. That way when I got somewhere new, at least I'll (hopefully) have somebody that I already know there to show me around.

What becomes interesting now is to see whether I can build up a network of friends and acquaintances as quickly in the next place as I did over here. Truth be told, there were certain elements in my favour here that I might not have in the next place. First off all, the first guy I met (I talked about him at length a couple of months ago) really helped me by connecting me to dozens, if not hundreds, of people. In the literature about social networking that I've been looking at they call this type of a person a 'connector'. Some people just have an ability to keep a much larger social network than the average person. I'm hoping to become one of these people, but for right now I need to use those types of people to build up a network quickly.

So will I meet another connector in the next place I go? Let's wait and see. I'm definitely going to try. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed hitting a city not knowing anybody and within a few months having a phone book that's bursting at the seams. Not only do I enjoy it, but it has been tremendously helpful. I wouldn't have got even close to finishing this short if it wasn't for the huge number of people that I could ask for advice and aid.

I'm nervous and excited, both about the filming (this Thursday) and the road trip (this Saturday). I just hope there's nothing to be nervous about and everything to be excited about. Ultimately, of course, that's all my own responsibility.

Neuro Linguistic Programming

That’s actually something completely different, Amazonian, but I can certainly try to help you there. What you’re talking about is not outside of you, but rather inside of you. You’re trying to create a mood or feeling of interest in something that you might actually not be interested in.

This is actually something that NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) tries to tackle. I’m currently studying NLP myself, but I’ll admit straight away that I’m not a pro. Heck, I’m barely a student. Still, I might be able to give you some pointers.

First an explanation: according to NLP the mind, emotions and the body are different aspects of the same thing. They are not separate and there is no point where one begins and the other ends. They don’t just blur into each other, they are each other. I know that’s hard to accept, but in this case it’s best to suspend your disbelief and go along with it. If you influence one, you also influence the other two.

This is very important, because in NLP you often use the most accessibly (i.e. the body) to influence the less accessible areas (unless you happen to have an axe). It also means that you’re frequently unconsciously influencing your emotions and your ideas, simply by way of your body posture.

When there is a discrepancy between these three aspects, this becomes very uncomfortable for the person and they will try their best to fix the internal inconsistency. This normally means that the two areas that are inconsistent will move towards each other. If, however, you consciously force one area, (for example you continue to smile, even though you don’t want to) the other areas will be forced to adjust till everything is consistent again (in other words, you begin to feel happy).

What’s more, you can link one specific type of emotion or mental state to a physical action. This is what they call ‘Anchoring’. How do you anchor? As followed. Go back in your memory to an event where you felt the emotion or mental state that you’re trying to re-awaken. (You see, you don’t just remember the facts of an event, but also the emotions and the ideas associated with it). Next sit down and remember as much as you can about that particular instant. Start with one sense and then stack the other four on top. When you do this, you’ll find that you start feeling like you did then.

Now, just before you max out on the emotion do a physical action that you normally wouldn’t do. For example, touch the tip of your thumb to your ring finger, or pull your ear lobe. After that, clear your mind (walk around, smoke a cigarette, what ever) and repeat the process. Do this a number of times (five to ten) and you’ll find that if you repeat the action the emotion or frame of mind will come to you automatically. It is important that you anchor before you hit the max, otherwise you might start anchoring the emotion of the downward slide on the other side of the peak, which is not what you want.

So, to sum up: Make sure that your posture and your features express the feeling you’re trying to have (attentiveness) and, if that is not enough, anchor a time when you felt attentive and then use the physical anchor to recall that state when you need to. PS: it helps to anchor in the same space where you want to then later use that anchor. The space, in that case, then becomes an anchor for the feeling.

Hope that helps.

Reading People

I don’t claim to be a star at reading other people (I’m a man, after all), but I’ve managed to pick up a few things along the way and I thought I’d throw them your way as well, in the hope that at least some of the ideas might be useful.

First off, reading other people isn’t a science, it’s an art and though you can be pretty certain about what somebody is thinking, you can never be absolutely certain. Take everything that you gleam from another person with the knowledge that you might have misinterpreted what’s going on. What that means is that you should always be willing to revise the view you have of another person when you gain new information.

Okay, now on to the juicy stuff. You can’t not communicate. That’s an important one (and probably one that I’ve already thrown your way, but never mind). This is true for everybody. That doesn’t mean that everybody is unable to physically shut up, obviously that’s not the case for most people (though I’ve met a few exceptions). It just means that even just with their body posture people are communicating to the others around them. Unfortunately for the people around them (and often fortunately for the people doing the communicating) people don’t really notice these body signals.

The way to notice these body signals is to stop dwelling in your own head and really pay attention to the people around you. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say or do next, but instead pay attention to what other people are saying and doing. Often what you’re going to say next will come to you naturally as a result of their words. I find that this has the secondary benefit of reducing my nervousness and anxiety, as I’m too busy watching the other person to notice my own doubts and worries. The way to get better at understand body signals is reading. You’ll have to pick up a book on body language as trail and error is just too slow of a process, unless you’ve already got a natural knack.

Secondly, don’t focus completely on what a person is saying. Listening well requires you to not just listen to what a person is saying, but also to how they say it (tone) and what they are doing while they say it (body language). In truth you don’t really want to hear what a person says, but rather what they are trying to say. Often, if a specific sentence might be interpreted in many ways, it is these other indicators that will tell you what interpretation to go with. If words and body language disagree (for example somebody says they don’t like you, even as they reach out and touch you) nine times out of 10 it’s the body language that speaks the truth. It’s easy to lie with words, much harder to lie with actions.

Thirdly, your own actions are a good indicator for how other people will work. If you notice certain things happening to you when you lie, or when you’re happy, or when you’re having a good conversation, or anything else, really, then you might suppose that those same signs mean the same with other people. Again, this is not a law cast in stone. People aren’t the same and will react different in different situations. Nonetheless, your own actions and their underlying emotions are a pretty good indicator of other what other people’s actions might mean.

Alright, that's it for this post. If anybody wants more exact examples I’ll be glad to supply them, all they have to do is ask.

Liar revisited

When I first came to India I wrote a post about how people just lied straight to your face; the last couple of weeks that has been reinforced. Lots of people have promised a great many things with very few of them actually delivering on their promises. It’s been terribly frustrating, as it has meant that our project has been unnecessarily delayed by weeks at a time. We think we have something in the bag and then we very quickly come to realise that we were far too quick to assume success.

What is more, even when they do agree to do something and really do it, what we often find is that they don’t do it on time! They will say ‘we’ll meet tomorrow morning and work out the legal details’ next thing we know, they haven’t called back till the evening that same day, to say that they need more time.

They have no concept of being in a hurry. Everything here takes a lot longer than it needs to. For example, take the traffic. I think most people in Bangalore waste at least an hour a day stuck in traffic jams. They take it good naturedly, but that’s actually just an indication of how they think. Everything here moves at a bumbling pace that, after Singapore, I find very difficult to work with. This might sound like racism and it probably is, but I’m going to say it anyway: the Indians are intelligent, sophisticated and cultured; but they’re also dishonest, materialistic and bad at meeting deadlines.

Every country, I’m sure, has its drawbacks. It’s just a matter of learning to live with them. The problem is that I’ve still not learned to live with the negative aspects of Indian culture. I just hope that we can still pull this project out of our asses and get everything finished by the deadlines that we’ve set. We’d better, as we’ve already booked the cameras, the studio and the actor. To try and move those to another day might prove extremely hard (though they don’t meet their deadlines themselves, they certainly expect you to live up to your obligations.)

What’s more, I’m really not up for moving my date of going to Goa back any further. I want to get out of Bangalore. It’s a nice place and I’ll certainly come back, but I’m supposed to be traveling around, seeing the sites. So far I’ve only seen a traffic choked city and lots of meeting rooms.

Life is not all fun and games and if it was, we’d get bored of them real fast. Still, it would be nice if things would actually work out as we’ve planned them.

Good things

12 days till cameras roll. For the last few days we’ve been storyboarding. What is storyboarding? (I didn’t really know until a few weeks ago, so I’m going to assume that some of you don’t know either). Storyboarding is basically the act of drawing a picture for every shot that you’re planning to use during the film. Of course, before we did the storyboarding I really didn’t have a clue what shots I was going to use, so we hired a professional storyboarder and he sat down with me and made me work out my shots.

In total it took seven hours. Let me say that again, it took seven hours to storyboard a seven minute short. One hour per minute. And the final pictures haven’t even been drawn yet; those will be produced over the next three days.

Basically what we were doing was deciding what camera angles would best advance the script. We had to interpret the underlying meaning of every scene and then bring that out through the camera positions.

The thing is, the storyboarder is just going wild on this script. He loves it (something that I’m rather proud of) and has created two three-dimensional sets, using a computer program and Styrofoam.

The learning curve on this project has been quite tremendous. Numerous times during the last few weeks I’ve done things I’ve never done before, discussed things I’ve never discussed before and thought about things that I’ve never thought about before.

That is, of course, a good thing. The whole trip so far has had a pretty steep learning curve. In fact, I think I’ve changed a lot (I first wanted to write grown, but I’m not sure that’s the right word yet). A good mate from Singapore is going to meet me in Goa and I wonder if he’ll think I’ve changed. It will be interesting to bring something from my old life into my new one. It might be quite jarring, actually. Again, that’s a good thing.

I wonder what the future holds. I have no idea. Yet again, that’s a good thing.

Self importance

All of us believe that we are more important than we are. This is commonly referred to as the 'Halo' effect. It is in our nature to exagerate our own self-importance. In fact, in a way we aren't, because in our own world we really are as important as we think we are. It is only when we try to incorperate our own percieved self-mportance with the world view of others that we walk into a wall. Funnily enough, many people don't even realise that they have just walked into one.

When I say everybody believes they are more important than they are I do really mean everybody. Though there might be exceptions, I haven't met any yet. Some people might say 'how about those people who are depressed?' well, a person who is depressed is also almost always self-obsessed. They regard their own missery of primary importance, with everything else (including other people) secondary. 'What about people who are shy, don't they do that because they believe they aren't important?' No, not really. In fact they are saying exactly the opposite. most shy people don't realise this, but what they are really saying is 'I matter so much in other people's lives that they will actually think about the stupid things I've said and the talk about the stupid things I've done.'

People with low self-esteem? Low self-esteem doesn't mean low sense of importance. In fact, often people with low self-esteem believe that they aren't equiped to deal with the tasks life has thrown in their way, as if life cares enough about them to actually set up individual tasks!

So am I advocating that you shouldn't try to fight this self-importance and lower your vision of yourself? No, not at all. I believe exactly the opposite. You feel self-important for a reason, that's because you are making sure you survive. That's your job, that's your obligation. You shouldn't be embarassed that you see yourself as more important as everybody else. Instead you should embrace it.

You should utilise it.

If you believe yourself important then that means you'll have the courage to ask for what you believe you deserve. Ultimately what you get is what you ask for, mixed in with what others believe you deserve. The more your willing to ask, the more you will generally get. What is more, when you truly believe in your own self-importance, you will find other people will start to believe it to. These people can then help you get what you believe you deserve. Tasks will become much easier, because people will be willing to help you complete them.

A belief in your own self-importance will also often lead to a feeling of self-confidence and it is self-doubt (the opposite of self-confidence) that most often gets in the way. Always question yourself, but never doubt. Easier said than done, but a good one to remember, anyway.

on energy and criticism

Today I had a very invigorating conversation with the actor of our piece, his friend (a camera man) and our producer. Yes, we now have an actor (it was confirmed a short while ago).

The thing is that when you write a piece you can never quite disassociate what you think you’re saying from what you’re actually saying. For somebody who’s just reading the script that is, of course, not the problem. They only get what you said, filtered through their own perception.

Some preconceived notions about how I saw the short were obviously wrong. I thought there was a number of elements playing through the short that were simply not there; while there were certain other elements that I hadn’t even considered that were there.

I have to say, receiving criticism on your work is never nice, but I tried to take it as best I could. Now I have to sit down again (tonight preferably) and rework the script to incorporate those suggestions of theirs that I think might improve the script. First, though, I have to sit down and actually decide which of their suggestions might actually improve it. It looks like I’ve got a hard night’s work ahead of me (I say night, because the day is far too busy with meeting – by the look of things – to give me time to really work on anything much except my conversational skills).

Still, things are more positive now. I’m reinvigorated about the project, with the slight dejection of the last few days slowly fading. Slowly we’re cutting down enough of the trees to see the forest once again (even if it may be a little smaller).

Our date of shooting has now been set for the 20th of December. It’s nice to have a date to work towards. In that way at least there is an obvious end in sight for the entire thing. When you know something is going to end, it makes it that much easier to last through the time that still remains; something along the lines of ‘this too shall pass’.

Three more weeks. The question then becomes: will I be better off before that deadline, with work to do and something to look forward towards, or will I be better off after when my worries – and my drive – drop away.

Only time will tell.