Walking Alone

My daily plan has been interrupted by a talky sort, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it.

I walk to work and I walk home again. It takes me about 40 minutes and I enjoy it. I use the time to listen to podcasts, read my Kindle, or just think. It's my time and I use it to prepare myself for the work ahead of me or to recover from it afterwards.

Now though someone else from my office has started walking the same way.

This is not the first colleague to pass me on the way to work. People have been walking my way for some time but we have a mutual agreement to ignore each other. We realise that the walk to work is sacrosanct, not to be cheapened with office gossip or talk of weekend plans. At best we give each other a short curt nod as one of us powerwalks past the other. It is an arrangement with which we are happy.

But this new person is different. This new person is an Extrovert!

"Simon!" she shouts at me as I walk past her, "Simon!" For a moment, I consider pretending I don't hear her. I reach for my ipod to turn up the volume, but it's hopeless. She'll keep shouting at me.

I turn to look at her, mouthing curses, then take off my headphones and twist my mouth into a smile.

"Hi, How you going?" I say, switching into extrovert mode, and we begin our small talk peppered 20 minute trek to the office.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike this person, but I don't do well with small talk at the best times. Small takes effort and thought, working out what to say next. I especially don't do well with small talk when I'm not expecting it. My walk to work is a hallowed moment of non-communication, a few minutes in the day when I know that I won't have to deal with someone else's life, preperation for 7 hours of customer calls. The last thing I want is someone else to talk to.

She carries on oblivious. She is friendly and polite, and shows an interest in me, and talks, and tells me stories, and throws my whole day out of sync.

Finally we arrive. I thank her for walking with me and retreat to the relative quiet of my desk, where I can sit down and read for few blessed minutes before the calls start coming in. Then I log in and the day begins.

Finally as 5 roll around I pack up, tired, slightly stressed, but glad the day is done, ready for my walk home, 40 minutes to unwind, nothing but me, my thoughts, and the sounds of a city that is heading back home.

And then I look up and see my new walking buddy smiling at me.

"Are you walking home tonight?" she asks...

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Saturday night dreamers and drinkers.

Saturday night, walking home, sober, clean, heading through town, the perfect time, of course, to judge.

Don't pretend you haven't been there.

My bitterness has been flamed ready. I had spent the evening at a comedy poetry reading and as ever, these things, far from inspiring me, lift me up and then leave me in despair as I realise that my own skills can never compare. A reminder once again that I am and always will be an amateur, scratching my words with a stick in the sand, as they, the voices of a generation, carve their thoughts into the cliff face in letters 6 foot high. When the tide comes in where do my words go? Does the earth take them back, as one day it will take back me, nothing more than a fading imprint?

You see what poetry recitals do to me?

I am an amateur. I lack the passion in my soul that the poets feel, and lack the grit in my spirit that drives the novelist onto the next page. I had the passion and the grit once, I think. But over time other things got in the way, and the dream faded, like my words in the sand as the waves climb higher. When had I stopped dreaming? When had I given in?

So you see I had a choice: I could be down on myself, or I could be down on others. I chose, I admit, to take refuge.

See them, the mobs of Saturday night, a unofficial St Patricks day parade from one pub to the next. The girls, in their dresses, wobbling on heels, squealing loudly, while the men, stand behind, watch them walking, comment on their wiggle, before leaning on a lamppost and coating it in vomit. I stereotype of course, but then I am walking through Bristol, and it is Saturday night. Look around you, and you'll see what I mean, at any city on any weekend.

Drunkards and thugs and sluts. How easy to forget the nights when people thought that of me.

But not tonight, tonight I am sober, and trying to understand, why we do it? What is it about Saturday night that drives us to try and have fun?

And I realise, perhaps for the first time, that these people too have dreams that will never come true.

That man, with the bald patch, and the Guinness hat, which he keeps taking off as the ladies pass, whilst taking a good look at their passing arse, what was his dream? Was he destined to be a rock star? A footballer? Does he dream of holding the kid that he's never seen, or of being a better father, or lover, or son? Maybe he dreams of being an investment banker but made the wrong choices and now works as plumber? Maybe he’s an investment banker who wanted to fix pipes for a living? Who knows what his dream is? But he does have a dream.

The girl walking past whose arse he stares at, she's on her 5th pub now, getting tired, but she knows her man wants to keep going, and so she tags along, because her dream is to have the perfect homelife, with the perfect man, and he isn't it, but he's the best she can find. (How stereotypical my thoughts are when they try to be philosophical.) 37 and getting so drunk that she can hardly stand up right on a Saturday night. This isn't what anyone imagined.

Is that why we do it? A moment to try and forget that things aren't the way they were meant to be, that our lives aren't what they were meant to be, that we aren't what we are meant to be?

Or perhaps, more likely the poet in me, jealous at the superiority of finer minds, wants to find something to pontificate about. Maybe, just maybe, the only reason we do it is because it's fun to go out on a Saturday night, and I'm just jealous that they're feeling alright, and having a good time, and are able to forget their dreams that they let go of so easily.

But for me, even to realise they have dreams, impossible dreams too, somehow, I find I no longer feel like judging. Let them have their party, they hangovers, their morning regrets. Sometimes, 'Tonight' is all we have. The future is a dream and there is always the worry we might wake up.

Ahead of me there is the sound of breaking glass. A beer bottle falls off a wall, smashing to the pavement. The beer foams and runs off into the road, another dream gone. A man pushes his friend, starts a fight. I walk past them, stepping into the beer puddle to avoid their eyes, and with a great sense of relief find myself judging once again.

Saturday night. Sober. Clean. The perfect time to judge.

Don't pretend you haven't been there.

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Oh Hai!

How quickly a goal changes and a dreams fails. How soon we decide thet we are not the person we were last week, or the week before that. How suddenly we veer and become something new. 

Or to put it another way, How easily I stop being bothered about this whole Spiritual Atheist thing. 

Life seemed to get in the way, there was so much going on in 2011 and my life decided to get decidingly more difficult for a while, but these are just excuses. The fact is I lost track. I was never quite sure how I was supposed to pull of this Spiritual Atheist thing. It seemed a little bit too hard and I stopped being brave enough to try it. I think I will try it again. 

My life feels exactly the same now as it did when I first started this blog. I am still largely unfufilled, but normally happy. I have little ambition, only a few hobbies, a handfull of friends. In short I'm relativley average, give or take a few inches. (Heh!)

I am still, despite my very half-arsed efforts when I first started this blog, completey unenglightened. 

It is probably time to start again. 

Life, it turns out, doesn't get any easier just because you have a steady job, are married, and have a playstation 3. It continues to be a bloody pain, with a whole new set of problems, and a whole nev series of things trying to bring you down. 

Recently, I've been letting the bad things get the better of me.Enough of that already.Besides, if nothing else I need a project to work on to give me focus, and something to encourage me to keep writing. I doubt this blog will ever be the beginners guide to Spiritual Atheism that I hoped it would be. But it might at least be something to keep me occupied on this cold winter nights.

And it seems the first thing I have to do is reupload the header bar and logo. Honestly, you stop blogging for a year and Flickr decides you're dead or something. It's enough to make need to meditate.

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Climbing Mount Snowdon - A Moment of Spirituality

Now where the snow had been was a tangle of grey ethereal clouds as if she had remembered her long forgotten volcanic origins, and awoken once again.

We rarely managed to look up though. The melting snow birthed streams in every direction, even down the path we climbed. Our every step sent shivers running through the water, our own personal earthquake. The rocks fought, and slipped against us. And so we looked at the path ahead of us, and we made our way slowly up her side.

As we climbed the horizon grew, as if the world were stretching to show off to us. Where before there had been nothing trees, now there was fields and lakes, forests and hills. Even the sea showed itself, a sliver glint on the furthest horizon. A taste of forever just beyond our sight. And still we climbed. Our legs began to burn, the path got steeper. Eventually we left it behind us, scaling the rocks, stumbling, then leaping up, bruised, tired, but still carrying on.

A few steps more, our feet on fire, our clothes damp from the hail and rain, we climbed to the top of a ridge. And we looked over into the edge of the world. The mountain disappeared beneath us. We looked down at a lake, hundreds of feet below us, a mirror laid on the ground to reflect the sky. There were people there, so small they were nothing but specks, as the earth is a speck in our solar system, and the galaxy a speck in the universe. And we looked down upon it all, just specks in a speck, in a speck.

And yet standing there, the earth opened up beneath us, sharing her treasures with us, we felt like the most important people in the universe. To be allowed to spend just a moment there was an astounding privilege, an honor the earth had bestowed on us.

I pondered the age of the rocks beneath my feet, that had waited so many millions of years for me to climb them. I gazed at the landscape unrolled before me, a masterpiece of nature, that seemed to have been waiting for me to see it. This was a moment in time that I would never forget, that would stay with me forever, as a beautiful dreams clings to the thoughts when you wake up in the morning.

We looked. And we listened. There was nothing to hear, except the sound of waterfalls. There were no worries, no complaints, no panic. Just the rush of water as it scattered down the mountain. The sound of a river being born.

And, slowly even my thoughts faded away.There was nothing left to think about. There was nothing but now, with the majesty of the earth shining below me and the water singing as it headed to the valleys below.

Eventually, as the cold started to bite, we turned and began the journey back. Back down the path, back down the rocks that slipped beneath us, back to the car, and the worries, and the life that waited at the base of the mountain.

But as we drove away the mountain looked down upon us. It’s peak seemed to follow us, to linger with us, as the country disappeared and the real world unfolded. We gazed at her peak until the last moment, until she had disappeared beyond the horizon, each of us sharing a silent memory of a moment that would stay with us forever. A moment when we had stood upon the stairs of heaven, floating over the world below us, and looking down, and marveling at the tiny specks, of our tiny little lives.

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A Purpose Defined

As part of my quest to became a spiritual atheist, I've realised that, for me at least, being spiritual is as much about having a meaning and purpose to your life, as it is about feeling spiritual. When you are living for a greater goal then you are automatically on some kind of spiritual quest.

But maybe I've been doing this wrong. I've been searching for a meaning that's an overarching goal, a mission with a grand goal.

I've been looking for a way to make my life special. But is this really possible? Every wants to be special, but if everyone is special then no-one is. I have no right to think I have anymore chance than anyone else out there. Maybe I will never achieve anything that can outlive me. Maybe I wont leave my footprints behind me as I walk through this life.

But today, I came across this blog post - Happily Ever After where another blogger is contemplating their aim in life. Clearly we bloggers have a lot of time on our hands.

'If someone asked me what I wanted, they would be silly things. Silly little things. It would be having a nice place to live. Perhaps a nice house with a large living room. With laminate flooring. And a proper wood fireplace. And a large grand piano, which I can play with the fireplace roaring on an autumn night.'

There's nothing massive about this. No huge goals. No attempt to change the world. Just a simple wish to find a place in the world where they can be happy. It's a simple goal, but it's a beautiful one.

I wonder if I can lower my goals along these lines. Can a desire to be happy be a spiritual quest? Can I feed my spiritual side with a life of containment? Or by it's very nature is a spiritual destined to be a more ambitious one?

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A short History of Personal Problems - Savage Chickens

I rant for a entire blog post about this modern problem and still don't come to a conclusion.

Doug Savage, as ever, sums it up in a single post-it-note.

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I am Completely Different

I think a lot of my quest for spirituality stems from needing a reason, a logos, for living. This is something I've always had, a desperate need to feel I am here for a reason. Like the Apollo Astronauts I want to leave my footprints behind me, for a long, long time after I am gone.

I used to think I knew how to do that, but right now I'm having to rethink, and without knowing my logos I'm feeling, almost void, it whatever it is you would call the soul. I'm having to remind myself what it is like to feel real emotion.

And so I was pleased to pick up an old book of poetry from my shelf and find the following poem, by Kuroda Saburo, which brought tears to my eyes, even if just for a second.

I Am Completely Different

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same tie as yesterday,

am as poor as yesterday,

as good for nothing as yesterday,

today

I am completely different.

Though I am wearing the same clothes,

am as drunk as yesterday,

living as clumsily as yesterday, nevertheless

today

I am completely different.

Ah ...

I patiently close my eyes

on all the grins and smirks

on all the twisted smiles and horse laughs---

and glimpse then, inside me

one beautiful white butterfly

fluttering towards tomorrow.

- Kuroad Saburo

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"Most of us aren't special" - Finding a Purpose

I'm not sure whether it's a blessing or a curse to be part of Generation X. Certainly no other generation before us had such a good life expectancy, such excellent living conditions, and such massive amounts of opportunity. But then, on the other hand, no other generation had such high expectations as well.

We've been hit by more self help seminars, more life coaching books, and more self-made success TV shows that it could cope with. Nowadays it is no longer a choice to be sensational, it is an obligation. And any one who is unable to stand out from the crowd has failed to live a life worth living.

This never used to be the norm. Not so long ago you were happy enough to have a job to do, or a family to support. We didn't feel the need to have any purpose higher than that, because we never really knew such a purpose existed. Now, with so many of our other basic needs filled, with lives so much more generally satisfying, we have time to look towards greater goals. And most of the time, our greater goals are too great for us to hit.

I'm feeling this a lot myself recently. Due to some tragic realisations last year, my goals, or at least the way my goals were envisioned, are no longer possible, and I'm having to rethink my whole life. I'm not doing a very good job at it. Trying to find a new purpose in life is like trying to understand the Holy Trinity. People may pretend that they can do it, but ask them for the details, and suddenly they go all quiet.

Right now my mind has gone all quiet.

I remember, when I was in church, such thoughts didn't really occur to me. Back then I had a definite purpose in life, even though I didn't know what it was. The church, and my faith, guaranteed a purpose. God had something in mind for me. All I had to do was wait, and it would be revealed.

That was a long time ago, and I was still very young when I left the church. Maybe, as a christian now, I would no longer feel the same way, but in my memory at least, the Church gave me a purpose and direction for my life.

Now, thanks to last years reality check, and the simple, scary fact ,that we live in an uncaring universe, I don't know in slightest what I'm meant to be doing anymore.

I'm not trying to be all Avenue Q here. I don't believe that all of us have a grand purpose, that all of us are destined to change the world, but I would like to have some kind of aim in life, something worth achieving.

As a Generation X'er I've been told time and again that I can achieve anything I put my mind too, but time and again, from the lives around me, from history, and from my own story, I've seen that that's not true, but I still can't shake the feeling that I should be doing something worthwhile. That I should be striving towards some greater good.

So right now, I'm on a mission to find meaning to this silly little, highly unimportant spec of a thing, called my life, just 1 of 6 billion, on a tiny blue dot, in a tiny galaxy, in an infinite universe that doesn't even know I exist.

As you might be able to tell, it's not the easiest thing to get to grips with.

And so I wonder, what's your reason for living? What drives you on everyday? What is the one thing that keeps you going?

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