Cyclone on a bumpy castle | 07.04.2018

Cyclone on a bumpy castle

07.04.2018

London is a foray of experience, people, squirrels and dogs. Cars zipping by left, right and centre. Millions of people walking, talking and working on the go. Police and ambulances passing by every second minute. Lights, reflections and pigeons. Lots and lots of pigeons.

There’s never a dull moment, never not something to be happy about, never not something to be sad about. The constance of chaos is like a cyclone on a bumpy castle, unimaginable until you see it.

It’s what you make of it. On one day you might feel totally overwhelmed, paralysed stumbling through the commotion. And the next you find yourself fitting right into the groove, making every right move, dancing between the million miles per hour commuters, catching every green light and effortlessly daydreaming through the cyclonic flow of city living.

There's a bluntness to it as well. It’s the reflective mirror that doesn’t sugar coat. It churns you, stretches you, and tells it as it is. And just when it gets a little too much, there’s a smile or an unexpected moment of kindness or a kid dancing like no ones watching or just a simple leaf blowing through the air, catching a ray of sunshine here and there, and it brings you back, back to where you are, back to the now, and breath, pause, relax. 

Ultimately London is not a big bad scary wolf, filled with mean people I thought it would be. It’s just another place, filled with individual human beings, all stumbling there way around…walking, talking and working on the go…

At the edge of the beginning | 30.07.2017

At the Edge

30.07.2017

Suddenly this moment has come. The edge of possibility.  A wash of strings, a mirage of life lines, just sitting there eagerly waiting. Waiting for me to take my step, to leap...jolt into life. Am I scared shitless? Of course! But life is a lovely adventure and will always go the way it goes. No matter what. That 'knowledge' brings me comfort, helps me sleep at night…so to speak.

There’s a flow of life that will relentlessly take you where it’s taking you, the best thing to do is to let go, relax, and swim along. (Not saying you can just sit back and ‘good’ stuff will happen to you…you do need to swim…so to speak)

This doesn't mean that it’s always easy. God no. There are rough patches, moments where you keep getting bashed into rocks. Bruises, cuts and scars will form. Leaving you begging for just one break…but as I say, life goes on. The only thing you can count on is that it won’t go on like that forever, and soon enough you’ll float back into a calm, washy stream, you just have to ride it out.

I digress. The point is that I’m at the edge of the beginning. I’m a the top of the page, switching from an old chapter to a new. Or having thought about it…it’s more like closing a novella and starting a novel.

When people hear that I recently closed a chapter in my life, they immediately want to know the synopsis of the next one. It’s only human, a burning curiosity, or perhaps just a simple kindling on the fire that is small talk…I don’t blame them; I’m the same. I find myself trying to peek ahead, brainstorming what could happen next. 

It’s tough to stay at the moment, to take life as it comes, and just fully flow with it at the moment. But I still have some time to practice…and in the mean time, I’ll continue just showing up in the places where things happen (About 5000 miles away from the comfort zone) 

…And you know, work on being a more consistent writer…

So I met a man...not in that way... | 14.05.2017

So I met a man…not in that way…

14.05.2017

I have a job, a semi-controversial job. I’m the person you avoid at all costs on the street. I’m the reason why you pay attention to where you’re going so that you can spot me and swerve, and not make eye contact…do NOT make eye contact…ooh nooo, you made the lethal mistake, now you’re mine, and yes, yes I’m absolutely going to try and sell you something.

Street sales is fun, different people do it for different reasons. I do it because I get to meet hundreds of interesting different characters every day. I get to talk to them, look at their body language, observe their small quirks, their little idiosyncrasies. It helps with the creativity, adding to an ever-growing amount of ‘material’ to my ‘character library’…and pays well…

Today, was a day like any other, filled with pestering people, laughing with them, with the occasional sale. After a few hours, I was getting tired. I reenergized myself..with pizza and red bull…and took off ready to ‘rock’. I saw a man walking, approached him, asked him if he could spare a moment, to which he responded: “I’m Scottish!” (Side note: I live in holland, so to a dutch sales person this would be a no go) Me being Scottish myself, I immediately responded: “Me too!”. He kept walking, so I asked him where he was from, which stopped him and struck up a conversation with him. 

I found out he lived in holland and did the very subtle “Do you have a dutch bank account?” line, to find out if I could sell him stuff. The usual response is “yes”, and then I’ll proceed to talk and sell. His response was slightly different, he indeed had a bank account but only had 42 cents on it, he admitted to me. I don’t quite remember how the exact conversation proceeded, but I remember convincing him to let me give him money but also convincing him to grab a coffee. He was obviously not in a good place, and I wanted to talk to him. 

I’m not going to talk about what he told me in the cafe, but I can say I was tearing up, as was he. I’ve heard many a story, of sorrow, depression, loss. But this one really hit me. Maybe because he’s Scottish, I don’t know, it just did. It boggles my mind that humanity sees itself so amazing, and yet can allow such grievance to a fellow being.

We sat there for, probably, a good 40 minutes, I was not counting. Eventually, my ‘boss’ came to check up, and get me back to work. I just remember thinking “Screw work, I’m staying here till I know that this man will continue his day with more hope than he started it with.” He had considered suicide the night before. He was well and truly at rock bottom. 

Once he’d finished his coffee we found a cash machine, where I got him some money for food. He told me a bit about his talents in singing and acting. (Sidenote: later on the phone I discovered he does a smashingly good impression of Billy O’connelly, and also is good at comedy, and has written an unpublished book. This guy is a hidden gem.) 

Now. I’ve always wanted to make a documentary about a person quite like the man I met today. I scurried up the courage, and asked: “Can I perhaps, maybe, sort of, make a documentary about you?”. I was expecting him to retreat, or just get a bit awkward. Instead, I was met with enthusiasm, a willingness that one could only dream of. 

This is not a story of “ooh look how great I am”, this is a story of how I ‘bumped’ into an incredible human being. I want to make a documentary about him, and I want it to not suck. If you have any advice my ears are all yours! 

I’m glad to say that he is not suicidal anymore, and is now actually allot more hopeful about the future. It’s incredible what a conversation, a simple coffee, a listen, can do for someone. Please keep that in mind the next time you pass someone on the street, or pass a homeless person. Spare a moment, sit down with them, listen to their story, their not easy to hear, fuck their hard to listen to, but it’s necessary. It’s so fucking important to know what the realities of someone else life can be. In fact, I challenge you, the person reading this, I mean, you read to here, so you listened to me..listen to someone you wouldn’t necessarily listen to normally. Or, go out, find someone living rough, and sit down with them (bring some lunch, that’s always nice). 

I don’t care if you’re a fellow student, a teacher, a nurse, an artist, an entrepreneur, a CEO, or whatever. You remain human, capable of listening, understanding, giving someone your attention. Do it. Do it now, do it tomorrow, do it as often as you can, you can easily brighten up someone's day, it’s not hard, it just means lightning yourself of your perceived status and levelling with someone less fortunate. Easy peasy (;

The smallest knife on the block | 07.04.2017

07.04.2017

I have 3 ‘sharp’ ‘non-stick’ knives. All from the same brand, these should be “the good knives”, the preferred knives, if you will.
And yet, even with the simplest vegetable, fruit or meat, I find myself struggling to hack through anything. And my goodness do they stick, it’s almost as if the whole meal decides to manifest itself on the back of the knife.
Still, I tend to come back to these knives again and again. Struggling, over and over, and why? Well, they’re the ‘sharpest’ and most ‘non-sticky’ knives on the block…right?

I find myself doing that allot. Falling back to something because I ‘should’, or because that’s the most ‘logical’ choice, the one I’m ‘supposed’ to make. Despite the fact that it may do more harm than good.

Now that I think of it, that’s the definition of insanity; repeating something under the exact same circumstances expecting a different outcome. Perhaps I’m just a little insane, but hey, a little insanity is like kindling to the creative brain, right?

On the flip side, this is an excellent way to practice more creative problem-solving. To look further than the supposed boundaries, to live/think outside the, societally constructed, ‘box’.

This concept excites me. Nothing makes my pupils dilate, my heart race and my brain tingle more that the challenge of creative thinking. Well, okay, some things might make me do that a little more, but this is definitely, 100%, not the environment to talk about that kind of thing…

This is something I already do by nature; noticing the small things, the medium things and the big things. Noticing the way they interact, the way they move, the tiniest detail and the largest detail, and then, subsequently, connecting the dots. 

That’s what creative problem solving is to me, connecting the dots of seemingly unrelated things, to create a new way of looking at one certain thing.

This brings me back to the knives. After not having washed my dishes for a while, because, well, I’m a young person living on my own, I believe it’s in my contract to be messy, and have lot’s of dirty dishes, I had to resort to the small, unused knife that I had hiding away amongst the teaspoon, symbolising its status. 

It turns out that that one little knife was, and is, an estimated 5 million times sharper and more stick resistant that all the other knives combined. Putting me in my place for not thinking of the little one earlier, because, well, as mentioned, it was the little knife in the teaspoon drawer.

The same reflects on other situations in life. Like when story writing; not thinking of a certain character, because he/she is so minor, or not giving a certain line as part of a dialogue because, well that could be a little out there. When editing, and not even considering adding a certain shot, or deleting a certain scene, because, well, it’s ‘supposed’ to be there..

Anyway, my point is, that in lots of situations in life there will be a metaphorical, little knife in a teaspoon drawer. You just need to have a wee look around, and maybe not do your dishes for a while. 

Or, you know, you could also actually have good knives and not be insane like me…one of the two…