clinging to the wreckage

  It’s a rare cold day in Dallas (11 Celsius) but the sun is shining beautifully and, so, I am having a beer outside at my local bar. The beer is icy cold, it soothes my soul, and the sun soothes my legs. The misery of soccer lingers over me after a weekend of poor results, and I see people unable to walk, so busy are they on their phones. The modern date is a couple walking around the lake whilst both are staring at their phone screens. And, of course, there is judgement. If I post a photo of my beer on the table beside the lake, there are those who say ‘he is drinking alone on a Sunday’. I walk back home and delve into a book. The reading habit is returning, and it is a good thing because, without it, I felt my sense of wellbeing slipping away. Literature has always been my greatest teacher, introducing me to diverse cultures and distant places. It is what helps me to understand the human condition and what it is that so many people are going through on a day-to-day basis just trying

Grasping for the words that were written or spoken… digital… paper… long lost audio disappearing as ghosts of sound in the wind. Once so relevant and charged with emotion, now simply relics of the past. Fossils that can occasionally be unearthed by excavating old mails, messages, blogs, and journals. Brush the dust from a single word and uncover a phrase, a sentence, a meaning that was once so powerful and is now merely an understanding of the past. The fossil record of our romantic evolution. The black sheets are covered in white papers, coloured books, envelopes and digital devices as I search through them all for the missing pieces. Am I simply lost in the past? Clinging to something I believed to be a superior species? Meanwhile, it is myself that is on the brink of extinction.

  A forlorn lifeguard stares from the loneliest lifeguard office I have ever seen as the sun sets behind a gloomy sky. I sit on the beach while the waves crash and a young-looking African lady waves at me from above. I’ve seen her several times selling small collectible items near the beach, and I’ve always wanted to smile and say hello. Today she finally waved, after which we exchanged several smiles. Eventually she got into the back of a pickup truck with several of her colleagues and the driver drove off into the darkening evening over bumps that the truck seemed incapable of handling. A different life… one that cannot be easy. Once again, it crashes down upon me that I am extremely fortunate. We all suffer to a certain extent, some suffer more than others. Often, those who suffer more still retain a smile and a kindness that those more fortunate will never know. It begins to rain, and I stare out into the abyss of open ocean and contemplate the future. Standing up, I start to searc

During this Christmas break, I have been fortunate enough to read the memoir of one of my life-long heroes: Greg Graffin’s  Punk Paradox . I have found the book to be truly astonishing and ultimately inspiring. Having discovered Bad Religion in 1993, when they had already been around 13 years and had seemingly accomplished so much, I assumed them to be supremely confident, comfortable, and truly in control of their own destiny. Therefore, it was a surprise to me to read of Graffin’s frequent periods of doubt and concern about his own relevance and impact. Equally surprising was my discovery that the band was frequently going through complex periods of difficult decisions and choices during which heavy sacrifices had to be made (Graffin dropping out of his PhD and co-founder, Gurewitz, leaving the band to focus on his record company, for example). Not only that, but their personal lives were also deeply impacted by their touring schedule and lifestyle imbalances even when sacrifices wer

Christmas morning with my parents for the first time in ten years. It is quite a remarkable thing. My mother and I would probably drink all day, but my dad doesn’t drink and is not always amused when we begin to get wasted. Outside it’s raining and warm. It’s beautiful. I am sitting at the garden table under shelter of the roof that my father built a few years ago. There is nothing more soothing, peaceful, and therapeutic than sitting here with a book with the rain falling all around. A few days ago, I slipped and nearly broke my foot. It is bruised and painful, but I manage to hobble to the beach successfully where the sand and salty water seem to soothe it somewhat. I read for a while or gaze in a trance at the ocean as the sun flickers through the clouds like machine gun fire and begins to burn me. A child is flying a kite too close to me and I eventually gather my things and walk to the bar for a beer. Finding a seat outside in the crowded space I sit downwind from three women only

  The African morning is something to behold. Quite a potent and beautiful thing, but not something to always be taken easily if one is a light sleeper or in need of a deep and long sleep. The birdsong is simply describable in no other way than to say it is a cacophony of sound. Birds of all varieties seem to be in competition for which will make the greatest noise. As a backdrop to this are those birds nesting… hundreds of nests side by side, in a tree branching over one’s place of rest, coming to life vibrantly at 4am. Monkeys move along beneath the umbrella of branches and hoot their morning moans of despair and delight. Beyond the wall of trees is the Indian Ocean, crashing down its waves upon the early morning night-swept beach. A sad sounding truck passes by on the nearby road carrying its cargo to the next warehouse. In it all is an immense beauty, it is not the fog-drowned smog of London, nor the rampant roar of a tourist infested New York City. It is the balance of rain and su

  Awake through the night in Dubai… I don’t even know which time zone I am in anymore. There’s no booze in the room, there is no light, there is no sound. A day ago, I was eight hours behind my parents, now I am two hours ahead of them. I got up and went for a short walk, walked to the elevators, and pressed the button to summon one of those bullet speed shafts to the 17th floor. The elevator arrived, the doors opened, there was a matrix-like wall blocking it. My eyes adjusted and I discovered it was a rack of baggage that one of the hotel staff was taking downstairs. Inexplicably, he rolled the rack out of the elevator so I could get in and then rolled it back in again to go down with me. He told me that it was beautiful to walk along the canal, so I walked outside and went down to the canal, but I was wearing flip flops and sleeping shorts… I wasn’t prepared. It made me think of a warm and quiet River Thames. It occurred to me that the canal had probably been designed to look precise