My stream of conciousness is about to commence, brace yourselves..
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| London's quirks - a car covered in grass |
Slowing down. I've found when you move to different places you tend to absorb your environment.. you adapt if you will. Different people, trends, weather. It kind of brings out different sides of your personality. I've landed myself in one of those weird limbo situations where everyone's either about to go on holiday or working really hard; it's tough to find a balance with that fresh newfound independence. But ayway, I've temporarily developed this really quiet persona - London's quite a loud and full on city it's quite humbling being constantly confronted by such a strong 'individualist' society. We spent years studying this in psychology, and while I was able to reciprocate all the studies etc. on paper, I didn't truly apply my knowledge to my surroundings, until now. Asia's generally labelled a 'collectivist' society, in which the culture is to work for the benefit of your community, while individualists tend to work for the benefit of themselves/ the individual. This rather selfish mindset is so evident now, everyone paces around with their own agenda here, there's not that lacksidazical sense of community that is so inherantley present in every Asian country i've lived in. It's interesting people watching, just noticing the little things around you - a man sitting in the corner playing a xylaphone, a group of little girls running around while their mums drink coffee.. waitresses, shopkeepers, business men and women. When you stop to see it instead of being constantly distracted by your non-stop thoughts, it changes your perspective on things.
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| Caterers digging into irresistible chocolate |
Catering has opened my eyes a bit more as well, having to endure all the tiny details of setting up a dinner, the angle of the knives, the different wine glasses, the position of the chairs, every detail has been though of before hundreds of guests swoop into the room. When the celebrities are present it's when the dynamics get interesting. The other night there were two big-shot MBA players invited to a dinner that I was catering for at the British Museum; though i had to strain my neck to offer them canopy's, their personalities shone through their celebrity status and we conversed about how their time in London had been. Other guests however did not have such a polite demeanour, though they were without the sticker of fame they still had the sticker of wealth, that had manifested itself into a snobby attitude with no respect for 'those working below them'. Some people brush you aside with no effort to make eye contact, while others merely shake their heads and pout as they turn away from the calorie infested platter of goods. The main point of my rant is just that by observing the behaviour and attitudes of people around you really allows you to check yourself and appreciate the small details that go into customer satisfaction.
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Totally unrelated but I love the madness:
Food art - Joli Lapin
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In the background Giles Peterson is playing on itunes.. he's a radio presenter interviewing David Roddigan an old time amazing reggae DJ. Discussions on racial repression, the age of reggae, the best and the worst. It feels like such an achievement to enjoy a buzz and feed your brain something at the same time, 'when you choose to take control and not let it control you.' As a friend G.M would say ;) Speaking of substances - I was sitting on the tube today listening to this man standing next to me, attempting to pass on his worldly knowledge onto a seemingly naive ukranian woman. "You know Yoga? Meditation? Incense? Yeah I do it all.. I take Ketamine and just meditate until it wears off, it's really good for you". I couldn't help but smirk at the convincing tone in his voice, and the total lack of awareness in her face. She nodded passively as he continued his rant about how more people should follow in his footsteps otherwise he'll have to 'wind up a few fingers and tell them to fuck off'. Totally dillusional - but then again aren't most people?
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| Food art - Joli Lapin
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I was asked the other day whether I had many fake friends and I replied no. Acquaintances that put on a smiley face and make meaningless small talk whenever they see you, yes, but everyone has that crowd - it's not possible to have a significant depth of friendship with everyone so it's inevitable that with some, the relationship's remain shallow, and that's ok. But then we began listing the qualities that our friends had in common: Green smokers, intelects, partyers, a sense of culture, it goes on - but one thing that I did pick up on was this concept of 'theories'. I have many friends that come up with 'their own' theories and that ties back to this dillusional world that we all live in. I believe theories are like flashes of awareness or realization, about something that was black and white before and have just gained access to the edge of the colour spectrum. It's almost like getting to the next stage in a Maths lesson, when you finally unlock the box of understanding to trigonometric relationships or any of that insignificant info. You feel a sense of achievement at being able to apply your own knowledge to a real situation. When you can figure something out without being told, it's when you rise above that standard conciousness and access human potential that we don't take enough advantage of. I mean think about it - everyone has a human brain, and we've seen countless examples of 'geniouses', creative minds, inventors, artists, writers etc. who've all utilized theirs to discover another piece of the infinity puzzle. If we all tuned into that, we'd have a crazy world full of crazy, subjective and 'dillusional' ideas. The conversations my friends and I engage in always leave me thinking.
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| Food art - Joli Lapin |
But now the day's winding down. I walked for 40 minutes down a busy street today, in my own bubble listening to the rythms of acid jazz. The clouds were all overlapping and forming scale-like shapes, intertwined with the light blue background. My eyes have been drooping since 6pm due to the miniscule amount of sleep we managed to attain last night. Another little 'did you know' fact for the day - once you've lost sleep you can never get it back, whether you sleep all day, if you've lost sleep at night, when you're natural circadian rythm (biological sleep cycle) is programmed to sleep - recovery isn't actually possible. So i'm planning on giving my body a treat and staying in tonight, TV remote, lighter, tea, blanket - sorted.
Recipe of the day: Sundried tomato, spinach and feta quiche
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