Posts Tagged ‘life’
New place, new mind
It’s come to my attention that some of you came under the impression, based on my previous post, that I had moved to China. I did write that one intentionally vague, so I’ll make it clear. My new base is Bangkok, Thailand.
The thing I have enjoyed most since moving here has been attending book events, believe it or not.
I went to the Bangkok literary festival at Kunsthalle, over near Hua Lamphong where I happened to stumble upon a gorgeous plate of crispy fried belly pork, with the most unctuous white fat, atop a bed of ramen, before heading there. (The dish is pictured below.)
I went to a private book club, examining thirst, hosted by my friend, the lovely and sublimely talented Pim Wangtechawat, and two editions of a more public reading club that has surprised me with how enjoyable it is to read en masse and then discuss the books we’re reading. The literary scene in Bangkok is burgeoning and I predict it will grow handsomely given the grassroots happenings occurring.
The second-most enjoyable is being more active — going to yoga classes, walking around, sports clubs, exploring. Being more physically active, and out and about, is always a plus.
Sometimes, I’ll be riding the BTS, Bangkok’s metal sky train, looking around at everyone, being a weirdo, and I’ll think to myself, “my god, I live here now”. Truly, it is a kind of luxury to be mobile in this way: an international cosmopolite, a writer abroad.
It is not all paradise.
Both times I’ve joined a badminton group to play mixed doubles I’ve been drenched in sweat, sitting in front of the fan in between games, feeling like I might keel over and die during games, such is the heat and humidity.
The noise and traffic pollution of parts of Bangkok is bad. I look forward to the EV revolution sweeping these parts. Apparently, big cities in China, like Beijing and Shanghai, are noticeably calmer and cleaner now due to electric vehicles, with their softly whining electric motors.
It’s intriguing the way the mind changes once it inhabits a new city. For the curious, the adventurers, the philosophers, diplomats and artists, it is as sure a process as it was for those sailing around the Mediterranean ports and harbours millennia ago.
The age when Greek philosophy, as goods and ideas and poetry were being traded, arriving at increasingly prosperous port cities, was born. (A book I’m currently reading is How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, by Adam Nicholson, which has been fascinating.)
Bangkok is a stimulating place. Almost overwhelmingly so. There are layers here. Parts and puzzles I’m still figuring out. Week by week a little more is revealed. But it’s not only the city and its people you’re learning, it’s also yourself.
So I’m expanding, not contracting, not diminishing. The opposite, one hopes. Jean-Paul Sartre proclaimed that God is dead and that man’s meaning is self-created. Perhaps discovery is my meaning, or one of them.
Bit by bit, you discover more about the world, and one of the biggest discoveries is that your own mind has capacities and extraordinarily deep wisdom buried in there. As one old Buddhist once said, Buddhahood exists within us all.
I’ve recently attuned to just how important mindset is, listening to a venerable researcher by the name of Ellen Langer. A professor of psychology at Harvard University, Langer has conducted some famous experiments.
One experiment involved old guys and making them talk and think like they were much younger, which apparently made them noticeably younger looking, with improved hearing and other markers, within the space of a week, compared to a control group, all by just changing their mindset.
On a podcast, Langer spoke about how fatigue is a mindset. She gave the example of someone who’d spent all day Word processing, so that he felt very tired at the end of the day, only to sit down to play the piano, and feel much better.
She gave the example of telling one set of participants to do 100 jumping jacks, who would feed back that they’d feel tired around the 60-mark. Another set of people, they told to perform 200 jumping jacks. And guess what? The number of jumping jacks when they’d feel tired was significantly higher. This is astonishing.
Consider it for a moment. Just by changing the goal, from 100 to 200, the rate at which fatigue set in was significantly different. No other condition changed. This is a mind-blowing result.
Langer herself is clearly an outstanding person, with an impressive mindset. She told a story about how her house burnt down. In an almost throwaway line, she said something like, “I’d already lost all my things, I thought, I may as well not throw away my sanity, too”.
That was just a small example of how Langer has a strong mind. Of someone who reflexively looks on the bright side, gets on with things, and doesn’t dwell on the small fry. Most things are inconveniences rather than tragedies is another one of her lines.
Listening to her talk, and the powerful, evidence-based learnings she’s discovered about mindset and mindfulness, has inspired me to carry out my own experiments with mindset. I won’t go into them, but it’ll be interesting to try.
The one about fatigue was especially pertinent. Because it’s true, no matter how tired you feel, the body usually does, always, have more gas in the tank. The benefits of mindfulness and awareness are powerful. It is never too late to harness those powers.
Until next time!
I’m back, sort of
After nameless years of wandering, I have a new home, a new base.
It’s been a while in coming, and what it came down to, ultimately, were somewhat arbitrary matters. It took time to settle on my new base. I didn’t want to be one of those living on precarious grounds, inhabiting grey legal zones, surviving on endless visa runs and goodwill that would surely run out?
I wanted firmer ground.
How does it feel? To start anew, again? Long-time readers will know this blog began as a way to chronicle my time in Beijing as a freelance journalist, with all of its attendant difficulties and triumphs. I was a young man then, full of pluck and bravado, but also filled with a deep, deep insecurity.
This was born by the decision to go abroad, to a place where I knew very few people. I didn’t have much money. And it could be incredibly lonely. It takes a measure of bravado to light out in this way, but for someone prone to overthinking, it’s also nerve-wracking.
Lately, my thoughts have been drifting to a night scene in Beijing, a memory.
I was seeing this woman, and unlike too many dalliances in Beijing, this was a real relationship. But I was too young, too stupid, then, to realise what it actually was. She was six years older than me, in her early 30s, and her time in the city was nearing its end. Her teaching contract was finishing.
It was late at night and we were sprawled in bed and she started talking, just talking, about her situation (she’d moved to China from her native Canada and had also taught in other countries), and how she was due to move on. She’d be leaving soon and would have to start afresh.
It was one of those instances where you talk aloud and somewhere along the way it gains an unexpected charge. “It gets harder as you get older”, she said. And she wiped a tear away.
I was reading something on my laptop (I was often reading the internet, like someone with obsessive compulsive disorder) so I was only half listening — did I mention I was young and dumb? — and I didn’t quite know how to react, to this sudden teary-eyed emotion, so I let the moment pass. But I heard it all.
I heard everything.
*
In my hotel room, I am awake, still jet lagged. I feel tired, too tired to go walking, even though it’s the cooler night-time. I switch on to the Red Bull channel on the hotel TV, entrancing myself with images of ocean water, guys surfing, ripping slices in the waves; the golden light of California contrasting with the tropical dark outside my window, and the slouchy, elegant frames of skateboarders, simultaneously relaxed yet poised and ready.
I used to love this stuff. When I was a kid there was a boom in extreme sports. Skateboarding, snowboarding, mountain biking. These were becoming increasingly trendy, on TV, and in video games. It hadn’t peaked yet so it was still sufficiently “underground”. I was skateboarding and mountain biking too. Sadly, there was no surf or snowy slopes to be had in Hastings, England.
Skateboarding has evolved. And the TV showed a couple fellas I hadn’t heard of. One guy was Andy Anderson, a young dude, with a lovely, old school style. His thing was bringing 70’s freestyle skating, when the ollie hadn’t yet been invented, back into the modern vernacular, fusing it with more modern techniques. He also talked about being hated-on for always wearing a helmet, which is uncommon among street skaters, who are, actually, very style focused despite the lazy, schlubby appearance. He lived in a small apartment near Venice Beach and he was an earnest guy, outwardly chill, but possessed of an analytical, strategic mind. Almost like an engineer.
The show switched to profiling another dude. He was older, born the same year as me actually, and, unlike Andy Anderson (who’s LA-based), a resident of San Diego. Wes Kremer is a shortish dude with blonde somewhat curly hair and an approach to life that I found inspiring. He’s all about being in the moment. Skating with his guys, having an open house, simplicity. He owned an old Volvo for years before it finally broke down and eats at the same burrito place he’s been going to forever. He’s not on social media. He only uses film cameras and is still regularly getting photos printed. He doesn’t browse content that has no end. He reads magazines and books that have a clear finish, miming them being shut up and closed when you’re done. Watching Kremer’s crew skate around the empty roads of San Diego, with the sunlight and nice temperatures, as the day reaches towards the perfection of a Californian evening, I thought to myself, “my god that looks like happiness”.
It’s not even that complicated. They’re outside most of the time, doing something physical. Chilling with like-minded people. Cheering their pals when they nail a trick, being encouraged when they’re falling down, to try again, you’ll do it. They’re not worrying about tomorrow. At least, not while they’re 50-50 on a rail, or watching another skater trying to land a trick that they’re so close to landing. Just pure stoked when they finally do.
Surfers watch the waves. They watch the water intently. The conditions change. They’re out in nature but not just out there. They have to be readers, interpreting the elements. They study the weather all the time. They’re immersed in nature because they know things about it most people do not.
Watching these nature lovers, chasing waves, or pursuing air time, I thought, maybe I should abandon my plans to base myself in this city I am currently in, and do something else, go closer to nature. The thing about being freelance and remote is that I have the time and freedom to seriously consider it.
And I have some healing to do. This year has been kinda rough on me, on a personal level. The shock of a sudden passing, grief, and loss: a journey unto itself.
I try to will myself into a slower state. Go slow, slow down.
I try to recall what it was like when I first moved to Beijing, how it took months to settle. How brutal that first winter was, when I discovered how dark and cold Beijing could get, and polluted. It was tougher then. I was younger and did not have the fortitude I have now.
I don’t blog as much these days because I have less need of it. I don’t have the need for as much introspection, and have realised the risks of it: how it can freeze action. Sometimes you just gotta do more, think less. But writing, as ever, remains a balm; helps me process, and come out a little more settled. And hopefully, you, reader, get something from this too. Because online, there’s too much curation, too much imagery that seems to suggest a constant happy life, and it is simply not true.
Is this goodbye Beijing?
Beijing and its endless streets and expanse of concrete desert, where it can take a lot of effort to arrange social affairs.
It’s coming up to three years since I arrived in Beijing — three years in which I’ve made friends and lost friends, through the simple drift of life.
In this time I’ve been broke numerous times, have had to scrape and meander. I’ve had starry nights and schemes come to fruition, and moments seldom preconceived.
But what am I doing now? Am I moving forward — is misery just going through the motions?
You might not understand the dilemma and that is fine. I shall put it plainly.
I could never have realized just how hard it is to succeed as a writer.
I could never have imagined what a crossroads sometimes life can be.
I do not want to work to earn money so I can pay the rent, so I can buy more things I do not need.
My instinct tells me I should move out of Beijing and head to some other places in China and stay with friends. Read, write, sleep. Convalesce.
Try to write more — that’s more important than anything. And yet why torture myself? I could do a job that’s enjoyable and worthwhile, and write on the side.
Many writers have had multiple lives. I feel like I should have those lives, because in the end it will make me better and more varied.
There’s no one telling you what your next move should be. There’s no path to follow or predetermined step. Always thus.
Money is and will always be an issue. When you’re younger you think –you’re sure of it in fact– that at some stage you will be wealthy and have enough money to do the things you want to do. But at some stage, it becomes clear that those riches might not become reality.
But that’s fine?
I should go somewhere awhile and figure things out.
Living freely
“Living freely is one of the most difficult things you can do”
I freelance because I like the freedom that it affords. But I do it because that’s what I do – I’m not really capable of much else currently. And it’s only the visible aspect of a larger idea that motivates how I choose to move through life, the decisions I try to make, and the values I hold.
For me, freedom is the idea that’s become most important. And there was a clear moment when I realized that to live not according to that idea was simply, staggeringly ludicrous.
Life is about trying to enjoy it. Once you adopt this aspect, it all becomes pretty clear. Why do a miserable job? Why work in something that only makes you miserable? Enjoyment and misery has to be framed correctly however. You may not “enjoy” it all the time but satisfaction can arise from accomplishment. It means more about thinking critically about the choices you make, and why you make them. If it brings so few rewards and you do not, categorically do not enjoy it then why continue doing it?
To live freely is one of the most difficult things in the world.
You can live according to your own whims, your own ideas, your own momentum. You can choose how you live your life. We forget this. We forget this all the time. Every single day. Every single hour. Because we’ve set up our societies to do so. The clock forces you to compartmentalize your time into the most productive packets, segments of time that you can squeeze more into. Because capitalist systems require you to work more, make more money. To buy more stuff. To buy more stuff. It’s so blindingly obvious. But why do any of this? Why? Who is forcing you to? Why not live according to the things that you yourself deem important, rather than the things “society” has deemed important.
Why not enjoy things just as what they are, rather than by what they represent?
You have to slow down. You have to enjoy it more. You have to be in the moment more. Because if you aren’t, you’re just moving faster towards the end. Enjoying what you see right in front of you right this second, see it for what it really is. It is just that thing, nothing else, nothing more. If you don’t see it that clearly then time and mind will speed up into forever, and you will lose it, lose your claim over Now, that should be yours to seize. And it’s lost and time just speeds along, hurrying you towards oblivion.
Unless you stop and see, hear, feel the now that is your life. The incredible joy that is being.
You can choose how you live your life.
Why I’m heading back to Beijing – and why you REALLY should learn a language
I’ve booked a flight back to polluted, dusty, thrilling Beijing. I’m pretty much broke and owed a significant amount of money by freelance clients. It will be a struggle to survive. I have two options: either freelance or get a job with a TV network who’ve expressed interest.
Most would plump for the latter and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s a small, independent English-language TV network. But I hear that further up the ladder it’s owned by Chinese managers connected to the government. It’s of questionable integrity.
It would still be a good experience and I’d like to brush up on my broadcasting skills. And the money and security would be nice.
But the allure of freelancing is powerful for me. It means freedom, independence and the luster of impressive bylines. The demand, like I’ve said in a previous post, is high for China-related articles.
Also I’m heading back to start a crystal meth lab. Only kidding. Probably. I’m also looking to improve my Chinese.
There’s been news about falling rates of study for languages. Businesses are increasingly looking for language skills as trade becomes more globular. If you have a language, it opens doors.
If you live in China, or looking to go there, it is easily the best investment you can make. The amount of opportunities that become available to you in business, public relations, marketing, start-ups and the media, among much else, increases vastly.
Learn Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Arabic or Chinese and you will be especially in demand. For a freelance foreign correspondent, it presents a particular opportunity.
The Great Wall Music Festival, near Beijing. May 2013.
