Monday, February 26, 2018

London, Part 2 - Arrival and first impressions

I arrived at Paddington Station, London, at about quarter to five in the afternoon of a hot Friday in mid-July. The second I stepped down from my train an urgent task required my attention: find a Visitor kiosk and buy the Visitor Oyster Pass within fifteen minutes, before the kiosk closed. Adrenaline surged as I scanned a sea of bobbing heads, train schedule displays, colorful shopfronts and signs pointing to various platforms and tube lines, all sprawled about a terminal that seemed, at the moment, as large as a sports arena. I cinched my big pack tighter to my back, hiked the small pack closer to my front, wiped the sweat from my brow, and lumber-hustled toward the nearest visible station agent.

Immediately my body was grateful for the rest it had received in sleepy Bath (it would take my mind about a day to recognize that gift). My Bath host had lived in London when she was younger and expressed both appreciation for the abundant experiences it had given her youthful self, and relief that her older self no longer had to endure its frenzy. Those first moments I spent making my way to the Visitor booth in Paddington gave me a glimpse of what she meant, and my awe before London's largeness, busyness, and complexity only grew over the next five days.

Friday, February 23, 2018

London, Part 1 - Life Purpose, Perspective, and Departure

I returned from London more than six months ago (and I wrote the first draft of a blog about London one month ago). It took me quite a long time to revisit the week I spent in that incredible city and craft some thoughts about it. The question of why it took so long does not bring any surprises: I have not picked up the proverbial pen because my hands have been busy wringing out my morbid fear that this is my final visit-in-memoriam to Spain, Italy, Greece, and the UK.

Today, I am not there except in my imagination. I worry that once I've commemorated London and walked on (spoiler alert: I recount my time in London in my next blog post), all these experiential and emotional monuments that sprung up inside me as I journeyed, as I met people, places, and myself, will be cloaked from my view, the paths to them erased. I am afraid that the stiff-collared custodians of opportunity are stingy and punitive, that they are quietly shifting the boundary rope back to where it belongs, behind my back, with each step I take. The territory in which I can experience life (I worry) is shrinking. Social pressures, economics, physical wellness, and whatever other routines which have defined so much of my life so far are restoring their rule. When will I no longer even be able to remember or feel any evidence of last spring's adventure?

This is an old topic, I know. I carry on about the dramatic emotions that this trip conjured in me, or that I have conjured in myself as a way of understanding and remanifesting the trip (even while I was on it, perhaps, but especially now to defy everyday inertia and keep the larger, brighter me and the glimmer of Europe which it contains alive). In addition to worrying about myself I wonder constantly how common such feelings are - the hope and exhilaration, the despair and panic which follow, the slow, quiet surrender to normalcy. I wonder what conditions would enable us to adopt hope and persistence as skillfully as we learn to give in to the status quo.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Designed to Discourage

How many of us have encountered people, businesses, or systems that advertise some kind of good but only yield frustration? How often are we puzzled by the gap between a stated purpose, and what we actually experience?

We participate in many services and systems and many of them, to put it mildly, have flaws. Dating, job-seeking, grocery shopping, transportation, taking turns at a deli counter, deciding what to eat for dinner or wear to school. Queueing to get through a revolving door, competing for merchandise in auctions, donating to an institution or trying to succeed in a business venture.

Do we believe we can improve these experiences for ourselves, our customers and communities? Do we want to? If yes, how do we proceed? I believe a good place to start is to recognize gaps between promise and delivery, and that we have choices about these gaps.

What follows is my draft exploration of such issues. You will not find proof or scientific rigor here, and I do not promise profound revelations. If anything, I hope to advance the cause of stating the obvious, which we often seem quite bad at doing. Talking about realities that we experience, or sense, that we are aware of consciously but do not admit or only instinctively and therefore don’t know how to admit, can be healing and productive.

(Also, please note that I will discuss relatively mundane opportunities to effect change in free and civil circumstances. I do not presume to speak for, or offer advice to, those who need solutions to dire situations.)