The more you consume the harder your tastes get.
Sign up to a service like Spotify and it keeps suggesting a wider range of metal. Darker, gothic, nu, experimental, death, screamo. Mixed with other genres: jazz metal, rap metal, operatic metal. Cover songs of pop done in a metal style. AI metal.
Heavy metal is like porn. The more you consume the harder your tastes get.
I’m working by the sea again. A short walk from my desk to the beach where the waves relentlessly caress the sand, back and forth, over and over, whatever the weather. That relaxing sound that calms my mind and allows me to switch off for a while.
I’ve started setting off earlier on my daily commute so I can head to the beach. To listen to the waves against the shore, the gulls calling to each other, the smell of the sea. There’s a bench nearby under a roof. It offers respite from any wind or rain. The occasional morning jogger, fast walker, dog walker, and fisherman nod as they pass, if they notice me. I keep listening to the waves.
Ten minutes is all I need. Better than any coffee, breakfast, or shower. I’m ready to start my day with a relaxed mind. Focused. Calm.
The calming sound of the waves.
I keep running into old colleagues. People I’ve worked with five, ten, twenty years ago. At events like parties, weddings, wakes, and networking. When you’ve worked all over a particular region for the best part of three decades you are bound to run into people you’ve worked with on occasion.
How are you doing, how have you been, what are you up to these days, do you remember so-and-so? The obligatory small talk questions. You are caught-up in minutes. Years refined down and summarised in a few sentences. I’m fine I’m retired I make jam and sell it outside my home. Or I’ve had some health problems but I’m fine now. I took redundancy from my last job and I’m semi-retired now doing the filming for the occasional wedding.
I was surprised by how many were retired. Many younger than me. Others had changed careers entirely following their passions, usually after receiving an early pension or large redundancy payout. After calculating how much they need to reach their pension they declare themselves semi-retired and make their hobby a part-time income source. They seemed much happier.
Others are still in the game. Their words. Rising up career ladders, making a name for themselves in their respective fields, making money and investing in property, businesses, the next big thing.
All have stories. Over a coffee or chilled glass of wine we catch up. Has it really been X years? We each throw out names of people we worked with. Names long forgotten. So-and-so left company X and is now a postman. Someone else started their own plumbing business. Another died of a heart attack. Some I remember, some I don’t. People I worked with side-by-side for days on end, for months, years.
Time moves on. We all have lives with unique paths. I received a summary, a snippet of some of those paths second-hand as I slowly drained my glass.
Old colleagues.
I’ve worked some challenging jobs in my career. One such job taught me how long I can go without sleep and still function, to a point. Long hours, presentations, meetings, followed by taxi, bus, and train journeys to the next destination and hotel, then repeat. High stress and anxiety meant that with each hotel stay sleep rarely came, or when it did it wasn’t deep enough.
After the first day I can function at about 60%. After the second it’s 40%. By the morning after the third sleepless night I’m at 20%. I can function, I can get through meetings and presentations, but anything not scripted and my brain is sluggish. I Don’t drink caffeine or other stimulants so I’m running on energy and sheer willpower alone. I Don’t drive on day three. It’s too dangerous.
By the end of day three I’m a zombie and I will sleep for around 10-12 hours. The next day I’m at around 80%. It generally takes about two days to catch up and get back to normal.
This is not a long-term strategy for dealing with stressful situations. If I can, I generally avoid them. But if not I know I can function without sleep, but only for three days.
I was asked to come along to a local company’s offices to discuss some work. I arrived on time and was taken to a store room. I was shown a pile of laptops. I was informed that the company had purchased the assets of a company that had gone bust. Office furniture, chairs, printers, a photocopier, and a lot of laptops.
So what’s the job? I asked.
Them. They pointed at the laptops.
What about them? I asked.
We can’t unlock them came the reply.
It appears that the laptops new owners wanted to see what was on them. I explained that they owned the hardware but not necessarily what data is on them.
Would I unlock them?
I passed. I didn’t take the job.
My childhood was a series of John Hughes movies mixed with an overlaid DIO, Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden soundtrack, with Rodney Matthews and Roger Dean posters on the walls and ZX Spectrum cassettes mixed in with Commodore Amiga floppies. There’s cans of diet pop on top of worn copies of Heavy Metal magazines and faded Nemesis the Warlock graphic novels. William Gibson and Neal Stephenson look down from the bookshelves with Rudy Rucker, Piers Anthony, and Harry Harrison for company. Evil Dead II and The Terminator rest by the VCR while my Raleigh Grifter needs a new back tyre. Kenner Star Wars and Palitoy Action Man are under the bed along with a mixed box of electronics. A puppy eyes me from the foot of my bed while a goldfish swims aimlessly in a nearby tank. I stare out the window wondering what the future holds while an engineer installs a satellite dish on the wall outside my room.
I’m at a wake. We are all wearing colour. It was mandated.
We are in a large garden. There’s drink, food, laughter and sadness. People are having conversations about their lives, upcoming holidays, birthdays, parties. Living their lives.
All but one. The gone.
When you’re gone you’re gone. People may be sad for a while, you may be missed, but you’ll be gone. You are not here to see what happens next, to enjoy the food, the drink, the company. To take part in the conversations, the future plans. It’s sad but nothing is forever.
Looking around it made me think. People come and go. You can’t live in the past. You have to enjoy the here and now. Enjoy every day, the people you love, and the things that make you happy, no matter how small. Nothing lasts.
When you’re gone, your gone.
I came across a video arcade the other day. I didn’t realise they still existed. I figured everyone just played video games at home now with their game consoles and computers. This one felt fresh, like it hasn’t existed for long. The games and graphics looked recent. I didn’t recognise any of the titles.
I wandered around looking at the peripherals. VR googles, mounted weapons and weapons connected by cable, steering wheels, and seats. Flashing lights and glossy logos begging for your coins. At least the gold ones. Electricity isn’t cheap these days.
I didn’t play any. I have a console and computer at home that will last longer than a life tied to a coin credit. No one else was playing them either. The few patrons were either at the penny pusher or fruit machine ends of the arcade.
I glanced around again remembering the arcades of my youth. Galaga, Space Invaders, and later Operation Wolf and Timecop. Thanks for the memories but I’ll stick with my games console.
When it comes to making money I appear to be good at making other people money. There seems to be no end of people asking for my time and using it to make themselves money.
I’m constantly asked to lend my time and expertise to worthwhile endeavours that will help build the community. Giving talks, writing articles, judging events, hosting events, giving my time freely, only to later learn that those doing the asking are being paid or are making money on the back of my time and efforts.
So I’ve started to say no. No to giving away my time and sweat for free. I think I’ve banked enough karma to earn a break and to focus on giving time to me and mine.
For now I’m taking a break from making other people money.
I used to travel without a phone. I couldn’t imagine that today. Being totally disconnected from everyone digitally. If I wanted to phone home I would have to go purchase phone cards and find a public phone box. Are they still around today? For email I’d have to go to an internet cafe and pay for computer access by the hour. Do they still exist?
These days our smart phones can do everything and work in most countries. Or you could just purchase a pay-as-you-go SIM card for each country you travel through if you wish to avoid roaming charges.
The point is that technology and communications move on and when I first started to travel the world there was a greater feeling of disconnect. These days everyone is just a smart phone away from one another.
Could you travel without your phone?