Happily Diverted

Sometimes on this journey we call life things happen that we don’t expect or can’t explain, but they happen. It seems a lot of the time these surprises are scary and can be harmful but there do come occasions where the surprises can shock us back into reality. They say that hiccups can be cured by a scare. We don’t aim to explain why this is the case or even to argue that this IS the case because it might not be, but we just agree with it, go along with it, because it costs nothing to do so. When you’re on a journey and you get diverted sometimes the diversion can be helpful, sometimes it ends up being the best option. We have to wonder, is something like a diversion as bad as it sounds?

When you hear the word, you assume a time consuming journey, problems, traffic, and confused people all around. But is this the case? Sometimes diversions are a hassle, but they can only be a problem if we let them. Diversions can help us take in more experience, better judgements, and help us see more of the world we know so little about. Diversions are like the little bit knowledge we wish we had but never knew how to get it. They give us new opportunities, because simple people like us stick to simple routines, the same way to work, the same way to school, the roads we use all the time because we know no other way. But getting lost can sometimes make us realise where we are.

In this weeks big news, where the government has chosen to blow it’s budget beyond all recognition and double national debt to get us out of recession quickly it makes me wonder what can be so bad. In one of my first posts I wrote that a recession probably isn’t that bad at all, we all need to hit rock bottom so we can bounce back. Often its best to let our emotions contract and become a recession; and become a depression, so that we can realise what happiness is. If we were happy all the time we would start to lose confidence in what happiness was. Just like the economy works in peaks and troughs, booms and busts, we work that way too. Because without them we wouldn’t know who we were. And for Gordon Brown to have suggested it could be abolished, well that just makes no sense at all.

But aren’t these government measures just diversion tactics, remember an election is due soon. We cannot tell the result of this diversion, its too early to know, but wherever we end up, however big the gamble we play, however new the gamble is, we know one thing, that we have a destination. But that’s the other problem, we don’t know where we’re going.

When we hear the announcement that the bus is being diverted we hear the many moans and groans of our fellow passengers, and hell, we even give a go ourselves sometimes. But the trick is to know where you’re going, without that you’re just a lost soul. If we play our cards right and ride out the diversion we may end up getting home faster than before. And that’s not that bad at all.

For the past couple of months, maybe even since the second ever post I made, this blog has been a session of depression in my life. Its been a long one, its been hard, and has caused many problems along the way. Issues have arisen, people have come and gone, I’ve been back and forth, changes have been made, and delays have been caused. But. Where there occurs a recession, there occurs hope at the end of it. In all my previous posts hope has been a supporting pillar in the centre of them, that one day things may change. Who knew that all it would take was a simple diversion to make me smile unconditionally. Who realised that having it all isn’t material at all, because sometimes all we need is a good sleep, a good dream and at the end of it we awake a new person, a new day, a new life.

Today, is that day.


Thankyou for listening.

Life at the end of the rainbow

London is probably the worst weathered city of the world. Its sunny skies can turn to traitorous rain in minutes, its clouds can sit and loom all day or the sun can deliver unbearable temperatures. A city of mixed fortunes. It’s true, that when the British have nothing to talk about they automatically talk about the weather. It’s the conversation starter that can build friendships, and even successful marriages. The strange thing is that we talk about it like it’s a surprise, as if we had no way of possibly knowing the weather, when in fact, we can find out next weeks forecast almost immediately. However, how believable is it? And in life can we expect the same? If we could have a snapshot of our future, how reliable would it be? We have to wonder, can we rely on the weatherman, or is he our fair weather friend?

The clouds can be a good indicator of how we feel, the weather can directly affect our mood, and according to the star signs the moon and the sun can be great indicators of our future. So why then, is it that many reject this important method of prediction for our lives? The sky, the weather, everything we don’t seem to understand fully makes up the path of our life. Should that be a question or a statement? You see it’s easy to make the questions, but are these the things can really deliver the answers?

When the sky rains on your parade, the weather changes your plans and often slows you down; who is to blame? Walk along Oxford Street on a wet day and you will see the umbrellas out in full force. But, in life, do we have umbrellas when things go bad? What are our safety nets? How do we protect ourselves from the bad and make it safely to dry land? There are people in our lives who try to bare the brunt of the weather for us, protect us, and become our human shield. In return we do it for them and others; at least a friend would. But they cannot protect us forever, and sometimes we give up protecting them. Things change, umbrellas weaken and break, new ones are purchased. So if we lose our umbrella is it only our own fault if we get pissed on?

We cannot befriend everyone forever, and with broken friendships comes broken bonds. The mud may get thick, and the buckets of knowledge may spill. But we continue down this road. When we break relationships it cannot always be easy and we are bound to feel the rain. But where is the dry land? Will there even be any? The weather, thankfully, moves faster than we do, and so moves on pretty fast. The clouds may follow for some time to come but they do break and sometimes even in the deadliest of storms there comes a rainbow, a beacon of hope. A belief that somewhere in the future lies our pot of gold.

If we were to get that snapshot of life in the future, know where that pot of gold will be and see what life looks like with it, will it make us more determined or hinder our travels? For example, will picking up the pace and not seeing all around us on the way make us fall down somewhere along the way and become spoilt and insensitive when we get there? Or simply just deliver the goods faster? I believe that the experience of having little will make the best of having lots. And it is with this that we can weather any storms later on in life.

In London, the sun rarely shines, but when it does, it does with all its glory. However this is not to suggest that the sun isn’t always shining. Behind them clouds there is a roaring sun, and it is only paper-thin clouds that stop us from seeing it. Why do we let an enemy that we could simply blow over mean so much in our lives? Why do they even matter? Because the sun is always shining we just have to believe, like God, like spirits just because we cannot see something it does not mean it isn’t there. What if we did see our future? Would it not just disappoint us and make us impatient, like the Christmas present we know we have but cannot touch. So we can predict all we want, we can aim for a future, but like I’ve said before, this journey knows of no destination, there is no set path that we know of, so we continue down this road until we decide to turn, if we decide to turn. And that cannot be properly predicted. Like the weatherman our fair weather friend, sometimes even the best can get it horribly wrong.

P.S. 20th post! Really flowing now!

Abra-Kadabra

They say that magic is nothing more than an optical allusion, its purpose to distract from the truth, that something very simple is being concealed as something very difficult and confusing. Magic is something that conjures a thousand questions from an audience. And if everyone around you is asking questions about you does that make you magical? If you are something very simple and plain, but to others you are complicated and layered are you a magician or just mysterious? And what is about the magic that is so intriguing? It’s got everyone talking but nobody ‘knowing.’ Magic is something beautiful that we can see on and off screen; something that has spark and reality, something that has character and individuality. And magic would not be magic if it wasn’t unique. So we have to ask, if life is one big magic show, against all the odds how do we pull the rabbit out of the empty hat?

For any show, the practicing element is the most important. Run-throughs take months, the scripts, the movements, the changes, and the lights. All these things must come together to surface as a professional piece. But in life we have very little practice. There are no run-throughs; there is no real stage. It seems that life is an improvisation; an actor’s worst nightmare, on the spot, centre stage, lights, camera, action. Or is it? Could life be scripted? Could it be nothing more than an international soap opera? The story lines are all fitting and sometimes things happen in such weird coincidence that we assume that there must be some pattern somewhere. I look up into the dark nights sky and wonder is it up there? Is destiny reality?

If in life there are only a few that succeed, we have to wonder, much like the audience, how they do it? Why is it that they are always those who least deserve it? This is what makes us believe that destiny is real, because despite their shortcomings and histories and problems, someone always comes along and solves them, in a minute. No. In a London minute. All the while the pain of ‘making it’ and eventually ‘faking it’ consumes others. I plead that someone, somewhere can help and someone somewhere will pull me out of this hat.

Sometimes all we need is a little encouragement, and little belief behind us. If you’re not the only one hoping you’ll make it, then the extra push won’t seem that hard at all. But what if you are alone? What if no one believes in you? What if you question the belief in yourself? Has the show come to an end?

Setbacks are hard to deal with, especially when so many come in so short a period of time. We can’t go around winning all the time even though it appears some people do. Some have the money, some have the glory, and some have all of it. But we don’t always see all of it. We see what they want us to see. And that is magic. The element of surprise, concealing reality. Ultimately; acting.

But it should not comfort us that other people have the same problems. Because that doesn’t make our own problems any smaller. Instead we should just deal with it. Break down if we need to, break up if we can’t go on. If you share how to do a certain magic trick then people spread the word, share it with their friends and on and on. So in life, if we stop concealing our feelings and just do what we have to to solve our problems then people will share the solution just like a trick.

Everybody knows there is no business like show business, but what everybody doesn’t know is that show business is the business we’re all in. On this dramatic stage we call life, people enter and exit, magic happens, tricks are shown, lives concealed, connections, characters and creativity is built. But as glamorous as it sounds, it is an ugly business. We don’t all win, we can’t hide forever and just like the paparazzi follow the stars, there will always be those who follow our lives with intrigue and pick at it along the way. Life may be scripted or not, we simply shouldn’t care because scripts change, whole scenes get erased and themes emerge from nowhere. And if there is no one encouraging you then let the other side of the tightrope be your encouragement. From experience I know that if you’re alone you manage to get there somehow. I said at the beginning that I didn’t believe there were rehearsals for life, but I take it back. This post has made me realise that rehearsals are everyday. Because yesterday we rehearsed for today and today we’re training for tomorrow, and there’s no guarantee it will come, but the show must go on.

Alla-Kazaam