I overheard a conversation yesterday.  A lady, must have been in her mid thirties, was filling out an application for a service.  The agent asked her marital status.

“I’m single,” says the lady.

“Ok no problem,” replies the agent.

The agent, about to proceed to the next question, is interrupted by the lady.

“Well (slow pause) I’m divorced like everybody else,” she says.

—

Ok, aside from the state of affairs of marriage, I’m left wondering, why on an application does the category divorced appear anyway.  Surely if you’re divorced it means you’re single.  So why the two boxes?

My life is one big airport at the moment flying to and from Scotland. And when you have a 2 and half hour delay to your flight, you get plenty of time to think. I’ve been mulling over some words I stumbled across in the Joseph Campbell companion guide where he’s writing about old age and following your bliss. And the quote on old age that caught my eye was this: you know you’re getting old “when you’ve gotten to the top of the ladder and find it’s up against the wrong wall.”

And the thought of descending the whole ladder to climb another one is dreadful. As JC pointed out, that’s where many people find themselves today. His advice is to forget the ladder and just wander, bump around.

Which of course reminds me of something Tolkien wrote: “Not all those who wander are lost.”

And now I am thinking, do I want to climb another ladder? The truth is I’ve never climbed to the top of any ladder. Like Frank Sinatra, I’ve been:

a puppet

a pauper

a pirate

a poet

a pawn and a king

I’ve also been a dishwasher (funniest job I ever had), a cadet, a cement mixer, a counselor, a fitness instructor, a soldier, a financial consultant, a manufacturing engineer, a technology trainer, a training manager, a coach, and a training consultant.

And non of these have I climbed to the top. I simply did them until they no longer interested me and then I moved on. But now as I approach 39, I’m wondering should I be settled? Should I be at the top of some ladder with the implication that at the top of the ladder I’d have lots of money and could retire and not have to work again?

Somehow, the prospect of retiring, the idea of retiring makes me shudder. The thought of retiring fills my head up with images of being put on a shelf, ‘retired’ to make way for a newer faster model.

No, I like the idea that it is better to burn out than to fade away.

I spent the weekend in Snowdonia leading another group through the Ascent program.

—

Mountain Spirit

I move in the presence
Of Mount Snowdon Feeling
The weight of its ancient pull

A challenge, a summons, filters
Through the mountain breeze
The gate of your destiny is open

I hear the mountain spirit say
But will I walk through it?
Is what echoes in my mind

By the lake shore, I stand
To ponder the significance
Of these subtle words

The answers I think I know
Lie hidden in these ancient rocks
It is the questions that defy formulation

The Path, my path, familiar
Yet strange, my spirit knows
The Way in a way my mind does not

The Path, I’m told, leads
Everywhere and nowhere
The view from the top the same

The lesson is in the journey
Only more questions
Await at the top

To step on the Path
Or not to step
Is the question that drives me
– c.lowe

I’ve been in Posnan, Poland this past week. I had every intention to continue to post while I was there, but as Murphy’s Law would have it, the place where I stayed had very spotty internet connection and I didn’t have the time to go look for a internet cafe.

Officially, I was in Posnan as a workshop leader for Negotiation Days IV. I worked the conference last year and enjoyed myself so much that I jumped at the chance to come back and be apart of the team. I ran three workshops, one on building effective teams, one on coaching, and one on Alpha Leadership.

Unofficially, I spent time exploring the culture. I am amazed that people are people no matter where you go. I think we like to believe we are different, but we’re not. I know that’s not a revolutionary thought and others would dispute my
claim, but as I sat in the New Market watching people go by on their way to work or school, or shopping, familiar scenes bombarded my senses. I could have been on any street corner, in Europe, or America or another place tied into the global village. What I saw: C&A, Lee Wranglers, Henri LLyod, Nescafe, Nike, Reebok, Puma, Spiderman 3, Orange, Imax, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, 3 lads with school bags and Ipods in their ear, ladies pushing prams, a girl with white trainers and pink laces wearing faded jeans, a 10 meter poster plastered on the side of a building with a stylish woman and stylish man in black looking down on the passerbys as if to say wouldn’t you like to be as cool me…

So at the macro level the view looks the same, but of course when I looked at the micro level interacting act with people on an individual level, I found mostly wonderful friendly people very strong in tradition, but equally eager to learn new things.

I performed a couple of poems last night at Word open mic poetry night at Bambu in Leicester. I did “and the dead poets go” and also a new one which I don’t have a title for yet. If you can think of a suitable title for it, let me know:

Those who would be your master
Pick upon the bones of your disaster
While you lie awake and worry
They plot and scheme and scurry

About looking for next weeks news
They amuse themselves with statistics
The police are checking the ballistics
Of a thousand bullets gone astray
And you pray between shots of whiskey and blues

Tomorrow will be a better day
At least that’s what the weathermen say
Meanwhile you wiggle in wretched sheets
Struggling to make ends meet
You hope there is a better way

To live a life of sound and fury
Let the jury judge your works of passion
While you keep up with the latest fashion
The time you thought you had tomorrow
Disappears beneath tears and sorrow

As you dance to a beat not your own
You hear the rhythm of your heart…beat moan.

– c.lowe

—

There were a lot of fab poets on last night. Sean, Oliver, and myself were there representing Leamington Spa’s open mic poetry club, Pure and Good and Right. I believe we gave a good showing. The headline poet was a cool cat named Mike from Random Ramblings Poetry duo. I left the evening feeling over the moon inspired…inspired to write more poetry.

I feel like a caged animal today, and people are poking sticks through the bars. I am expending a ton of mental energy to maintain my focus and my cool. I simultaneously want to explode and implode! As Snap once sang:

It’s like a day
when nothing seems to go your way
but you stick it out anyway
’cause you’re a champ

Well that’s my rant!

Cruising through the weekend, I came upon this quote by Salman Rushdie:

“A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”

The quote resonates with me because I think poetry some times has the reputation of being flowery and love struck or inaccessibly obtuse.

For me, a poet is an artist, and as an artist has a responsibility to do what artists have always done which is to respond to, reflect upon, and hopefully, influence the world.

I was out wandering the hills this weekend in Mid-Wales on Cader Idris. Legend has it that the mountain is haunted and anyone who spends the night on the top of Cader Idris will wake up either a madman or a poet. Personally I didn’t think there was a difference between the two.

Cader Idris is a beautiful area if you ever get a chance to go there. Here are some photos: Cader Idris

Also if you want to read the poem I wrote about the mountain you can check out on our Walking Wordsmiths’ blog.

I made the switch from pc to mac and after 3 days of happy computing, I don’t think I’ll ever be looking back. I thought my learning curve would be a lot higher, but so far, I have found navigating the system to be very intuitive. The reason I made the switch is I wanted to upgrade my laptop, but was not interested in messing around windows vista. Plus secretly I’ve been fantasing about the mac for a few weeks now. So I saw the opportunity and I took it.

My only glitch so far is that I haven’t found a way to get my 500 some odd contacts from my pocketpc into mac contact book or how to synch my calendar with my pocketpc.

Assume that ther is a broader picture than your own point of view. What would happen if you lost your point of view? Who would you be?

Try this:

If you are bleeding heart liberal, immerse yourself in a conservative’s point of view – think how they think, read what they read, eat what they eat for a month.

If you are a die hard conservative, immerse yourself in a liberal’s point of view – think how they think, read what they read, eat what they eat for a month.

And if you are of some other persuasion, then try out either of the above.

After a month, re-adopt your original point of view. Do you still think or feel the same way you did before the experiement?