The London Thinking Cap

Living in London (as I so often say) leaves you with much to think about. Living in Cape Town you kind of just get on with things, its life, the same thing everyday, wake up, have breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch a movie, visit a friend, sleep, wake up etc. You’re always busy on something, concentrating on something or other, driving, working, planning the weekend. There’s always something to keep your mind occupied. Its kind of weird to think about that, because London feels so much busier.

Everything is different in London, life is different, of course I eat the same food (although its flavourless most of the time), and go through similar routines but its different somehow. Instead of driving I’m travelling on the underground, most of the time reading something, either a book or the paper. Reading gets your mind working; gets you thinking about things. That’s one of the differences I suppose, I read more over here.

Then there’s work, its not as demanding as work was back home… wait, work back home wasn’t demanding either. So what is it then? Less activity in my life, that’s it, no, not a lack of friends, or things to do, or places to see, there’s just less general activity. So I think more, my brain isn’t occupied with other stuff, and it can’t be idle.
If idle hands are the devils playground, then what is an idle mind? The devils canvas?

So what is the meaning of life? How much I wish those words didn’t exist, what a silly question, trying to find an answer to that is likely to drive you insane. I have my own answers, and nope they aren’t entirely satisfying either but they’ll do. I remember when I was at university, I think it was my first year, I still had that unchallenged eagerness, there was a guest lecture one evening on the meaning of life. Back then I wasnt as mad as I am now, but was still interseted enough to go back to the university at 8PM after being there from 7AM that morning. My dad and I went, and both came out agreeing that its what you make of it, this dude spent almost 2 hours talking about his family, and family holidays, no religion, no philosophy, no scientology, just family. It was interesting, but majorly misrepresented on the advertising boards.

So back to London thinking mode. Its weird, you just think about things so much more, life, love, death, religion, philosophy, etc etc. A few things I don’t concern myself with too much are world politics, daily news, sports, you know the boring every day stuff. Every now and then I’ll actually read an article in a paper, most of the time I’m just flicking through headlines trying not to let my mind become idle.

So enough of that now.

On a seperate note, I stated reading a new book on the weekend, it takes something out of the ordinary for me to start reading a book, and this one 'The unbearable likeness of being' grabbed my attention. It's kind of on the 'meaning of life' issue:

What is it about love that gets you thinking, that can make you feel a kind of good that nothing else can, or can make you so damn miserable? A feeling that can keep one person on your mind 24/7, no matter what you’re doing, who you’re with, where you are, that one person is always there. I’m reading this novel and in it there are tons of interesting discussions and ideas, the one page goes on about how no matter how much science may prove that there is no such thing as a soul and that the body functions because of a few pumps and valves, how does love fit into this? Hormones? Chemical reactions? Yeah whatever. When I’m done reading it, I’ll blog more about it.