He stands in the middle of the carriage ensuring that all of the children are accounted for and makes sure that they can see him when he gives them the signal to exit the pod. He notices that other passengers are looking at him strangely and he can only guess what they might be thinking. He had just paid the fare for thirty-five street children to ride from the Eastern sector to downtown. He was young and not physically able to be any of their parents and much too old to be an older brother. Such suspicious and questioning looks even started to present themselves from within the Eastern sector. People speculated about his intentions with these children. Some would keep close watch from afar but they kept their distance because he seemed to do them no harm. Either that or they were just curious and didn’t care enough to do anything about it even if something was up. The reality was that no one really cared about these kids. He had come across them in the park because this was where they always hung out. They were the children of simulative dependent parents, they were children of broken and dysfunctional homes. There was no other reason to reside in the East. Those that lived there were pushed there by financial necessity. Often a drug addiction was to blame. When simulative drugs first entered the legal market they were very expensive. They were described as the greatest feat in the history of chemical engineering, the cure for depression, the magic bullet, “the inspiring muse”, the drug to end all drugs. Those that could afford them bought them and they did so again and again. They couldn’t have enough. They wanted to experience everything, explore every possible avenue. The appetite for these drugs was never sated. Suddenly it was possible to live multiple lifetimes in just one night. To experience glimpses of oneself in parallel universes while remaining true to the one you existed in. Sooner or later, those with the greatest curiosities or wonder were mortgaging their properties, they were selling their vehicles. Those that were unhappy with their regular lives couldn’t go back. They relied on the new highs, the new experiences. Relationships deteriorated. Spouses of simulative drug users started to view usage as infidelity. The drug users would argue this case, that highs and experiences were just sensations, thoughts, not physical actions, but nonetheless they were usually done in absence of the spouse and suddenly a huge chasm or drift would occur in the relationship. They suddenly viewed things differently, their beliefs and thought patterns changed. They no longer understood each other. Everything began to break apart.
24.10.11
Silence is the fuel for music
In the lead up to the NaNoWriMo challenge - National Novel Writer's Month where entrants aim to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November, I thought I'd post a short story I wrote two years ago On Living Without A Television. I was in a similar space, starting out in a new city in a foreign country, with minimal possessions and a new job. Last time I was in Oxford, UK as a physiotherapist. This time it's Vancouver, Canada as a worker in an Australian bar.
It's a story that is dear to me and came out effortlessly in one night. I'm hoping a similar thing will happen this time around except in longer format in a slightly longer timeframe. Writing a novel in a month is a big ask but I'm going to throw my hands on the keys and see what happens. This is my pledge to myself. Wish me luck and encouragement.
The novel will be called Affinity. It will be a work of science fiction, like the series of blogs I started of the same name and purposely did not finish for the sake of this longer format.
This is the short story, my first, from a tiny cubicle of a room in hospital accommodation apartments attached to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. May next month's novel be even greater.
This is the short story, my first, from a tiny cubicle of a room in hospital accommodation apartments attached to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. May next month's novel be even greater.
ON LIVING WITHOUT A TELEVISION
The boy is experimenting with living without a television.
The boy is not actually a boy, but rather a 25 year old young man. He still feels like a boy however for the following reasons;
1) At work people ask him how old he is, and ask when he finishes his training. (The boy finished training a long time ago).
2) His facial hair growth is at a rate where he can get away with shaving every fifth day.
The above reasons are rather immaterial to the story however it can be noted that these annoy the boy and have done for many years.
The boy has found himself on the opposite side of the world, in a cubicle of a room, about 2 meters by 2.5 meters at best, and it is reminding him of his university days when he resided in a hostel, but with noticeable differences.
First of all, there is no vomit. Secondly, there is no sex audibly jumping through the wall and into the boy’s head, not yet anyway, and lastly, there is no one round house kicking his wardrobe in the adjacent room.
The room is rather bare. In the corner, next to the door, there is an empty wardrobe, inside of which nothing is hanging. Adjacent to the door there are some small drawers, also empty, and across from this, a single mattress on a single bare bed frame, the type that is cheap to buy, has springs and wire meshing, and is assembled in ten minutes. On the bed there are no sheets, no pillow, and no duvet.
The room feels anaesthetized.
The only possessions that the boy has brought into the room lie in his backpack which leans against the small bedside table cum cupboard. There is no T.V.
Upon arrival, one of the other residents told the boy that there was an unused television in the storage cupboard at the end of the hall and that he was welcome to it. The boy closed his eyes, placed his hand over his closed lips, then shook his head in dismissive fashion. It was a very monk-like response in a sacrifice to a desire. He looked like the ‘speak no evil’ monkey.
“No really.” The resident said. “You don’t have to be polite. No body uses it. Take it.” “I’m experimenting with living without a T.V” the boy said.
The resident scratched his head and went back to his room.
Tomorrow is the boy’s first day at work. He lays his sleeping bag out on his bed and rolls up his jumper to use as a pillow. He has done this work before. He hated it. He felt it slowly suck his soul into a vacuum. He wished he knew where that vacuum was so he could go about retrieving it. Could it be retrieved? He wished he knew more about the properties of vacuums.
But that was before, thinks the boy. That was before the revelation that life should be lived without a T.V. He hopes that things will be different now. That his calculations have been accurate. Before he believed that it was the work that was making him depressed, but now he believes that it might not have been the work, but interpreted as such because of all the lies and false ideologies that were fed to him through the T.V.
Everything is clear now, thinks the boy. Everything will be okay. I have detoxified from all the rot that box has caused. I am now in touch with reality.
He goes to sleep knowing these things.
The boy is at hospital. He is at work watching an old man in an untied hospital gown kiss the wall. He strokes it gently with his hands. He is in total bliss and adoration for the wall and his ass is fully showing.
It doesn’t surprise the boy. Things like this happen from time to time.
The boy has been going through his list, seeing the patients he needs to see, and casually striking a line through them. The boy has great satisfaction in doing this. The striking the line part, that is.
The old man is not in bliss with the wall anymore. He is agitated, angry.
“Talk to me!” he is yelling.
“Talk to me!”
A nurse attends, ties the string up at the back of the old man’s hospital gown, and tries to persuade the man to go back to his bed.
The old man pays no attention to the nurse. He fends her off with one hand indicating that she should not interrupt. He is making it clear: This is between him and the wall.
“Talk to me!”
His pleads are honest, desperate.
“Talk. To. Me.
Talk! To! Me!
Talk to me!!
Why won’t you talk to me?!”
The boy is reading his next patient’s notes. She is a failed suicide attempt. She had tried to take her life by overdosing with pills, now she is brain damaged and cannot move her body or communicate.
He can hear her coughing from behind the curtain. It is not like a normal cough. She has a tracheostomy so suction tubes can be stuck down her airways to clear secretions when required. It is like a plastic box with a cap on it. The cap is currently closed. Her coughs are like a vacuum cleaner sneezing.
The boy’s reading is interrupted.
“Are you the new trainee student?” one of the ward clerks asks.
She has already looked at the badge which the boy is wearing which says otherwise, but then looked back at the boy, took note of how definitively youthful he appeared to be, and asked the question anyway.
“No” says the boy.
She looks confused, like her personal belief system has just fallen apart. “How old are-”
The boy leaves and enters to see the patient through the curtain.
The patient is lying in bed, her eyes gaze at the ceiling but do not focus on a particular spot. They sometimes gaze around the room, but not at anyone. It’s like they gazed at you but avoided you at the same time.
The boy thinks about what he should do with this patient. She cannot talk. She never will. She cannot move. She wanted to die and now everyone is keeping her alive. The irony. She is a joke, screaming at the face of modern medicine. They want her eventually in a specialized wheelchair, totally dependent, incapable of intelligent thought, but still breathing. “Alive”. That’s what medicine does. It keeps people “alive”.
The boy is trying to get himself in front of the woman’s gaze. He believes he can stare at her, and her at him, and they will be able to communicate telepathically. He wants to recognize that somewhere, somewhere in there, the woman still exists. He wants to pray for the woman, believing, trusting, that if her eyes remain in contact with his and his with hers, he can speak on her behalf, ask for a miracle to happen, that her health and life be restored if she wished to live, as she did before, that she was sorry, and ever grateful for the second chance. Or, on the contrary, to die, to not muck around, to call it quits and exit this place, because what is happening now is a mockery. It is injustice. It is salt in a devastating wound.
“Fuck you all. See this? This is my middle finger and it is raised. It is raised for you.”
The woman should be allowed to say these things, and leave having said them, but this. Not this.
This is all the boy can think of doing. He does not much care about the medical plan.
Back in the hall, a second nurse is trying to convince the old man to bid his adieus to the wall. The wall has still not conversed with him and he is devastated.
“Talk to me!” the man yells, but this time to one of the nurses. He seems to have given up on the wall.
“I am talking to you” she says calmly and sympathetically. The words hug him like a giant soft teddy bear.
“Where am I?!!!” yells the man.
“You are in hospital. Come on, let’s go back to your bed.” The old man scans his eyes around the place.
The boy does the same. He sees old people slumped in bed, trying to move up the bed, get comfortable, but the beds are too soft, and they are too weak, incapable. It is futile trying to move in those beds. He sees colliding zimmer frames, people wheeled on commodes, saliva seeping from the corners of mouths, vacant stares out windows. Televisions, apparently just on for the sound.
But the boy wants to see what the old man sees.
He wants to feel what he feels.
He wants to think what he thinks.
“Hospital?!!” he yells, his feet slowly shuffling as he is led back to his bed.
“I don’t want to be in hospital...” He no longer yells, his tone one of realization, his voice as if straight from his head, unfiltered, honest.
The boy is back in his 2 meter by 2.5 meter cubicle of a room. He nods his head in agreement with his thinking. He is thinking about the day, how it went, the ups and downs, and is okay with it.
He is sitting on the side of his bed and can feel the springs. If he shuffles his weight from one side to the other, he can feel the springs bending, stretching, reacting, adapting. He can see what they look like without actually having seen them before.
The boy feels no rush to do anything. He takes his time and is deliberate about doing so. He decides to do press ups. He does this on the floor space beside the bed with his feet elevated on the chair which he moves. Whilst doing this he takes note that, potentially, he could also in future do them across the width of the room between the end of the bed and the closet and across to the drawers.
There are two positional possibilities for push ups in this room.
The boy lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling, then at the walls that surround, then at the ground. He knows that at times it may be difficult to live without a T.V. but that is just weakness and he must persevere through it. He sees some scrap paper, three pieces, lying on the floor. A smile comes across his face as he reaches for the paper and inspiration motivates him to sit up. He begins to fold the paper into paper planes. Three of them. Each one different.
The boy wonders how many other 25 year old men are folding paper planes for pleasure worldwide at that particular moment: Not enough.
The first plane is a short one with wide wings. It is nose heavy and nosedives into the floor immediately after release.
It disappoints the boy.
The second and third planes are the same design, long, sleek, but the second has embellishments on the wings and the third has been kept basic and simple.
The boy releases the second plane. It is the one with the extra folds. The deluxe wings, special features, some would say unnecessary but visually appealing. It flies fine, but the whole time it spirals. It heads in one direction but it is also out of control. There is no way the passengers on that plane would know where they were going thought the boy. This thought frightens him and the plane crashes to the floor before it hits the wall.
The boy holds the last plane in his hand and looks at it. It doesn’t have much riding on it after watching the previous two planes. There is not much expectation. The boy is questioning his paper plane making skills.
The boy releases the last plane. It glides through the air. It is effortless. Beautiful! As he watches it, even for its short flight time, he can imagine what it would be like to be the paper on one of those wings. Slicing the air, feeling it separate and pass over its top and bottom. He is in the wing. He is in the molecules! The boy wants everyone to experience what he is experiencing now. To be present, in awe, aware of the wonders and beauty of the small things in life. He wants to go back into the hospital, walk up to that old man, pull this paper plane out from behind his back, hold it in front of his face until he is transfixed by it and throw it. The old man would see. The old man would know.
He wants the lady with the tracheostomy to have known the beauty of a paper plane in flight as he does now. The boy is convinced that if she did know, if she really did know, there would have been no way she would have taken those drugs.
You see. It’s a simple thing. You must pay attention. You must be present and aware of what is happening. The plane is soaring. Gravity is its nemesis but air is its friend. The plane is conquering, winning, until it hits the wall and flight time is over. It makes you wish you had a bigger room. It makes you wish you were outside.
12.7.11
El Salvador
June, El Salvador
Jesus is everywhere in El Salvador
Jesus is everywhere in El Salvador
El Salvador
Brandished on buses
Sprawled over cars
The suffering Jesus
The transfigured Jesus
Hanging in malls
On gun holstered walls
The 3D hologram Jesus
The supplicative Jesus
Choose your own Jesus
A strong defiant Jesus
A war ravaged Jesus
In the light of day
In the dark of night
The illuminated plug-in-Jesus
The glow-in-the-dark-Jesus
I watched a tormented Jesus pull up next to a busty blonde at the lights
How he longingly looked to the sky as he chased her into the night
The people's Jesus
A marketed Jesus
A captive tag-along Jesus
A captive tag-along Jesus
4.7.11
AFFINITY III
He looks at the screen hoping that enlightenment would come but once again there was no message. It frustrated him that things would have to be this way - this kind of one-way communication with his father. He wanted answers. He wanted to know everything, to know where he was going, what he was supposed to do, how everything would pan out. He wanted to be able to calculate all of the obstacles in his path and the difficulties he would face, that way he wouldn't feel as if he was always running blind, falling from one problem to the next, never understanding the purpose of it all despite this underlying desire for something he couldn't define.
He looks at the screen once again.
Still nothing.
In the absense of communication he would often spend time speculating about how he should go about things. He was doing this now as he walked around his apartment staring blankly through his thoughts. He would try to assume his father's rational point of view but always fell short. This was perhaps, that he was not the man his father was nor would ever be. His head was clouded, a jumble of interferring stimuli that tried to find solace in outlook, but the forces were always opposing and the result was a scaled down yearning propogating an unsteady forward step. He wanted more. He knew he was made for more.
Another glance at the screen is taken.
Again nothing.
He looks at his watch. The kids would be climbing now. Each one with a bag, up the tallest towers in the neighbourhood. They had turned into some kind of juvenile army over the years. One day he had been flying a kite as his father had instructed of him in the Eastern Bloc and the children had seen him and been amazed. They had never seen a kite before and were mezmerised by the way it hovered so effortlessly in the air, how it sailed around buildings. It was only made of two sticks, paper and string but could embrace freedom so simply.
He had gained a following that day and that was probably what his father had intended. Now there were hundreds of them. They came out of the urban jungle wide eyed and hungry. They sought something that previous generations had lost and though it dumbfounded him they were entertained by his projects. The projects became a replacement for being left to their own devices on the streets. It was like a cultural or drop centre. It was to become their new education.
He could see them now zig zagging up the emergency stair cases of adjacent buildings, each one carrying a loaded sack like a procession of ants in the night. The current project had been months in the making and he enjoyed the sentiment that it carried. They had spent the last three months collecting Tigris Corporation flyers and the children had graffitied them, each in their own way. Some with lipstick, some with horns, other with more defacing creative flair. On the back of each flyer was a message to the city, a stated concern, a hope, a prayer. They were written by people from all walks of life and demographics across the city. They had collected the messages from people on the street then transcribed them onto the backs of the graffitied flyers. The last step was to fold them into origame paper tigers.
He had a view of the whole city from his balcony. Tonight was a clear night with the haze wearing only thinly on the horizon. Every night he stood on his balcony he would ponder the city and all the unanswered questions in his head. He would look to an adjacent tower and always see a young woman that did the same. It gave him solace. He did not know who she was but watching her silhouette and the mystery of her form gave him an idea of some sort of innate connection.
The kids were on the rooftops now. They signalled to each other and proceeded to drop their loads until the blackness of the night sky was overcome by a swarm of tumbling tigers. People in buildings saw them and ran to their windows and caught them as they fluttered past. It was the first time he had seen so many people look out of their windows with interest, excitement, curiosity even.
A paper tiger lands on Miss Delaware's balcony and he watches as she picks it up, unfolds, and reads it. When she is done she immediately looks back in his direction and it is unmistakable that she is looking at him.
Whether she had read his specifically written message or not was irrelevant. Somehow though, he knows she has.
He looks back and checks the screen in his apartment.
Nothing.
It no longer bothers him. He will find her himself. It makes more sense this way.
He looks at the screen once again.
Still nothing.
In the absense of communication he would often spend time speculating about how he should go about things. He was doing this now as he walked around his apartment staring blankly through his thoughts. He would try to assume his father's rational point of view but always fell short. This was perhaps, that he was not the man his father was nor would ever be. His head was clouded, a jumble of interferring stimuli that tried to find solace in outlook, but the forces were always opposing and the result was a scaled down yearning propogating an unsteady forward step. He wanted more. He knew he was made for more.
Another glance at the screen is taken.
Again nothing.
He looks at his watch. The kids would be climbing now. Each one with a bag, up the tallest towers in the neighbourhood. They had turned into some kind of juvenile army over the years. One day he had been flying a kite as his father had instructed of him in the Eastern Bloc and the children had seen him and been amazed. They had never seen a kite before and were mezmerised by the way it hovered so effortlessly in the air, how it sailed around buildings. It was only made of two sticks, paper and string but could embrace freedom so simply.
He had gained a following that day and that was probably what his father had intended. Now there were hundreds of them. They came out of the urban jungle wide eyed and hungry. They sought something that previous generations had lost and though it dumbfounded him they were entertained by his projects. The projects became a replacement for being left to their own devices on the streets. It was like a cultural or drop centre. It was to become their new education.
He could see them now zig zagging up the emergency stair cases of adjacent buildings, each one carrying a loaded sack like a procession of ants in the night. The current project had been months in the making and he enjoyed the sentiment that it carried. They had spent the last three months collecting Tigris Corporation flyers and the children had graffitied them, each in their own way. Some with lipstick, some with horns, other with more defacing creative flair. On the back of each flyer was a message to the city, a stated concern, a hope, a prayer. They were written by people from all walks of life and demographics across the city. They had collected the messages from people on the street then transcribed them onto the backs of the graffitied flyers. The last step was to fold them into origame paper tigers.
He had a view of the whole city from his balcony. Tonight was a clear night with the haze wearing only thinly on the horizon. Every night he stood on his balcony he would ponder the city and all the unanswered questions in his head. He would look to an adjacent tower and always see a young woman that did the same. It gave him solace. He did not know who she was but watching her silhouette and the mystery of her form gave him an idea of some sort of innate connection.
The kids were on the rooftops now. They signalled to each other and proceeded to drop their loads until the blackness of the night sky was overcome by a swarm of tumbling tigers. People in buildings saw them and ran to their windows and caught them as they fluttered past. It was the first time he had seen so many people look out of their windows with interest, excitement, curiosity even.
A paper tiger lands on Miss Delaware's balcony and he watches as she picks it up, unfolds, and reads it. When she is done she immediately looks back in his direction and it is unmistakable that she is looking at him.
Whether she had read his specifically written message or not was irrelevant. Somehow though, he knows she has.
He looks back and checks the screen in his apartment.
Nothing.
It no longer bothers him. He will find her himself. It makes more sense this way.
3.7.11
AFFINITY Interlude
Paper Tiger #14142 as read by Miss Delaware after falling to her balcony
Are we drowning
In a digital sea?
Are we sinking
Benealth the sound?
All my thoughts are
Ones and zeros
I am sinking
Beneath the sound
Are we drowning
In a digital sea?
Are we sinking
Benealth the sound?
All my thoughts are
Ones and zeros
I am sinking
Beneath the sound
11.6.11
When We Were Kings
Mexico, May/June 2011
When We Were Kings
When we were kings we were welcomed by hands
And they carried us throughout the city
We held banquet feasts for the thousands
And sent music through the streets
After rains on fractured earth
we waged war to defend our walls
And not just defence but territories advanced
we marched. Us mighty kings!
Now they search for us digging brick by brick
They find fragments of our pots and pans
They speculate about our parties, our extravagance
Their minute minds!
Of how we navigated the stars and planned crops at solstice
How we slayed our foes and offered to god
Our immortal empire carved into obsidian
Children run on the earth above us now
Men and women peddle souvenirs to tourists
Our empire in plastic, our images in wood!
They seek shade under the same trees we did
They pass time playing music from tinny speakers
Rap songs of reconstituted beats;
and how desperate they are for everyone to remember their name
When We Were Kings
When we were kings we were welcomed by hands
And they carried us throughout the city
We held banquet feasts for the thousands
And sent music through the streets
After rains on fractured earth
we waged war to defend our walls
And not just defence but territories advanced
we marched. Us mighty kings!
Now they search for us digging brick by brick
They find fragments of our pots and pans
They speculate about our parties, our extravagance
Their minute minds!
Of how we navigated the stars and planned crops at solstice
How we slayed our foes and offered to god
Our immortal empire carved into obsidian
Children run on the earth above us now
Men and women peddle souvenirs to tourists
Our empire in plastic, our images in wood!
They seek shade under the same trees we did
They pass time playing music from tinny speakers
Rap songs of reconstituted beats;
and how desperate they are for everyone to remember their name
30.5.11
Affinity II
In another room he is pacing. He watches her via the surveillance system, sitting as attentively as when the faces first started to flash up on the screen. This had never happened before. It had been four hours. The trawl had been completed three times. First the city, then the state, finally the entire country. Everyone has a match, he thinks. All that was required was change.
He re-enters the room with another man. As they enter the screens turn blank and Miss Delaware turns to them as if her moment had come. Her face was like that of a girl recieving flowers for the first time. Her eyes were large and full of hope. They were a fable realized.
They sit down in front of her with serious faces. Before speaking the unknown man unzips a black bag. This was the moment she had waited for and dreamt about her whole life. Now that it was happening, she expected it to be different.
"We do not have a match for you yet" the Affinity curator says. "What we can offer you is what is contained in this bag."
The world was different when Miss Delaware exits the palm of the Tigris Corporation. On the day that she had expected answers she had been given further doubts and questions. She hails a taxi and demands to be taken to her brother.
Outside the windows of the cab she starts to see things with new eyes. New emotions and thoughts are awoken in her and it feels like a fatal wound. She sees all the cracks in the city where they had been painted over and watches them grow as the taxi continues to the East Side.
A light flashes on her wrist indicating that she had a dozen new messages awaiting her attention but she decides that she cannot face them now. She already knows who they were from and what they would say. She already knows the congratulative expressions and remarks.
She looks down at the black bag that she had been given. The city had a soul and all it needed was to be unzipped. To join it or leave it, that is what they had told her. The decision was hers.
The East side was the roughest part of the city and more affluent parts liked to pretend it didn't exist. She watches the slow societal decay on its approach and contrasts it with the black bag that sat on the seat beside her. In the middle of both contrasting scenes was her brother. She knows that she needed to see him no matter what state he was currently in. He may provide her with some sort of answer or guidance.
She doesn't bother knocking when she reaches his door and instead swipes herself inside. Some days he was lucid and with it, other days he was nothing more than mumbling sloth in. Calling out to him and stepping over empty pizza boxes and an assortment of take out containers she hears the latter.
In the living room she finds him lying on his side with his top arm dangling off the sofa and onto the floor. Slowly he rolls onto his back and slowly addresses his sister.
"He-ey sis.." he manages, his eyes staring past her, bloodshot and vacant.
"Oh Si!" she says compassionately, sitting down and giving him a soft embrace. She places her hand bag and the black bag on the coffee table clearly in his view. As she leans over her to hug him more firmly he starts to reach for it.
"How are you?" she asks her brother. "Have I come at a good time?"
Si does not respond having reached the black bag and taken a firm grip of one of its corners with his fist.
He turns his attention back to his sister. The unbelief on his face heartbreaking. He does not ask what her sister is doing with this black bag. His sister can already read the question on his face.
"I know, I know!" she says. "I mean I don't know! I don't know! Oh, I can't..."
She feels tears well up somewhere behind eyes, as if pumped from an infinite ocean that was bound somewhere deep inside.
"They gave it to me today!" she explains. "Today I was supposed to find Affinity but I didn't have a match. This was all they could give me. They said it was the only way."
Her brother lets the bag go as if extending his arm to reach for it had taken too much effort. As he does this his head collapses backwards onto the arm of the chair, his eyes closed, a deep breath taken, before summoning strength and continuing again.
"Everyone says many things Sis" he says. "Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone wants assurances in life. They want answers. They want to know that everything will be okay. We pay for it. We pay for it everyday. They sell us what we want to believe and we buy it! And we will keep buying it. We will buy it until we are broke, until it has taken us over and there is nothing left and then we will be burried in the ground."
He looks seriously at his sister, the one who had always lived a virtuous life, the one who both inspired him and wordlessly criticized him for the way he had lived his life. He pulls out an unused cartridge from his pocket and quickly inspects the label.
BADMINTON MATCH it read and as he reads it, he rolls his eyes and decides that he should no longer buy assorted packs from the Chinese man in the next block no matter how cheap they may seem. He directs his eyes back to his sister and narrows them.
"Don't do it Sis" he says. "You are probably the truest thing there is. You are the truest thing I know. Do not open that bag. Take it back to whoever gave it to you. Otherwise, this is what you get."
He rams the cartridge onto his wrist which stimulates the clamping and injecting mechanism built inside. He writhes in a semi painful looking exstacy before exhaling hard and his body relaxing. Immediately after doing this he reaches into his pocket and finds another cartridge and clamps it down on his wrist and infuses the substance.
This one says THREESOME and he catches a glance of it just as the infusion process starts.
This will be interesting he thinks.
"See you later Sis. Come back and see me next week and tell me that you are not afraid, that you will swim in the ocean no matter how infinite and lonely it may seem."
And with that, his body is overcome again. He contorts on the sofa and then is released with laughter and heavy rapid breathing. Miss Delaware stays for several minutes until her brothers body is lame except for the signs of breath and pulse. He has a semi happy look on his face.
Miss Delaware arrives back at her apartment after nightfall. On the table in the middle of her living space she places the black bag and looks at it. She looks around her to see if anyone is watching but she is entirely alone. On the room function remote control she sets the function to "Oceans" and the walls, ceiling, and floors of her apartment become waves crashing on an undefined shore. She unzips the bag and fumbles through its contents. She reads the labels on the cartridges. KAMA SUTRA, DEER STALKING, COCAINE...
She looks through the bag at all the labels, each one speaking of an experience, some questionable, some desirable, but none that she deemed she wanted to experience artificially. She begins to cry feeling inept in all her lack of experience in some aspects of life, feeling alien when compared to what her friends and work colleagues were doing. In the process of questioning whether it was her that was abandoning her friends or her friends that were abandoning her, she raises the black bag and it's contents and smashes them onto the floor.
"To find your match you need to be more like your match" they had said.
Next she goes around her entire apartment and strips every wire that connected into every socket. She removes the communication device of her wrist and crushes it under her foot. She smashes every screen that fed her any image, every speaker that delivered any sound. She erases her social networking profile then smashes the hard drive as if sawing a body in two to release a soul. When her rampage is over she is so exhausted that she collapses on the floor. Her whole apartment is silent for the first time in as long as she can remember. There is no humming of machines, no clicking of information through electronic devices. No ones and zeros except for those that were jumping across the synapses of neurons in her head. Sick of her apartment and wanting to look elsewhere other than the destruction of her hands she makes her way to her balcony. Around her was a sea of towering buildings and flickering lights stretching as far as her eyes could see.
In the tower she sees him.
This was also the moment that the sky rained paper tigers.
He re-enters the room with another man. As they enter the screens turn blank and Miss Delaware turns to them as if her moment had come. Her face was like that of a girl recieving flowers for the first time. Her eyes were large and full of hope. They were a fable realized.
They sit down in front of her with serious faces. Before speaking the unknown man unzips a black bag. This was the moment she had waited for and dreamt about her whole life. Now that it was happening, she expected it to be different.
"We do not have a match for you yet" the Affinity curator says. "What we can offer you is what is contained in this bag."
The world was different when Miss Delaware exits the palm of the Tigris Corporation. On the day that she had expected answers she had been given further doubts and questions. She hails a taxi and demands to be taken to her brother.
Outside the windows of the cab she starts to see things with new eyes. New emotions and thoughts are awoken in her and it feels like a fatal wound. She sees all the cracks in the city where they had been painted over and watches them grow as the taxi continues to the East Side.
A light flashes on her wrist indicating that she had a dozen new messages awaiting her attention but she decides that she cannot face them now. She already knows who they were from and what they would say. She already knows the congratulative expressions and remarks.
She looks down at the black bag that she had been given. The city had a soul and all it needed was to be unzipped. To join it or leave it, that is what they had told her. The decision was hers.
The East side was the roughest part of the city and more affluent parts liked to pretend it didn't exist. She watches the slow societal decay on its approach and contrasts it with the black bag that sat on the seat beside her. In the middle of both contrasting scenes was her brother. She knows that she needed to see him no matter what state he was currently in. He may provide her with some sort of answer or guidance.
She doesn't bother knocking when she reaches his door and instead swipes herself inside. Some days he was lucid and with it, other days he was nothing more than mumbling sloth in. Calling out to him and stepping over empty pizza boxes and an assortment of take out containers she hears the latter.
In the living room she finds him lying on his side with his top arm dangling off the sofa and onto the floor. Slowly he rolls onto his back and slowly addresses his sister.
"He-ey sis.." he manages, his eyes staring past her, bloodshot and vacant.
"Oh Si!" she says compassionately, sitting down and giving him a soft embrace. She places her hand bag and the black bag on the coffee table clearly in his view. As she leans over her to hug him more firmly he starts to reach for it.
"How are you?" she asks her brother. "Have I come at a good time?"
Si does not respond having reached the black bag and taken a firm grip of one of its corners with his fist.
He turns his attention back to his sister. The unbelief on his face heartbreaking. He does not ask what her sister is doing with this black bag. His sister can already read the question on his face.
"I know, I know!" she says. "I mean I don't know! I don't know! Oh, I can't..."
She feels tears well up somewhere behind eyes, as if pumped from an infinite ocean that was bound somewhere deep inside.
"They gave it to me today!" she explains. "Today I was supposed to find Affinity but I didn't have a match. This was all they could give me. They said it was the only way."
Her brother lets the bag go as if extending his arm to reach for it had taken too much effort. As he does this his head collapses backwards onto the arm of the chair, his eyes closed, a deep breath taken, before summoning strength and continuing again.
"Everyone says many things Sis" he says. "Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone wants assurances in life. They want answers. They want to know that everything will be okay. We pay for it. We pay for it everyday. They sell us what we want to believe and we buy it! And we will keep buying it. We will buy it until we are broke, until it has taken us over and there is nothing left and then we will be burried in the ground."
He looks seriously at his sister, the one who had always lived a virtuous life, the one who both inspired him and wordlessly criticized him for the way he had lived his life. He pulls out an unused cartridge from his pocket and quickly inspects the label.
BADMINTON MATCH it read and as he reads it, he rolls his eyes and decides that he should no longer buy assorted packs from the Chinese man in the next block no matter how cheap they may seem. He directs his eyes back to his sister and narrows them.
"Don't do it Sis" he says. "You are probably the truest thing there is. You are the truest thing I know. Do not open that bag. Take it back to whoever gave it to you. Otherwise, this is what you get."
He rams the cartridge onto his wrist which stimulates the clamping and injecting mechanism built inside. He writhes in a semi painful looking exstacy before exhaling hard and his body relaxing. Immediately after doing this he reaches into his pocket and finds another cartridge and clamps it down on his wrist and infuses the substance.
This one says THREESOME and he catches a glance of it just as the infusion process starts.
This will be interesting he thinks.
"See you later Sis. Come back and see me next week and tell me that you are not afraid, that you will swim in the ocean no matter how infinite and lonely it may seem."
And with that, his body is overcome again. He contorts on the sofa and then is released with laughter and heavy rapid breathing. Miss Delaware stays for several minutes until her brothers body is lame except for the signs of breath and pulse. He has a semi happy look on his face.
Miss Delaware arrives back at her apartment after nightfall. On the table in the middle of her living space she places the black bag and looks at it. She looks around her to see if anyone is watching but she is entirely alone. On the room function remote control she sets the function to "Oceans" and the walls, ceiling, and floors of her apartment become waves crashing on an undefined shore. She unzips the bag and fumbles through its contents. She reads the labels on the cartridges. KAMA SUTRA, DEER STALKING, COCAINE...
She looks through the bag at all the labels, each one speaking of an experience, some questionable, some desirable, but none that she deemed she wanted to experience artificially. She begins to cry feeling inept in all her lack of experience in some aspects of life, feeling alien when compared to what her friends and work colleagues were doing. In the process of questioning whether it was her that was abandoning her friends or her friends that were abandoning her, she raises the black bag and it's contents and smashes them onto the floor.
"To find your match you need to be more like your match" they had said.
Next she goes around her entire apartment and strips every wire that connected into every socket. She removes the communication device of her wrist and crushes it under her foot. She smashes every screen that fed her any image, every speaker that delivered any sound. She erases her social networking profile then smashes the hard drive as if sawing a body in two to release a soul. When her rampage is over she is so exhausted that she collapses on the floor. Her whole apartment is silent for the first time in as long as she can remember. There is no humming of machines, no clicking of information through electronic devices. No ones and zeros except for those that were jumping across the synapses of neurons in her head. Sick of her apartment and wanting to look elsewhere other than the destruction of her hands she makes her way to her balcony. Around her was a sea of towering buildings and flickering lights stretching as far as her eyes could see.
In the tower she sees him.
This was also the moment that the sky rained paper tigers.
18.5.11
Affinity
The thread of Miss Delaware:
In the moment, embracing the minutes and seconds, she looks down at her unblemished wrists. Out of the window and into the apartments they stare mesmerized by a cable fed kaleidoscope, they smoke away on balconies, consider love in barricaded bedrooms. She looks to a particular room on an adjacent tower. Today he is not there.
Her watch beeps. Rushing to mirror she adds colour and definition to her face. There is no need really, but today promised to be one of those days. It was a day to change all days that would come. It would make sense of the days that served as mere filler between such momentous occasions in life.
Swinging her handbag around her neck she exits her apartment and rides the grav-tube to street level. She views the messages that her friends had recorded for her and sent that morning, little holograms that sprouted from her wrist.
“Can’t wait to hear about how handsome he is” they say.
“I’m so excited for you.”
“You go girl. Affinity to infinity!”
She hurries out the door and hails a cab.
“Tigris Corporation” she says.
The cab driver looks at her briefly through the rear view and nods.
“Affinity Division” she adds.
The mention of the Affinity Division causes the cab driver to double take. He looks at her with new eyes, intentions different. The very mention of the ‘a’ word was a catalyst for many emotions within people. It separated the haves from the have nots, it spoke of material wealth, hope, a ticket to a better existence - something out of reach for many people.
She was a modest woman and did not mean to gloat. She already regretted the mention of Affinity to the man. She should have just mentioned “Tigris Corporation” and walked herself to the appropriate sector of the complex.
She doesn’t want to make further case with the man but as she sits the holograms project out wildly in her face. Advertisements of holiday getaways on private islands, wedding dresses, sex parties and toothpaste. She was sick of all of the images and they were almost unavoidable, the world seemed to rotate around them.
“Can you switch them off please?” she says to the cab driver.
“But if off, your fare more. If on, your fare cheaper” he says.
“I don’t care” she says. “I want to live without being told how to live. I want a life that cannot be bought.”
The taxi driver laughs. “Yet you go for Affinity” he says. He flicks off the advertisement projection system angrily and rues lost commission and ambassador credits.
She notices a smudge on the driver’s wrist as he switches off the advertising system. She can tell that he was a user. It wasn’t the wrists however that gave it away. It was in his eyes, a slight and occasional vacancy. Her brother was the same. He had started at first recreationally, but now he was hooked. Rubbing out had become his only form of solace. The more he had, the more he needed. Soon he found more meaning in rubbing out than living life. There was little left. He went from one fix to another, the severity in coming down necessitating the next hit.
Along the western corridor traffic was slow. They slowed as they passed paramedics attending to a few collapsed pedestrians. One had collapsed at the bottom of an overpass escalator and his shirt had got stuck in the machine. The other had collapsed on the footpath outside a Mass Transit Shuttle stop. They were both young.
The cab driver shakes his head. “Aye-argh” he laments, his words sorrowful but also fearful and angry. “This is problem.”
He flashes one arm around and gestures at the world outside the cab.
No one knew why more and more young people were falling dead seemingly without reason. Drug use was speculated but there was no direct correlation found. Some had a history of heavy drug use, others were mostly clean. Coroners reported that cause of death was by unexplained neurogenic failure to the heart. Their hearts had simply ceased to beat.
She clutches her hand bag tightly as traffic returns to its normal pace. It was a straight run now and she was at once nervous and excited.
The Tigris corporation complex took up a large section of the downtown area with five sky scrapers arising from its base in the shape of a hand reaching out from the ground. Inside the Affinity Division she welcomed by a man in a tuxedo and a woman in a scarlet dress. They escort her to a private lounge where they pour her a glass of champagne.
“This is for you on your special day” the woman says. She places the glass of champagne on the table beside where Miss Delaware is sat.
They stand together with loose embrace and smile down at Miss Delaware on the couch.
“As you know Miss Delaware, we already have your details on our database.”
Miss Delaware looks around for the voice that is speaking to her. The voice comes from behind her. She turns her head and notices another man in a suit, but this man seeming more official. He has just come through the door. He keeps speaking as he walks, his words as if known by verbatim.
“We know your activities, hobbies, likes, dislikes, humour, religious beliefs, moral outlook. We know your favourite books, foods, music and drinks. We know your friends, relatives and the people you avoid. We know your sleep patterns, your sexual preferences and appetite. We can even assess your propensity to change given common variables in life such as stress, time restraints, societal fads, movements and political climates. Our system is the most comprehensive on the planet. Just about everyone is linked to our social network. We have over six billion subscribers worldwide and five million alone in this city.”
He sits on the couch directly opposite her and looks into her eyes.
“Affinity awaits you. We will find your match. All I need first is the payment.”
She hands him her card. Fifteen years of hard work and saving since the age of eighteen. The payment is processed and he puts the computers into action and starts the trawl.
The man tells her to sit back and relax but she is mesmerized by the colours and flashes of faces upon the screens. She can’t help but think about all the people that she had never met in life because she had worked so hard. All of the people that she would never meet in life because that was the way of life in modern times. The faces flash up on the screen for only a split second each but in a strange way, she was knowing them all, everything about them, analyzed and critiqued, computed and permutated, vicariously through a system of machines. She sits there for hours. Face after face. Frame by frame.
3.5.11
My Dear, This is a Prelude
AS THE GLOWING orange ball slowly spluttered its way up through the Mumbai fog past India gate, I found a gang of locals slowly form a circle about me. They stretched their hands to the sky and exhaled, then started to stretch their torsos, loosened their necks. They stared at me as they went about their business. All of them. They inhaled and exhaled and proceeded to jump on the spot. A spritely elderly man yelled something in Hindi and they began to march clockwise with raised knees.
I was in the process of leaving the circle when a short wiry fellow, bones thatched together with twine, hit me and indicated that I should march too.
There was no reason for me to be in India, and such was the logic of my arrival - logical abandonment. I looked at the man seriously and raised a leg. We marched several laps and then changed direction, everyone a bizarre collection of swinging arms and onomatopoeic rhythm of stamping steps. Was this what I had actually come to expect of India?
Perhaps.
The leader shouted something else and everyone stopped. They took deep breaths and then broke out into laughter. Were these people serious? I was thinking. And so started a series of breathing exercises; deep breaths and then slow exhalations of laughter outwards, shaking different body parts in the process.
The wiry Indian man beside me gave me a nudge and indicated that I should be doing the same as everyone else as I was also part of the circle.
And so I took a deep breath in. "Hahahahaha" I exhaled holding my right arm out in front of me, shaking it. I looked to the wiry man beside me as I did this and he nodded in approval.
"Okay" said the leader. He was serious. A man on a mission, but there was also a glint in his eye. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked to him.
The leader proceeded to clap three times with his hand above his head and then broke out into a fit of laughter such that he started to double over and had to brace his hands on his knees to remain upright.
I watched as the circle began to follow suit. First the overhead clapping, then the hysterical laughter. Some were faking it, some were completely out of control.
I looked around me and noticed that we had some on-lookers. The wiry man beside me noticed me doing this and shook his head. He reached skyward, clapped, then looked back at me before giving an exaggerated laugh. "HA! HA! HA! HA!" he said.
I nodded and reconfigured my stance as if to postulate that I now meant business. I raised my hands above my head and clapped, then let out a laugh: "Ha? Ha? Ha? Ha?" I said.
The wiry man was disappointed. He shook his head.
He inhaled deeply and clapped again. "HA! HA! HA! HA!" he explained, with extra emphasis on each 'HA'.
I performed the exercise again. "HA. HA. HA. HA" I said.
I looked to the wiry man for approval. He scrunched his lips together and bobbed his head from side to side as if indicating that I had shown some improvement.
We performed the exercise again, but this time together.
"HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!" we let out in unison until we were both hunched forwards.
The wiry man straightened up and looked at me seriously. He nodded as he took his next breath and proceeded to clap. I did the same.
"HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!"
I started to understand the exercise. We looked at each other and smiled, then inhaled and clapped again. I learnt that laughter was better in unison, laughter was about letting yourself go. This time i decided to go for maximum volume. My lungs were bigger than his. I would destroy him with my laughter.
"HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!!" My laugh was a giant's and his was an ant's, only this time I did not stop laughing as I had intended to and neither did he. We both continued laughing uncontrollably, involuntarily. We laughed at each other and at ourselves. We laughed at the ridiculous exercise in which we were participating.
The Indian man smiled and petted me on the back. He indicated that I had now understood. I had been released. Self consciousness had departed.
I laughed as he laughed. We laughed together. We fanned each other's laughter flames. Soon the whole circle was engulfed in laughter, each one a catalyst for the other. I did not know these people but we were sharing one of the most amazing things there was and no words needed to be spoken.
Soon we were jumping around like kangaroos on the spot. "Australia!" said the guru. We laughed and jumped around like drunken idiots.
Next thing we were roaring at each other like lions and showing our claws. "Africa!" said the guru. "Raaarrr! Raaaarrrr!"
We followed the gurus lead as he squatted down to the ground and then frog leaped into the air. "Ribbit!" He said. "Frog!"
I was dying now. My lungs and chest were in pain. I wanted it to stop but I also wanted it to go on forever. I looked to the wiry man beside me, the old lady next to him, the guru, everyone else in the circle. When was the last time I had felt this much joy? I looked at their smiling faces and they looked at mine. I was welcome. We were one. Was it ridiculous? The fact that we had not spoken but had communicated more than could have ever been said?
The guy on the left had been my guru that day, my first in India.
25.4.11
Easter Sketch
Golgotha, "place of the skull"
Image: the 'Helmet of Salvation' atop a human skull.
Golgotha (meaning 'place of the skull') was the site of crucifixion on Mount Moriah, Jerusalem, Israel.
The Helmet of Salvation is part of the Armour of God referenced in Ephesians 6:10-18;
(10) Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. (11) Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (12) For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (13) Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (14) Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; (15) And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; (16) Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. (17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: (18) Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Salvation refers to freedom from bondage to sin and death (for us) by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The image therefore represents 'life for the dead'.
17.4.11
Joy Theory
JOY THEORY
Ask yourself. Why are we alive? What is life all about? What do we desire? Is it not joy? Is that not why we are here?
WHAT IF JOY was to be both the inspiration and objective of every decision we made? Would we make different decisions? Would we change where we worked? Would we change our friends? Would we change how we spent our time?
Ask yourself. Why are we alive? What is life all about? What do we desire? Is it not joy? Is that not why we are here?
It's something I've been thinking about over the past several months. Why do we often not consider joy in every decision we make? And if joy is not the object of every decision we make, why do wonder why we end up unhappy, bitter, or depressed?
In light of these musings I have recently been testing a theory: The Joy Theory.
The Joy Theory
We were created out of love and were intended to experience and share unending joy. Nothing has changed. Life is meant to be joyful. Our spirits are meant to rejoice and seek good things. When we are pondering doing something, we should ask ourselves if joy is involved. If it isn't, we should ask ourselves why we intend to do it. Choose the things that lead to joy and really seek them out.
So this is what I have been doing. I have been trying to reconcile my plans and actions to joy. If I can see no joy coming about as a result of an action, I don't do it. If something will bring joy, I do it.
I apply the theory to all aspects of daily life (when I remember); getting out of bed, what to have for breakfast, who to hang out with, whether to help someone in need or not, to sit and watch television or not, to go out for lunch or not, if I should go for a run.
It sounds stupid, like all of those decisions are not very important ones, but I've found that they actually make a big difference at the end of the day. It also scares me to think about all of the things that I do without knowing why, things I don't really want to do.
It makes a big difference when you help someone out of a joyful heart or help someone out of joyless obligation.
As does going for a run.
Or having a cup of coffee in a cafe.
The above things do not really seem to be a problem if done joylessly, but what if our lives are a culmination of moments and decisions like these? If we choose badly, we deprive ourselves of joy. We forget why we are living. We forget why we were made. We lose perspective.
This is bad.
In my experimentation I have found that the Joy Theory is not just an applied rule but it is also an outlook. In seeking joy we are not just seeking momentary pleasures but long lasting pleasures. Joy comes from things that are immediate and things that are to come. Good and bad things have a habit of self perpetuating. We are the sum of our decisions. We choose the path in which we walk. We make the bed in which we lie. Where do we end up if our decisions are devoid of joy?
(Note that pleasure is not necessarily the same as joy).
Consider going to the pub when you are in a bad mood compared to going to the pub when you are in a good mood.
Consider buying a sweater when you have had a bad week compared to buying one when you have had an amazingly good one.
Chances are, going to the pub in a bad mood isn't going to end joyously. Chances are, in a few weeks, or months, whenever you look at the sweater you bought you will be reminded of the mood you were in when you bought it. Will you be reminded of that terrible week or that amazingly good one?
How about relationships?
Does application of the Joy Theory change the company you keep? The girl you pursue?
How about your job?
Or when considering consumption of that extra row of chocolate?
The Joy Theory. It's an interesting experiment. Why not test it and see where it takes you.
I've been testing it and I'm a believer.
This blog is dedicated to my very good friend and fellow peregrino Matt Chernishov, who has made some very good decisions in the name of joy.
joy
–noun
1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused bysomething exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4. a state of happiness or felicity.
–verb
5. to feel joy; be glad; rejoice.
I apply the theory to all aspects of daily life (when I remember); getting out of bed, what to have for breakfast, who to hang out with, whether to help someone in need or not, to sit and watch television or not, to go out for lunch or not, if I should go for a run.
It sounds stupid, like all of those decisions are not very important ones, but I've found that they actually make a big difference at the end of the day. It also scares me to think about all of the things that I do without knowing why, things I don't really want to do.
It makes a big difference when you help someone out of a joyful heart or help someone out of joyless obligation.
As does going for a run.
Or having a cup of coffee in a cafe.
The above things do not really seem to be a problem if done joylessly, but what if our lives are a culmination of moments and decisions like these? If we choose badly, we deprive ourselves of joy. We forget why we are living. We forget why we were made. We lose perspective.
This is bad.
In my experimentation I have found that the Joy Theory is not just an applied rule but it is also an outlook. In seeking joy we are not just seeking momentary pleasures but long lasting pleasures. Joy comes from things that are immediate and things that are to come. Good and bad things have a habit of self perpetuating. We are the sum of our decisions. We choose the path in which we walk. We make the bed in which we lie. Where do we end up if our decisions are devoid of joy?
(Note that pleasure is not necessarily the same as joy).
Consider going to the pub when you are in a bad mood compared to going to the pub when you are in a good mood.
Consider buying a sweater when you have had a bad week compared to buying one when you have had an amazingly good one.
Chances are, going to the pub in a bad mood isn't going to end joyously. Chances are, in a few weeks, or months, whenever you look at the sweater you bought you will be reminded of the mood you were in when you bought it. Will you be reminded of that terrible week or that amazingly good one?
How about relationships?
Does application of the Joy Theory change the company you keep? The girl you pursue?
How about your job?
Or when considering consumption of that extra row of chocolate?
The Joy Theory. It's an interesting experiment. Why not test it and see where it takes you.
I've been testing it and I'm a believer.
This blog is dedicated to my very good friend and fellow peregrino Matt Chernishov, who has made some very good decisions in the name of joy.
joy
–noun
1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused bysomething exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4. a state of happiness or felicity.
–verb
5. to feel joy; be glad; rejoice.
You will show me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16: 11
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