Investing in Divesting...

On this day in the midst of November mists, this nomadic flaneur currently finds himself enjoying the slow process of sipping gently at a cup of gingersnap and peach tea in the somewhat noisy environs of Costas coffee shop in the heart of Loughton. The rain is pouring down outside to such an extent that even a short walk will guarantee a complete soaking. As ever for Costas, the internet connection is somewhat less than reliable and I am struggling to search out flights for my next global gallivant. This time it is likely to start in Hong Kong and go from there, perhaps taking in mainland China, Thailand and Cambodia. If all goes to plan, I am likely to be on the road for quite some time.

The last few months have been spent in the Southern Counties of the UK with a few diversions to the wind swept but rather beautiful Cornish coast. England can be a very beautiful country indeed, but only for about six months of the year. Beyond October it can become dreary beyond belief. If you, dear reader, are anything like me then the joys of struggling against wind and rain pale somewhat with the passing of the years. Not for me the joys of temperatures hovering just above freezing or the encumbrance of having to wear multiple layers of clothing, gloves, hats and scarves. No, I am more your sandals and a T-shirt sort of guy these days, at least that is my preference during what would be the 'winter' months in Europe.

For the sake of my travels, my preferences in clothing have become simpler and simpler these days. This is, of course, something of a necessity if one wishes to follow the life of a nomadic flaneur. Cumbersome backpacks or other forms of luggage soon lose their appeal when one has the onerous duty of lugging them from airport to hotel, or has to attempt to hold on to them as some lunatic of a Thai bus driver cavorts crazily through the streets of Bangkok, gripped with an irrational but passionately felt need to risk all for the sake of the saving of a few seconds (which he will probably then spend watching some banality on TV or playing pool).

Indeed, it is curious to reflect on just how little one really needs in order to live the life of a nomadic flaneur. Of course, this does not merely apply to those of us involved in such activities. Life is often lead best when it is lead simply. When one's 'needs' are few, it is curious indeed how few material goods one actually has a use for. In my case, there is a certain logic to keeping the load light as everything that I have has, at times, to be carried with me. But, notwithstanding the demands of my own lifestyle, does this not equally apply to all of us?

A couple of years ago I moved out of a house that I had owned for several years. Much of my stuff was committed to boxes and sealed with brown tape. In the time since I have, on occasion, had cause to open said boxes but, to be honest, this has been necessary on remarkably few occasions. Indeed, the vast majority of my 'stuff' (mostly books, clothes, cooking equipment and various electronic bric a brac) has lain dormant in its allocated cardboard box, completely useless to man or beast.

Over time, the realisation gradually dawns on one that much of this stuff is not needed and, in all probability, was never needed in the first place. We are seemingly fooled by the illusion that we own stuff when often the reality is that the stuff ends up owning us. Things need to be maintained, cared for, stored and generally looked after, thus using up our precious time. Even for those items where this is not the case, there is the ongoing need to store them. This usually involves taking up space and, for many people, is an ongoing process often necessitating moving to larger and larger premises in order to store this relentless, and largely useless, accumulation of stuff. Another choice, chosen by many, if they cannot afford the ever larger premises, is to have their current premises increasingly packed to the gunwales with things they scarcely ever use until they reach the state where they can barely move in their own homes.

Of course, there is a third choice, a choice that oft times remains unrealised. Curiously, this is often the best and simplest choice of all. Get rid of it!

A good rule of thumb is that if you haven't used it, read it or worn it in the last two years then consign it to the charity shop, or give it as a gift to friends, or even simply consign it to the dustbin. If it is of some value then sell it on Ebay. Whatever choice you make, free your life from it. The penalty for not doing so is either less time or less space. Have few possessions that you own. Have none that own you.

Back in Costas someone has turned on the ubiquitous and ever looping tape of overplayed popular music adding to the general din of the place. Once more I have to hear of the somewhat dated romantic collaboration between 'me and Mrs. Jones' or have my ears inveigled by Midge Ure whining on about the joys of Vienna which, apparently, mean nothing to him, a fact he feels compelled to remind us of on a continuous basis it seems.

One of the joys of leaving the UK at this season is the avoidance of the dreaded Christmas soundtrack. The joys of listening to the self same tracks from Wizard, Slade, John Lennon and Kirsty MacColl played several hundred times before finally reaching the much longed for finishing post on December 25^th faded into a rather irritated boredom many, many moons ago.

The next few days will be ones of preparation but, having made a list but an hour ago, I found myself surprised with just how simple this process actually is. When one strips out the unnecessary and avoids the superfluous it is amazing how straightforward, simple and pleasurable life can become.

Cheers!

Lifestyle choices, minimalism and being a nomadic flaneur

A little personal history to start this piece. Six years ago I had a seizure; basically I stopped breathing for about two minutes and was in a world of pain for the following six months. Two and a half years ago I had a heart attack which came, more or less, out of the blue. At the time my blood pressure was 120/80, my pulse around 60 beats per minute and my cholesterol reading a very low 3.2. All good readings it would seem but I still had the coronary incident. The old cliché 'you never know' is horribly true in these things.

Such incidents are marvellous, if you survive relatively intact, for focussing the mind and making you realise what does and does not matter to you. One would think that such a realisation would come easily and naturally but the reality is that most of us, most of the time, buy into dreams sold to us through advertising and the media or simply go along with our societies expectations of who and how we should be.

At the time I owned a house, a car and much stuff. I say 'owned' because that is the way we tend to refer to such arrangements but in many ways it could equally well be said that these things 'owned' me. Much of my time and money was spent in looking after this detritus. Cars need to be maintained, fed and serviced, houses needed the provision of electricity, gas, water and general cleaning. Every now and then something would go wrong – a leaky pipe at one stage, a domestic appliance needing replacement at another. On top of all this one was obliged to pay various taxes to 'own' these things.

When I eventually sold up just over a year ago the idea was to move into another house in a pleasanter part of the country, hoping to breathe fresher air, explore new horizons, all that sort of thing. Indeed, for a time, I went down this path. I travelled to the town of Glastonbury in Somerset on several occasions and made various offers on properties which, fortunately, were completely unsuccessful.

At this stage I thought I would take a holiday, a few weeks away would seem like a pleasant distraction from worrying about owning property. I chose Thailand for my destination. At the time, it was the furthest East I had ever travelled so the journey was undertaken with a certain degree of trepidation. I travelled on my own although I did meet a friend for a few days whilst out there. I found that after a initial feeling of disorientation I began to enjoy the experience very much. In fact, the longer it went on the more I enjoyed it.

On returning to England I found the place to be cold, wet and generally pretty dowdy. Because I had sold the house I had enough money in the bank to consider another trip. In fact, I began to realise, that I had enough money to consider several other trips. One of the odd things I had noticed whilst living in Thailand is that you really didn't need anything like as much money to live as you do in the UK. This is especially the case if, like me, you do not smoke, scarcely drink and enjoy good food but not pretentious restaurants. It was slowly dawning on me that another lifestyle altogether was possible. A lifestyle where one is not tied to one's possessions, to place or society. Although it had seemed that I was more or less obliged to buy a new house and 'settle down' in another location, the notion that this was not necessarily so was slowly forming in my mind. It was like awakening from a dream.

I planned my next trip. I wanted to make it more adventurous and even further flung. I had, for several years, intended to visit a close friend in China but health and other issues, some of which stemmed from house owning, had always thwarted me until now. I remember reading a line from a book around this time:" If not now, then when?" I decided to take the plunge and booked a flight that would allow me to spend three months away.

The flight was expensive, as were the visa and the insurance but, oddly, after three months away spending only a few pounds a day on accommodation and food (and even including some fascinating internal journeys to Shanghai, Hangzhou and the garden city of Suzhou) I came back to find that, in real terms, I was actually a little better off than when I left! This was quite a revelation. When one does not have to pay the myriad expenses of house owning it is curious just how much further one's cash goes. I did still have a car at the time and there were ongoing expenses in connection with this so it could have been even better if these also were no longer part of the equation.

We live at a time and in societies that value 'stuff'. Lots and lots of stuff. Stuff that you buy but need to replace a year later because new stuff has superseded the old stuff. Stuff you need to buy because other people have got this stuff. Stuff you buy that is used for a few days and then sits idly buy cluttering up your house until you retire it to the shed or the loft. Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

Robb Wolf, author of The Paleo Solution, put this rather succinctly:

“Ok, here it is: Having more shit (cars, TVs, houses, shoes... you know, crap) does not make you happier. In fact, it makes you unhappy and whittles away your life and causes you stress.”

By now, I was re-evaluating so many assumptions that I had previously lived by. I say assumptions somewhat ill-advisedly. Really, these things are just taken on from the people around you, from the expectations built into us and, to some extent, from advertising. So much of this was seeming quite false and hollow by this stage.

I began to realise that the life of the nomadic flaneur was well suited to one such as myself. It is not a lifestyle that would suit everyone. In fact, it is not a lifestyle that would suit that many. But it is a choice. It is not a default setting that is one has gone along with because one never questioned the assumptions that it was based on. It may not be right for you but there will be other choices, other ways of being. It is your life and there is a big old world out there. Why tie yourself down to one tiny patch of it?

Instead of owning houses, cars, washing machines, iphones, whatever...own your life!

The Joys Of Flaneurie

This site will follow my meanderings from city to city, coffee shop to coffee shop, metaphysical mumblings to pragmatic possibilities…

I start this blog sitting in a rather crowded Cafe de Coral in the town of Zhangmutou, Guangdong Province in the People’s Republic of China
This particular range of cafes has become a firm favourite of mine during my three month sojourn to the orient. It seems to supply most of the requirements that a nomadic flaneur such as I need of a watering hole; tis warm, comfortable and pleasant with a decent internet connection and staff that happily leave me to my machinations. This particular cafe comes with the added bonus of a smoking ban, a fairly unusual situation for China, which makes the times spent writing, thinking and cogitating here far pleasanter than might otherwise be the case.

Joys of Flaneurie

The notion of the flaneur, the stroller through the urban landscape, the observer, he who takes his time to take the time to observe, to note, to think is profoundly at odds with the modern world and its need for endless busy­ness, endless rushing, endless haste. He acts as a counter-weight, as a challenge and a demonstration that it need not be so.

Like so many of the best things in life, the joys of flaneurie are taken slowly, very slowly in fact. The flaneur takes it slowly as there is no rush. There is no rush because there is no destination. There is no destination because he is already and always exactly where he wants to be.

For the past two hundred or so years the World has been beset with the so-called ‘Protestant work ethic’. This awful mind-set has humanity believing that it is only through work, and hard work at that, that a man may be something in this life. It decries idleness and the taking of excessive time. It decries the leisurely stroll and constantly nags at the conscience of the individual that there are things to be done and they must be done quickly. It was not always so…

The ancient Greeks believed that the main reason for working was to free one’s self from the need to work. There was no particular merit in work for its own sake in this view of the world, it was viewed as merely a necessary evil to be curtailed whence one had achieved a measure of economic independence. The contemplation of life, the arts, the leisures and pleasures of life were all considered to be of greater merit. It was considered desirable, and indeed noble, if one could reach that stage in life where one was freed from excessive drudgery. In the modern World we seem to have forgotten these ideas and instead indulge in drudgery for its own sake, even foolishly attaching some misbegotten notion of virtue in such tawdry occupation.

For centuries the Chinese had a similar notion. Those of intelligence and education often spent their careers in the employ of the government but, upon reaching a certain age, usually around the 40 mark, they would often retire from public life and commence what was known as bia hao. To mark the significance of the change these people would even take on another name. The later stage of their lives would be spent reading, writing, painting, collecting the finer things of life and filling their studies with them, indulging in the Chinese love of fine teas and good conversation.

The role of the flaneur is an important one. It is he/her who holds the mirror up to modern society and show it for the frenetic and desperate chase after meaningless baubles that it has become…and to demonstrate that there is another way.