notes from glasgow

in a sky full of people only some want to fly,
ain't that crazy.

after the states nicole and i ended up back in the uk for a couple of months. as you know from my previous blog entry i didn't like london much, which is not to say that it is not great city, it just didn't gel with me. i have actually met a few folks from london on my travels and they too said that it is a cold city, especially when compared to other cities around the world, so i guess my experience was not entirely unique.

so with that on my mind we got out of there fast and ended up in glasgow for two months. the people there are great, and the city has a gotham city at the time of the industrial revolution kind of charm to it, with the weather doing a stellar job in adding to the gloomy atmosphere. it was also nice to be in a smaller city for a change where you could walk just about anywhere you needed to go.

one of the main lessons i learnt from glasgie-toon and the circumstances i found myself in there was that so many people seem adrift in the mire of a consumer life style. this is where i guess this post turns appropriately bleak given glasgow's gothic nature. (actually i am really fond of the town, my thoughts are based more on some of the observations i had while i was there). i ended up taking the first job that came along which happened to be doing office admin for a scottish provident. the job was basically processing life insurance surrenders, whoa!, glad thats over with. any way, the job gave me an insight into the life of so many people in middle management sectors through-out the first world. the mundane repetitveness of the role, the prevading sense of being hopeless trapped as no one seemed to believe they possesed the power to choose anything else. the job also made aspects of the films the matrix and fight club resonate more strongly experiencially.

coupled with this the fact that it was the time of the christmas frenzy where if people were not out shopping they were talking about what they will get when they do go shopping again. while walking around the city you felt as they you walking amongst a sea of automatons working for cash, to spend on useless items, to generate debt and to be force to continue work for the machine. (while i was there the song "cash machine" was on heavy rotation on the radio. now i don't doubt that there were people who were not caught up in this cycle of mindless economic compulsion but the dominant paradigm was (and is) that of the system.

my thoughts then turned to how if you could, would you wake these people up. the answer is that there is not really much chance, as they are likely to either rebel against the notion that they are slaves to consumer culture and say that they shop because they want to (of course it is that they 'want to' the question "what is driving them to 'want to'"), or they will admit that yes they are slaves but that there is nothing that they can do about it.

i think what brought these observations into sharper relief was the contrast of spending three months in northern california living in intentional communities, working on an organic farm and living off of the grid - coming from the prespective of the alternative approach to life in which day-to-day existence is fulfilling and rewarding; there is no empty dull ache or a faint notion that there might be something other. perhaps it is not really that bad, i guess it must not seem that way anyway when all we know is that which surrounds us, the ideas and beliefs which we have been taught to accept, i am reminded of the story of plato's cave. it might just be useful occassionally though if all of us extract ourselves from the immediacy of our present situation whatever that may be and observe ourselves obeserving, interacting and judging the world around us - it is the most confronting mirror we will ever face but one that can bring about tremendous change.

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oh and while in scotland to try the haggis it is fantastic. and if you are vegetarian like me or just a little put off by the assortment of goodies that maybe be lurking inside try the veggie haggis which is fairly readily available in organics shops and the like. it has become one of my favourite all time dishes and something i will have to learn how to make at home.