Going Nowhere.

The grey clouds today appear as if a child has taken a hoop from his small bottle of soapy water and tried to blow bubbles. They seamlessly curl in on each other.

My bedroom window gives me a perfect viewing point to just stare aimlessly at the hundreds of people moving past; some are running, some are pacing, and there are those with time on their side and stroll confidently in this knowledge…or perhaps just because they think they look pretty damn good today!

With all this movement of people, I have to raise the question, where are they all going? I think the stereotype of Londoners being busy and unsociable creatures retains some merit. With the exception of ‘chill out’ days that you spend alone or with friends watching a movie, eating etc (the list is never exhaustible) we always seem to have somewhere to be, something to do, people to talk to.
I fondly remember one time when my sister brought me out to a Law function of hers, that I met a young barrister and we struck up a witty yet standard ‘hoo-hah’ kind of conversation filled with ‘hmph’ and pretentious ‘no, no, no’es as we discussed the plight of the dollar, human rights and at the time, Blue’s latest single which he took quite a fancy to. After 15 minutes had elapsed, he pardoned himself and gave me his card and as he did, said, ‘It’s been good chatting to you but I have to pop out to see to some important things’. I found him 10 minutes later at the function’s bar, downing a whiskey and ordering another scotch.

It’s possible we like to give the impression to close friends as well as strangers that we constantly have something to do because to do is to complete, and to complete is to progress with life. I certainly believe it can be the case that we do for the sake of doing rather than it amounting to something in its own right.
As always, there’s a sliding scale that most people can be fitted on and to borrow from my mother’s wisdom, ‘there are the lazy’ and, ‘there are those who do to impress. They are the ones to look out for’.
I know I wrote, ‘mother’s wisdom’ but feel free to construe this as a pan-Chinese cultural paranoia.