In favour of the less strenuos life

After a hectic year or two I have finally reached a comfortable level of boredom which gives me the space the think and the time to blog my thoughts.

Christmas is a very sucky time of year as while does give me the chance for festive meetings with friends most of them are too busy with girlfriends/families to properly hang out. So I have all day to kill. I spend some time watching TV, some time playing music, some time reading, some time exercising. Basically dividing the day into units.

That is what I really miss about university: being able to see your friends all the time and spend as much time as you like with them. Nowadays all my friends have jobs, girlfriends or boyfriends or both, and even scheduling a meeting once or twice a month is a major accomplishment. So I have resorted to making “drinking buddies”: semi-employed people with no friends who are willing to at the drop of a hat meet me for a drink. However conversation is not very stimulating and is basically like the guys in King of the Hill we just go “yip, yip” and take turns to sip at our beers.

At the moment I am continually talking about going to a tropical island, lying on a beach during the day, drinking rum and chatting to island girls at night while listening to calypso or barring that 80s pop songs. I have always admired people who are easily amused and feel like most things it is a matter of practice. The problem with the Western World is that there is too much stress and pressure and competition.

Somehow we got it wrong. Once the problem of survival and the associated stress was overcome we should have just stopped. But greed takes over and instead of wanting to just survive we want to thrive. But the more you get the more you want and you just end up unhappy. Far better just to live a simple life devoted to simple pleasures.

Some of the happiest people I know (well want to know) work at this barbers in Brixton and spend their time sitting on chairs, smoking weed, listening to reggae and whistling and making comments about passing girls.

The other happy people I know (well want to know) sit around a gym all day (on benefits naturally) and admire themselves in the mirror, having long conversations with their friends and leering at girls. I spent most of my year at Cambridge doing that (well replace gym with health club and add on a sauna a steam room AND a jacuzzi) and it is a wonder how I managed to get a Masters.

The other happy people I want to know are surfer dudes who lap up the sun in California chatting up blondes with extensive surgery on the upper half of their body and every hour or so riding a wave.

These people have their priorities right. Laziness is frowned upon in society but it is really a virtue.

I am still holding out for my tropical holiday but until then I am doing the next best thing: turning the heating up, wearing swim shorts, and listening to Wham “Club Tropicana”, while sipping very very fruity cocktails.

: 22 Dec 2006 18:59 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem