No Waste

We're off on the first of our Raya visits this evening, in this Far Place, that is. Since our first port of call is Kak Kiah's, a lady who expresses her ample affection through her more than ample provision of grub, it's set to be one of those evenings when damage will done to the old waistline. I intend to make the most of it, of course.

Going Wild

The squirrels that pop up at work around and about the building seem to be getting more and more accustomed to the human creatures they put up with in their environs. At one time they'd disappear in a hurry and scurry if they spotted you at a distance along a corridor. But the other day I got within two paces of a little fellow in the main entrance and was allowed to gaze at him for a good two minutes without him looking in any way disturbed. When I gently moved to within a pace he made his move - around an adjacent rubbish bin, actually - but even then he didn't exactly hurry.

It's fascinating to get the chance to look at a wild animal in that manner. On the one hand there's a sense of some basic kinship: like us they see, they hear, they smell, they touch, they are, rightly, wary of big, strange, creatures; on the other, you know that whatever forms of thought or apprehension or feeling are taking place they're entirely alien, only available through the distortions of metaphor. That sense of a form of life that is beyond our grasp brings with it a kind of freedom, a loosening of the shackles of self.

I've been recently forcefully reminded of the wonders of this kind of wildness reading Adams's The Plague Dogs. The segment in which the two escaped dogs turn feral and attack the sheep for food is one of the best things Adams ever did. Of course, it's a literary trick (or, rather, the segment is a cunning combination of such tricks, suspending our disbelief long enough to make us believe we're somehow in those doggy minds) but it has about it a rough magic that doesn't let go of the reader.

I read the segment before my encounter with the squirrel and it somehow enriched it.

Altered States

Is it possible for someone to deliberately, consciously change for the better?

It seems an extraordinarily naïve question. How could anyone know that the change wasn't just part of some inevitable process that the consciousness was locked into such that no genuine freedom of will was involved? And what do we mean when we refer to  'the better'? Better than what?

But the funny thing is we all know the answer; and we all know the answer is Yes.

Glancing Back

 

Chatting with the Missus the other day over the cup that cheers I mentioned just how much I'd enjoyed Raya in Melaka. I hadn't thought much about it, given how busy I was, but the rightness of our weekend suddenly came back to me, and it felt good.

Not Exactly The Body Electric

Finally got to the gym in the early afternoon and managed 30 minutes on my training machine of choice, feeling quite comfortable all the way. In fact, I was a little surprised to finish slightly under the distance I achieved the last time I was in the gym since I felt so much stronger this time round. I was thinking of stuff other than being on the trainer for almost the full 30 minutes, and it's always a good sign when the mind is free.

Generally I seem in reasonable shape lately, though I'm around a kilo and a half below my fighting weight. I hit that weight early in fasting month and whilst it's never gone down it's never gone up either, though I'm expecting it to at some point. The mild problem I'm experiencing at the moment is that due to my reduced waist line my jeans keep slipping down, such that I really should wear a belt. But I'm loath to do so as it feels uncomfortable. I think I may have dropped down a size in terms of my waist, but I'm not intending to buy new jeans, or trousers for that matter, as a result.

The great thing is that, for the moment at least, I'm not feeling any kind of pain or discomfort in my back at all. However, my left arm has been giving me trouble all year, and continues to do so, so there's a useful reminder that I'm no spring chicken. At one point I wondered if it was a touch of arthritis in my left shoulder, but the joint has been distinctly more mobile of late so now I'm wondering if I might have torn a muscle which is now healing.

Fascinating thing the body, especially the one that belongs to you.

Recovering

I'd intended to get back to the gym this evening, but by the time we got back from a little outing to Kinokuniya to off-load some book tokens, the garden centres on Thompson Road for flowers and Clementi Mall to get supplies from the supermarket I just didn't have the energy. This is often the way after finishing a production: a sudden awareness that the batteries are flat and down-time a necessity. Fortunately tomorrow sees a holiday for schools here for Youth Day. There's much to be said for youth when it gives you a day off.

And on another note, I picked up a good translation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot with the aforementioned coupons, but first I'm intending to read Richard Adams's The Plague Dogs which I picked up from the library at work the other day. Another sign of getting back to something like normal.

Getting It Together

Angela and I were reflecting on the process of putting our current production together after last night's excellent closed-door full run (for which we got a nice little audience.) We were both gratified to note how essentially smooth the process had been with everything seeming to slot into place at exactly the points expected. But we were both keenly aware of just how ambitious we'd been with regard to this show. I certainly had harboured one or two nervous doubts in the inception as to whether we'd be able to pull it off given the scale on which were going to be working.

The secret of our success is simple, in retrospect. The students involved have proved so amazingly mature in terms of their grasp of the processes involved, as well as talented in their various ways, that it's felt like working with professionals. Of course, we've had equally committed groups before, so this is nothing new, but it's the scale on which this has operated that has been remarkable.

In my comments the other day about the possibility of change in adults I wasn't really thinking of the changes we see in youngsters in terms of growth of personality since we take such changes for granted in terms of expected development, as it were. But I'm frequently struck looking at what can happen over time with our drama guys with changes that seem to go beyond what might normally be expected over the course of a couple of years or more. I'm thinking of two individuals now who are so incredibly different from when I first encountered them in terms of both their ability on stage and how they conduct themselves off it that it's difficult to grasp it's the same person.

Grounds for optimism in a sadly fallen world, it seems to me.

The Possibility Of Change

My ustad once said to me that there was no real point in doing the Umrah (to Makkah) if you didn't come back a changed person, a better person. And the whole point of fasting in Ramadhan, or at least part of the point, is to teach you something and, thus, in some sense effect a change.

I've been thinking lately of whether such change is a real possibility. There are fascinating questions of free will - its reality or otherwise - involved here. And on a purely practical level it's interesting to look at other adults as well as oneself and ask whether they have the capacity for change and growth. Can an old dog be taught new tricks?

More anon, when I find time to breathe.

Not Exactly Routine

For the first time in some years I haven't had some kind of book, usually of a fictional nature, as on-going reading, a curious state of affairs which has lasted a good eight or so days. (Of course, my default state is generally to have several tomes 'on the go' all at once.) I decided not to take any books to Melaka last weekend to ensure that I fully focused on the details of the production we're doing and all the examination admin I'm mired in at present. This was a good idea as I got a lot done, but I did miss having a book at hand in the few spare moments I carved out.

But this state of affairs wasn't designed to last. I picked up a tasty-looking paperback on the exchange table in the staffroom today going by the unlikely title Beethoven's Hair. It's a bit light-weight, the book, not the titular hair, but I'm hooked anyway. And I intend to get going on some kind of novel tomorrow, even though I haven't the time. I'm pining for a good murder, but I might just grab some sort of worthy classic from the library at work. 

Exceptional Good Taste

In the car's CD changer, on the way back from Melaka, last weekend: Procol Harum's Exotic Birds and Fruit; Springsteen's Wrecking Ball; Donald Fagen's Sunken Condos; Yo La Tengo's I Am Not Afraid of You, and I Will Beat your Ass; The Decemberists' What a Terrible World; What a Beautiful World; Elvis Costello's Secret, Profane and Sugar Cane. Proof, not that's it's in any way needed, of my impeccably good taste. No wonder I enjoyed the journey.