The still of the water is occasionally broken by the lurch of the Cumbrae ferry as it docks or departs towards Millport, its deck strewn with tourists and shoppers. Further ashore, the sun drenches the promenade in white light bounced refractively on the surface of the Holy Loch changing its hue in a dancing shimmer. The air hangs heavy and hot, the only bluster comes from the throng of bodies making their way along the concrete path, one of which will occasionally dash after a dog that has slipped its lead making a break for open water.
My glass sweats beads of moisture onto the table in front of me on the outdoor table as the dull ease of the world unfolds before me. I see people of all sizes, ages and descriptions slide through my vision: young, old, fat, thin, ugly, beautiful. This being Scotland, they’re mostly fat and ugly. Fugly. Secretly, I had hoped that there would be more beautiful girls to watch, there’s something about seeing a beautiful woman in the sunlight…
This is not a glorious world-famous resort – this is Largs, or ‘Lards’ as I have started to referring to it inwardly owing to the amount of morbidly obese people I’ve witnessed walking around. The shore is not beautiful, it is covered in a variety of large and small stones and I am almost tempted to walk down to the waterfront and chuck a few into the loch – there’s something psychologically satisfying about the sound a stone makes as it breaks water. The shore is full of kids and dogs; I would look out of place there.
The table I’m sat at is a garden-variety picnic bench under a fabric awning lining the front of the bar; Grant and Nikki sit across from me. I’m absorbed watching a group of nuns making their way up the promenade, one of them, probably the only one below the age of ninety suddenly makes a break (or rather an amble) for it and gets away from the pack. She is munching on an ice cream cone and I can see her false teeth sliding around in her mouth as she laps greedily at it. The nun notices me looking at her, smiles and is about to wave, Grant sneezes.
Still looking at the nun I say, ‘bless you’ a little too loudly, the nun says ‘and you son’, she hobbles off, delighted to be in the sun and eating ice cream. I smile inwardly at the innocence of this and the simple misunderstanding of the gesture. The nuns trundle off into the distance to be replaced by other less circumspect characters, Grant and Nikki fawn over the different breeds of dogs they see – I know nothing about dogs but I’m enjoying their banter.
I feel at ease with the world, it’s been a while since I’ve felt this relaxed. The simple presence of sunlight can do wonders for one’s mood and outlook on life, hot light satisfies some of the hungers that are more difficult to satiate. ‘What about the Hoff?’ Grant asks me lazily, ‘Huh?’ I say, turning to face him, ‘Is he still there?’ I look down the shore to check.
We spotted him on our way up to the bar, lying on a towel on the rocky beach with nothing on but a pair of blue and red trunks that look like they were purchased from the 1984 Debenham’s catalogue: His body is slight and wiry, yet coloured a natural bronze that would put a Californian to shame, his hair is long, unkempt, its colour is black, streaked with cigarette-ash grey. He looks like a small castaway and from what I can tell he hasn’t moved since we passed him on our way here an hour ago.
‘Yeah, he’s still there’, I tell them. We indulge in some light-hearted conversation for a while making observations and being observed by others. Eventually the Hoff gets up.
The three of us watch him make his way down to the water as he wades in to his ankles, bends down and splashes some salt-water on to his face. Many others have stopped their tracks and loiter to watch the spectacle of the lonely sunbather on the craggy shore. He stands for a while facing out into the depths, hands on his hips like Phineas awaiting the Harpies. This seems to go on for an age, but he retreats as the ferry arrives and sends cascades of breakwater up his body.
The Hoff makes his way back to the spot where his towel and belongings lie, pulls on the simple attire of black t-shirt, black jeans and black trainers, shaking the sand out of the latter before putting them on. He makes his way to one of the amusement arcades, straps on a leather money pouch and begins touting for business from the marks on the prom, unaware that his very existence and actions have caused more amusement and pleasure than his cackle of machines will ever be able to.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
You Could Feel The Sky...
The living room in the flat is small but it lets in a lot of light, about a quarter of the wall surface gives out to a large corner bay window – the benefits of tenements. I’ve sat here for most of the day watching the sky change, it started out clear and even, no clouds, serene, warm, static, save for the odd grumble of an engine or a door banging shut.
It’s afternoon now and things have changed. I hear gulls squawking as they fight for scraps of food on the melting tarmac, children laughing, frequent traffic on the roads and arguments in the street. I’ve changed too, I’ve moved from my morning seat on the sofa to the chair at my desk by the window.
I watch people of all nationalities, although usually under-represented minorities enter and leave the immigration centre opposite my building. From my citadel, I try to give them features, notice what they’re wearing, some distinguishing mark that will allow me to recognise them when they leave again. I remember a black guy entering this morning, he was wearing a jacket the colour of the pink chrysanthemums that used to grow in the garden of my parent’s house, he never came back out again – sometimes they don’t.
The place is a flurry of activity, there are always people coming and going, security guards closing gates, secretaries going for lunch and gossiping smokers loitering in the heat. I’m too high up to hear their conversations and at this distance lip reading is impossible, I don’t have the guile or imagination left in me to invent the hypothetical conversations they could be having.
The three Immigration buildings themselves are indistinct in their mediocrity, low and flat like military tents, aside from what looks like a guard tower jutting from the top of each. I have never seen anyone inside any of these towers, despite the fact that they are glass surrounds, they exist to establish the notion of diligence – nothing else.
In the background the spires of the Science Centre and the University point to the flux of sky ironically. The ancient building developed to increase our understanding of the world, the universe and culture, the other designed as a monument to Glasgow as a place of culture and diversity. The notion of the goodness of either disperses as my focus returns to the squat buildings in front of my flat, modern and brazen on the bank of a river that sent a million Scottish immigrants to the New World.
I have to stop thinking about it because it doesn’t do me any good.
I return my attention to the sky and watch a front of sluggish clouds work their way up the Clyde Valley towards the city. The sky: always shifting, always transitory, always forgetting; The clouds are melting, slowly, darkly, deeply in the pale azure of the sky, blown and disintegrating before my eyes, I have no idea where they’ll end up.
It’s afternoon now and things have changed. I hear gulls squawking as they fight for scraps of food on the melting tarmac, children laughing, frequent traffic on the roads and arguments in the street. I’ve changed too, I’ve moved from my morning seat on the sofa to the chair at my desk by the window.
I watch people of all nationalities, although usually under-represented minorities enter and leave the immigration centre opposite my building. From my citadel, I try to give them features, notice what they’re wearing, some distinguishing mark that will allow me to recognise them when they leave again. I remember a black guy entering this morning, he was wearing a jacket the colour of the pink chrysanthemums that used to grow in the garden of my parent’s house, he never came back out again – sometimes they don’t.
The place is a flurry of activity, there are always people coming and going, security guards closing gates, secretaries going for lunch and gossiping smokers loitering in the heat. I’m too high up to hear their conversations and at this distance lip reading is impossible, I don’t have the guile or imagination left in me to invent the hypothetical conversations they could be having.
The three Immigration buildings themselves are indistinct in their mediocrity, low and flat like military tents, aside from what looks like a guard tower jutting from the top of each. I have never seen anyone inside any of these towers, despite the fact that they are glass surrounds, they exist to establish the notion of diligence – nothing else.
In the background the spires of the Science Centre and the University point to the flux of sky ironically. The ancient building developed to increase our understanding of the world, the universe and culture, the other designed as a monument to Glasgow as a place of culture and diversity. The notion of the goodness of either disperses as my focus returns to the squat buildings in front of my flat, modern and brazen on the bank of a river that sent a million Scottish immigrants to the New World.
I have to stop thinking about it because it doesn’t do me any good.
I return my attention to the sky and watch a front of sluggish clouds work their way up the Clyde Valley towards the city. The sky: always shifting, always transitory, always forgetting; The clouds are melting, slowly, darkly, deeply in the pale azure of the sky, blown and disintegrating before my eyes, I have no idea where they’ll end up.
Monday, 24 May 2010
God Is Our Logic:
Or maybe not?
Ok, so you might be wondering where this is going – I’ll concede that its an odd title for a first post. I guess what I’m really trying to do here is set the scene for everything that is going to follow on from this. Let the stories begin…
Around April 2004, I remember receiving a text message from a friend, let’s call him Jed. The small monochrome phone screen confronted me with five words: ‘God is our Logic – discuss.’ My response was suitably defensive and militant, running along the lines of: ‘in order for Logic to exist, it must rest on the principle of a fundamental and inherent human truth, the existence of God is not a fundamental and inherent human truth, therefore, God cannot represent inherent human Logic.’
I was a second year under-grad at this point, swaggering around King’s College Campus in the sunshine wearing a fully buttoned fawn Duffel coat that predated my own existence by two years. The ideas (or ideals) that filled my head were not my own, they belonged to Wittgenstein, Kant, Russell and Kierkegarrde. Like all young men who begin a love affair with philosophy and the pursuit of knowledge I liked to think these ideas had somehow become part of me, and through my participation and understanding, I had collectively become part of them.
In short, I felt intellectually superior, that I had something to prove, that my own ideas would one day rival those of all the intellectual heavyweights whose work I greedily devoured on a daily basis. I wanted to dedicate my life to answering the questions that had plagued thinkers since the concept of philosophising evolved...
Obviously, that never happened.
The thing that surprised me most about the text message was that Jed was a staunch atheist, I had witnessed him engaged in earnest debate with co-workers around the subject of religion defending the atheistic perspective with passion and vigour. What had prompted this radical about-turn and coerced a rational human being into believing that humanity was in some way pre-disposed or hardwired into a logical schema based around a single God?
Something that did cross my mind was that perhaps he had begun to see a pattern in nature that the rest of us were oblivious to, something that could bring this disjointed mess called humanity closer together. The question stayed with me, and I asked Jed about it at work a few days later but he was dismissive of it claiming my argument had nullified the base of his question. Looking back, I realise how ridiculous that sounds, but as mentioned, Jed was extremely intelligent and that old remark about the line between genius and madness being a thin one was loitering uncomfortably in the recesses of my mind.
Jed was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic around two months after I received this flawed propositional gem from him. I worked with him part time in a call centre on evenings and weekends, and although I didn’t see him all that often, maybe a part of me realised he was beginning to disintegrate on the occasions I did see him.
It was fascinating, but slightly perverse to watch someone unravel in this way. The guy was a natural intellect – very bright and always full of great ideas for doing things better – within the company and outside of it. Then the ideas began to change into other things: an obscure reference in a street sign would become a portent of impending doom or the end of the world; he believed that one our managers was the devil incarnate, and that when people spoke, they did so in colours rather than words.
For all my arrogance, my vigour, my propensity to try and understand the true purpose and nature of humanity, I could not understand this individual’s change in perception. Or, retrospectively, perhaps I chose not to understand it – I didn’t want to consider that another human being could undergo a massively radical change in underlying process in such a short time frame.
I lost touch with Jed after he was sectioned, from speaking with mutual friends I believe he still resides in a mental health institution.
So, what am I admitting here? That I’m a bad person? That I should have spent a bit more time and effort with Jed after he was diagnosed? That I’m uncaring? No. I just don’t think that I had the necessary emotional faculties to deal with it at the point in my life when this occurred. If all truth be told, I rarely think of some of the centuries dead philosophers whose work I studied, but the question ‘God is our Logic – Discuss’ pops into my head at least twice a month, and I want, I NEED, to answer it but I can’t.
I’m an Absurdist – the very existence of the question undermines the fundamentals of my position.
Perhaps it all stems from the fact that I am simply unable to understand humanity to the degree I would like to. I’ve always tried my hardest to see the good in everyone but this has become increasingly difficult as I’ve become older, jaded and more cynical. Everyone I meet seems to have become more tarnished, and I don’t like saying this, but more…well…broken…
I think this is called life – I hope against all hope it isn’t, but I don’t think anyone is going to prove me wrong at any point soon.
Its sometimes best to take a closer look at the world when the sun is shining, it’s often when the light is brightest that you see the really minute, deep-running cracks appear.
Ok, so you might be wondering where this is going – I’ll concede that its an odd title for a first post. I guess what I’m really trying to do here is set the scene for everything that is going to follow on from this. Let the stories begin…
Around April 2004, I remember receiving a text message from a friend, let’s call him Jed. The small monochrome phone screen confronted me with five words: ‘God is our Logic – discuss.’ My response was suitably defensive and militant, running along the lines of: ‘in order for Logic to exist, it must rest on the principle of a fundamental and inherent human truth, the existence of God is not a fundamental and inherent human truth, therefore, God cannot represent inherent human Logic.’
I was a second year under-grad at this point, swaggering around King’s College Campus in the sunshine wearing a fully buttoned fawn Duffel coat that predated my own existence by two years. The ideas (or ideals) that filled my head were not my own, they belonged to Wittgenstein, Kant, Russell and Kierkegarrde. Like all young men who begin a love affair with philosophy and the pursuit of knowledge I liked to think these ideas had somehow become part of me, and through my participation and understanding, I had collectively become part of them.
In short, I felt intellectually superior, that I had something to prove, that my own ideas would one day rival those of all the intellectual heavyweights whose work I greedily devoured on a daily basis. I wanted to dedicate my life to answering the questions that had plagued thinkers since the concept of philosophising evolved...
Obviously, that never happened.
The thing that surprised me most about the text message was that Jed was a staunch atheist, I had witnessed him engaged in earnest debate with co-workers around the subject of religion defending the atheistic perspective with passion and vigour. What had prompted this radical about-turn and coerced a rational human being into believing that humanity was in some way pre-disposed or hardwired into a logical schema based around a single God?
Something that did cross my mind was that perhaps he had begun to see a pattern in nature that the rest of us were oblivious to, something that could bring this disjointed mess called humanity closer together. The question stayed with me, and I asked Jed about it at work a few days later but he was dismissive of it claiming my argument had nullified the base of his question. Looking back, I realise how ridiculous that sounds, but as mentioned, Jed was extremely intelligent and that old remark about the line between genius and madness being a thin one was loitering uncomfortably in the recesses of my mind.
Jed was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic around two months after I received this flawed propositional gem from him. I worked with him part time in a call centre on evenings and weekends, and although I didn’t see him all that often, maybe a part of me realised he was beginning to disintegrate on the occasions I did see him.
It was fascinating, but slightly perverse to watch someone unravel in this way. The guy was a natural intellect – very bright and always full of great ideas for doing things better – within the company and outside of it. Then the ideas began to change into other things: an obscure reference in a street sign would become a portent of impending doom or the end of the world; he believed that one our managers was the devil incarnate, and that when people spoke, they did so in colours rather than words.
For all my arrogance, my vigour, my propensity to try and understand the true purpose and nature of humanity, I could not understand this individual’s change in perception. Or, retrospectively, perhaps I chose not to understand it – I didn’t want to consider that another human being could undergo a massively radical change in underlying process in such a short time frame.
I lost touch with Jed after he was sectioned, from speaking with mutual friends I believe he still resides in a mental health institution.
So, what am I admitting here? That I’m a bad person? That I should have spent a bit more time and effort with Jed after he was diagnosed? That I’m uncaring? No. I just don’t think that I had the necessary emotional faculties to deal with it at the point in my life when this occurred. If all truth be told, I rarely think of some of the centuries dead philosophers whose work I studied, but the question ‘God is our Logic – Discuss’ pops into my head at least twice a month, and I want, I NEED, to answer it but I can’t.
I’m an Absurdist – the very existence of the question undermines the fundamentals of my position.
Perhaps it all stems from the fact that I am simply unable to understand humanity to the degree I would like to. I’ve always tried my hardest to see the good in everyone but this has become increasingly difficult as I’ve become older, jaded and more cynical. Everyone I meet seems to have become more tarnished, and I don’t like saying this, but more…well…broken…
I think this is called life – I hope against all hope it isn’t, but I don’t think anyone is going to prove me wrong at any point soon.
Its sometimes best to take a closer look at the world when the sun is shining, it’s often when the light is brightest that you see the really minute, deep-running cracks appear.
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