How to be a Digital Parasite

Yeah yeah- more whining about the all purveyouness of the interweb blah blah and bah bah and bahhumbug I'll continue yes I will! You see I have glimpsed a corner of a future field that may well be ours forever- I speak of the new job description: digital parasite or DP for short. DPing means using other people's digital connection when and where you need it. Other wise you are logged off, offline and uncontactable yessirree! You use an analogue camera (no traces) and then scan the pics at a place or at a friends. you need lots of friends who are normal (ie, still captivated by the interweb etc) who like you enough for you to cuckoo them (install your fat analogue butt on their digital sofa) and get surfing without berthing...

Serioulsy though folks, digital parasitism is like the digital version of colon cleansing- you may not need it but somewhere someone does...for sure. The DP types a message on typewriter and hands it to pal A who takes a pic and uploads this missive to Instagram, facebook whatever. Then other pals (B to F) spread this using the share button. DP may well have a site- otherwise known as a digital waterhole - where people may gather and drink deep as the lions and hyenas grumble and growl. He or indeed She may get donations at their waterhole which can be used to buy things on the interweb- go and use the library machine to do that- no phone shopping allowed. 

Being a DP means you need a proxy for airBNB etc but that is not so hard. The whole gamechanger is the fact that you will have so much more facetime with real people as you negotiate to piggyback and lig off their generousity.

the simple fact is...

When people want to over-rule you in a way that brooks no dissent they use the phrase: 'the simple fact is...'

The 'simple fact' is never a fact though, it is always an assumption or an opinion.

A proper simple fact might be the temperature on a thermometer or that you are singing or that Chelsea won the FA cup. In other words- something very hard to disagree with.

So what people are really doing is taking what they like- the incontrovertibility- and bolting it on to an opinion in order to get their own way.

The simple fact is: don't trust people who use this locution!

art walks

Can a walk be a work of art? I think it can. A walk of art...

Rather than walk past works of art, as for example, walking through a sculpture park or maybe through a city endowed with public works or even the modern version- a traipse round Bristol looking for 'banksies' - I've even done it myself in Lyme Regis of all places (the banksie in question is getting rather faded...hurry!)- yes instead of that worthy kind of arse licking 'engagement' (a word which means doing anything that is a half a rung above looking at your phone) I propose an activity in which the walker becomes both curator (yikes) and creator of a genuine, if short lived, work of art.

We have all suspected this for some time. What is Scott V. Amundsen but two trekkers in search of the eternal gaze of a mesmerised public? The attraction of the old explorers was exactly that- a walk to the death...hence the south pole- a place with no people- being the ultimate walk of art...Land artists and walking artists like Richard Long etc have further pointed the way, albeit in a very dry, very drystonewall, very ordnance keeping to the paths survey kind of way. It is at one with most of the art of minimalism- Steve Reich on a grey awayday.

But walks can be CRAZY MAN. And the art of walking, Walks of Art, should reflect this generous nature.

There can be encounters- scripted and random (ie. driven by the Gods and Jinns).

There can be awfully artistic brew-ups using intriguing very lightweight cooking equipment.

There is the route itself.

And the consequent map if not the map used or indeed both.

If one is tempted, temporary works of art- leaves, twigs rockpiles etc can be created en route. This is entry level kiddie style art walking in as much as it rewards 'the bestest one' and heaps scorn on the worst. The next level is creating a dynamic sense of something significant having happened- this is the basis of the Japanese love of moon viewing and leaf watching. To this I would add windwalking (see below) and stormwalking- both aided by the right kind of waterproofs or Buffalo gear which is really the best.

Art walks are above all else supremely pleasant to engage in as they add a touch of permanence to the essential and necessary transience of a walk. Even finding a not-actually-a-flint-tool can elevate a drag into an art walk.

Should it be recorded- perhaps.

Watch this space for some exquisitely curated art walks coming your way soon.

walking in a high wind

I have walked in such high winds along sea cliffs that I have feared for my life- but only when I have had some baggy waterproof item of clothing increasing my wind resistance. There seems to be some kind of natural adaptation when we are dressed in tighter non-flapping clothing. You can get close to the ground and resist any kind of wind. Of course there are anomalously high winds that may gust and pick you up, but in general you get away with it. But add even a rucksack and you can begin to feel vulnerable. Walking poles help, as you can lower your centre, but they can also make you clumsy and slow to react to a sudden gust.

These last few days I 've been out in winds over 40mph is my guess- though I would dearly have loved an anemometer to check that (loads of cheapo digital ones, as a kid I built one from ping pong ball halves and bike spokes on a meccano base- it worked very well). I estimate wind speed by comparing it to sticking my head up out of a sunroof at speed in a car. Even 30mph feels pretty fast with your head stuck up in the air but there must be some distortion owing to the car's shape. If my head could magically stick out the bottom of the car it would feel less breezy as the wind has less distance to travel...Anyway the rough method works OK. 

I found walking into a wind with it blowing right down my throat an interesting experience- you sort of feel as if you are hyper-ventilating- which I guess you are in way. It feels quite therapeutic and the wheeziness I had disappeared. It reminded me of Knut Hamsun curing himself of TB by lying on the roof of the train going from Chicago to New York with his mouth open facing the oncoming breeze...Now Knut lived until he was 92 so there must have been some method to his madness. He claimed that the bad air of Chicago had given him the TB or whatever lung ailment he was suffereing from. Perhaps it was just an extreme bout of bronchitis. Even if it was just that the 'rammed air' cure remains interesting and coincides with the old ideas of sanatoria where the patients had to lie outside in the cold all wrapped up but breathing fresh air.

Of course if you have some kinds of lung inflammation you'll just make it worse by forcing cold air down your throat, especially if you are just setting off for a walk from a superheated house. By wearing a woollen buff to breathe through, this transition is managed well. When you are acclimatised you can inhale great gouts of wind...

The indoor world versus the outdoor world

As a child I was told constantly by my parents to ‘switch the TV off and go and play outside’. We had an orchard and were surrounded by fields. Mostly I didn’t mind once I was outside. And from an early age I formed a view that outdoors was more virtuous than indoors. That human problems started by being indoors too much.

Scroll forward a thousand centuries. I still think that outdoors is better than indoors in all sorts of ways. But only just now, looking through Linked-in for people to connect to I realised everyone there was an INDOORS person with an INDOORS job. Yet in the past many if not most jobs were outdoors. My grandfather was a farmer who was outdoors all the time, until he retired in his 70s. Yet both my parents had indoors jobs. Most everyone I know does.

A few people get outdoors jobs- being park rangers and eco-consultants who look for rare species about to be trampled by a new development. The odd things is a friend who does this work told me: they queue up for the low level outdoor jobs with national parks – people with Phds willing to work for peanuts. But the management jobs, indoor work, are increasingly hard to fill with good people. It’s just another job. People – well educated people – want to be outdoors more. They want to nail their outdoor colours to the mast and identify as an outdoors worker.

Mind you a brickie I met was scornful of people who wanted to work outdoors- he yearned for a nice warm office…And when I walked the Pyrenees I remember how much of a luxury it was to be able to sit down at a table inside a hut or building, just for a break from being outdoors all the time.

Maybe it’s about being mainly outdoors as long as outdoors isn’t too viciously cold or hot or wet or boring. I suppose a building site is never going to be as interesting as wandering around a national park.

I think there is also something going on with wanting to identify as an outdoors person. Outdoors we can get our heads straight.  Outdoors is less neurotic.

Outdoors it’s always different. You are at home on the planet. You can live in a monastic cell or a cave all your life but it wasn’t meant to be this way. People are tough, and flexible, but being outdoors is our birth right isn’t it?

being homeless is better than working for amazon...says Nicole Gracely

The very fact that such an article makes sense tells us lots of things about the current world. The fact that she made $100 an hour protesting/begging in Seattle compared to $12/hour at amazon is also interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/28/being-homeless-is-better-than-working-for-amazon

Be redundant

We're all so attuned to efficiency we end up missing the bigger picture.

Which is: creativity comes with greater redundancy. Safety comes with greater redundancy. Foresight comes with greater redundancy.

When you have left over bits of time/money/space/materials you find something to do with them. But without direct pressure to perform you come up with new ideas.

The removal of the hard shoulder for 'smart motorways' looked efficient. Now we know it was a multi-billion dollar waste of money. At least SIX billion. 

Redundancy is the most powerful tool you have in a world blinkered by short term efficiency ideas. Build redundancy into your day, build doing nothing and walks into your day. Contrary to received wisdom redundant people are happy people...