Posted by Life does not cease to be mundane when you live in a fab place any more than it ceases to be fabulous when you live in a mundane place. My friends back home expect, not without justification, that I should be living the fantastic lifestyle in London and I can’t say that I disagree with that expectation. London is a fabulously decadent place and I’ve had some fun times already and fully expect to have more fun as I continue my time here.
However, the saying, “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away” is true if only because those moments are in actuality few and far in between. If you know me or have seen my picture gallery or read this blog, you can easily tell that those moments for me are often travel-related – that first time I saw the Sultanahmet Mosque in Istanbul or sunrise off the Atlas Mountains in Morocco; La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona or watching sunset over the sand dunes in Abu Dhabi. These moments are certainly rare.
Thus, much of living one’s life is to be concerned with balancing the greater mundanity of the everyday with the more rare fabulousness offered by whatever strikes one’s fancy. I spent five minutes at the supermarket on Sunday evening trying to figure out if I wanted to buy beef or chicken, Multi-grain Cheerio’s or Corn Flakes. This weighty choice after an afternoon walking around Piccadilly and a trip to see an exhibition of sacred bronze statues of South India at the Royal Academy of Arts. Two weekends in a row, I travelled to Malta then Roma. Two weekends in a row, I’ve done laundry.
Balance, choice, life. Mundane. Fabulous. Irvine Welsh was only partially right:
“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f*cking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f*cking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f*ck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f*cking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f*cking up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that.
Choose to be fab.
