Overthinking sort of saves the day!
I went to the Tate Modern to see the Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds installation but the exhibit was over and the sunflower seeds had been packed away.
So I’m staying in Ryan’s flat in Angel and I can’t let myself in because the keys can’t be duplicated. Every morning Ryan goes to work at around 8 and I go out at 10 or 11 to wander the city. With no itinerary! Because when I’m not overthinking I’m not thinking at all. Then we have dinner with friends and wander around some more (Will gave us a comprehensive, that is to say overthought, tour of East London, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, concluding with drinks at the George and Dragon, the neighborhood pub where Alexander McQueen-Tracy Emin-Gilbert and George-etc hung out in their obscure youth; when a medley of songs by Liza Minnelli came on I realized that there is such a concept as Too Gay) and go home just as hypothermia is setting in.
This afternoon I went to Oxford Circus to buy a dress for my brilliant sister who looks after my cat overlords while I am away. Ryan was supposed to call at 5pm to tell me where we would meet. I went to Waterstone’s to get the latest James Hamilton Paterson book, a history of postwar British aviation entitled Empire of the Clouds, and they had that Buy-3-books-for-the-price-of-2 promo again so there went my resolve to buy only one book. When I checked the time it was 6pm and Ryan hadn’t called or texted. And it was raining and people were scurrying into the shops to get dry. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to call and text but my phone chose that exact time to fail—so naive of me to think that given the exorbitant charges for global roaming my phone would actually work when I needed it. I tried calling other friends to ask them to tell Ryan I’d meet him at home, but my phone was dead to the world.
I was tired of hanging out in coffee shops so I started walking to the tube station. Then this bus stopped in front of me and the sign said Islington so I hopped in, but the recording said Seven Sisters and I had no idea where that was. Luckily the bus stopped at Euston Square where I managed to squeeze into the packed Northern line. Tired, hungry and drenched I hurried to Ryan’s and hoped that he was already home or I’d have to sit and freeze in the park until he arrived. And he was home! With pizza and our Croatian friend Bo whose devotion to Beyonce is epic.
What is the point of this story? None really, except to note that overthinkers spend their time expecting a crisis, so when a crisis does occur, no matter how small, and it is dealt with satisfactorily, we are pleased with ourselves.
And the minute I step in the door my phone revives and receives three text messages from Ryan saying he’d meet me at home. Urrgh.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
May 20th, 2011 at 23:55
a nice London adventure, I’d say. reminds me of how I plan itineraries and then totally deviate when the day comes. I did that in Seoul, which resulted to an aching knee cuz I did a lot of walking instead of taking City Tour buses that stop at tourist spots. also enjoyed getting lost in Macau. I prefer adventure over guided tours. nothing beats discovering a place at your own pace and crazy ways.
and ‘sigh’ to global roaming. doesn’t work when I need it.
May 31st, 2011 at 06:09
overthinking or thinking is not the way of the samurai. hara-kiri anyone?
“In Japan there has been a military group, which is just like the kshatriyas in India, known as the samurai. They are trained to be soldiers, & their first training is to bring the mind down to just two inches below the navel. In Japan this center is called the hara. The samurai are trained to bring the mind to the hara. Unless a soldier can bring his mind’s focusing to the hara, he is not allowed to go to fight, and this is right. The samurai are the greatest fighters the world has known, the greatest warriors; in the world there is no comparison with a samurai…
They say that when you are fighting there is no time. Mind needs time to function; it calculates. If you are attacked and your mind thinks about how to protect, you have missed the point already, you have lost. There is no time. You must function timelessly & mind cannot function timelessly, mind needs time. However short, mind needs time.
Below the navel there is a center, the hara… If the focusing is at the hara and the fighter is fighting, then this fight is intuitive, not intellectual. Before you attack him, he knows. It is a subtle feeling in the hara, not in the head. It is not an inference…Before you attack him, before you think of attacking him, the thought has reached him. His hara is hit & he is ready to protect himself. Even before you have attacked, he is in defense, he has protected himself.
If two persons are fighting & both are samurai, defeating the other is a problem…In a way it is impossible because youc annot attack the man-before you attack, he knows.”
The Book of Secrets
Osho