Caveat lector

These two small katakana are written with romanji as “gomi”, a small but fascinating word. Most translations you see of this read as “rubbish” or “trash” but as is so often the case with language there is much lost in translation. One of the things I find so intriguing about the Oriental mind is the trace and nuance of thought that flow through their languages and outlooks, the myriad ways in which Eastern philosophy is so fundamentally different to Western process and rationale. Those two small symbols could just as easily be read as “obsolete” or “pointless”, they signify a physical thing which has no purpose or place in the world of the person seeing it.

This concept fascinates me, the idea of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure has always intrigued me – taking something broken or otherwise useless and making it perform some sort of useful task, or failing that just attempting to make something pleasing to the eye is a pastime that I have always found rewarding. Thankfully this seems to be a re-emerging trend in Western society, sometimes it seems the main drive of consumerism in recent years has been to quell the idea of make do and mend, we are scourged mercilessly by advertising and the mass media to feel inadequate if we don’t have the latest fad gadgets or branded a pariah by our peers for simply owning something that has been repaired. Newer is better, more is better, different is better – all catechisms in the church of Mammon as the registers ring their message of worship amidst the masses in the high street.

It’s a strange time right now, almost like living two lives side by side. My old life is still here, the one where I’m flat broke and living hand to mouth, emotionally hung up on an imaginary relationship and floating with no direction. And then a second, newer life. An existence involving other people and actually socialising, seeing progress in both my body and my house. One that has the tantalising glimpse of a dream in sight and allowing a germ of hope, both lives seem to hang balanced in my perception and morph seamlessly from one to the other depending on mood.

The topic of touch came up last night during a most enjoyable evening of chilling and chatting with herself – something we haven’t done to this extent in what feels like forever – and it’s been preying on my mind somewhat this evening. All through a pleasant time spent chatting with two new mates about random things the thread has been ravelling into a tenuous skein of understanding. Touch is an odd thing for me and affection and touch are things that – like any other human – I do indeed crave, it’s simply that my misanthropy is such that touching other people I do not feel “in tune” with for want of a better word is a faintly distasteful thing at best. I think that’s one of the reasons for the emotional hangup of recent years, physical proximity has never felt so right and affection, well, suffice to say it never felt more natural. Even when the brain is screaming that it’s neither welcome nor appropriate in the context of the extant situation. A bit of a curveball there for someone who does not play well with others to start with and finds emotion baffling at best. I wonder what it would be like to just be able to touch someone and enjoy it, with no “what if”, no barrier and no stress? Just the ability to exist closely and feel them nearby.

Cruising down a warm road with blasts of heat firing up from beneath the tank as you catch a draft from the van in front. Her engine makes a muted grumble as you idle along in third at the speed limit through a sleepy village, its impatience barely audible over the music playing in the crash helmet. A nice straight opens out between the hedges as the national speed limit sign disappears behind you, barely thinking about it the throttle begins to open of it’s own accord and the engine wakes up.

Revs rise rapidly as the van falls away in the mirror only to choke briefly as each gear finishes it’s work and you climb through the box. Now in fifth and stable, the motor howling in disappointment as you break 120 and begin to slow – ignoring sixth – for the sweeping left hander through the roundabout that’s fast approaching. Nothing coming from the right so you hold steady at 80, dropping a gear and keeping the revs high while the bike squirms and settles as you bank and crest the camber of the junction. She’s cranked over and you’re focussed on the exit of the corner, the excited wail of the engine competes with the staccato lyric “don’t you wish you didn’t function, don’t you wish you didn’t think” and the grey wall of tarmac sweeps past your left side. Gravel streams past in the periphery like a thousand tiny prayer beads spilled on an altar so big you can’t see the end. You’re on the edge here and as close to a god as you ever come. Those few seconds of peace that the proximity of something holy can grant, a sort of mobile motorcycling mecca. Somewhere we all struggle to reach but only rarely find while sacrificing petrol on our personal hajj.

Sitting in the sunshine twenty minutes later, the bike ticking to herself with a slow and mechanical purr. All the late nights, the pain, the uncertainty.

They simply don’t matter.

The track I was listening to as this went on is hotlinked from the image.