online: 28 june 2008 modified: 15, 19, 20 may 2008 14/20 may 2008 acts of survival, or pleasure
an experiment
20:06
after walking the circumference of the Heath Extension and the length or spine of Sandy Heath... i pause at the 39 steps to begin enacting some ideas that are coming together this evening of this last day of east wind and warm air and unusual dryness... and just before the forecast return of cooler and damper air from the west, starting tomorrow...
...i am looking down a slope that has recently been cleared of prehistoric-looking ferns that are already re-growing (they look to me like miniature tree trunks, tall and straight, with leaves unfurling only at their tops... and with up to a fern's length between each... like a miniature primeval forest, after a fire)...
...as i sit here i recall the idea of enjoying the normally tedious and deferred and neglected acts of survival in this culture: paying bills, dealing with junk mail, struggling to update and relearn computers and software, maintaining healthy diet and exercise and attending necessary clinics of both conventional and alternative medicine... and no doubt other such actions that I often forget and defer... but which today i've been tackling with unaccustomed attention...
...and now i am thinking that all this, (to me the nuisances of industrial culture) could become pleasant if only I paid proper attention to each part of it and recorded its nature as I record these thoughts and events that occur while walking in the city forest?...
... but it's beginning to get dark now and i've noted enough to remind me to continue this experiment later... and it's time now to walk home...
next day:
...yes, it's damper and cooler... as forecast... and now having slept and received more unwanted mail what do i think of it... this idea of taking it seriously... as necessary acts of survival and even as pleasures?...
...the first item on my pile deferred papers is a leaflet from a bank advising me to register an additional password for online shopping with my credit or debit cards... they say they 'will only complete four transactions on unregistered cards before online shopping is blocked'...
...i hate this command (disguised as good advice) to give my unpaid time and energy to a bank so that they can evade the high cost of the manual activities needed to make their so-called automatic system safe... it takes me up to an hour to choose a yet another password that will satisfy the conflicting requirements of being difficult for others to guess while being easy for me to remember (while not being written anywhere or divulged to anyone)... i've got far too many passwords already
...is see that i've already underlined several points in the bank leaflet while i spent probably 10 minutes reading it... my note indicates that i spoke to the telephone helpline and was forced to listen to a commercial radio channel while waiting several minutes for a reply...
...i could barely understand the person who replied (i am a little hard of hearing... and she spoke with an unfamiliar accent, perhaps from another country)... she did not seem to understand my questions (probably because i was not speaking the 'producer language' (or jargon) that she was trained to speak)... that was another 10 minutes, at least... i think she advised me to have an extra password ready when my cards are blocked for online shopping... at that point i gave up, too annoyed and too tired to think of a new password or perhaps to decide on one of my existing ones... if that is allowed or is advisable?...
...oh dear, this is making angry... is there any way to turn it into a pleasure?...
...well, i must admit that the actual writing of this note is enjoyable... it is my chosen work for this moment, a piece of art as i see it, or at least a worthwhile thing to attempt... but what about all the other such pieces of industrial impertinence and time-stealing that are waiting piled up for my attention?... and how am i to choose another password when i already have too many to remember and can see ways of guessing or decyphering most of those that come to mind?...
...as no answer comes to mind i simply give up for the moment and look round at 'the world' (which had become invisible to me while struggling with these abstractions!)...
...oh, what a joy to sit back and to look at the trees, the grey sky, the cars slipping by inaudibly, the man leaning against the bus stop, the woman pushing a buggy while an older child walks beside her... these things are so real, as is even that leaflet from the bank, it's real paper... even its message is real, as is the annoyance it generates... so how to make this into something good, or joyous, or in some way pleasant - more like a tree or a cloud and less like an unwelcome command?...
...about 20 minutes later:
i go to make some soup (mushrooms and onions with soya flour and with plenty of parsley) and while i'm doing it i hear a wood pigeon calling, repetitively... it's perched in the hawthorn tree only 2 metres from the kitchen window, and yes it's a brownish wood pigeon even with a ring of white feathers round its neck... (what about 'pigeon' - would that be a password i could remember?... but now i've WRITTEN it it's NOT ALLOWED!... and besides, the new password has to be 6 - 10 characters (do they mean numbers?) one of which must be a letter...)
...now i go back to see if the the pigeon is still there, and it is... it's on the same branch... it's no longer making sounds but is apparently sleeping with its beak buried in its feathers... i see now that it's brown and bluish grey with various subtle colours in its wings and elsewhere...
20 may 2008, just after midnight
...i see that i did not complete this: i've not chosen a password... nor have i found a way to make its choosing a pleasure... and i'm no longer surrouded by prehistoric-looking ferns... or listening to a wood pigeon... only to the silence of the night and the feel of these keys and the look of this screen with the html tags that i am adding so as to enable others to see an approximation to the typography i intend...
...ah!... after looking at some websites on randomness and passwords i think of taking meaningless random strings and then inventing ways to remember them 'as poems'...
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