soulcruzer

Blog site relocated to www.claytonlowe.com

Ruth and I went out for a meal Friday night with Mike and Kirsty to a restaurant called Zizzi. Mike is one of these people I find really easy to talk to. I haven’t seen him for over a year and we just picked up talking as if it yesterday was the last time we met.

I am sitting here writing this passage and I am thinking as a writer I haven’t been very observant or I am not very observant of external details. I mean we spent a whole evening with Mike and Kirsty and I am having a hard time remembering what the heck we said. I didn’t capture any of the finer details that could possibly find their way into my writing. My first thought is to say that nothing interesting happened, that it was just a routine night out. But then I think well what about the details? What was Mike wearing? How does Kirsty look now that she has lost 2 stone? What was the waiter like? How about the little blonde waitress, what was she like? And how about the barmaid at the Bowling Green, how would I describe her? What about the people in the Bowling Green, what were they like? What about the older blonde sitting in the back corner, why did she catch my eye? You see I was about to write this passage as I write most of my passages through the reflective lens of my inner musings. There is time and place for the reflective lens, but from the writers I enjoy reading, it’s their ability to capture the finer details that excites me. Just yesterday I read the opening pages of John Updike’s Rabbit Run and man the way he describes the pick up game of basketball in that opening scene is awesome. That is what I am after!

Conclusion: Work on the details!!

Thank God It’s Friday. I’ve been engrossed entirely in this contract that I am even beginning to think like an employee again and pray for Fridays to return! I dreamt about buying guns last night. In the dream, I owned a rifle. The police came to my house to make sure I had a permit for it. I did. I ended up befriending the cop and he took me down to the police station to help me buy another rifle. In the end, my new cop friend let me pick any hand gun I wanted from a shelf full of handguns. I chose the Barretta 9mm.

I forgot to set my alarm but luckily I woke up at 0430.

I felt like reading this morning instead of writing and so I started on a Jack Kerouac portrait by Barry Miles.

I have been wondering this week about how I spend my time. I feel right up against time. This short story I am working on is taking me forever because I spend about 40 minutes on it each morning. And yes I could write some gibberish and call it a story but I want to go beyond that and write fiction that matters and so even for this short story I am working hard to get it right. But the reason I am feeling up against time is that basically from 0615 until 1900 my day is consumed with the training contract I am on. That leaves very little time to practice meditation, workout, write, work on my business, and spend time with my family. Precious little time is left to do those things. I don’t want to create time trap thinking though. So I have been gravitating towards a philosophy of live each day as you live each day. To think about the future makes me anxious and frustrated.

I was just thinking that reading is important to me. What is different about last week to this week is that last week I read everyday. This week I haven’t read at all. My thinking seems random and chaotic this week. Reading this morning has seemed to have calmed my thinking and inspired this long passage. Read. Think. Write. Perhaps that is the formula.

Walter Brown Gibson wrote 282 The Shadow novels. He wrote on average two 60,000 word novels a month sometimes writing a novel in 4 days! He had 3 typewriters and would have 3 novels on the go at one time. He’d write on one typewriter until the ideas for that story wound down and then he would move to the next typewriter and work on that story.

As he said: To meet The Shadow schedule I had to hit 5,000 words or more per day. I geared for hat pace and found that instead of being worn out by 5,000 words I was just reaching my peak. I made 10,000 words my goal and found I could reach each. Some stories I wrote in four days each, starting early Monday morning, finishing late Thursday night…by living, thinking, even dreaming the story in one continued process, ideas came faster and faster.

A relatively chilled day at work. The portrait on Jack Kerouc has reawakened my interest in jazz. Jack was huge fan of jazz. I used to be a big fan of jazz in my early 20’s. When I converted my music collection to CDs, I never bothered to convert my jazz selection. I went up in the attic and found my old jazz collection on tape. I am listening to Pieces of a Dream and man I must say I have been missing out on my jazz. I think the flame is rekindled.

I want to start a group like the New Prometheans that Jack belonged to when he was at university. They met to discuss literature, politics and philosophy. They met for the betterment of mankind. A literary round table composed of folks who have literary pretensions…

I drove down to Bristol early Friday morning and caught the X62 into town from Downend. I picked up a new contract which has me working in Bristol over the next week.

The X62 dropped me off at the top of Park Street. From there I found my way up Whiteladies Road. It was a pleasant morning for a walk.

One thing that stuck out for me was the abundance of trendy places to eat with names like: Iguana, Siesta, Tequila Max, Chandos, Dragon Kiss, Henry Africas Hot House, Jumbuck's, and the Blue Monkey.

I'll have to try some of these out.

I arrived at the Holiday Inn in Stoke-on-Trent just off of the M6 at junction 15. The roadworks on the M6 were a bitch in a couple of places, but even crawling at 10 mile an hour for a period of time, I still made in the 1.5 hours C0Pilot had estimated. I was there to meet the team I would be working with on my next project.

Side note: My eyes fell out of my head when the lady told me the lousy cup of coffee she served me cost £2.64! Oh my word, It's amazing how company jack the price up on things because they know they are serving a business clientel.

A quick scan of the Independent:

Dame Helen Mirren was voted the UK's sexiest pensioner.

the revolution begins

rain is pouring down my cheek
searching for the sea
tomorrow like the rain
i'll be back home again - alice cooper

yes, it is raining today. not a bad thing, except if you were wanting to lie around on the beach, which i am not, so it is good. i like walking in the rain. as long as the temperature is mild, i find a stroll in a heavy rain shower to be soul cleasing.

i was suppose to be climbing Snowdon with pete today, but his tooth fell apart and he needs t go to the dentist this morning to get it fixed. he has a big meeting tomorrow and wants to look his best, which, if he were going for some extreme sport client, a missing tooth might have been ideal...shows commitment to the sport.

but all things are happen for a reason...

i have a busy schedule coming up in the next two weeks, so in actuality, today is probably a good day for me to have to myself.

yesterday i did to much small mind thinking and started seeing the cracks in the wall, or rather the pettiness of being...well today it is back to big mind thinking...expanding my consciousness and all of that...

These last few weeks have been how I imagine my life to be – full of wonder and mystery, travel, and writing. This morning was a perfect example. I was up at 0530 and wrote for 2 hours. I went to the gym and worked out. And then afterwards went down to my local café and wrote so more. Now I am back at my home office and about to write some more!

My mind is racing with ideas. The cloud that was there earlier this year has lifted. I was lost in the wilderness for a few months and there were many dragons to slay. They are all gone now; and I’ve made it back alive and in one piece – a better man for it I hope.

5,881 / 150,000 (3.9%)

Does every human being have a purpose?

4,161 / 150,000 (2.8%)

I’ve decided I really need to get hot on some publishable material that supports my philosophy on personal development. I’ve brushed the dust off of the outline I did a while ago. I have re-launched that project with a strict schedule. I am also working on a set of audio CD’s. The aim with both those projects is have something to sell at the end of my workshops and also on my websites, plus to help raise my profile from a PR point of view.

2,085 / 150,000 (1.4%)

Pete and I spent last week in Posnan, Poland at the Negotiation Days III Conference.

We were invited there to deliver workshops on Alpha Leadership, Effective Teambuilding, Influencing Skills, and Coaching. In total, some 80 students attended our workshops.

The Negotiation Days III Conference is a conference organised for students by students. About 3,000 students attended the conference. The theme, of course, was negotiations, but the workshops and lectures covered a variety of topics like coaching and how coaching relates to and can be used in negotiations.

I was impressed by the shear skill and efficiency of the organisers. To organise an international conference of this size is no easy task, but they made it look easy. We were looked after by ‘angels’ who made sure we had everything we needed to make our workshops a success. The angels looked after us the entire time, making sure we were fed and watered both during and after hours.

My observations of the Polish students were that they are bright, energetic, fun-loving, warm, and eager to learn. I asked Artur Banaszkiewickz, one of the angels, and a 4th year International Relations major, what he felt the young 20-something Poles wanted for themselves as a generation. “We want to be seen as a nation to be important. We want to be good at something and respected for how good we are.”

My other observation is that these young leaders of the future are great travellers. Many of them travel to the U.S., U.K., and Ireland to work, learn, and practice their English.

I had a great time. Some memorable moments: being made an honorary DJ at 2am at a student party, drinking homemade Hungarian vodka at same party, and stumbling home from the big end of conference party at 5am and ripping the flesh off of a whole chicken (cooked of course!) with Artur, Wojciech, Patryk, and Pete. Oh yes, and learning the true meaning of nie martw sie after we missed our flight home Friday evening!

To see photos of Pete and I in action click here.

I picked this up from my friend's blog:

J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote: "Not all those who wander are lost". This has become something of a mantra for my life which brings me to the question: Can wanderlust be in your genetic code?

I had forgotten about that quote from LOR. Just reminded me of my thoughts that I am an eternal seeker...

Speaking of wandering...I returned from my Poland trip yesterday.

Clay's Travel Trip #47: Check the times of your flight!!

Friday was the first time in all of my travelling life that I have missed a flight. I wish that some out of the ordinary thing happened, like rescuing a cat from a tree or waking up from an all night party in a place you have no idea where you are, but the simple truth is, I didn't check and re-check my flight time. I thought I knew the time of the flight - and the key word there is thought!

All is well that ends well...as a result of missing my flight from Poznan, I was able to take the train to Berlin (which I have never been to) and spend the night there.

I am having one of those lazy sunday afternoons where you just read and surf all day. I should however be writing the outline for my workshop next week, or packing for my week in Poland.

Details...

“The edge…there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who know where it is are those who have gone over.” – Hunter S. Thompson

I have returned from a 6-day trek in the Pyrenees following the Camino de Santiago. I have been going through my notes and hope to get some stuff posted on my experience on the Camino.

The return home is always manic. So many things to catch up on. Emails being one of them.

Billy Joel sang that "Life is a series of hello's and goodbye's." For me, life seems to be a series of pack and unpack. I am only home for a couple of days. I'm off to Poland on Monday for a week to deliever a teambuilding workshop at the Negotiation Days III conference. So unpacking from one trip to pack for another.

Another clear blue sky…I think this must be some kind of record for England…anyway, I am down in Bristol for Rosemary’s 65th birthday party. The party was a success.

One of the more interesting characters I met at the party was a 48 year old lady named Nicola. She went to nursing school with Rosemary. I met Nicola on my very first night of my very first trip to England back in Dec of 1992. I had just graduated from the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course and was on a break before going off to Ranger School. We were invited out to play Skittles. And that is where I first met Nicola. Of course, I don’t remember meeting her in particular, but she remembers meeting me.

Nicola reminds me of a hippy chick who still believes the hippie movement is alive and well. Though I would admit there is a bit a of counter-culture revolution thing going on that incorporates some of the hippie ideas, but for the most part that revolution is long gone, dead, and buried.

Whenever I run into someone who is passionate about what they do, I go into reflective mode and I wonder what am I passionate about and how does my passion manifest itself? I mentioned to Ruth that I didn’t know what I was passionate about and she said I am passionate about a lot of things like the outdoors and books. The little light bulb in my head brightened. She was right. My three great passions in life are the outdoors, books, and travel. What is it about those three things that I like so much as to be passionate about them?

In the outdoors my passion stems from the way I feel when I am outdoors. I feel alive and at one with myself whenever I am in the presence of some beautiful spot in nature or in some remote place where there are no signs of the concrete jungles we live in. The environments that bring out the best in me are the mountains and the sea.

Books. I have always loved books from a very early age I fell in love with books. I love to read them. I love to look at them. I love to hold them in my hands. I love to be surrounded by them. As a kid, the library was my sanctuary. During summer holidays, I would walk the 8 miles to the library on Post and spend the whole day there wandering amongst the stacks. The subject matter was not important. I could be found anywhere in the stacks, from botany to physics, to poetry and history. I spend a lot of time in bookstores now. I can spend hours in these mega-bookshops drinking coffee and wandering the stacks and inevitably spending a small fortune. Books are like stray pets to me. I see one and I want to take it home with me.

My other passion is for travel. I love the open road. I don’t even have to have a particular destination in my mind. Just the simple fact of being on the road going somewhere is enough for me. One of my favourite travel passions is to wander around big city streets like a ghost or a man with no name. It’s funny because one of my fears about dying is that I will die in obscurity. And yet, when I wander city streets it the very fact that I am anonymous that makes the streets exciting. I could happily give up all my possessions and walk the earth like Kane.

I want to pursue these passions without no other aims other then the pure pursuit itself. I want to climb a mountain for the sake of climbing a mountain, or seek knowledge for the sake of seeking knowledge, or travel with no other aim other than travelling.

And here comes my catch-22…how can I sustain myself in a world built upon obligations and responsibilities and still pursue my passions?

I woke up this morning wrestling with a sore throat and trying to decipher the meaning of two omens. I went into the garden to quiet my mind and listen for the answer. Most of us have forgotten how to read signs and omens. We tend to treat out of the ordinary occurrences as coincidences. But I firmly believe there are no coincidences. And yes there is always the danger of assigning the wrong meaning to an event; however, if you are truly in touch with your intuition, you will be right more often than not. Where we go astray is when we try to rationalise the experience – to deny what we know to be true.

I finished my work contract last Friday, so I spent yesterday catching up with the business end of my business. Well that is what I was supposed to be doing. What I ended up doing was meeting a friend in town for a coffee. We had a right good catch up on things. She also runs her own business (same line of work actually, so I was conversing with the enemy – not really!). We used to work together when we both still in the corporate salt mines. One thing we did agree on and that is life outside of the salt mines is a hell of lot better and neither of us would go back.

And of course, since I was in town, I had to pick up some things “I needed.” I had to pick up a few things for my Pyrenees adventure next week like a couple of pair of trail trousers, a belt, a water sack, new head torch, some headphones, a map of Northern Spain, and a book called Neutral Buoyancy, Tim Ecot which is about scuba diving (don’t ask me how that is related long distance hill walking).

Oh yeah, I did do some work later in the afternoon.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. - Joseph Campbell