Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
I had some family come to stay from out of town and took them on a bit of a tourist tour round London and we ended up in this indoor antique market on Portobello Rd. It is a road I have been up almost everyday of my life for at least a decade and I had never been inside this place once.
It was a microcosmic world all of its own and it was evident all the stall holders had been there a long time. They had a jaded feel about them. Years of dealing with tourists, trapped indoors with no natural light, way too much time to ponder their own existence, all of this appeared to have contributed to a sense of vague joylessness. There was an overriding feeling emanating from everyone that life had passed them by and some deep rooted resentment had set in.
Routine repetition and familiarity will eventually suck the lifeblood out of you. New experiences are vital if you want to keep your brain stimulated. It is a muscle and if you don’t exercise it, it will atrophy.
This place was not on my radar so I never bothered looking in but exploration into unknown, unfamiliar territories is what will stop the rot setting in. In stepping off my beaten path I uncovered a treasure trove of characters who ironically personified what happens when you allow your world to shrink and wither to a degree which cannot fail to stifle and suppress.
If you can walk through a street you never have, do it. If you can order something other than your usual do it. If you can speak to a stranger do it. If you can find a new place to hang out, an activity you’ve never tried, see a band you’ve never heard of, do it, do it, do it. Everything we like, know and are comfortable with will always be there for us. We can go back to them anytime but if we never venture beyond our ‘likes’ we will become trapped in a finite personality, a fixed moment in time. We must stay open. The hunt for knowledge and experience should never stop as long as we are here.
I will leave you with this quote, who said it, I have no idea:
“The only way to strengthen one’s intellect is to make up ones mind about nothing – to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.”
(p.s i forgot to send this out earlier – its a tad late, but its a bank holiday so I guess that’s ok…happy long weekend people!
