Day 8 of 100, Singapore
An early one today because I ended up going to bed at 5 am last night.
I’m going to bed later and later these days, pre-empting jet lag in Europe – that’s the fun story, anyway. I crave the potent, enveloping silence of a sleeping world. In the course of the last 4 years I’ve lived on the road, being able to shut the door and have an entire space to myself almost never happens. It’s ably replaced with late nights, where the dark stillness is fertile ground for working through the remains of the day, the reset mechanism to ready myself for the new.
While I was noodling, I ended up organizing, of all things, my projects. I’ve been meaning to for a while, just so I have someplace aside from the mess of my Lightroom catalogues, to pull stuff together as I work. Using a public website to actively work on my projects is a generally bad idea – they’re meant to be shown in their considered, mostly finished form so I look competent – but heck. I don’t really know what I’m doing. At this point in time, it doesn’t really matter either.
These are interesting days. The thing that happened with the airline is shit, and its implications, even more so. My disgruntlement at the mess of simple border crossing though – one I’ve made many times before with no issue – arises from my holding of one of the world’s best passports. I have taken footloose movement for granted – in 4 years of travelling the world, I’ve never applied for a visa – something will have to change as the world turns inwards and borders start looking like lines of defense to those of us who have never needed to consider this perspective.
I don’t like this, of course, because it makes being a nomad a lot less convenient (I know, I know, it really is a first world problem). But it is, however, a fascinating process to observe firsthand, as an ordinary person subject to its whims and fancies. I worked for a decent while at the practical end of policy / process transposition, and over the years, I wonder ever more if any of us know what we’re doing, despite our protestations and certificate waving.
Maybe we don’t. And the consequences of that, is what continues to move us forward.
charlene winfred 