Because of planning this hardcore week of intense activity I thought I’d get off to a really bad start by getting shit faced the night before. Good work. I woke up at about 10am, sat up in bed trying to work out who I was, turned this laptop on and wheeled out the usual habitual routine of checking the 4 email accounts that I access and facebook. I received an email off Baby J informing those of us who work at Baby T School PRU that we have global youth work training on Friday. As an experienced freelance Global Youth Worker I’m sold on how important it is as a methodology that aims to empower young people to become positive and proactive critical global citizens so I chucked out an email encouraging everyone to attend. After posting some footage of the EDL kicking off in Leicester on facebook, having a shower and drinking a pint of water I sat down to sort out the M.A.D solidarity flyer. The aim is to have 500 copies of a double sided A4 flyer, which promotes this Fridays City-Zen, A Global Education Derby workshop on June 29th, the general strike on June 30th, a spending cuts workshop I’m facilitating on July 3rd, the Love Music Hate Racism event opposing the EDL on July 9th, For The People City-Zine fundraiser on July 13th, MIWK the midweek comedy events as well as a section explaining Sound Bites, Yaffle Cafe and M.A.D. In theory this should’ve taken about an hour tops but 3 hours later I was still pissing about trying to get Photoshop to save it as a .jpg, which it wouldn’t for a reason that no doubt everyone but me knows about. On top of this, Ferrid, the lovely bloke who manages the Place of Welcome community centre wasn’t answering his phone which meant I had to reluctantly move the Spending Cuts workshop to The Bless. Anyway, 5 pints of water later, a cheeky wank, a bit of washing up and fiddling about with a file transfer website x2 huge .pdf files were winging their way over to Foot Printers Workers Co-operative in Leeds and I was happy to learn that they should be arriving on Wednesday, which is great as I want to be able to hand them out at the Do We Need Leaders discussion on Thursday.
I was aiming to leave the house at midday to sort loads of shopping out, drop it back it home, do some stuff and then blast out some lengths at the pool before it shut at 7.40pm. As it was now 4pm I had a mission on my hands as I’d also arranged to meet a friend for coffee at 5pm. I grabbed my keys, jumped on my BMX and hammered it to Samways to buy a bike lock. Anyone who knows me will know that whether I have a bike lock or not within a month someone else will be riding my bike. That’s just how it works. Think I’ve had something like 15 bikes stolen in the last 10 years. Crazy. I said peace to Samways Dan, jumped back on my BMX and headed to the Co-Op bank where I impatiently waited in line before withdrawing £360 which is my months wages. I cruised to the Eagle Centre market, purchased some Valarian tea bags, 500grams of Natural Choice fruit, nut and seed mix before making my way to the Social Change Library where I explained to Jenny that I was in a rush, put up a City-Zen poster and returned some books that I’d been using for my recent spate of essays. There are some incredible books about Anarchism, the Zapatistas, the Situationist International, liberatory education and much more in there. If you’ve never been you’re missing out on a real gem. Downstairs is Sound Bites the ethical wholefood workers cooperative where I spent £15 on a Clementine, bunch of bananas, garlic, lentils, pasta, mushrooms, plums, baked beans, spinach and some other bits and bobs before chucking a City-Zen poster on their notice board.
4.55 and I arrive at QUAD with minutes to spare. I saw a few friends who I hadn’t seen for a while and it was nice to talk frankly and openly about the personal struggles that we face, the bad habits we’re trying to change and the improvements that we are trying to make. It’s refreshing to get away from the depressing small talk that tends to characterise the majority of brief encounters that occur. 6pm rolled round and I unlocked my BMX and cycled the 10 minutes it takes for me to get home. I quickly unpacked the shopping, chucked it in the fridge, put the £100 that I owe my housemate Dave in a plastic container along with a piece of A5 lined paper that proposed we use it as a collective list of who bought what communal goods and how much they cost. The three of us are pretty active people that are always on the move so crossing paths aside we rarely get the opportunity to discuss house issues or work out what’s what so this just allows us to communicate, if we want to. I chuck a towel and some swimming shorts into my bag, grab my keys, a few quid in coins and some notes so that I could sort some more food out on the way back.
Everytime I go swimming I combine doing lengths with stretching exercises, meditation and some mental exercises that were inspired by a book called Mind-Chi. The 1st length I try to focus on nothing. The 2nd and 3rd I think about the key values that I’m trying to live by. The 4th and 5th I reflect on the last 24 hours and the positive decisions that I made. The 6th and 7th I reflect on the last 24 hours and what I could’ve done differently. The 8th I focus on my present physical and emotional state. The 9th I focus on my present actions and thoughts. The 10th I focus on my ideal physical and emotional state. The 11th I focus on my ideal actions and thoughts. The 12th and 13th I focus on the ideal next 24 hours. The 14th and 15th I focus on everything in my life that I grateful for and the 16th and 17th I focus on my compassion for people that don’t have the things that I feel grateful for. For the following 8 lengths I repeat the process yet reducing each aspect to one length. Every 3 lengths I’ll stop and do stretching exercises whilst trying to clear my mind. This is hands down one of the most valuable and grounding parts of my day. 7.30pm and whilst getting changed I receive a text from my good friend Sophie who invites me to join her and a group of our friends who were going to 9 ladies to celebrate Solstice. As tempting as it sounded I don’t regret turning down the offer and instead implementing the plans I’d already made. I popped by the Co-Operative super market on the way home and spent £15 on pesto, raspberries, blueberries, brocolli, Fair Trade Orange Juice, jam, tomatoes and peppers. If I can’t get what I need from Sound Bites or the Market then the co-op is the only other place that I’m hesitantly willing to shop. It brags about its ethical credentials but ultimately it’s a profit making corporation not to mention a fucking bank. Oxymoron anyone? Out of a big bunch of CUNTS it’s a lower-case cunt that brands itself in a certain way and markets itself to a particular demographic. Fair Trade is an improvement but we shouldn’t lose sight that all capitalist social relationships entail exploitation and theft and with this in mind I feel that the bar of our aspirations should be raised. Yes, I am a hypocrite and yes I’m okay with this. I do what I can when I want to and sometimes just do what the fuck I like, which I appreciate some may think isn’t the right attitude but that’s also allowed. As I was zooming down the road on the way home I jumped up a kirb at pace, heard my back wheel make a noise and then I wobbled all over the shop before coming to a halt with a popped back tyre. Karma for giving money to cunts no doubt.
I started steaming the brocolli, chopped up and started frying 4 cloves of garlic, a red onion, a normal onion, a handful of musrooms and some red, yellow and green peppers. I chucked a bag of pasta on the boil and chucked any veg scraps in the compost. When the time was right I drained the pasta, added the brocolli, the contents of the frying pan and emptied the tomato pesto into the mix. I chucked two handfuls of the natural choice fruit, seed and nut mix as well as some mixed herbs and a pinch of salt. I dug out The Score by the Fugees to listen to whilst cooking and had forgotten how much I absolutely loved that album. I use to listen to it every single day in my Walkman on my paper round as a 16 year old. It was the album that got me into Hip Hop. Listening to it today I was still impressed with how powerful and creative the lyricism is and how dope the beats are. It’s full of bangers and even the commercial tunes that everyone knows are quality. The beat to Fu-Ge-La gets me moving every time. Absolutely love it. As I was finishing eating my dinner Dave arrived home so I hooked him up with a plate too and started to make a smoothie whilst he was talking to me about his day. 4 apples, 2 Bananas, raspberries, blueberries, half a litre of orange juice and a large handful of spinach. That’s the shit right there. Word to popeyes mother. Dave and I spent an hour chatting about various things including the Do We Need Leaders discussion happening on Thursday evening which we’re both really excited about. Can you create a liberated, free, equal and directly democratic society by using means, methods, values, ethics and practises that reflect the old world that you are trying to move away from? Is social change something we work towards or something we simply choose from moment to moment with the choices we make in the here and now? What do you think?
I explained to Dave I had stuff to do, came up stairs and very quickly typed out the minutes from last Wednesdays City-Zen meeting before going downstairs, putting on a shit horror film on in the background and spent a couple of hours making stickers about the general strike that’s happening on June 30th. I find making stickers really relaxing and enjoyable, always a pleasure and never a chore. The film was alright in the end although it heavily ripped off the twist from Usual Suspects. Though to be fair, if you’re going to rip off a twist it might as well be that one. I then put myself to bed at 1.30am and started writing this blog entry. It’s now 3.19. I’ll try to make tomorrow a day worth writing about whilst also cultivating my ability to communicate succintly.
Resistance & Creativity
Tao Jonez
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