Chop Chop

Every time I ponder the issue of our explosive population growth, I cannot help but blame virtually all of humanities plagues on it. From poverty and gender inequality to war and genocide, from urban sprawl and globalism to global warming and rising mountains of rubbish.

Resources are being depleted rapidly and our lives are becoming more desperate in a race for the last remaining ones. Anxiety is the widely shared sensation of the twentifirst century whether we are able and willing to admit it or not. We are struggling for our survival like a hoard of newly hatched sea turtles racing to reach the surf before being scooped up and gobbled down by some unknown predator.

Any species will come under pressure when its population reaches a certain size because only the fittest will survive the harsh struggle for scarce goods. Usually it’s the food supply that becomes increasingly limited, consequently leading to rivalry and ultimately starvation of the weakest members.

Sounds familiar? Many parts of the world are experiencing exactly that. And those lucky ones who live in more prosperous and well-managed corners of this planet acknowledge that luck can run out.

Who has not worried about work being taken over by a cheaper foreign competitor, or a university place given to a more industrious student. And so, as we all compete for impressive grades, ever longer CVs and measurable personal achievements in the hope to outcompete those who would like our share of the pie, our life quality in this desirable part of the world begins to sink as well.

Tiger mothers are a good example. Just forty years ago, with three billion fewer people clogging up the system, a book such as Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn for the Tiger Mom,” for example, would have been regarded as the sad testimony to a full blown Angst psychosis instead of ending up on reference bookshelves across the world.

Yet, today we wonder whether she might just be right and even those who question her vindictive methods may consider signing up their children for an after school chess club and music theory tuition. Surely a slight competitive edge wouldn’t hurt, right? After all, what, oh my, will happen to us, once Aids will stop decimating the African subcontinent and China further eases its one-child policy....? So better scamper along little hatchlings as long as you can...

PS Boo!

Over the last days of October, human population on this planet has reached seven billion i.e.7,000,000,000 !! Cities in the ‘developing’ world are bursting out of their seams, with the urban poor living in squalid quarters feeding off the refuse from the more fortunate. Schopenhauer once compared the earth and humanity on it to a churning ball of iron with a cooled crust covered by a growing funghus - us. Boo!

Bloody Brilliant!

Mom, cool, look!! I have got a nosebleed. I can be a bloody ghost tonight!

Virtually Anywhere!!

Never before has the use of time been as much in our control as in this day and age. With the absence of wars and famines and the arrival of more and more time-saving contraptions over the last two centuries, people in industrialized nations are finally in the enviable position to be able to decide what to do with a good chunk of their time every day.

But choice has never come easy. What is the best way to spend the time, for instance, saved by shopping online instead of pushing one’s own cart through the ailes? Let’s say it amounts to about an hour a week that can be “gained” that way.

Suddenly, everything seems possible: a thirty-minute pilates workout, singing, yoga or maybe cranking out some home-made bread...

However, usually we simply end up doing more of what we’re doing already. In this case, we are most likely going to use that time to bounce around the virtual world a bit longer. We might check our mailbox, pay a quick visit to e-bay, or see what’s new at itunes. Or we may want to stop for a hand of poker, read the Financial Times, or watch a replay of last night’s game.

After all, it’s right there and most likely it won’t require a shower once we are finished with it. Virtual is quicker, cleaner and can be quite gratifying. That one hour has suddenly grown exponentially in it’s output. Instead of making one phone call to tell my friend that I am doing my groceries online now, I can post it on facebook and tell the whole world.

But just as the car brought everyone mobility and thereby the option to live farther away from work and extended family, what is happening today with every hour that we invest in a virtual environment, we are removed from the actual place that we inhabit.

We can be virtually anywhere and it’s up to us to make the best choice.

'Cause yo never know what'ya gonna get...

I stopped by the violin maker today. The bridge needed adjusting and I was in a good mood to spend a little time and money on a job that meant nothing to the world, but all the world to Lea, whose little fingers had been straining against the tough metal strings.

As I stepped through the wooden gate and walked along the mildewy roses over to the work shop, I felt slightly undeserving, given that all I was carrying was a Chinese-made 3/4 violin and no musical genius to claim my own.

This feeling was compounded when I opened the door to the cramped shop and found myself surrounded by dismembered wooden bodies, pins and a variety of glues. Everywhere around me were unvarnished curvy bits and pieces of a 3-D musical puzzle.

I was greeted with great delicacy as the violin case was taken from me and the fragile body extracted from its entrails and dexteriously inspected. And while the specialist’s eye hovered on it and the over-sized hands spun it adroitly back and forth, he explained the various approaches for the cure and also pointed to other musical patients in the shop who were in his expert care.

And for the next fifteen minutes I felt treated like a beggar in a ball dress. Seeing this much expertise and delicacy applied to wood in order to ensure its exquisite sound enhancing quality, the many steps from material to mastery was in all truth humbling.

I couldn't help but think that whoever decides to spend this much time and energy on a project with an often uncertain outcome must be a) a compulsive crack b) a visionary, or c) a parent.

Why else would they do it...?

I am a believer!!!

Last week I thought it was all over. Some joint in my hip other than the hip joint (do I care to investigate further??) got stuck and so did I. It hurt like Rush Limbo and I had very clear visions of life in hell. In my utter agony, I sought advise from a witch doctor in the village, also known as cranial osteopath because she was the only one who could see me that day. The promise of someone acknowledging the years of abuse to my skeletal frame through pumping out children, hauling them around on one hip and installing them in car seats at all kinds of odd angles, seemed good enough to me to at least try this option.

Well, forty GBP and a few swift strokes above my mysterious energy lines later, I am healed. And amazingly enough, relieved not only of the obvious pains that brought me into her lemon grass imbued practice on a gusty October morning, but also of an incessant fatigue that had plagued me for months. Therefore, I can only encourage you that if you ever were to consider holding a gun to your head as a benign way out of your misery, you may want to consider looking up a cranial osteopath first...