My Life As A Flux Capacitor

Change is an acquired taste. It starts with the big minor ones - say, the replacement of milk with permanent teeth. Then paradigm shifts get freakier, the move from one school to another with corresponding loss of existing social circles. The loss of a best friend. The upturning of a life when a parent leaves.

What becomes certain is how change is relentless, so much that stillness becomes a luxury to be cherished whenever it appears. She said: "When you realise that change is all part of your job, your life will get much easier."

But when my life is filled with change anyway, I think, then shifts in a series of daily tasks are just one more thing I have to contend with. I want stillness. Just for a year. Heck, I'd settle for a couple of days. Time to catch my breath from the maelstrom of loss, upturns, downturns, lateral shifts and general topsy turvy. I want the luxury of nothingness because I cannot write off my life in serial changes with no connecting thread except the flux itself. The addition of each stroke to a masterpiece takes thought and consideration, with a view to evolve, to deepen the meaningfulness of each exchange. I have no time to make a masterpiece of my life, no space to apply a philosophy for living, no focus on a major because too many minors get in my way.

My life as a flux capacitor, as merely a conduit to manage upheavals, feels utilitarian. All too functional. A whiteboard with no permanent markings, but a series of ink stains to be erased with each fresh onslaught of changes. Yet what truly frightens me is perhaps the notion that when everything finally does stay still, that I will not know what to do.

Flux is a state of the environment, of external forces beyond our control: the weather, death, natural disasters, Acts of God, that sort of thing. But one has to wonder why some lives are dogged so often with risks insurance companies underwrite, while others seem to achieve forward movement with minimal derailment. I wonder if the art of this organic gliding eludes flux capacitors such as I.

I am not sure I will ever acquire a taste for change without evolution. Maybe I choose not to.

No Groupie On The Road

Tourists on a group tour may be characterised in several broad strokes:

1. Gormless, albeit dangerously armed with cameras and bum bags:
a. able to hold up two fingers (palms facing camera) while posing with
large-and-decorative national monuments,
b. consumers of half the world's fridge magnets and keychains,
c. generally geriatric.
2. Pilgrims worshipping at a shrine, be that outside the gates of Graceland or the tomb of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (best known as Evita).
3. Hapless victims of relentless herding from one souvenir shop to another, and most likely to pay for their 53rd Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt while wearing one of the other 52.
4. Most likely to tie gaudy ribbons to Samsonite knockoffs "so you can see it from afar when it comes out on the belt".
5. Indentured prisoners.

None of these descriptions have ever enticed me to sign up for a group package tour. In all my years of travel, I have actively eschewed being part of any itinerary that could not be customised and/or cancelled at a moment’s notice. But travel comes in strange currencies, in this case, legal tender was a "field trip" to a great civilization whose history numbered almost as many years as there were people originating from it.

Suddenly surrounded by 12 teens and almost as many adults, I found myself unwittingly boarding and re-boarding a tour bus, heading from one (agent-paying) restaurant to another, one (bric-a-brac-selling) craft factory to another, one interesting-yet-quickly boring historical relic to another. This must be payback for selling these packages as part of a vacation job as a 16 year old at a travel agency, I thought, more than once in the six days of my groupie experience.

My silent screams addressed to that All-Seeing Benevolent Entity In The Sky were heard by no one, although I am sure that if they had been they might have been echoed heartily by another 50 per cent of my fellow groupies.

I want to loiter! I want to tarry! I don’t want to leave this plaque before reading it till then end even if it is in a language I can only dicipher 2 per cent of! I want an intelligible tour guide!! I don’t want to feel constantly late! I hate waiting and making others wait! I need my own space! I hate the combination of travel and adult responsibility! – all this I yelled, in my mind.

My toilet breaks had been reduced to a constant-but-fruitless quest for two-ply toilet paper, something I managed to convey to at least three people; in particular, one who accidentally peed on my foot as her spatter defied a too-short loo partition. Me, I painfully endured the humiliation of the unwelcome warmth as it splashed onto my flip-flop wearing left foot - immobilised as I myself tried to complete my own Number 1. (At least I now know I’m no shower girl).

Any tender exchange with a husband miles away had been reduced to our we-have-no-privacy monosyllabic code of ayes and nays in response to a hastily mumbled, 20-question list of administrative "hondidyoudos".

As days passed, splinter groups formed among those who shared my recalcitrant travel habits. One such mutant gang of four found itself by a riverside bar sipping whiskey and chomping on deep-frieds. And what a colloquy: "I never knew", "No really", "No way", "It's genetic", "Maybe it's the environment", "There are many theories", "No thanks, no flowers/fruit/snacks for us", "You mean it's like this?", "There are twinks, and there are bears...", "How do you know for sure?", "How do you know for sure?", "How is this a double shot of whiskey?", "I like this place".

The best part of being part of a big group, I suppose, is the high chance of finding like-minded folk who will share forever that one moment of concentrated peace, all set to Bob Marley's universal reggae grooves. "Exodus. Movement for Jah people. Oh yeah."

Loyalty, Rewards, Friendship Programmes

Among friends is an unwritten code of conduct, for which every action is attached to an equal and corresponding reaction. The equations are simple: kindness begets gratitude. Unkindness begets spite. A kept confidence begets trust. The rewards for each deed are tabulated, unbeknownst anyone outside your head, in emotional points gained or lost, which someday must be redeemed, though not always as we plan.

We want each investment to pay off in corresponding terms, even though we pride ourselves in not expecting much in return. But all we have to base our choices on is the vague promise of things to come. We do this without reading the fine print of each new relationship, which if we did, clearly disclaims any responsibility on the part of parties involved of any real obligation to respond the way we expect.

We can only hope for the best. And the best payoffs come from those we love the best. Reciprocation abounds in terms of understanding, respect, honesty, affection, growth and, of course, loyalty. The worst are those in which we are repaid with betrayal, pettiness, constant judgement, where any accummulation of points must eventually be annulled, losses cut and the worst memories faded into scars that remind us what not to do again.

Our internal politics makes comparison between loyalty rewards programmes nearly impossible, hard as we try. Each programme satisfies or dissatisfies us in relation to how another works. Yet each has little to do with the other, except by the association of onlookers. To wish for too much similarity among our rewards programmes negates having more than one friend. Yet we need as many friends as we have ways to navigate our internal labyrinths.

Even so, we rage when somebody done us wrong because we feel we deserved better returns on our initial investments. That another is outstanding for her eternal commitment to detail, someone else displays exceeding attentiveness and concern, yet another never fails to empathise.

We judge, and are judged, in spite of everything we profess. Others may share our views, but these too, contain manipulated nuances we are privy to only in the presence of the one person. A slight shift in a setting, a twitch in the environment, and everything changes depending on how true a friend is to you.

So to those we know to be less than true, we stifle the urge to say honestly, "I know you're mad about this, but you did the same damned thing to me the other day, you asshole", or "why the hell are you being so damned condescending anyway?", or "what the fuck??!! you are being so contrary when all I need is for you NOT to say anything" or "that's not what you said to him when I wasn't there, beatch ...". That would require too much of an emotional investment on a programme that does not pay off. Why attempt the impossible given the limited parameters? Better quit while you're ahead.

Instead we say, with dead calm, a disingenuous: "Yeah, I understand." What a way to put a certain end to a loyalty rewards programme.