FAQ-ING HELL…
- Snow Hill EC1, where there is neither snow nor hill, but mysteries galore. Exciting!
Q) What’s ‘Life 3.0’?
A) Life 3.0 is the sum of 1) reality as it is, and 2) our alternate realities. It takes the best of both, and indeed, all worlds. Sounds too good to be true? You are quite right – it doesn’t exist. Or, an other way to look at this, which is the same side of the same pence, is to say that Life 3.0 is right there. I mean, right HERE. EVERYWHERE. NOWHERE, and NOW, HERE. It is IN BETWEEN, in the gaps and interstices, without which everything collapses. It is that which holds the whole together, the dark matter. So, try. Try harder. Harder. Getting there? YOU ARE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!
Q) Why ‘rough guide’?
A) This is a travel guide, to help us navigate this or any lives. It’s a rough, rather than a ‘refined’ (?) one, since it’s updatable, changeable, open, unfinished and unstable (NO THANKS TO YOU, MY DEAR READER!). Rather than a monolithic opaque mass of absolutes, the rough guide is fragmented, tattered, shredded into pieces, rather like the dislocated Kaidie herself really.
Q) What do you mean by ‘dislocate’?
A) Kaidie lives Life 3.0, but since Life 3.0 does not quite exist, we can’t quite locate her, can we. Also, by extrapolation, Kaidie does not exist. Or, inversely, if we say that Life 3.0 is everywhere, Kaidie is everywhere as well. Rather than a sugar-coated lovey-dovey balance and harmony, Life 3.0 is positioned in-between Life 1.0 and Life 2.0 in a dynamic and violent space-time brimming with tension that accommodates and pushes hot/cold, right/wrong, black/white, happiness/pathos all at the same time. Following this, Kaidie, a 3rd Lifer, is also necessarily equally violently ruptured/torn/split/dismembered/dis-located – and thoroughly knowing it – AND enjoying it.
Q) Why this timeframe?
A) Kaidie is born 12.12.2009 and dies 09.09.2012, which resembles a palindrome, which suits Kaidie perfectly, being a sucker for artificial and/or superficial symmetries. Kaidie, who has absolute control over her birth and death, handpicked these dates. Regardless of Kaidie’s success in fulfilling her quest, she will expire 09.09.2012, and she will refuse aid to sustain her life, and she will donate her organs on e-bay. Any takers? What’s your starting bid?
Q) Where is Nondon?
A) Nondon is a subjective version of London. So, Nondon is in London. Or, London is in Nondon. Nondon is a variation of London. Or, London is a variation of Nondon. Try a few variations of venn diagrammes, shall we? Recall that Godard says that all documentary films are a form of fiction. Or the other way around? Both make sense: so-called non-fiction (sic) as a subset of fiction, and fiction as a subset of non-fiction. Try a few variations of venn diagrammes, shall we?
Q) I live in London, Ontario. Is this of any relevance to me?
A) Yes, for you can have your own ‘Nondon’ as well (if you don’t already)!
Q) I live in Croydon. Is this of any relevance to me?
A) Yes, for you can have your own ‘Mroydon’ (or ‘Droydon’) as well (if you don’t already)!
Q) Why ‘a rough guide’ instead of ‘the’ ? Why ‘a Life 3.0’ ? Maybe you don’t understand how articles are used?
A) Thank you Mr/Ms Grammar Cop. I do. Maybe you need some re-education yourself in manners.
Q) Why ‘a rough guide’ instead of ‘the’? Why ‘a Life 3.0’
A) Kaidie points to a possibility; she is but one out of many possible versions out there – but she’s not even possibly the ‘best’ of the lot! Hence, instead of THE rough guide, what we are proposing here is one out of many possible variation. You can have your own version of rough guide, and Life 3.0 as well, for that matter.
Q) What constitutes a ‘meaningful’ life?
A) That’s for me / us to find out… Well, that which is not meaningless, or is less meaningless.
Q) So, what on googleearth does Kaidie want?
A: Thanks for asking. I would like: 3-year supply of Waterstones book vouchers, Garmin GPS Forerunner (or a GPS system to strap to my forehead), miniscule portable High Definition camera-cum-video camera that I can carry while running (or have one made for me to strap onto my large forehead, which still has space), new trainers, sweat-proof winter running gear, 3-year membership at Olympic-sized pool, champagne, rose wine, warm fresh bread, salmon, cod fish, sashimi, companionship, advice, etc. I am a very open person, so I would entertain anything you may wish to offer. Also, I am still open to receiving gifts for my baby shower, as well as Xmas(es), and New Year(s).
Q) Who are you?
A) I am Kaidie. Next question.
Q) What does Kaidie do for a living?
A) Kaidie is a full-time (re-)searcher of the meaning of Life 3.0.
Q) What does Kaidie do when she is not working?
A) Currently Kaidie is so busy with work that she has no life. I mean, Kaidie’s work is to live Life 3.0. So, what I mean is, Kaidie is so busy with work that she is also busy with life. So, when she is working, she is living Life 3.0. When she is living Life 3.0, she is working. When she is not working, she is not living Life 3.0 and will not be talking to you, since you wouldn’t know her, since she does not exist as far as you are concerned.
Q) Your life looks boring. Why should I care?
A) Well, help me make my life interesting, then! Write in, give me advice about how to make mine a meaningful life!
Q: Why should I be involved? Why should I care!?
A: Life 3.0 is a worldview/position/positionality/stance/philosophy that anyone can adapt. No, Kaidie is NOT so heroic as to be doing this to do all of us a grand favour – selfish prat that she is, she’s doing this for herself, really – but she is keen to test her theory/hypothesis, and she genuinely wishes to make this life work. For real. And EVERYONE, ANYONE can use this template-insofar as this can be called a ‘template’ at all, being highly patchy, inconsistent and self-contradictory – and apply it to their life, any of their lives, in any city. Like Dryden’s Life 3.0 in Droyden, or Fanny’s Life 4.6 in Feijing, or Frederic’s Life 13.0 in Faris, and so on. That the template is changeable, adaptable and highly customisable is its strength and beauty. Get it?
Q: Are you sure you have gotten your Math sorted out? Is it not Life 1.5, since it’s in between Life 1.0 and Life 2.0?
A) YOU should get YOUR Math sorted out. Life 3.0 take the best of BOTH worlds. Like Eisenstien’s synthesis, the sum is greater than the parts. Life 1.5 is the average of the 2 – a half-baked compromise. If it were a compromise we hadn’t needed to invent this. Kaidie is uninterested in compromise, but excited by how she has to negotiate the tension between Life 1.0 and Life 2.0 – Kaidie precisely acknowledges and respects the push-pull, the struggle, the battle – and positions herself right in the thick of action! Now THAT is Life 3.0.
Q) You seem nice. Can we be friends?
A) Why thank you. You seem not too bad yourself, since you make such nice comments. Add ‘Kaidie Nondon’ as your Facebook friend!
Q) You seem bad-tempered and impatient. I thought you are living a nice life and all that?
A) Well, do I have a choice?! I have not much time. Unlike you, who can have the luxury of 30 or 60 or 90 years to look for the meaning of your life, or not, I have only 3 years! In fact, I have so little time that I was born an adult from day one, so that I don’t have to go through all that growing up pangs, and become a professional Lifer straight away.
Q) You have hardly answered any questions properly. Are you having a laugh?
A) Well, if I’d known so much I wouldn’t need to do this experiment, would I?
Q) You have hardly answered any questions properly. Are you having a laugh?
A) Look at the title of this page. I didn’t say I could answer these questions. Also, if one cannot answer something in the positive (what something is, which is, wow, very grand indeed), it is always helpful, or at least interesting, to say it in the negative (what something is not – which sounds like an exercise in semantics but I assure you it is not). And if I / you / anyone could answer everything it would be all too easy, too boring, and we wouldn’t need to do it in the first place. Now I don’t want to sound preachy (or peachy, for that matter), but Life is all about challenges – Life 3.0 is one hell of a challenge it self (isn’t that obvious!) Raising questions is the point – and rather than claiming to ‘answer’ questions, it’s a lot more exhilarating for us to open things up, open things up further, refine the question, come up with more questions, ask why we are asking these questions in the first place, ask why we are asking why we are asking these questions in the second place, and then…
Q) You have hardly answered any questions properly. Are you having a laugh?
A) Why should I? This is a matter of life-&-death. Particularly MY life-&-death! I’m devoting not one day, but ONE THOUSAND days to do this search / research!! Can/ do YOU have that sort of commitment and passion and stamina? Well, I don’t either, so come on the road with me so we give each other some amoral support.
Q) You have hardly answered any questions properly. Are you having a laugh?
A) Yes. Why not. Life is short. And you?
DAY 28: THRILLS AND SPILLS OF BEING A SPONGE… WHAT CAN I BE NEXT?? WRITE IN NOW!
DISADVANTAGES:
1) Children run away from me and scream ‘Sponge! Run!’ I suppose that at 157m, I am slightly too large, though I do no ‘scary’ features whatsoever, merely spongy bits (see close up below).
2) Being so large, it is impossible for me to escape anybody’s attention. When I went to the party at NYE, I was trying to sneak in and was caught, even though it is easy for me to change my form and squeeze in. So I had to pay the entrance fees.
3) Some people are mistaken. I have had to explain that it is not that I am being immodest. It is just that my square pants are the same exact shade as my skin tone (#ff02d8). I am beginning to understand the fashion decisions of Clark, Bob and Lady.
4) It is nearly impossible to move about with this body, and hard to do anything else really, given that I have no limbs, though much life. My ‘walk’ from Pings Pross down South to Elephant and Castle would have taken longer than [ Joyce’s + Homer’s Odyessies] X [psychonaut Orlando’s 400 years of existence] X [Sisyphus’ weightlifting sessions up/down the hill] combined. Fortunately, I have my M&M plugin kicking in, urging me to be focused and overcome my physical weakness. Also, the cops were charming and chivalrous, and blocked off the road for 6 hours for me to allow me to make a crossing.
Close up of me in my square pants (not to scale).
5) At 00:00hrs 1 January 2010.
Boy: Happy new year! How are things?
Me: Good, just soaking things in you know. Happy new year to you too.
Then I was used to wipe up somebody’s puke.
I wanted to kick him at where it hurts, but with no limbs, I could not do that. So I suffocated him to death. Since it was self-defence, and given the festive cheers, I was let off.
6) I continued to party and soaked in the festive season alright – slightly too much, perhaps. I got quite heavy and soggy, making my motion even more difficult. So I stood in the open for some air, hoping to get dried out. Then it began to snow, so I got even heavier. I wanted to buy a hairdryer, not for hair that I haven’t got to speak of, but to dry my skin off. However, all Currys were closed.
7) Stupid tourists also keep stopping me to take pictures of me. Perhaps I am on Flickr or Youtube? Fearing more unwanted attention I did not attend the New Year Parade at Piccadily – I wanted to be there as an audience, but in my current impressive physical appearance, I was afraid that they might take me as a float to parade down the streets.
8. With no limbs, I cannot run at Regents Fark.
9) With no limbs, I cannot run on the treadmill.
10) With no limbs, I cannot run. Nor play chess or scratch an itch.
11) I cannot take a shower, for my body shape and weight will be modified, and all my curves at the right places will disappear.
ADVANTAGE:
1) As a sponge, I can wash dishes, as sponges do, and I suppose, given my all-rounded talent, I should excel in it. However, genderless as I am currently (have you heard of a sexed sponge??), I am a post-post-feminist. Surely a banal activity as washes dishes is below me. I just transfer food straight into my mouth – no dishes needed.
CONCLUSION:
I suppose my days as a sponge are numbered, also now that the party’s over and we are entering the full shebang called ‘daily life’, again, for the next 300+ days. But Kaidie holds no regret for anything she does whatsoever – every experience is a lesson learnt.
So, WHAT PHYSICAL FORMATION DO YOU SUGGEST THAT I BECOME NEXT, MY DEAR READERS???? WRITE IN NOW, GIVE ME SOME LIFE OPTIONS! There was a suggestion:
1) 29 December 2009: Vassili’s suggestion (via Facebook) become water. Possible – how’s Nondon tap water?
2) YOUR SUGGESTION HERE!
SUPERMAN/SAMSARA, LIGHTNESS/WEIGHT
NIETZSCHE:
* THE GAY SCIENCE (1882): What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say: “This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh— everything unspeakably small and great in your life—must come again to you, and in the same sequence and series—” Would you not throw your self down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: “Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!”
* THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY (1872): The metaphysical comfort—with which, I am suggesting even now, every true tragedy leaves us—that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable—this comfort appears in incarnate clarity in the chorus of the satyrs, a chorus of natural beings who live ineradicably, as it were, behind all civilization and remain eternally the same, despite the changes of generations and of the history of nations.
* THE WILL TO POWER: Everything becomes and recurs eternally – escape is impossible! – Supposing we could judge value, what follows? The idea of recurrence as a selective principle, in the service of strength (and barbarism!!)… To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain ( pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure…); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the “will”; abolition of “knowledge-in-itself.” Greatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in man, as he creates the overman.
KUNDERA, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1984):
* And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
* We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
*Parmenides saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being.
* What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
* Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious of all.
* The heaviest of burdens is simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment.
* The absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
* History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.
GOODBYE 2009. GOODBYE NOUGHTIES.
Disembodied.
Who said that time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything except wounds. With time, the hurt of separation loses its real limits. With time, the desired body will soon disappear, and if the desiring body has already ceased to exist for the other, then what remains is a wound… disembodied. – Sans Soleil 1983 Chris Marker.
In Life 3.0, Kaidie is free from the burden of memory. (If Kaidie had no camera, she would have forgetten). In Life 3.0, Kaidie is free from hurt, the hurt of separation, limitations of time, longing, desire, limitations of her body, limitations of her mind.
DAY 19: KAIDIE HAS SHAPESHIFTED TO A 157m SPONGE SO AS TO BETTER SOAK UP THE FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE.
How are you enjoying the festivities, my Dear Readers?
This morning I took a hard look at myself at the mirror. I quite like my current formation as a hamster – I quite enjoyed being a cockroach as well, both of which are fabulous for going undercover, but I am also exhausted of only being vertically-challenged all the time. (For instance, what in gods’ names gives short men the right to chat up short women as if they are godsends, as if I should be ever so grateful for meeting someone of a physical formation [sic] that I could crush with the tip of my little toe?! Kaidie is a 3rdlifer, for chrissake, and is adamantly against smalltownprovincial incest, inbreeding and any sort of breeding. Have you forgotten that Kaidie is a perfectly globalised cosmopolitan of metropolitan Nondon? Get out of my way shorties, let Kaidie mingle with all the other species, formations, forms, lifeforms and non-life forms out there.)
So, what should I become next? I pondered for a while… When in Rome, surely I should do as the Romans do. When in Nondon, surely I should do as Nondeners do. What better way to soak up the atmosphere than to be a sponge! But what size should I go for? A 1.57m kitchen sponge does not quite make a strong enough visual presence as a 157m one. So voila, I’ve made the transition. In order not to confuse you, my Dear Reader, for my continually refreshing renewals, renovations and reinventions, I created a diagramme for your kind reference. (My hamster formation is a few pixels, right at the left side of the diagramme, actually, can you spot it? ) As you can see, I have coloured myself in my favourite pink to try to add some neon glamour to the festive occasion. In addition, in order not to commit the frequent superhero fashion faux pas, I have dyed my square pants the same #ff02d8 shade as the rest of my body. Don’t you think this is a most fabulous getup for me to visit Frafalgar Square, the Nondon-I and the New Year’s Day Parade! How do you like it?
* PS THANK YOU my Facebook friends Breda and Vassili for your kind advice! *
* If YOU have any suggestions as to what (and when) I could become next, do SHOUT!*
Kaidie finally meeting her match in Nondon.
DAY 15: KAIDIE HAS A NEW SUPERPOWER FOR 2010: LAUNCHING THE MIND over MATTER PLUGIN aka THE M&M PLUGIN (TM). Apologies, you can’t download it – BUT I will share it at my first real-life appearance on 20:00hrs 26 January in Villa Straeuli, Winterthur, Switzerland. So, COME!
Being that time of the year when we come up with new resolutions in desperate bids to triumph over evil habits, I have been terribly busy with my Winter assignment, that of coming up with a new superpower. Being already quite perfect as I am, what do I need? That was a tough one that had my mind all bogged down. However, today I invented one. Although it remains a state secret, I would like to reward you, my loyal Dear Readers of my Life 3.0 travel blog, by sharing with you the fruits of my labour here: I have willed myself a brand new plugin*, in time for the New Year: that of the Mind Over Matter (M&M) superpower.
* A brief note about superpowers of the 21st century, for the benefit of you, mere mortals: We post-911 superheroes no longer enter phone booths to put on crimson briefs over blue tights. Pink is better, but faster still are plugins (no learning curve!!). Simply switch them on, and I am ready to save the worlds.
Above: low-res photo of Kaidie's high-res brains (from my Blackberry).
My M&M plugin (NO, I am not abbreviating it to ‘MoM’ because I deplore all you righteous simpletons Freudian/Lacanian/Oprah/Jerry Springer/Psychobabble Crunchy Nutheads trying to read into all these and NO, I am not in denial so kindly piss off) is most formidable, as with all of my other superpowers. I installed my M&M plugin this afternoon during my run at Regents Fark.
Allow me to explain, my Dear Readers. My right ankle was in a sort of a strain the first 4km of my 15km run yesterday. I was nearly limping. This afternoon, again, the right ankle was moaning in a dull tone – and this time for more than 6km! So Kaidie was presented with 2 choices: 1) ignore the moans of my sissy ankle, or 2) listen to my sissy ankle, give up the run, walk (slowly) home (in shame).
It was a no-brainer. Although I do not own any Triumph bra or panties for they are too momsy (SHUT UP again you psychobabblecrunchynuts), I am a never-say-die (until 09.09.2012 that is) Triumphant Triumphalist. I am no chicken! For, I am a hamster, remember! NOW get that! In Life 3.0, there is a 3rd choice: my brilliantly fertile mind got working, and there and then, at Regents Fark, I invented the M&M plugin, which I uploaded and installed immediately. I do not mean to boast (with my 3rdlifer modesty and terrific solo-auto upbringing) but with the M&M superpower, the rest of my 15km run today was chicken feed. No ankle strain or anything mundane like that, or rather, if there was,any, it did not matter. The M&M plugin WORKS and is RUNNING WELL (pun intended)!
For those who lack imagination, I have decided to help you (this being the oh-so-jolly season of giving and sharing, afterall!) I have taken a photo of my brains (please see above). The superpower plugins are the bits sticking up on the left (more to come). As clearly illustrated here, my mind is quite fertile, as I am of a fertile age (although, nothankyouverymuch, we are against reproduction philosophically – Kaidie is extremely principled as [self-]righteous, if you didn’t already know) – but of course, if you recall the circumstance of my birth, which was the cesspool of poo, my primary source of nutrients.
Oh goody, I’m really into the festive mood now.
THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING AND HENRY DARGER (many thanks to JO & ROB for this wonderful recommendation!)
What is between everything and nothing? Something, for sure.
At Jo and Roy’s recommendation, I visited the Museum of Everything last Sunday. (DO GET YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS POURING IN! I will take them up and report back!! This blog entry is proof!) I walked to and from the museum (about 7km) at a temperature not fit for humans. Fortunately I was a hamster then (and now). Unfortunately, my little hands/feet (call them what you will – ok, limbs) could not have a good grip of the icy ground, so I slipped and landed on my ass. In Life 3.0, being the smart ass that I am, I turned my accident into a positive experience, and instead of trying to stand up and confront the chuckling spectators, I rolled myself on the ground, all the way to the Museum at Sharples Hall Street, which is right next to Primprose Hill.
Sharples Hall Street
How glad I am to have visited. I quite like the show (though I must say that I find the term ‘Outsider Art’ – which the show has been described as – slightly problematic, the way all forms of ghetto-isation are, and also dangerous, to an extent, for a sort of mythologisation and romanticisation of artists and their processes. This is interesting also especially if the curators of a show are NOT outside but on the contrary, inside inside. Or perhaps this is meant to be an other of those clever contemporary self-reflexive joke?).
Anyways. I like the space, narrow even for me (I have been invariably described as ‘diminutive’ – yes yes, compared to you human beings I am vertically challenged, but please note that while I am a hamster, I am NOT a dwarf hamster – that’s an other breed altogether. Kindly note that I am much taller than them). Being the last day of the show (20 Dec), the place was jam-packed. What a surprise. A very tall (nearly 200cm) young man with very arresting green eyes tells me that the space used to be a dairy. The way the artworks are arranged is quite clever, efficient and intimate. For the uninitiated (like this writer for instance), this might have even appeared to be a show by a single artist. Which goes to show, either that the selection of artists/artworks is a result of their similar aesthetic approaches, or that the curators have done a good job in unifying the entire show in a sharp and coherent manner, or both.
My favourite, favourite is Henry Darger. I stared for some time at his large superwidescreen drawings of toddlers in what looks like edens. There is as much violence as there is beauty, transience as there is timelessness, comehither -ness as there is repugnance and repulsion. The drawings are highly restrained as they are too much.
Even though Life 3.0 is free from death (except on 09.09.2012), I respect the wishes of the organiser.
This concoction of emotions is rather powerful. I quickly travel back in time and cycle through my bank of memory and knowledge, and immediately many names, images and sounds jump up for my attention: Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Chagall, El Greco, Elsie Beckmann and Hans Beckert/Peter Lorre in Lang’s M, Chapman Brothers, the muse of Lewis Carroll and imaginations of Nabokov, AES+F’s Last Riot, and of course, the Great Pretender Takashi Murakami and his faux naif approach. I also recall that I had felt this surge of feelings only a few times before in my previous life: when I saw Boltanski’s solo exhibition in France, a Mark Rothko painting in Chicago, and Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil.
I came back, and tell myself that I must, must go and find out more about Darger.
ARE YOU A LONDONER? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LONDON QUIZ 1
Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are several different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!
COPENHAGEN: DEAL/NO DEAL/EITHER/OR/NEITHER/NOR
The age of stupid, again (and again, looped, across many life, and death cycles)
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ON MY 1 WEEK ANNIVERSARY OF LIFE ON googleEARTH, I GO FOR A 15km RUN AND DECIDE TO HAVE NO HAIRCUT FOR 992 DAYS.
Photo by autopilot.
Today I celebrate my 7-days of staying alive. I cannot believe how divine my life has been so far, so I bang my head on the wall and pinched myself a few times just to check. But in Life 3.0, the concept of pain is banished, so I have no way to determine if this is real.
And, as if my marvellous life is not celebratory enough, it’s a crisp, gorgeous Winter day today at 0 Degrees Celsius – and isn’t zero a delightful number, precariously perched between the positive and the negative. I decide to go for a run. It is my coldest run, ever. With a pair of still-unbendable knees and my bright orange hamster costume, it is not an easy start, but once I reach my beloved Regents Fark, I calm down and scuttle about the Outer Circle on an autopilot mode. I now feel neither cold, pain, nor anxiety. There are new challenges and fears that I have to confront everyday. In Life 3.0, I conquer them all – blindingly well. The only hitch I face today are the ducks who display an overtly friendly attitude to me, to which I am hesitant to reciprocate, for I am rather sure they have ulterior motives – even in Life 3.0, I doubt that you hear of ‘friendships’ between ducks and hamsters, don’t you think, my dear readers?
Peering out my Pings Pross flat 19 December 2009
I complete 15 km in today’s run. During my autopilot mode, I take a picture of the pretty skies to share with you, whom I understand do not have such a vantage point. So, please see above.
In the past 7 days, I have also made new friends, some of whom groan (in pleasure?) that this travel blog is hard to navigate. Hence, for the benefit of you my Dear Readers, I have created a boring site map, though I highly recommend for you to PLEASE GET LOST. No, I am not swearing at you (I am polite to a fault! Even in Life 3.0.), but what I mean is that you should enjoy being lost, for you can have surprising encounters in your detours, but more importantly, the feeling of not having a clear destination and simply gallivanting about is pure pleasure, I would say. So, travel and explore a bit, my Dear Readers.
So, just to sum it up for you and me, in the past week some of the activities I have experienced include:
- 1. swimming and birth (my own)
- 2. deaths (mummy’s, and my entire family’s) during a terrorist attack in Nondon
- 3. walking to and from East Nondon, and meeting my first new friend
- 4. running at Regents Fark
- 5. flying across Nondon and getting airsick
- 6. crawling, and life as Queen Roach
- 7. an epiphany
- 8. a Tarkovsky moment at Finsbury Fark
- 9. a treadmill accident, and the decision to shapeshift into my current shape (hamster)
- 10. a matchmaking, I mean mapmaking workshop
So many meaningful activities in a matter of 7 days!? Somebody pinch/punch me!
I check my ongoing Rough Guide, and am satisfied that I have practised several guidelines today, including: Free from pain, live life intensively, live life intently. Another lesson /conclusion I have learnt today: my hamster-costume, with all the fur and fat, works fashionably well this season. This gives me an idea – which is Tehching Hsieh’s, really – that I shall not cut my (head)hair for the next 992 days, as a marker of time. The picture to your left (and my right) shows my hair length as of 19 December 2009. Watch this space.
DAY 6: MAPMAKING WORKSHOP AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY; ANOTHER SITE MAP FOR THIS SITE
Sight map of this website. I cannot bend my knees due to my folly of falling off the treadmill 2 days ago, but I can map the globe.
There are many exquisite maps at the British Library. (Like the British Museum, there are many, many, many things in the British Library. One of the reasons as we all know quite well is that they, well, ‘appropriated’ many things from all over the world during the glorious days of imperialism, but Kaidie, a 3rdlifer, while aware and conscious of course of these discourses, is free from the baggage and burden of history/histories. As well as taste, some might say, looking at my map, above).
After the workshop, I walk down the Euston Road, which leads to Marylebone Road. Opposite the Madam Tussaud’s Museum (which is full of my impersonator friends), is a pub named the Globe (see below). As a true-blue cosmopolitan Nondoner, I down 9 pints in quick succession in 6 minutes, of Hoegaarden, Asahi, 3 Moët et Chandon Brut Impérial, 2 Mojitos, washed down with 2 straight vodkas. Burp. (In Life 3.0, there is no legal age-limit. Nothing is illegal, or nothing is legal either.) Refreshed from my small drink, I go home and make my own map (see above).
We are told that there will be a big map show in April 2010 – either the show is a big show, or that the maps that are shown there are big, or it is a big show that shows big maps. Magnificent! I must go! I must put it down in my diary.
Around the globe in 6 days.
I MUST, MUST go as well to look at The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam show which closes 21 Feb 2010! I have just signed up to receive online newsletters. I must register to be a Reader as well.
SO MUCH TO DO, AND SO MUCH TIME TO DO THEM ALL! How I adore Nondon! My Life 3.0 is a bed of roses. And fragrant proses. Sigh.
Do not, my dear Readers, envy me please. Inequality is life. Such is life. Accept it!
A ROUGH GUIDE FOR A LIFE 3.0: DO CONTRIBUTE, AND I WILL TEST THEM OUT!
As Kaidie travels her Grand Tour of Life 3.0 for the next 1000 days, she will draw up, with your help, a list of guidelines. GUIDE KAIDIE! HELP HER NAVIGATE THIS PERFECT LIFE! For now, just to get us / her going, Kaidie has come up with a few. KAIDIE WILL TEST OUT WHAT YOU SUGGEST /WHAT WE COME UP WITH, TO SEE WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T. Through trial and error for the next 3 years, we can finetune them. The list of guidelines that we end up with on 09.09.2012 will not be the last, as this list remains dynamic and always updatable, but it will be at a state that can be adapted by anyone, anywhere to live life 3.0. SO, WHICH OF THESE GUIDELINES SHOULD KAIDIE TWEAK? WHAT SHOULD KAIDIE REMOVE? WHAT SHOULD KAIDIE ADD? WHAT OTHER GUIDELINES SHOULD KAIDIE TEST OUT TO ENABLE HER TO LIVE A MEANINGFUL LIFE 3.0?
Original composition by Philip Tan 2009
* 16.12.2009: ADVICE FROM LUCY: “FOCUS KAIDIE, FOCUS!”
DAY 5: THE GUINEA PIG OF LIFE 3.0 IS FALLEN (OFF THE TREADMILL)
Fallen
In this long and lovely journey of Life 3,0, there are many lessons I will learn, as expected of a guinea pig of Life 3.0.
Indeed, I have already acquired my first injury for this road trip. At the last 100 metres of my 5km run on the treadmill, I fell off the treadmill at 14kmh, all due to the rather silly reason that I lost focus. 2 of my kneecaps have some skin off, in a warm crimson (no photohopping on this one, I tell you, my dear readers); fortunately, the other 4 legs are in tact.
Lessons learnt in Day 5 of my Quest For The Meaning of A Life 3.0:
1) DO NOT LOSE FOCUS!! It was only a quickie, and we have done this many, many times already in our previous lives – still, it happened. Now we doubt that Kaidie can complete that 42km marathon or the full 1000-days in life 3.0, don’t we! (tsk tsk).
2) Do not be injured ever again! Refer back to Rough Guide So Far: the dictum of ‘Do Not Be Hurt’. I have to have enough physical and mental stamina and fitness for the next 995 days. It is all about staying power.
3) It is dangerous to work out at the gym as a Roach. (Gregor is wise not to leave his room).
Indeed I have learnt my lesson well. If the news are to be believed, there will be more snowy days to come. Either run outdoors with a brolly, or shapeshift to a hamster to excel on the treadmill. All that hair would have cushioned my downfall from grace.
Hanging out on a snowy day 16 December 2009
DAY 4, OR 996 DAYS LEFT: HAVING SHAPESHIFTED TO A COCKROACH, KAIDIE SNEAKS INTO A PUBLIC LOO AT EATERLOO STATION, AND WHAT DOES SHE SEE?
A panda contemplating her own reflection.
We could have saved ourselves, but we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off? … We wouldn’t be the first life form to make itself extinct. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us?
– The Age of Stupid (Franny Armstrong, 2009)
DAY 3: UNDERCOVER AS ROACH TO EXPLORE UNDERBELLY OF NONDON
Time flies when I am having fun. I have 997 days to go. How can I get beneath the surface of things, I wonder? So I Metamorphise into a roach. Not just an ordinary roach, but one on top of the food chain (in the lowest in the food chain) – Queen Roach. With an army of me, we scuttle down Nondon and explore the nooks and crannies, all the in-between spaces, as I suspect that The Meaning Of Life 3.0 could be hiding there. You reckon?
“IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I’VE BEEN ME.”
Há muito tempo que não sou eu. – Fernando Pessoa, A Factless Autobiography, edited by Richard Zenith, Lisbon, 2006, p. 143
A phrase like ‘face-value’ would have been more than a double-entendre when it comes to describing someone like Portuguese poet /writer Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (1888- 1935), who invented ‘at least 72 identities’[i] in a self-mythologising ‘theatre’ of himself[ii]. This is all the more intriguing given that the author is nearly unknown in his own country, and that his work is only discovered and published posthumously. It is from the mountains of fragments – of some 25,000+ manuscripts written by the Pessoa under a multitude of pseudonyms – that one can begin to attempt to re-construct one, or a few, re-presentations of Pessoa(s).
The rather wonderful Richard Zenith elucidates the Pessoa’s craft:
The fragmentary state of the archives is emblematic of the author’s literary project of depersonalization. “Be plural like the universe!” wrote Pessoa with a flourish on a scrap of paper left in his famous trunk of manuscripts, and he set the example, multiplying himself into three major “heteronyms”-Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Alvaro de Campos- along with dozens of lesser “dramatis personae” who wrote poetry, stories, essays and criticism, very often about each other. Teresa Rita Lopes, one of Portugal’s most knowledgeable and astute Pessoa scholars, convincingly argues that the universe of Pessoa was a vast and ongoing theatre of himself, and she cites the protean poet’s own words as evidence. He wrote, for example, that the heteronyms “should be considered as distinct from their author. Each one forms a drama of sorts; and together they form another drama…. The works of these three poets constitute a dramatic ensemble, with careful attention having been paid to their intellectual and personal interaction. … It is a drama in people, instead of in acts.” [iii]
Zenith writes a most brilliantly eloquent forward in Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet, which I strongly urge you, my dear reader, to read, and, of course, the book itself, which is nicely structured as aphorisms which you can dive into from any page, in a non-linear fashion, which is my kind of book, being a restless time-&-space-traveller with a highly challenged attention-span myself. Some of them are reproduced here, for you to have a bit of a taster. I scanned them with my best little friend, the lovely 6-year-old Renee, just before I ended my last life, and whom I do miss quite a bit from my previous life.
[i] John Gray, “Assault on authorship.” New Statesman, 2001. <http://www.newstatesman.com/200105280043> [accessed 9 July 2009]
[ii] Richard Zenith, “Fernando Pessoa and the Theatre of His Self,” Performing Arts Journal, 15 (1993), 47-49. I am responsible for highlighting the text in bold.
[iii] Zenith, p. 48.
MUMMY DIES DURING CHILDBIRTH
My birth day is also a death day. During the almighty push that is my coming-into-being from her tummy, mummy reaches her own limits and gives up, gives in, expires, kicks the bucket. At least it is a snappy death. Such is life.
At her funeral, a bomb explodes. According to the twitter feed by the met, it is a suspected terrorist attack in Nondon. All my family members are wiped out in a single splash of fireworks. They are shredded into pieces, so many that I cannot pick up.
Anxious Nondeners gathering at Frafalgar Square after the incident, awaiting updates.
So I am alone, here, in Life 3.0, an orphan, blank slate, tabula rasa, ground zero, with no memory, no baggage, no heritage, no history, no obligations, no expectations to fulfill, no roots, no customs, nothing to declare, an open book, no thing.
The clear, singular task and purpose that I am born is to look for the Meaning of Life 3.0. So we know our starting point, and the destination, but the in-between, the getting-there, is the point of this. The question is how we get there, and I need your help with that.
I say goodbye to mummy, daddy and my siblings, and embark on my trip. I move on.
NIETZSCHE SAID THAT ‘THOSE WHO HAS A WHY TO LIVE CAN BEAR WITH ALMOST ANY HOW’ – KAIDIE DOESN’T QUITE AGREE, AS THE ‘HOW’, THE JOURNEY/TRIP IS THE POINT, BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK? WRITE IN NOW!
WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE THIS LIFE (PROJECTIONS)
2009 12.12: *Kaidie comes into being
2010: * January: Kaidie in Heidiland + Dignitas, Zurich: Alive Performance: Kaidie’s first ever Life 1.0 appearance, at Villa Straueli * Before April: Visit Olympics Park construction at Ratford * March 2: talk at art college (TBC) * March 8: Conference presentation at the Bartlett School of Architecture * 22 March: Word Image exhibition UCL * March: Visit V & A Decode * 25 April: Film London Marathon * Summer: Hempstead Heath Lido * Jaipur International Film Festival * August: Pearly Kings & Queens * 19 September: Kaidie runs her firstest, ever ever marathon, Farnham Pilgrims’ Marathon in Surrey! * November: Guy Gawkes * Other real-live appearances of Kaidie(s).
2011: * Year of marathon-tourism: to participate in at least 2 of the following. To run with camera, run to check out city, not for time (only to complete marathon). *DO YOU WISH TO JOIN KAIDIE? DO YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER RACES (HALF OR FULL MARATHONS) IN NONDON? * 1 Jan: Zurich: first marathon of the year + coldest * April: Nondon: Nondon Marathon backing a charity * May: Belfast: City marathon * June: Norway: Midnight sun run* June: Sweden: Arctic Circle midnight sun run * October: Turkey: Eurasia City marathon: across Europe & Asia! * October: Nondon: Half marathon * October: Slovakia: oldest running event in Europe * December: hibernation
2012: * Summer: Kaidie begins to prepare for her death. * 27 July-12 August: Nondon Olympics * 29 Aug – 9 September: Nondon Paralympics
2012 09.09: * Kaidie ceases being. See you later / sooner or later.
WHAT ELSE APART FROM ALL THIS RUNNING CAN KAIDIE DO IN NONDON THAT COULD BE MEANINGFUL? SURELY LIFE HAS MORE TO OFFER! DO TELL ME!! AN EVENT, A PLACE TO VISIT, A PERSON TO SPEAK WITH, ETC – FILL UP MY CALENDAR! MAKE ME HAVE THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO!
I MAKE A NEW FRIEND IN EAST NONDON
I swim out Mummy’s tummy and wander about. I reach a place with many tall buildings, which excite me. Peering inside, I see offices with no one, as it is a Saturday. I visit the Nondon Museum, which tells me about Nondon in the past, which is nice, since I would have quite limited knowledge of Nondon before I was born today, though I think I would also enjoy exploring cities knowing next to nothing about them. With adjustable lenses within my eyes, I see a giant cucumber in a distance. This makes me excited again. I feel hungry. With desire rushing to the end of my earlobes, I swallow a few bagels (salmon and cream cheese) at Brick Lane. I see an exhibition by an artist called Sophie Calle. This is new to me. Her work is quite interesting. So this is what contemporary art is. I think I like art. I then put on earphones and walk a tour by Janet Cardiff. As someone new to Nondon, and on the Grand Tour of Life 3.0, I like the idea of being on an other tour while being on a couple of tours. Cardiff whispers into my ears. I hear sounds of footsteps. I am unsure if it comes from the earphones or the environment. I turn around anyway, and see a person behind me. She has a large pair of plastic wings on her shoulders, which she uses to wipe her mouth.
‘Come join me on my tour’, I say to her, and offer her one of the earphones.
4 LAPS AROUND REGENTS FARK: MIND OVER MATTER (IF IT MATTERS AT ALL)
Feeling particularly energetic on the first day of my life, I run 4 laps around Regents Fark. Including the distance to and from my starting point, I run a total of approximately 24km today. This is good for today, and although it is a long way towards even attempting to pay back for the damage I have done and will do, as well as to pay back for my stubborn continual existence in spite of all this, it is a start, and a continual effort. As we know well, much of what Confucius says is rather dodgy, but the one thing he says about any change starting from oneself makes some sense.
I began running in the final year of my previous life. Prior to that I had been swimming 1.5km daily. I took part in my first half marathon and came in at 2 hours and a bit. As my wish to run my 1st marathon could not be fulfilled in my previous life, I will have to do it this life, by Summer 2010. If it takes me 5 hours, so be it. 8 hours, 10 hours, until the volunteers have all packed up to leave, until the cleaners have cleaned up the last crushed paper cup and runner’s poo on the streets the next morning, that is fine. I will run / walk / crawl / jump / fly / swim. Physical pain I can battle – the only thing I have to fight now is boredom. Being so young, my attention span is awfully short. I struggle to stay focused in any single activity for a stretch of several minutes, much less several hours (or years, or lifetimes). I think of 5 other things as I do one thing; linear events exhaust and bore me, as I already imagine travelling to 6 other places in 7 other directions. (That was how I got tired of my previous life, as it was going on for a while). (How I look forward to Life 3.0, then, since I am not bound by the trivial constraints of time and space! I will be able to do what I want, when I want, however I want it! More on this later…) Monotony is a weakness, though endurance is my strength. (Afterall, I have managed to endure myself all those years and life cycles). The only things that keep me going when running or swimming long distances is my imagination and willpower. Hopefully, by Summer, I will be older (more than 6 months old) and will have cultivated enough patience to not feel bored too quickly.
DO YOU KNOW OF ANY UPCOMING RACES? DO LET KAIDIE KNOW! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU ARE RUNNING?
Running today at Regents Fark, 2 runners smile at me – huge smiles. I get suspicious and wonder if it is my unbecoming running gait that so amuses them – afterall I am a newborn and my movement remains awkward – but one of the cops carrying a large toy gun at Binfield House and another passerby both shout hello. On my way home, another says ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and sticks out his hand to make me slap it as I passed by. Although I have run in several cities in my previous life, this friendliness is rather refreshing (a couple of the few fellow runners I encountered in Tokyo, Fukuoka and Beppu in Papan did nod at me; people in Spore primarily stare disapprovingly at my folly of running under the hot sun as they sit fat in their air-conditioned cars in their air-conditioned carnation; in Oxford in Yengland some dogs looked like they were smiling, or perhaps those were their default teeth-&-tongue-revealing faces which do not necessarily translate as the human equivalent of smiling?).
WHY ON EARTH ARE OTHER RUNNERS AND PEOPLE AND ANIMALS SMILING AT KAIDIE? DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD SMILE BACK ? WHAT KIND OF SMILE SHOULD SHE ATTEMPT? SHOULD KAIDIE INITIATE SMILES? HOW MANY TIMES IN, SAY, A 10km RUN SHOULD KAIDIE ATTEMPT TO SMILE? LIKE AN AVERAGE OF 1 SMILE PER 100m? PER 1000m? WHAT ABOUT WHEN SHE IS RUNNING ON THE TREADMILL IN THE GYM?
Camus concludes that Sisyphus must be happy – good for him, and him, but let me tell you, my dear reader, that the 1st 3km of any long run is always the most dreaded. As I run I protest/resist/fight/struggle and say, NO, I do not want to do this, this bloody hurts / this is no fun / I’d rather spend £4.50 to swim at the Union pool / I’d rather spend 45p to pay another version of myself doing this / I’d rather sit on my buttocks and do nothing and get furious for sitting on my buttocks and for doing nothing and sitting on my buttocks and for doing nothing but getting angry while sitting on my buttocks / I’d rather get greasy and let the calories choke my bloodstream and expire before the 1000-day duration / I rather slurp my own poo (with syrup) several litres over until I am flooded and I drown in, than to put one feet in front of the other, why do I have to do this of all people of this and other worlds / realities, why do I have to do this now of all my lifetimes. I have about 34,000 excuses that I come up with, looped, each and every time. Then after 3 km, I give up protesting as it gets boringly predictable as a broken record or a dislocated kaidie for that matter. Can’t go on, must go on, since there is no other options. So I go on. In the numbing repetitive motion, something else happens physically/psychologically. I begin to enjoy the groove and rhythm (never mind my beastly gait). I am there, much aware of my surroundings, and at the same time I am travelling elsewhere, as lucid as I am slightly intoxicated, somewhere that no one else is, where no one can touch me, where I am very much alone, feeling strong/alert/erect as much as I am unclenched/dreamy/soft where I am not fighting anymore, and am calm, at peace. So I push on. And on. My mind thinks of no thing, and it is aware that it is thinking of no thing. I remember getting there sometimes with my 1.5km swims in my previous life. It’s rather nice – and what’s nicer is the knowledge that it’s all MINE! Kaidie as a 3rd Lifer is a fabulous person and all that but she is also selfish when it comes to pleasure. Sorry!
Today is particularly interesting. At the 24th km, I not only feel calm, but happy. It is nice to feel happy. Then, I feel a large pair of plastic wings stapled onto my shoulders.
Original composition by PHILIP TAN
WHILE FLYING ACROSS NONDON, I DECIDE TO BE A CATFISH IN MY NEXT LIFE
Flying across Nondon with my friends from one of my previous lives.
Finally, I reach the ground and find myself, as well as the other version of myself, in East Nondon. I begin to surreptitiously follow the other version of me, who is in the middle of a Janet Cardiff audio tour.
DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD CONFRONT HER OTHER SELF (WALKING KAIDIE IN EAST NONDON), OR SHOULD SHE (FLYING-BUT-SOON-TO-BE-ALSO-WALKING KAIDIE) JUST SECRETLY FOLLOW HER (WALKING KAIDIE) AND SEE WHAT SHE’S UP TO UNTIL SHE NOTICES? HOW DO YOU THINK SHE (FLYING KAIDIE, WALKING KAIDIE) WOULD REACT IF SHE SEES THE OTHER? WHAT SHOULD SHE SAY TO THE OTHER? SHOULD SHE SMILE?
