Ups and Downs, Thoughts and Places

Something has thrown me, my earlier elation at the freedom I felt has worn. It has drifted I guess, life continues in it’s own way, there is a routine of sorts. We move from place to place, from day to day, from hour to hour even. Cadiz unsettled me, it caught me unawares and confused me. I couldn’t make sense of it, or find solution to my thoughts.

Cadiz is a lovely city, built on a narrow isthmus that shelters the bay it is old and much fought over. The Moorish influence is strong here, as is the European. Perhaps that is part of why it was hard to understand, it had a feel of its own that was not wholly cohesive. The marina is a long way out of the centre, so we walked in along a wide mole. It is dry and dusty, but everywhere is dry and dusty around here so that does not help in the description. The path over great concrete paving slabs was the home of stray cats, ten or more of them sat in the sun eating or sleeping. Small groups of teenagers were here too, slouching on benches, acting as they feel they must act. Approaching the old town we found a strange collection of concrete columns and arches, as if a building was begun and left unfinished, they were covered in graffiti, hundreds of colours of words in Arabic and Spanish. People asserting their existence, or declaring love they have been drawn to this small space to fight with everyone else’s proclamations.

After a time an old wall appeared, we walked beside it, I took some photos, a window, a patch of light, my friends walking. Further in we crossed a large square, a huge marble column attributes Cadiz’ principles to Ferdinand the VII. Soon we found ourselves in the old town proper, winding streets and bustling people. People on street corners sold lottery tickets, these having pre selected numbers on them the sellers display those with ‘good’ numbers prominently. They are proud of symmetrical ones like 12321, or those with sequence 12355. Expensive fashion shops do well, though they seem to mock the poor people selling tickets on each corner. We had a slow Spanish lunch, choosing tapas randomly off the menu and drinking beer. I could not quite relax, not as before, it didn’t feel right. After lunch I wandered off with Barney. I hoped to find what I’m missing, what I have lost. We walked down the alleyways turning left and right, going anywhere that looks interesting, we stumbled upon a small square. Cadiz is full of little squares, each with a fountain and a café in it, and a stray cat of course. I hope through this random walking to feel free again, to exercise my free will and in doing so return to a mind set where I can laugh at a patch of sunlight.

But free will is an illusion, we are not free. I won’t let myself believe in free will. In rejecting the metaphysical, in rejecting God and spirits and ghosts I can solely accept the physical. That is to say I accept that matter is all that exists in the Universe. Traditional physics tells us that matter is governed by rules, or at least behaves in a predictable manner. The complete and utter inconceivability of understanding these rules, of predicting the behaviour does not change that fact that there this regularity exists. The world, the air, the seas, this laptop, my brain are all made of matter that must behave in a non random way. The end result of this is that our actions are not free. We do not reach a decision in our heads and act on it freely, we reach the decision we had to reach as a consequence of the arrangement of atoms and smaller particles at that moment. Thought is the end result of a process electrical discharges and chemical reaction in the brain, nothing more. Quantum physics can dissolve this problem like Aqua Regis. But everything dissolves in Aqua Regis, determinism and free will and order and reason, quantum physics leaves everything scary and uncontrollable. I prefer a deterministic world to that one.

I do not believe in free will, I do not think man (or woman) is free to make a choice in his life. However, and here is my succour, I believe in consciousness. Some weeks ago I said to a philosophically minded friend that we are free to make a decision, but the one we reach is the one we were always going to make, he scoffed. He was right to do so, that is a bit of a daft statement, but it is also slightly right. Free will does not exist, but we are conscious and this consciousness creates the belief in freedom. Free will is an illusion, but it’s a bloody good one.

A few days have passed since I wrote all that and looking back on it I am reluctant to post it, or to continue with what I had begun. The ideas, the arguments are half formed and poorly worded, I don’t know enough about quantum to dispel it that easily. However, I have posted it, I think it shows what my mind does here. I spend hours thinking about philosophy and life and how I fit into it all. I had hoped to weave my philosophy into the thread of my narrative, and I may yet, but it is too soon. I don’t know what I’m thinking properly, and I certainly don’t know enough to argue these things properly. I don’t believe in free will, but I do believe in freedom, “freedom as the strongest expression of life”. I think that creation makes people great, creation of new thought, or of art or of deed. Freedom to do this is what really matters. I think all that, and I believe it, but I don’t yet know how to explain it. Its like a new colour that no-one else has ever seen, I know what it is like I can imagine it and picture it but I cant possibly explain it to anyone else beyond saying “its kind of like apricot jam mixed with a muddy sea and the green of a cactus; shaken up in a triangle poured over Bach’s second Cantata on a bright Tuesday afternoon” It just doesn’t make sense.

So anyway. We are anchored in Portuguese waters, in the lagoon around Faro, but away from the city in the shelter of little island called Culatra. We have been here for four days now, as Michael would say, “just being pretty chilled”. We have swam and played and read, we have taken Alex ashore and waved goodbye as he headed home. It’s strange to imagine leaving this life now, I have become so settled into it that I couldn’t handle leaving.

Culatra is beautiful though, possibly the most beautiful place I have been to on this trip so far, a small island with a surprisingly big community. Barney described it as a toy town, and it is a good description. There are no roads, only a meter wide concrete pavement that runs down between the houses. On either side of the pavement is a wide patch of sand, dirty with dog shit and foot prints. The houses are almost all one story, flat roofed and fronted, though varied in colour and design many have a door with a single window on either side. They are houses that children would draw, right down to single tree on one side and the round yellow sun on the other.

Beyond the village/town/settlement a board walk leads out over the sand dunes, scraps of dry and weary looking plants grow on the sand. Small amounts of rubbish do not spoil the subtle beauty of this fragile ecosystem. Eventually we reached the end of the boardwalk, here is a simply fantastic beach. It is long and golden, and empty. Huge rolling waves pound in against the sand, there is nothing but sky and sea and long golden beach. I run, excited again, laughing madly at this unexpected shore. I ran into the surf ignoring the soaking my clothes got, I stood and shouted excited, bold shouts of pointless noise, I think young Barney was a little puzzled but I didn’t care. I ran along the water front singing loudly, uncaring. My freedom is back, that daft, reckless wild freedom that makes me feel like nothing is impossible.

The next day we took the tender over to the town of Olhao for the market. Though we see little of the town the market is excellent. Lots of local farmers selling misshapen tomatoes and dirty vegetables, old ladies standing in the shade of an umbrella behind a few buckets of nuts and young guys in vans with cheeses and olives. A covered market is noisy and boisterous, we bought sardines and sausages, got more gas from a hardware store and enjoyed our selves purchasing vegetables. We bought a few bunches of non-descript herbs from an ancient woman, she was tiny and covered in wrinkles, dressed in a printed dress grubby and worn with an equally old straw hat.

We have returned twice to Culatra, to walk and watch and chat. We played Frisbee on the beach in the sunshine, and drank beer on plastic patio furniture in the shade. Two old guys sat in a corner playing cards, neither of them had a drink, now made any sign of buying anything. I don’t think anyone cared. Dogs roamed and children played, the whole island is basically one big sandpit free from cars and crime, I can think of few better places for small children. The whole island is conspicuously free from the presence of anyone between fifteen and thirty. No teenagers live here, they need bright lights and big cities. I hope all the small children mean the community isn’t dying and I doesn’t feel that way. People walked and chatted in the street, doing shopping at the two small and dingy shops or drinking in one of the sparsely populated cafes. I love this island, it’s silence and its simplicity, but I feel the tug of the sea, the urge of the wanderer, I want to go to the next place now.

Two days on and we are in a new place. Lagos to be exact. We left at five thirty this morning from the anchorage at Culatra and arrived just before lunch time after a rather boring trip. The forecast southerlys that should have blown us nicely along the coast never materialised so we motored most of the way. The last few days have been quite wild though so there was a rather nasty swell from all directions, the short sharp lumps of sea made me seasick for the first time on this trip. We also had the first decent rain storm of the whole trip, the others went below and I took the watch. Laughing maniacally and singing happily I got fully soaked, which was nice because it washed the salt off from my swim in the sea the day before. Dawn was uneventful really, which was a shame because I was looking forward to it. Sunset the night before had been fantastic, bold and massive, filling fully half the sky in a hundred shades of grey pink and yellow. I sat on the foredeck listening to pink floyd and smiling at the tremendous beauty of it.

I realise I use the word beauty too much on this blog, but I see so many beautiful things I can think of no other word to use. It is something I have come to realise here, you see so much more. I assume that there sky looked as fantastically awesome as it does here, ok I couldn’t see quite as much of it due to buildings etc but it must have still be great. On any ordinary day in Edinburgh, the chances of me stopping what I was doing and staring at a particular cloud for half an hour are pretty slim. It did happen from time to time, but so rarely. Here I can sit and do nothing but look for hours on end without getting bored. When you slow down a little, stop rushing to work or lectures or a friends, When you can stop for an hour and not feel guilty, when you can watch the sun set uninhibited by the rest of the world you realise how much you have been missing. I’ve said it before but the world it fantastically beautiful, not just the great dramatic sunsets and that wide open beaches but the pattern of light on the ground or the way a bird flaps its wings. Next time you have to go somewhere, be it lecture, work or friend leave early. Walk slowly. Look. Stare up at the way the leaves shine luminous green in the sunlight, look down at the shapes of rain on the ground. Watch the faces of people you pass. I rarely looked at things back home, I don’t even know if it can feel the same when you don’t have all the time in the day. But try it. Let me know if it works.