Today’s theme, I’ve decided in the last 30 seconds, is limits and moderation. Yuck, right? No one likes to think about either of these words and yet most of modern society is based around some kind of limits, boundaries, barriers.
I think about these things as I compare myself to other people I know who range from strict self control: vegan diet/alcohol free/deeply religious to those who shamelessly indulge.
I don’t know where I fall on the scale of self indulgence vs control . I know I love projecting an image of non-stop-chaos and self indulgence on social media and amongst my friends group, but I also I don’t like hangovers. I don’t like gaining weight. I don’t like going to bed at night and the glow of my phone behind my eyelids well after I’ve put it down because I stared at it too long during the day. I also seem to witness reward when I try to control myself. I mean here I am holding myself accountable to a weekly Substack for Chrissake. Those who believe in the benefits of control, delayed gratification and discipline have probably achieved more from a capitalistic, career-driven perspective.
I think in my head I like to craft an ideal of hedonism, partying and chaos, but within my control, ha! We are currently in Guadalajara Mexico and Zach and I were lucky enough this weekend to be taken to a wild party in Tequila, amongst the agave fields. I was beside myself with excitement, but very much aware that I was in a situation where many of the factors are out of my control. My Spanish is mediocre, there were no taxis or Ubers in the area, the bar only takes cash, oh and I’d left all forms of identification back in Gudalajara. Never-the-less, I had a blast and we danced all night. I had one gorgeous mescal cocktail and then nursed a tequila with soda water for the rest of the night. I wanted to have fun, but I wanted to feel in control of my situation.
I contrast this to a night in Newcastle with local characters that occurred back in July. I had finished work and felt relaxed and excited about being in my own city surrounded by people I trusted, I managed to skip dinner and drink both whiskey and wine and peak way too early, barely remembering any of the relatively short evening and waking up in a mild panic in my bed at 2am, uncertain about much of the night.
Both are examples of where I tried to operate with more or less self control. No doubt my time in the agave fields was less wild as I didn’t get too crazy, but also I remembered every freaking moment of the night and had a beautiful time.
But okay, here’s the thing that’s probably going to annoy worshippers of discipline and caution maybe myself included… did I really have that much control in either situation? Does anyone ever have control of anything in this precious life lottery? It is easy for me ponder, as I type this from the top floor of a secure brick building, with my parents in the next room, that it is important for all humans to realise that the idea of control is a complete illusion. I’ll never forget when last year our appartment building in Newcastle briefly shook intensely as a result of an earthquake near Melbourne. For those 15 seconds as I watched my plants sway and the water in my glass tremble, I felt the awful, freeing uncertainty of the future of my life on earth. It doesn’t have to be a natural disaster to bring this on. Sometimes I feel it when I cross the street.
While I approached Saturday night with a bit of caution, I know several people who would never have even gotten into a car without knowing where they were going to end up. They would probably say that by just by putting myself in that situation (though these days I do trust my brother, generally) that I was at unnecessary risk. But I would counter this by saying, fuck, the human condition requires a little bit of chaos, no? I know I have been overindulging in travel in the last six months since Australia’s borders opened, but the feeling of the new and the unknown is pure joy, cake for my soul. Familiarity breeds contempt and stir crazy boredom. The two years of pandemic monotony life in my apartment have blended into nothingness blur, was that time even real?
I love so much the feeling of being just on the edge of fear and uncertainty, particularly in retrospect when it all works out. I do realise the previous sentence could potentially be my famous last words and perhaps it’s an indicator of my wholesome and stable upbringing. I am grateful that I have the disposition and health to enjoy new experiences.
It’s these moments of uncertainty and unpredictability that stay solid in my mind, for decades, revealing life, characters, story, memory. Moments of instability, fear and change bring life lessons. I reflect on my night out in the south of Italy with my friends Cristina and Andrea. We had driven in Cristina’s car to a beautiful beach and spent the day in the waves. It was 2010, I was 23 and it was my first time swimming topless! It could not have been more idyllic, a glorious moment for me as a young woman, getting to explore my identity in a new place. The ten day trip across the country with both beautiful people revealed the different ways to live, to enjoy
Gelato, gondolas, limoncello, trains across the country. After the beautiful day at the beach we walked along the road for nearly an hour trying to find where Cristina had parked. We eventually realised it had been stolen! Night fell and the three of us were nervously wandering the side of the road, she was on her cell phone with her boyfriend, her parents and the police. We clearly needed to get into the nearest town to sort things out and this was well before the time of Uber and I don’t think there were taxis. We opted to get rides with the vespas zooming past to go to the police in the nearby town. Cristina jumped on the first one and Andrea flagged down the next one. He didn’t want to leave me (the non-Italian speaking American), so the vespa driver agreed to drive all three of us on his little bike to town, which, probably directly resulted in one of his tires going flat along the way. (I hope he got to where he was going okay.) It was a crazy evening and of course Cristina was devastated. I don’t know that they ever got her car back, and we’d never been more relieved to see her boyfriend who took us home. It was a perfect day and a crazy, chaotic terrible evening.
I have five minutes left of my writing hour, and I don’t have a nice neat summary of my time in the agave fields of Mexico vs being drunk as a skunk on the streets of Newcastle vs an uncomfortable ride on crowded vespa on a dark night in southern Italy after a perfect day on the Mediterranean sea, but I guess my conclusion is I am not blind to the privileged, protected life I’ve lived, but I do think it’s okay to explore beyond the boundaries and the limits imposed by ourselves, others and society. Life is a gift, and they say the world is ending soon. How do we make sure we’re actually living?
Okay I’ve definitely gone slightly above my hour rule, (ha broken my “limit”), but I also want to say that I recognise that the above might be interpreted as endorsement of selfishness, but another part of me (at least 50 percent) also believes that people who have the means have a moral obligation to do good and even make the world better in some capacity. Maybe that’s next Monday’s post.
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