Notes from Bali

Many of us spend our days like zombies on speed, guzzling caffeine, schizo-frenetically multitasking, twittering and fidgeting, and thereby sacrificing what is really a rather brief span on this magnificent ball of madness to the insatiable demands of work, consumption, self-improvement, technological intervention and a future of should’s and shouldn’ts.

After a month or so in Bali, I have at times managed to relinquish this impetus via a gradual slowdown to sync with the pace of live here. Although it is possible to stumble into a black hole of touristic doing, time in Bali doesn’t generally exist with the linear, objective, techno-paced agenda of industrialised society and the clock. It slows and speeds up according to the natural rhythms of culture (daily ceremonies in villages for weddings, deaths and births, Hindu rites and monthly full moon celebrations take precedent over the working day) and nature (heavy afternoon downpours or extreme heat bring people to a halt and together for shelter) which makes attunement with just being and life in the moment far easier.

Sometimes here in Ubud it is possible to just sit with nature for hours on end, listen to the distant gongs of a ceremony, have a nap, indulge in a massage or cruise through the beautiful rice paddies on the bike. This weekend in particular was a further adventure in stillness with a visit to the beaches of Southern Bali. Joining me on the trip was an old friend from the UK. Pit-stopping at various beaches we finally found a remote surfers beach tucked into the rock face, lined with a handful of cheap (£2 per night) wooden rooms and wonderful restaurants overlooking the vista of blue sea, golden sand and scores of surfers attempting the huge 10ft waves. Unable to surf due to a ripped open big toe playing football on a stony pitch there was nothing to do but unwind, observe, slowdown and reflect on a book I recently read by a Zen master who claims that being is time . (In other words, we don’t just move through time or submit to time or make time -we are time). Furthermore, what such a temporal break enabled is time to relax, take a breath and re-consider what really matters.

Respectively, just before I left for Bali it seemed the global economic juggernaut of blind doing,  progress and achieving might change pace too as headlines bellowed with warnings of “a significant economic slowdown” and I don’t know about you but I thought this may actually be quite a good thing. Sure, I understand that a “slowdown” describes the debilitating intermission in capitalism’s endless expansion – that means families get pushed into poverty, small businesses close, the poor grow desperate and the rich even more selfish – but couldn’t the world do with a bit of a slowdown to allow us to sit back and re-assess where it is we are going and why the hurry? Undoubtedly the planet wouldn’t mind if we all just pulled over for a couple of years before flooring it again towards the materialist’s dream.

And mysteriously it seems once you slow down enough, you can see all the things that need help and care, you have more time to attend to them and more time to creatively respond to complications and uncertainty. If the current slowdown is not too disastrous, it could create more possibility in time and space for individuals and communities to take responsibility for their lives and localities and for some of the countless fresh solutions that already exist to take root. There may not be as much money whizzing around, but there certainly would be more human hours for human needs and room for innovation and creativity to emerge that responds to the problems of our time with new thinking.

Cooking Chicken Satay for Breakfast

So in the spirit of a slowdown and I’ll end here and now write every two weeks. I’m glad so many people are enjoying the updates and musings and I really enjoy hearing from you.

Best wishes

Oli