Queue

"An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." ~George Mikes

Am I really all that surprised? Is it one of those things that until you have experienced it, you just can not describe it? Spending an extra amount of time in London can reveal the little things about a society. Those are the things that you may read about in magazines but experience once there.

For me it was all about the London Underground and learning the train system. Its rather easy once you get the hang of it and very convenient in most cases. That is until the delays occur, the outages and closures which seem to pop up when you least expect. It can be a great and sometimes frustrating experience.

What I found interesting to see though is the British knack for queueing up in a line. Whether it be for tickets, to pass through the turnstile, or getting on the train; queueing is almost an art form here. The line crashers and confused may try to come in at an angle, but quickly they are dismissed.

It can actually be fun to watch the precision with which they form a queue. It can be very much like watching a synchronized water dance from the old Esther Williams movies. A seemingly random mass of people gliding into a one or two person line, side-by-side, slipping into the arms of an escalator. Or maybe a well timed slither of human snake lines onto and off of a train catches your eye.

I'm not sure what drives it. An article in the Guardian Newspaper back in 2003 suggested that the British might be losing their patience for queues. If they have, I would be amazed to see what it was like before then. The queues still seem to flourish with apparent belief that the line will actually get them somewhere.

Is it a blind faith that the system will work and that they will achieve the point of their queueing? When you have the large amount of people using a transport system such as this one, a certain amount of belief in the system is necessary I guess. For me, it reminds me that all of us need to have a certain amount of faith in our destination.

There might involve a queue that will get us to the next part of our journey. And we need to have a certain amount of belief that this is the right queue to stand in. Once through the line, we still have to struggle with the crowded platform, the delayed trains and breakdowns. But once we get used to how it all works, then the journey becomes an adventure to enjoy.

The destination will arrive eventually and whether it be standing in a queue along the way or riding the train, it might as well be fun.

Nine Centimeters

"Nothing is worth more than this day." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

9 centimeters

The length of antique coffee spoons put up for auction.

9 centimeters

The length of a Hatchetfish found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

9 centimeters

The width of a Moleskine Notebook that fits nicely in ones shirt pocket.

9 centimeters

The size of a cancerous spot found on my friends kidney.

It is merely a number by which one uses to describe something. Like an infinite amount of other numbers, it could be larger or smaller. What it doesn't describe is how how we live life. It does not determine how strong the human spirit can be. It does not dictate how we view our future.

Any time the word cancer strikes the ears, one has an instant view of fatality. The word cancer can strike fear into one's heart and consume our day. But the word cancer can also realign what is important to us in life. It can cause us to let go of yesterday. It can cause us to value today.

I know of many cancer survivors and have had heart wrenching loss of others to cancer. But for all those involved, the cancer patient, the cancer spouse, the cancer children, the cancer relatives and the cancer friends; each of us gain so much from the experience of cancer.

Cancer can turn all of your life into a negative replay of regrets and disappointment. But I choose cancer to be a positive statement which reaffirms my belief in the good things our lives have. I choose to believe that my friend will overcome this cancer as they found it early. I choose to believe he will live to be an old man, rocking his grandchildren and teaching them how to fish.

9 centimeters, just a number on a chart.

Sleep

Man Sleeping by Rabulist

"When I woke up this morning a friend asked me, "Did you sleep good?" I said "No, I made a few mistakes." ~Steven Wright

Amusing as the quote above seems, but sleep is probably one of the more important things you do in life. The Harvard Medical School of Sleep Medicine indicates that there are various theories as to "Why do we sleep", although science has made tremendous strides in discovering what happens during sleep and what mechanisms in the body control the cycles of sleep and wakefulness that help define our lives.

So having flown overnight from Atlanta to London, I asked myself "how well did I sleep?" My answer was, "well enough, but I did make a few mistakes." One was in keeping the headphones on a bit too loud albeit on classical music. You see my sleep patterns on a plane are mostly consciousness interrupted by several moments of unconsciousness.

It is almost as if I'm in a wakening dream state. I can hear what is going on around me, I shuffle in my 12" wide faux leather covered aluminum seat, and I drift in and out. This I call a good night's sleep on a plane. Those moments of unconsciousness added together make up my sleep. The other parts I call dozing and are additive to the whole sleep process for me.

Now why would I write about sleeping at all? Is there really a point to all of this?

For me, sleep is a very under rated activity to the human population. We tend to under estimate its power to keep us healthy and strong during the day. Without sleep, over time we do deteriorate both in how well we function and in how well we feel. Much like eating, it helps to sustain our body over the course of time.

The importance of sleep and why I write about it today is in taking care of yourself. In order to be good at what you do during the waking hours, you need sleep as much as you need exercise, good nutrition, and all of the other balance of the "six spokes" of your life.

Now ask yourself, "did I sleep good last night?"

Picture This

"When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see." ~Annie Leibovitz

A famous photograph from the cover of a very famous musical album, The Beatles "Abbey Road" was released in September of 1969. The interesting thing about the photograph by Iain Macmillan is that so much more is behind the picture itself.

A total of six pictures were taken over the course of ten minutes from which only the one was chosen. In an article on Wikipedia, the six photographs are described as such;

• First Photo: John leads the group from left to right followed by Ringo, Paul and George. They kept this order throughout all the photos. There is a Mercedes pulling out of the studio behind them. John is looking away from the camera and Paul and George are in mid step. Paul is wearing sandals
• Second Photo: They walk back in the same order. Good spacing but only John has a full step.
• Third Photo: Left to right again, full steps this time but they are all too far left. There is now a traffic backup. There is a taxi, two vans and a double decker bus waiting to come forward. Paul is now barefoot.
• Fourth Photo: Walking right to left, once again Paul Ringo and George all in mid step. The traffic has gone through but the bus has stopped to watch. This photo is the cover of Abbey Road by Brian Southall.
• Fifth Photo: This photo was used for the cover of the album and is the only photo where we see Paul smoking. The only one with their legs in perfect formation. The three men on the left above Paul's head are Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove. They were interior decorators returning from a lunch break. On the right side between John and Ringo's head is Paul Cole an American tourist.
• Sixth Photo: Ringo slightly too far behind John.

The interesting thing is that there is always more to the story behind what we see at first.

While we look at the snapshot in time, so much more was happening to lead up to the picture we see. And so much more happens after the moment in time. The second picture is of the "Fab Four" waiting in between pictures. The final product only tells part of the story.

When we take a look at other people's lives and make a judgement, many times we are only seeing part of the story. We are seeing only 10 percent of their life while leaving out a large portion of what brought that person to this point in time. Many times the rest of the story can change dramatically how we perceive someone's life. And if we are judging people on snapshots in time, then maybe others are judging us by only snapshots of our own lives.

Look beyond the picture we see and understand more of the story. You may find something a lot more interesting then the picture itself.