I was attempting to take a nap at home, but the silence was simply deafening. unable to sleep, I decided to head down for a swim and then lie by the poolside for a bit of close eye. The sounds of my surroundings somehow calmed me – the splash of the pool, the sounds of the grass cutter’s blade, the occasional birdcall. I was soaking it in.
Over the past few years some part of me has gone to sleep. I used to call it the ’street side’ of me, but when I think about it now, I really don’t know what to call it. I just know its there, somewhat forgotten but still there, just like how Stella longs for Hawaii sometimes.
And maybe that’s how I should begin then. My heart longs for the street. ‘Street’, in inverted commas. I don’t know when it all begin, but I’ve always had a intense fascination for human behavior. More specifically, I have an intense fascination for how human beings interact with other human beings in their physicial settings. This does explain somewhat my original interest in psychology (which I discovered wasn’t exactly about that) and sociology. It also somewhat explains my secret dream of being an urban photographer. Not everyone has a choice of where he/she gets to live, and since most of the world has more or less experienced some form of modernization, most of the world is also somewhat urban in one degree or another. It is with this idea that my interest for the urban landscape begins. As we grow up and live in constantly evolving forests of glass, concrete and machinery, we find ways of appropriating these elements into our lives, to make it more habitable for ourselves. Maybe this includes putting your mark along the subway walls, dressing to blend in with the current fashion trends and even regulating one’s behavior to suit that of the city, all these are signs of one’s constant involvement with the urban landscape. The various permutations of these then form what I would like to call the ’soul of the street’. It is this aspect that I am deeply interested in. Human behavior in urban settings. Not humans. I don’t really give a damn about people. I don’t even like them. I’m just interested in what they do. When I first started blogging, one of the sub titles for my blog was ‘finding the obvious in the random’. What I really meant was that sometimes there is beauty in some of the things that people find as simple and mundane.
However, over time, this side of me has slowly disappeared. Ideas for posts having to do with inspiration from observing people stopped coming as well. I thought that it was just a dry spell, but new posts just never really came. Then today I realised that it’s just because I don’t observe anymore. I walk on the streets and I don’t think about anything. I just get from one place to another. I don’t hang out at public places that much, and that goes without saying that you don’t get to observe and think about stuff as much as before.
It’s contradictory as I am partly a homebody, and partly someone who likes the street. I don’t know if its mutually exclusive, although staying at home does mean that you aren’t out in the streets. Then again, I’m always contradictory, so what’s new? Can’t always have your cake and eat it. I’m not mourning the loss of this side of me, nor am I regretting that this is gone. It’s just change and I have since adjusted in accordance to that. Ask me to walk the streets now and people watch and I might end up bored instead. That’s just how change is, isn’t it? You write about something you used to like and people say ‘why don’t you do it now?” but it’s just not the same anymore.
That being said, just closing my eyes today and just soaking in the sounds of my surroundings made me think about all that I’ve said here, and that I should just write it down just to signify that I used my brain for something useful today. I’m looking forward to Hongkong with the girlfriend and friends, mainly because I’ve been feeling really cooped up here and we’ve been rarring to go for another holiday in a cold country by ourselves since Korea. Now perhaps another reason would be that Hong Kong would be a second starting point for some self discovery and to soak in the sights and sounds of the soul of the street once again.
I don’t think this was all I wanted to say, but that’s something for another day.
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