Ants in your pants?

A few weeks ago, I went for a drink with Simon in Angel. It's not really a part of London I visit very often - indeed, probably only a few times a year. It is a shame because it exists with fabulous bars, good humour and jollity of experience. On my way to meet Simon there, I was alas on the Northern line; in my carriage, a lady had a newspaper with the headline, 'Who am I?'.

For someone like me, a headline like that is a slide - with a gradient just off vertical -* right down to the depths of philosophy.

Walking up and out of Angel, I had a sudden vision of an ants' nest. All the people exiting the station to fulfil a function -* to do something.

It occurred to me, as it has done before, that even the people running up the escalator wailing in show to others are fulfilling a funtion. Those people exiting the tube believing they are different and totally unusual are still entirely predictable in humanity by their randomness. It is only one stage away from ants leaving the nest, in the way they do, to fulfil individual functions that benefit the whole. I've always believed in a 'counter-balance' society - the belief that such groups as the far-right wing of the Catholic church and the far wing of the evangelical church, or Anti-vivisectionists and pro-vivisectionists, all exist in counter-balance to provide general stability to society. Ants work like this if you believe what the natural media will tell you.

It disappoints me to believe that in the same way that I catergorize people I know, other people catergorize me, and know my reaction to everything... or at least can predict it because I have 'a certain function'.

I can't remember the last time that I was genuinely surprised in a good way. Shocking.

Maybe I'm in the wrong place, and I've grown comfortable to London, and need to move to excitement again. I notoriously get bored very easily... and I have been here for 4 1/2 years...

Or maybe there is just no such thing as personality, just a pre-determined existence in counter-balance to create stability...

Thought...

JL


Ps. Blogger.com, PLEASE will you allow en-rules in your character set? Some of us do like to TRY and punctuate with correct symbols.