Work Hard, Play Hard, Eat Hard and Write

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Savor the Moment

People live in and out of their daily lives, planning for the future or remembering the past. It is so easy to forget to live in that very moment. Enjoy what you have now and not worry about what could or couldn’t be.

  Looking around, sitting on my roof, hearing the rustle of the city as the warm sunshine belts on my skin, the humidity making me sweat as a bead runs along my neck and down the center of my back. It is so easy to let these precious moments pass as simple lapses in time when in fact each moment we live, breathe, each moment that we are in fact who we are, is unique.

On the other hand you can get carried with moments and emotions. Thinking about that moment in its entirety where you exist can override all sense of feeling and all you can feel is slight thud in your heart as every single part of you aches in thought and affect.

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People who do what they do best

I have always believed that it is easy to be good at something, you can work hard at it, practice and improve over time, to be the best, that is something that needs to be in your blood, something that you breathe, experience and live every day.

Now I am enamoured and in awe of those at the top of their fields. The dedication and patience that those people have is simply mind blowing. There are a number of people in this industry that I look up to, people in the culinary industry such as Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria and David Chang. These are the people who are driven by their passion, love and ideas. Their creativity is abound and always steps ahead of the rest in terms of their ideas and science.

A very famous man named Aristotle wrote that infinity is the absence of limitations.  I believe that this is what the people who excel in their field keep in mind. So many people live with visions of limits to their abilities, when in fact with the vision, drive and desire, we as humans are capable of doing anything. Next time you go to do something, don’t let people doubt your self or your capabilities, don’t let what society has told you what is, and just let that be. Wake up, make a plan and execute it. Push yourself to do and be better because without action, words are meaningless noise.

So go ahead, go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow, and don’t just talk about it. Go and do it.

The scariest thing of all is that the older I get the more I realise that I know nothing. It’s a fact that when you start to recognise it can threaten your confidence, but what one has to realise is that it is important to let it go. Let go of the fact that we are lost and confused and be happy as we are and be willing to learn something new every day, and of course, keep your mind open.

After all, Socrates did once say  “I know nothing except the fact of ignorance”.

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Valley of Shadows

As he walks through the valley of the shadow of death he will fear no evil. People say that religion was created so as not to fear death. Death is inevitable, death and taxes that is.

  As I stepped across the field covered in the ashes of what was, he considered what could have been and what eventuated. That moment in the fork road where there was a choice, to go left or right, choose between what is right and what is wrong. This was the defining moment that everyone was always talking about, that pinpoint in time that would make my life and the others around me into what fate would decide.

  It is important to consider how different things could have gone, whether the moment leading up to my death could have been avoided by simply not having that last alcoholic drink, quitting smoking earlier or even changing jobs when he had had that bad day. But things progressed how they did leading up to the day I died.

  Looking back I had lead a happy life, I guess even if I hadn’t its too late to have any regrets now. People would have described me as average, I had grown up in suburbia, with two parents, they looked after me well, scolded me when necessary and spoilt me when they could. As I grew older I had never been brilliant, but never the worst. In general I was good at everything, but never the best. People had liked me and I had many friends, naturally I had people who dislike me, but nothing was ever in extremes. I had a steady job and was comfortable. Overall there was nothing to complain about, but in a world of normality and simplicity things never felt quite right.

  A life without drama, without the ups and down now felt like a meaningless waste of a life.  That is why when I met Sarah it felt like my world came to a still and had met my soul mate. I'm not sure if you have met someone who you feel empty without. I hope you get to. I don’t necessarily mean a partner, a husband, a wife. I mean those ground breaking people who you meet and touch you, you meet them and wander how life could exist without them there to talk to, to experience life with. To make you laugh, to make you smile, to question yourself and your beliefs, to challenge you, to push you and everything else in between. 

You may only meet one person like this through your entire life, you may be blessed to meet two but when you do, treasure them.

Don’t smother them like a puppy, but talk to them and build and learn with them. I wish I had done that, looked after her and learn with her like I was meant to.

  Time is but a precious thing that is moving at a pace that will always be unrecognizable to us, so don’t fall asleep and let things pass, but enjoy it. When Sarah passed after our first child I was hardly ready and became a half shell of what I was. I was unable to let go of what was and recognize what I had at that moment.

The one thing I have learnt the one thing I know leaving this world is to treasure each moment and to recognize the signs you are given to notice those fractures in time and the people that will touch your souls and never leave no matter where they go.

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Feelings

Emotions and Feelings are things people like to block out rather than embrace. They are one of the most scariest and reckoned with things that drive people to do unspeakable things or even things that can affect someone for eternity. We all question the control we have over ourselves and the way that we feel, control who we love, who we hate, who we pity, who we hero.

Our growth from egg to adult is a long and complicated one, we may be just a dot on the large scale of things but still our entirety is all we can ever know. We learn subconsciously how to feel, and how to judge, what we think or believe is right and wrong, yet we try and break it down to understand what it is, and what it means. Sometimes it is easy to forget, to just accept and recognize it as a part of our lives

  I know it’s hard to understand what is happening around you, to grab onto a moment, a flicker of feeling and be able to read it like a book. Look into that feeling that makes you stumble inside, makes you heart skip a beat, makes it hard to breathe or forget to, leaves us short of breath and not knowing why or bring a tear to our eyes. We spend our whole lives trying to read ourselves and those around us, wishing there was a ‘how to’ book that everyone followed; unfortunately everyone lives by different rules.

  And even though I want to believe in the good of people, in that they will always act in the way that is right, what is kind and just. I want to believe in love and what follows, but sometimes the odds are against you, no matter what and despite your best actions people are there ready to manipulate you into what they want rather than who you are. The moment one feels compromised you feel yourself break into two, confidence is flattened against a brick wall and you know not of ones happiness but of one more layer of yourself being ripped apart from the petals of your body.

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Holding On

Walking through our memories that lie scattered through our lives we try and remember the good more than the bad. We try and remember lessons that we learnt and what we have achieved. So how do we distinguish between what we hold on to and remember and what we try and forget? And more importantly do we actually have any control of this?

One thing that some people don’t realize is that it is always easier to remember that one bad review. The bad thing that happened that rocked us and set into gear dominos of uncertainty. Like that time you went out one night and everyone told you how beautiful you looked, then one stranger walked past you looked you up and down with a scathing look, shook their head and walked away. No matter what everyone said, strangers, close friends, that one moment in your night will set the picture for everything else.

Now if we were able to choose what we held onto it would be unlikely that we would remember the negativity in our short lives, I know that I would want to remember only my first kiss, all the love, the friends, the family, the laughs and the smiles. I believe it is our subconscious, our humanness that continues to remind you of the bad things, in order to make you recognize the good in your life.

In Chinese history it is repetitively discussed how life is Yin and Yang. We need the balance to control who we are, to complement our assets and our faults. In general, one cannot exist without the other, neither is it ever black or white but a combination of the two. So the next time you have a bad moment, look back at it and think of it as a good thing, as a life without bad moments is a life lived blind to everything, after all if we were happy all the time, happiness would be but another mundane day similar to the one before.

Now you may nod your head right at this moment as you read this, but as most are aware things are never this simple. To accept things for what they are is a much dearer feat than just saying or hearing it.

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My Passion

For so long I have read about food, eaten food, smelt food, worked with food, and now I have made the decision to have a go writing about it. I believe that food is a method of expression that can bring people together, and it has been doing so for thousands of years since cave men hunted for the animals and women gathered by the fires to look after their families.

In medieval times people would gather for feasts to celebrate any occasion toasting over food, even Jesus brought his disciples for his last supper.

Food is a celebration, a meal is a gathering and no matter what your race, gender, status, it is a way to bring people together to celebrate, commiserate, and enjoy life.

Some people may argue that it is simply something you put in your mouth, something that is just necessary for one to survive and are happy to eat whatever is necessary to live, and spending money on a good meal is unnecessary when you can pay almost nothing for a burger at McDonalds and run out with it in a matter of a minute or two. I believe food is like the theatre, it is an experience. This is something that you feel, experience, and want to do again. I’m not saying that you should always spend astronomical prices on food or hours on hours for course after course or a degustation, you can have an amazing meal on the side of the street cooked by an old women with no teeth,  I’m saying that some things are worth experiencing and if you won’t open your eyes and your pockets things can pass you by, and these moments that seem unreal like putting the perfect steak in your mouth, feeling its tenderness as it melts, the meat almost sweet the way it breaks away, these are the moments that need to be felt.

That is why I have decided to do a bit of writing, to bring to people who don’t know or haven’t tried the food experiences that I get to go through, to help open your eyes, your mouths, your stomachs to what is out there and what opportunities you can have. Please keep in mind, my writing skills are hardly up to scratch, me who needed an English tutor back in final year of high school. This is just me, talking to you, letting you know what I know and feel.

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Love

That fragment in time, when your insides feel like they are tight and so relaxed and so free that every other moment, every other sense is incomparable. Life’s problems fall away from you as you float above your former being into a new plane of existence.

You lose control of yourself as you smile and cry and then remember to breathe, breathe in and out and let the feelings not control you, but become you.

I hope you can know what I am talking about, I hope you have a chance to, because without this feeling we are lost in our daily lives, and you can only go in and out of time, hoping for a flicker of this again.

Then it’s gone, so suddenly in a wisp of a second, it can be taken away from you, so you have to appreciate it, appreciate it all, before it’s gone.

We travel in and out of consciousness through the time we are here, in and out of sleep, in and out of realization, in and out of acknowledgment of the simplicity of our lives. People say we are here for different reasons, I believe people are here to find each other and themselves. We search our whole lives for happiness, for jobs, for friends, for the next meal, the next drink, and the next new pair of shoes. But is there a point where we stop looking? Is there a point where we no longer need to as we are finally fulfilled? That is love. That moment where there is no need to search anymore, when we can finally just be.

That is why I will give you a chance, the chance to let you in my life, into my heart and even if you turn away, I will survive, be strong and happy, cause no one has ever died of a broken heart and I know that I will always stand up again.

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Infinity is the Lack of Limitation

Aristotle (via workplayeatwrite)

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Do we ever fall in love with someone or just the idea of who they are? We long for love, hard wired for intimate connection, but in the end do we always end up broken hearted? Why should we bother to play those odds?

Because it is like gambling, ONE big WIN and we will always keep that win, if not, at least remember that feeling of happiness and completion that has brought us to another world

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Precision, beauty, art. Love Japan #livetoeat #foodporn #tokyo #art #workplayeat