How does this even happen? Some part of me is always so surprised and amazed at the experiences I have…
United was unusually delayed… first the plane was late arriving, then when we arrived in Chicago, they didn’t have a gate for us. The anxiety level in the plane kept increasing. Finally, half of us who were late had to wait in the gateway for our bags that were gate checked. I barely made it on the plane to London in time. This is shocking since I should have had like 90 minutes between flights. So I slid into my seat, forced to gate check my bag since all the space was taken by fliers who arrived on time. This made me furious. Especially when my seatmate pointed out a place to store my coat and hat (and would have fit my luggage). So I started the flight with some anger at United.
Which opened up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. Turns out she was flying back to the UK after visting a death row inmate in Florida. While waiting for dinner, we talked about inequality, the prison system, social justice issues, racism, but also thrivability, narrative and story telling and the art of transformation and forgiveness. She was reading a book about Inequality and spoke about how the working class has been demonized as a way to justify the wealthy serving their own interests.
We talked about turning 40 (she was past her 40s). Rites of passage for daughters. And her work with the disabled in the UK as a social worker. Fascinating. I especially enjoyed hearing her journey into the work with the death row inmate. There is something about that experience of decades in prison that can sometimes act as a long term spiritual retreat. So much silence and contemplation.
It is so wonderful to have open conversations about racism. There is something that breaks down the shame of racism when we stop trying to make it invisible.
Once in Heathrow, I easily slipped down into the tube and took the hour long ride on the Picadilly line to pick up the keys to Manar’s place. I had a 6 hour layover at his place before getting into the airbnb place in Elephant and Castle area. It was 7 in the morning at home, so I took a nap.
I saw this lovely poster on the Tube. Look at the eyes.
Look closely at the Death Portrait. A lovely play on positive and negative space. Do you see the skull or the kiss? Go beyond the expected narratives and see opportunity.
After picking up the keys to my home for the next 5 days, I headed to Oxford Circus tube stop. As I entered the tube, I hear that the train is not stopping at Oxford Circus. Urgh. I quickly look at the tube map to try to redirect my path. Someone walks by, sees me struggling over the map and offers to help. He says that stop will probably be open once I get there, or get off one stop earlier and walk. Okay, whew. Thank you!
Indeed. It does stop at Oxford Circus, where I get confused about which way is up down north or south. The tube does that to me with the stairs circling back and forth. But a haf block down, I realize I am going in the wrong direction and head back up Regent Street. But 4 blocks up, I still don’t see the BBC. I am meeting Bill Thompson, a technology writer for the BBC. I ask at a hotel front desk, and he says, go around the next corner, you are there.
I met Bill at a dinner party at Bletchley Park last time I was in the UK. We kept in touch over twitter and email… So I looked him up when I came back to town and we agreed to meet again for more philosophizing. This is how strangers become friends.
I find Bill sitting in a beautiful courtyard in front of the BBC head down, staring at his phone. After greeting each other, I tell him I am up for an adventure. He offers a place that has closed but had great space, so maybe there is a new place open there now. Sounds adventurous. Let’s try it. We walk. It wasn’t open. Aha, now we are really having an adventure – we have to be thwarted in some way to count it as adventure. 🙂 On the way we pass a gallery, and this is a bonus because he knew it had moved and wondered where. Now we know! Discovery!
Bill was explaining that the BBC is in the midst of a massive change, having changed upper management after 56 days amid a scandal. “Never waste a good crisis,” he says. I admire that so much. In these moments of crisis, there is such an opportunity to shift things. In part because the usual order of things is unstable, so people don’t say no to things they might have before. Leaps can be made. They are opportunities for being bold.
We kept walking in search of a place to go. There was construction that kept redirecting our path. Thwarted again! And at the same time we were discussing this way that culture has narrative that narrows our options… as this construction was narrowing our options. We finally stumble upon his second choice, Toucan… a tiny bar where we sit in the basement. We talk about time travel, physics, and cultural stories/myths of being. I share the Action Spectrum as a framework for helping people understand the spectrum between causality and control to nurturing and probability.
He explained how we still operate so much from older paradigms of physics, and that recent discoveries are making it clear how things at a scale we couldn’t access before don’t work the way we thought that they did. And the creation of a new paradigm of physics might lead to faster than light travel. Which is time travel.
After our pint (I had Guinness), we started looking for a place to eat. We came across a Brazilian place. Yum. We closed with a lovely debate about the qualities of Silicon Valley that make it so successful and whether London, Chicago, or NYC can replicate those conditions. Cultural identity. Again, what is the narrative of a place, and what does that make possible or restrict?
I love discovering and exploring the wondrous minds of people I meet. I love seeing the world through their perspective. Bill has a phenomenal mind. It was a great adventure.
Thank you Bill.
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