The Bean’s bean #8
Went diving in to old habits and addictions throughout life, one sometimes can see a common thing running throughout all of them . I am a creature of ritual – I like the process of making things and the process of reading into the various elements and ingredients that make the end product. When I used to smoke, it was roll ups. I enjoyed the fact that if I had a little bit more time than normal I could roll something a little bit fatter but if I needed to quickly run out for a quick casual smoke break, it was something skinnier. This also translated into stuff that wasn’t necessarily strictly legal – the devil‘s lettuce as I used to like to call it. If I wanted to slip away from reality, it would be a sucker puncture right to the face and I would disappear into my own reality for a little bit, but I wouldn’t necessarily make anything out of it. If I wanted to balance relaxation and creativity, I would act accordingly and within all of that was discussing with many friends about the different types and the different effects that they would cause. I’m not gonna lie to you, it was wonderful and I do genuinely miss it.
However, this was many many years ago, and I’ve taken a lot of what I learned from those processes and adapted them into my new modern life - one without the need for such things but the experiences and the methods used to make things are very much stuck with me, I have just substituted these two things for Coffee. We have a tiny little machine back home and a tiny grinder next to it. Learning about how to make proper coffee and learning about where the beans come from, the language written on the side various packets of coffee, for example when it talks about various fruits and berries, talks about various flowers and tastes and what all of those things mean as well as what ones I like on what ones I wish to seek out. And all of this has given me a deep love for little independent coffee shops.
In the big corporate world of coffee there is no love and there is no warmth – it is all very much copy and paste and I don’t have to tell you the solar nature of big institution. But when you have a lovely couple running a little coffee shop somewhere, or a guy who has turned a London black cab into a rolling coffee machine, or to a couple of friends who decided that they were going to go into business with each other and make something truly magical in a little city somewhere, this is where the crew magic line is within it.
All of this leads me too why I like the process of creativity in itself why I like spending hours researching and looking into little things and ultimately what has given me the patience to make fine line artworks within themselves. I had a lot of influence and inspiration through friends of mine who are making similar at the time, comparing various pens and the width of them and what companies make the best fine liners, pencils and various coloured pens, not to mention where it is that you can get these things and if they are price comparable.
I guess it is a part of being neurodivergent that you really like the process the ritual and the rhythm of making such things, I don’t regret the life that I used to have and if anything if I didn’t have that life, I wouldn’t have the life I have now . As I sit here slowly making myself and my partner a cup of coffee I cannot help but wonder what happens if you revisit old habits or if in fact I never drop that habit in the first place – maybe I would be creative after all as I do have tendency to get distracted, especially when the substance I am taking is famous for distraction.
Coffee in hand, pen in other and some inspiration popping up in my feed, I gaze into the weather of a day that hasn’t made its mind up and start to build a little piece of whatever the fuck is running around my head.
You don’t need a fancy studio backed by wealthy people or businesses to sit there and create something wonderful. As I’ve said before, and ultimately as the cases, you were creating things for yourself and for no one else. If someone else enjoys it fantastic, get them to pay some money and take it away from you so it doesn’t sit there gathering dust. If no one likes it at all, does it bring you happiness? Because ultimately that is the only thing that matters.
More wordy than anything else, but if that was an issue, I guess you wouldn’t be here. TTFN folks!
