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[ 5 minute read ]
Look at me walking on the edge of a fence
I am living by the seat of my pants; by the skin of my teeth I get by. I face the world without vitamin supplements and coffee and laugh at the consequences.
'Ha ha ha! I laugh at you! Stand back and make way!'
I have no augmented assistance. I rely solely on eating and sleeping. My imagination is dull; my memory has holes in it; and my creativity is quiet.
'Is this what it is like to be free from contaminants?' I ask myself.
I have seen the young women throw themselves down a ski-slope on snowboards and spin and loop in the air and I heard that one young woman makes sure she eats at least one slice of pizza a day at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The male snowboarders are nearly all over 30 years old, even in their forties. I wonder why women under twenty five don't compete with men in the snowboard tricks event; smaller body means faster spins which surely means more rotations are possible for the small people, (some of the men are small) but these fast spins are not so likely accomplished for big bodies.
In the 1970s, when James Hunt raced Nikki Lauda in Formula 1, the drivers used to be partying the night before, smoking at the track, and almost never did physical workouts to improve their core strength and stuff. Nowadays, all race drivers and sportspeople maintain a diet and exercise regime; otherwise they don't win.
It seems to me that we, as the general public, don't want to perform well. 'It will do.' is a silent sigh that follows slight effort.
Later, I need to go and buy coffee and vitamin and mineral supplements in the city. I shall, of course, cycle. But I am not going to wander over to my bike and lift it into the street today; nor shall I merely doff my hat to the people I pass. No, today I shall warm up with some crunches and press-ups. I shall jump with both feet together towards my bike and lift it into the air above my waist while I turn it 180 degrees and plant it down rear wheel first. I shall climb on one side and immediately get off the other and then push it forward. Then I shall raise it on its rear wheel and spin it 360 degrees. Only then will I mount it before I fling my right arm backwards in a high arc to afford me a strong and focused look behind me. I shall smile, bring my arm back to the handlebars in a sharp straight movement, turn my head back and then allow my body to follow. Then I shall start to pedal. The neighbours will go wild. They will clap and look for a high score from other neighbours.
I am wacky enough to do all of that. But it won't be for scores or particularly for wry smiles from the skulking cats; their haughty backward glances of disdain mean nothing to me. I shall do it for the same reason that I bought a pink T-shirt twenty five years ago. I mentally addressed the world. I don't care what 'you' (the world) think of me! Your bias or confusion does not matter to me. Just because 'you' have not developed a pattern of thinking that allows freedoms that 'you' would not allow 'yourselves' to embrace, I will not conform to 'your' hegemony.
Some people allow their speech to leave their mouth without finely tuning the words in their mouth and with their tongue. The vowel sounds a, e, i, o, u are all formed in the larynx and these are adapted in the back of the throat and mouth, and with the tongue, into words. We can form the vowel sounds without changing anything in our mouths; it really is just wind moving through a pipe that we constrict a bit, or not.
I think it is incumbent on us to speak with finesse and even flourishes. I don't mean we should all get elocution lessons; I mean we should pay attention to what we are saying and how we say it. I can perform wordy tricks because I have practiced using words. My sentences do somersaults and balance on high-wires; they loom large and fade towards a sad end and then rise and laugh at my fate. At least they do in my head. I have done the gym work. I have not done enough competition work though.
My competitors are also my audience. They are other supermarket shoppers. I use my words to slide up to them and introduce my performance. 'Hah! You wasn't expecting that!' I silently tease them. I have to do it silently because they don't know they are in a competition and I am winning. They have no idea I have practiced and practiced for the event, and they are unaware of the hard work I have put into learning my routine. They have no reason to consider that I can throw sentences into mid air and perform loops back to the beginning. Why would they?
just like the snowboarders perform their 1200s or 1440s, back-switches and 'banana-split clockwork monkey handshake kiss' moves, my supermarket audience cannot see how seamlessly I skip sentences. They cannot connect the hanging dots in my phrases. I am meaningless to them; a fool that they would not sit next to on the bus. It is only I who applauds myself.
The leaps and flourishes are realistically only mere slight movements that barely change my tone. The words are mashed a little and the edges are not honed in my mouth. My tongue says, ' It will do.'
I need to buy another 'pink T-shirt'. I need the energy that augmentation gives me. I need to own it!