As I stepped quickly along the sun baked food stained soi 15, I wondered why I am once again in a cycle of health vs. activity. With that I mean I every now and then get fed up weighing over 200 pounds and being as mindless as a squirrel and commit myself to a routine of healthy eating, exercise and meditation. It only lasts 2-6 weeks after which I fall back into eating and doing whatever I want. That is the M.O. of my life: two extremes through which I rotate continuously. I just can't find a balance (= routine) in which I can satisfyingly live out my life. Each phase resembles some routine, but then I get fed up with its restrictions or monotonous nature.
On the one hand I desire stability (who doesn't?). A chance to go through the day knowing what to expect and without too many surprises. I would like to live a healthy life with moderate physical and mental exercise, hopes and dreams about career and family. A white picket fence and 2,3 children (although the 0,3 kid seems like a lot of work). I want that magic reliability where you live in Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls ref.) and the nostalgia of having a coffeeshop hangout, a favorite bookstore and a Sunday morning to look forward to, reading a good book or newspaper while munching on breakfast leftovers.
On the other hand I want surprises. I want things to be shaken up. Variety is the spice of life, right? Screw the mediocracy. Go and explore. That's why people love vacation, on an exotic beach or hiking through ruins in mountains. Preferably far away, but any place away from home will do. New cultures, new food, new everything. It's like a rush to the five senses with added excitement about the unknown to boot. I love the fact that I've lived on four of the six continents. Nancy and I sometimes can't wait to move away when where we live gets stuffy.
Bangkok is like that with its firm monolithic high rises surrounded by an army of transient food stalls and merchants on sheets selling their wares for one day only. The constant chaos of traffic rushes (or stands still) between a man-made jungle of potted plants, phone booths and street dogs wandering the streets. All of this is roofed by vines of electric wire cables running criss-cross to everywhere and nowhere (watch out live wires!) to be roofed only by more layers of raised sidewalks and gardens on top of buildings. The people are surprisingly gentle and softspoken, until its time to riot in yellow or red and the streets burn. It is a city where you can buy everything and anything, as long as it doesn't offend static censorship laws. But then you just have to bribe your way around it.
This is why I love Bangkok. Routine and chaos, like yin and yang, nothing boring, yet deliciously predictable (even the riots!). And thats why I write the way I do. Simon can't stay in any one place too long. He moves through four different countries in the first book alone (and will have done far more by the end of the series). He will work his way under the Earth, through time and several different genres before my story is told. Yet there are constants in his life that he will respect and love. He will have to rely on some things to build order out of chaos again. Its a cycle where when one side becomes too dominant it must be tempered by the other side. Its this battle between the familiar and the unknown that makes it worth writing for me and hopefully worth reading for you.
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