I've never drunk a can of coke

Do I exist? Do I matter? Does anyone care about me? Am I anything more than an insignificant dot on this planet that we live on? Does anyone love me? These are all important and timeless questions which everyone has asked or will ask. We as a species need and want recognition and perhaps above all to be remembered or have some kind of legacy. 

People have sought legacy and recognition in both noble, righteous ways and also more gruesome and grizzly ways. From murderers who have murdered and left signatures in order to be recognised, to Tony Blair, who believed that history would prove him right, when in fact he showed himself to be a war criminal. Others have received recognition for vastly different reasons, Mandela, Gandhi and Mother Teresa to take a few. What unites all of the aforementioned people is that they would have all asked (and in some cases still ask) the questions that I mentioned from the outset. 

These feelings have been capitalised upon in an altogether sinister, albeit extremely clever and cunning way, which I will explore in this piece.

So...I noticed people had started taking photos of their Starbucks cups with their names scrawled on the cup. It struck me at first because I was irked by the free, undeserved advertising that Starbucks were receiving. I started thinking about it a little more. Indeed, we would be foolish to think that Starbucks started this practice of name writing purely as a means to prevent the mixing up of different peoples' coffee. Starbucks have as a result, received their fair share of free advertising as a result of the previously mentioned picture taking. As a colleague said to me the other day, 'names are power.' My colleague was not wrong. The company's possession of our name, like our human counterparts, leads us to believe that they care. We start to believe that they are showing an interest in us and hold some kind of human emotion towards us. It makes us feel secure and safe.

I should say my local Italian restuarant also made an effort not only to ask my name but also remember it. They always made an effort to get to know their customers in some form. I have little doubt that an interest in keeping my custom was not far away from their minds. It was however, also a signal of their hospitality and friendlines. The Italian restaurant's actions were not however, part of of a corporate strategy which would be formulated in soulless conference and meeting rooms and rolled out across 21,000 coffee houses. 

Having your name momentarily in the brain of a Barista or on the outside of a cup is not the pinnacle. There is another level. Your name not in bright lights, but in red and white.

I can picture faces of glee, gasps of excitement as the weary traveller peers into the drinks fridge and spots the 'special' bottle. It's there! I know little about the logistics of the operation. Originally, I had thought people had to pay extra or contact a website to have their name emblazoned across the front of a bottle. Since, I've learnt that people have to simply pray that you are one of the lucky 'chosen few'. This strategy reinforces the value of the brand to you and that it is they who decide if you matter.

People will undoubtedly say, 'lighten up Antony. It's just a bit of fun and it's kinda cool if you have your name on the outside of a bottle of coke.' I ask, why? Do we need them to remind us of our own names? The fact is, they have been guilty of many misdemeanours,  the abuse of union rights, the disproportionate use of scarce water resources, the release of hazardous chemical water to name just a few. I feel it IS absolutely necessary that we don't allow them to not only colonise the market but also colonise our minds. 

Poem

Ear splitting, nose quivering, eye wobbling, heart stopping bass. 

Walking, running, stumbling, skanking, grinding, shuffling, fitting, jumping, bopping, nodding. 

Eyes glazed, eyes closed, eyes darting, eyes bright, eyes glaring, eyes gleaming.

Fake tan, bleach skin, lobster hue, ebony, golden skin, coffee.

Feather, hijab, panama, rasta hat, beanie, straight cap, flat cap, bobby’s hat.

Whistling, toking, puffing, coughing, swearing, joking, kissing, cussing, praising, laughing,
toasting, shouting, singing, munching.

Jerk season, dumpling, hot dog, fizzy pop, red stripe, bamboo, gastro food, coconut, Hennesy, rice and peas.

Jerk smoke, purple haze, balloons, bad breath, people steam.

Kinky afro, flat hair, natural, bleach through, weave up, silly quiff, skinhead, wannabe, dreadlocks, side-parting, baldy.

Red, white, blue.
Red, green, yellow.

Saint ---- Paul’s ----Carnival

The beauty of living in relative poverty.

It doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s working for me at the moment. I’m lucky, I come from a middle class background. I received a good education, both at school and at a wonderful University in London. It is from this perspective that I make the statement seen in the title.

          Where to start? There is an inherent beauty and paradoxical freedom of living with very little money. One’s perception of  ‘value’ changes. Perceptions on the world and what really matters change. Pressure is lifted. Indeed, relative poverty can be empowering without compromising dignity. Embracing the fact of having little money can also change feelings of envy. Relative poverty forces us to realise that people and not material things are what matter. Interaction, love, compassion, observation, reflection are the things that matter, not consumption.

In the last 6 months I have earned very little money and I have had to change my life accordingly. I have never earned a lot of money, but this period has been a particularly economically lean period. It hasn’t always been easy to pay the rent or even to buy everyday necessities. It is in these circumstances that I’ve started to realise what I really need and indeed want. The result? I don’t think I’ve ever felt more content.

The economic power of a family or a person clearly matters. It can make the difference between eating healthily and having an education. However, our culture of consumerism which is all pervasive, has intensified the gap between the rich and the poor. We have become hardwired to want. It disempowers people by fostering a feeling of shame if you don’t have the ability to consume. If we wrestle free of the compunction to consume, we can free our minds and can concentrate on what really is important to us as human beings. People purchase things that in reality are not good for them, they stunt their growth as human beings. Envy and disillusionment is a destructive force. It is something that is nurtured by advertising companies and corporations to increase profits.

Clearly purchasing things is a necessity of everyone. A £5,000 handbag or buying a pair of trainers for £500 pounds (when it is probably produced in a sweatshop for £5) is most definitely obscene. I enjoy purchasing things sometimes, but things of use. I find genuine pleasure in buying a notebook or a good kitchen knife. Quality things that we can use for craft are simply not valued. Rather we spend thousands of pounds on disposable things or machines that create virtual life, not something real. People throw away things unnecessarily, I would happily accept or readily use things that people deem to be deserving of the bin.

Finding pleasure in small, seemingly insignificant things can be all the more beautiful. My favourite cup, a blanket someone gave me that I cuddle up with on the sofa, a pen that I have treasured for many years yet cost only 50p. Even things that are not tangible are so valuable; smiles, laughs, music, conversation. Ipads, music players, phones, cameras have served to narrow our minds and ignore the real world. We are so focused on these devices and what they are giving us we don’t look at each other, listen to each other, know each other or see the world around us. Indeed, if we do see the world around us it is through the lens of a camera and not our eyes. There is so much beauty in the world, wonderful words, kindness, happiness, the nature and we complicate our lives so much that we can miss these things.

While wealth can give us power it can also disempower us as individuals. Wealth can cause us to ignore our responsibilities. If we break something we can buy a new one. If we lose something we can buy a new one. If we can’t do something we pay someone else to do it. Take childcare for instance; wealth more and more often has served to damage the lives of wealthy families. Indeed, some parents try to buy the love of their offspring and pay strangers to come into their house to act as a substitute mother or father. Poverty on the other hand can help us discover new skills and knowledge that others might simply pay others for. People who bear their own responsibility for fixing and building their own things have reach incredible levels of ingenuity and innovation to achieve what they want. It is a sad fact that affluence and consumerism have turned us into a wasteful and throwaway. We have forgotten that the waste must go somewhere.

The poor damage the planet least. I have reached a point where despite a profound love of meat, I eat it on average twice a week. Countries where poverty is dominant consume dramatically less meat than other countries. Industrial meat production is not only damaging to the planet but also fails to respect the animal which will be sacrificed to fill our stomachs. A reduced meat diet is also good for our health.  Coffee provides me with my only vice. Alcohol and cigarettes no longer figure in my life, mostly because of choice but also in part because I can’t afford them. We simply don’t need them and take us away from what is really important, which is living our life.

I was in a poorly paid job, I am now self-employed and earn even less. I occasionally sub-contract myself, but I am now in control. I am poorer but freer. The combination of poor pay, mixed with a feeling of being exploited is a dangerous concoction. Take control of this situation and therein lies satisfaction. I earn less but have more time to think, more time to cook, more time to create, more time to reflect, more time to see what is happening. Unfortunately, business and the commercial world relies on taking us under the yoke. People are working more and being paid less. Combine this with their need to force people to want and to consume and there is another dangerous concoction. Sportsmen and women are often criticised for the amount of money they earn, but in reality that’s not why they do it. They play or do their sport for the love of it. When a Formula One driver is driving around the circuit he thinks of nothing else other than being the best and doing what he enjoys. He would probably do it for nothing.

Having said the above, I want two things. I want to leave Barclays (whom I despise) and I want a dog. Having very little money, while not always easy is, not always bad.