Thought of the Day: Linked Up

I don’t believe in coincidence. Nothing happens by chance. If you look back at key moments in your life and think ‘Wow! I’m so glad this person appeared just then’, well just accept that that person was meant to be there. And if he hadn’t appeared, someone else would have, to give you the same opportunities you were always meant to have.

Many people have proven pivotal for me in these last few years. Right now as I type this, I am sitting in my new home in Penang. I moved here just a few weeks ago and this really isn’t my home as such: it belongs to a friend who has gone overseas for work and rather than let the place sit empty, he’s let me live in it.

I can also easily trace back the string of events and the people associated with them, that has led me here. So let’s work backwards.

This place belongs to Newton whom I met when he was a partner at Pedal Inn in Georgetown and I stayed there for a few weeks while doing my Senyum Sajalah Exhibition. I did Senyum Sajalah because my friend Clifford was involved with the Camera Museum where it was held and he extended the invite to me. Clifford thought of me because I had taken some pictures of him and his wife. I was doing photography because of an idea my ex-client Louise Tan had planted in me while I was wandering around between focussed careers. She asked me to take pictures of her PR clients, I did and the idea of a company to do photography was born. That company is Chronicle People of which my friend Johann Annuar and I are partners. I met Johann because I needed advice on cycling through Malaysia and sought out my friend Joe Nathan who introduced us. The idea to cycle through Malaysia was because of Bill McDannell who walked across the US to petition against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ride was made possible because my friend Johari Low started the wheel turning by saying he’d support me and because my ex-colleague Andrew Wilson asked a very important question of me “In 5 years, would I be happy I’d done the ride, or regret not having done it?”. I was even cycling again because of my wife who reintroduced me to cycling after many years away from a bike.

Each one of those links is no different from the links on a bicycle chain - if any one had broken, the entire sequence would have been altered.

"...ask yourself what each person means to you and how each person in your life makes your life different."

The thing is though, if any one link had broken, I do believe that some one else would have stepped in to bridge the gap.

If Louise had not asked me to shoot her clients, someone else may have asked me to shoot his family.

If Bill McDannell had not walked across the US, I might instead have read about Rory Stewart walking across Afghanistan.

And so on…

I believe that every single person in my life is there for a reason. And I believe it is the same for you too. It may sound predatory, selfish or self-centred but it really isn’t: so ask yourself what each person means to you and how each person in your life makes your life different.

Then ask yourself what you may mean to each person in your life and how you make that person’s life different. For of course, you are placed in that person’s life for a reason too.

Abu Dhabi Part 1

So, here I am in the Middle East, working on a project that’ll take me through until almost the end of February. For someone who hardly travels for work, being away for almost 2 months is a new experience and a challenge.

Whether true or not, Paul and Linda McCartney were said to never have been separated for more than 24 hours until her death. When Mei and I married, that romantic idea came into my head and was promptly dispelled a few months later when I set off on my 5-week Celebrate Malaysia Ride.

It wasn’t so bad then of course as we were in the same time zone and just a few hundred kilometres apart, and then she also flew up to meet me in Penang when we celebrated my friend’s wedding roughly halfway through the ride. This time around Mei is 4 hours ahead and many thousands of kilometres away. 6pm is still very much a working time and chatting by Skype then is not always practical and almost never private enough.

Our project involves a mid-sized team of people and we’re housed in the Aloft hotel next to the National Exhibition Centre where the event will be. The Exhibition Centre is a huge building maintained by an army of foreigners. The smooth tile floors are kept spotless, slippery and shiny with a perpetual waltz of dry-mop heads guided by Bangladeshis and Filipinos. The little toilet near our office is manned by an attendant who keeps the floor spotless and the sinks dry and pristine.

I walked in one night at about 9 and found this solitary attendant wiping the counter top. I’d thought they’d knock off work around 6 but here was this chap still hard at work. Surprised, I greeted him and asked what time he would finish work and he replied ‘11, sir’.

My colleague, Johann has described the UAE as an example of excess and I agree. Perhaps Abu Dhabi has not the overt opulence and grandeur of Dubai, but excess is everywhere and in many forms. We sometimes gather for dinner around the empty tables of the closed restaurant down the corridor from our office. Closed it may be, but every single light stills burns brightly. Now you may know I do know a thing or two about lights so let me tell you that there are row upon row of 50W halogens in this place, and more than a few 100-150 watt CDMs too. It would be no different to leaving a few kettles of water boiling all night long, every night.

This toilet attendant, keeping 3 urinals, 3 sinks and 6 toilet cubicles clean is on duty until 11pm at night when after about 7 the staffing levels drop significantly. Why? If not just a sign of or a belief in excess…

Then there’s that smooth tiled floor… My shoes slip and slide ever so slightly on that floor and that makes walking about this large building just that little bit more tiring than it should be. And for some annoying reason, in some highly polished areas, my shoes squeak - producing a wheezy sound not unlike that of a toddler’s squeaky shoes. Just today I found I could just slide each foot forward in turn, moving ahead in an ice-skater’s manner, without lifting a foot. I kept this up for almost a hundred metres… Which is probably a bit excessive too.

That's Pulau Tekong directly below - see how close it is to Johor and why the protests by the Malaysian government about Singapore's land reclamation affecting the environment are valid? 

Jo's sis, Juli who flies on SIA was actually on the same flight as me when I first got here. She returned a few days later when Jo arrived and brought us a fantastic Indian lunch. Here we are on the rooftop of the hotel enjoying the view... and 3 types of naan, some roti, mutton and butter chicken and palak paneer and...

Solar panels aplenty on the lower roof of our hotel.

There were a few very foggy days. Here is Jo walking a foggy carpark to our office.