Tag Archives: the village

The “Batter is Better” Conspiracy

On a day where my savings account rises dramatically, the first thing I rush out to do is buy food. Not just food – small components that will eventually make a larger and (hopefully) greater mix. I am the envy of all my fellow students; my status as a culinary god is golden. There are no packets of mi goreng in a single cupboard, the vegetable drawer is full to the brim. There may not be an oven in my room, but that has not stopped me from creating dense, rich cakes. I know how to cook.

Or at least, I act it. The number of times a recipe has promised so much in a raw form and then taken a sharp turn south during its final process is getting embarrassing. Why is it that cake batter is always far superior to the actual cake? Sweet potato and spinach dumplings fall apart with that first touch of hot oil? An uncooked carrot swims gloriously in hummus but limps around after a brief sauna session?

Such an experience usually finds me huddled in front of the television, starved by disappointment. Wind back to Saturday evening – the new paleo fad had let me down (perfect example of single-looping)and the Sex & The City flick was not providing much of an escape from the theme of failure. The main character’s relationship is going beautifully, until the decision to seal the deal with marriage ultimately ruins absolutely everything. Huh. It seems in movies, the “batter is better” ideology pops up a fair amount. Bugger.

With this in mind, I began seeing how this idea could actually manifest in real life. Making things official is like taking a heavy-footed step off stable ground onto a precariously perched platform; you really don’t know how it’s going to take the change in weight. In fact, following this ideology, you know for a fact that the platform will crumble beneath you. Why bother in the first place? Your relationship is not going to be better if you put a label on it. There’s a reason Ben & Jerry’s sells cookie dough-flavoured ice cream. The batter is better! Seriously. If it’s good, it’s already great.

More on this later. Maybe not more on this later.

by mog

 

The Village

Why should I let someone talk at me about uninteresting things when I could be spending that time elsewhere? My room could have been cleaned by now. Or not. Regardless, I’d rather not be here.

“Here” is a lot of places. “Here” is here on my cruelly cold chair, instead of my bed. “Here” is a classroom, instead of outside. Next to the smelly kid at the pub, instead of the beautiful specimen in the gazebo. In Melbourne, instead of home. Alas, it has come to my notice that you mostly cannot choose whether you’re here or there.
As it is, I am mostly “here” in the Village. If a village is what the Village is, then this city is the jungle surrounding, and I am just another feral tribe member in the midst of it all. Not a native but a travelling shaman of some sort, dipping my hands in all sorts of Mogly mischief. Since moving to the new neck of the woods, I have forged strong bonds with my new tribe members and recognise the local rites and rituals that govern us.
For example, the nearby watering hole must be visited religiously each Monday evening. I also follow the ritual of travelling many times per week with like-minded members of other tribes to an elders’ meeting place, so that they may pass on ancient knowledge through song and dance. We will become the new generation of movers and shakers. We will adapt the knowledge to suit the ever-changing, ever-growing jungle. We may lose some shamans along the way; it is a necessary culling, we are told. It allows the rest of us to better spread across the pathways forged and forging.
Back at my village, and even in other places throughout the jungle, my path of choice sometimes feels wrong. Other ferals feel scorn, anger, superiority, even pity, towards it. This unsettles me – did I make a mistake? Should I have chosen a direction more “useful”? I haven’t even had the chance to fully explore the path myself. Then I reaffirm my decision by learning more songs and dances and beating further down the path.
Today’s meeting with the elders was particularly cheering; one elder saw a vision in the fire. He spoke of a revolution to come where the skills we all have been developing could be made use of. We then all danced a dance of joy. It is nice to have someone wise tell you that you’re doing okay. That you’re on the right track, you’re not in the wrong place, your place is here.
That’s swell and all, until the next meeting with other elders. I have a meeting tomorrow that is sure to completely convince me that my life is a shambles and I’d be better off becoming  a wife to one of the Village’s more dominant tribe members. If all meetings with elders were as interesting as the one today, my fellow shamans and I would probably make our way through with boundless enthusiasm. Maybe we would even feel indifferent towards being neither here nor there.

Day in, day out.

by mog