Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Over the noise of the antique restoration shop, Warren could hear the radio faintly in the background. I'm sure that, by now, you can guess what he heard. Much like it did for Jeremy Staples, my story – the quest to meet 100 stranger for 100 cups of tea – struck a chord in him. Enough, anyway, that he had a look at this website and decided to send me an email.

We met up a few short weeks later at a place called 'The Three Monkeys' in Brisbane's West End – a cafe that I have frequented when in Brisbane, since my first visit there in late 2009.

I wasn't too sure what to expect in meeting Warren. He is married with children (his wife, Amanda joined us in fact!), which would certainly put him in a different stage in life to most of the people I had met so far (being that the majority are in their early twenties and unmarried) – but I guess for me, one of the most important aspects of all of this is to suspend judgement. The less likely I would be to ever associate with a particular person by chance or natural circumstance, the more rewarding the meeting tends to be. In meeting strangers for tea, I guess I am hoping to prove to myself, and hoping to prove to all of you as well (if I can), that any person has the potential to mean something to you. That any person you pass on the street, given some time and a little bit of conversation, has the potential to be a friend – perhaps even more. That, as humans, we all have something in common, something to share with each other.

One thing I did know about Warren, as he touched on in his initial email, was that he spent some time in pursuit of a career as a professional musician – as one third of the rather popular Brisbane hip-hop group, 'The Coalition Crew'. Warren has since moved on to other endeavours, for personal and musical reasons, but like me, he had dedicated a large part of his adult life to creating music and sharing that music with others in the hope that it would one day translate into some form of a financially viable career. It's harder to realize this reality than most people think... And you can trust me when I tell you that, because I tried to do the same for the better part of 5 years. Could Warren or I have experienced more success by sticking with it another year or two? Perhaps. But as we both learned in our own ways, sometimes you are just ready to move on to something new – something different.

My conversation with Warren and Amanda got me thinking a lot more about just that – change. Whether forced, or a product of natural progression – change is one experience that every human being in this world can relate to. We go through it ourselves, physically and mentally as we age and grow. We observe it in the world around us. We embrace it each and every day, often without even thinking about it. But for some reason, when it come to the wilful act of making changes, especially ones of a personal nature, the vast majority of us are absolutely terrified of it. I know I was – and I don't want to put words into Warren's mouth, but I suspect he may have been too. For many years, as I pursued a career as a musician – it began to feel like being a musician was all I knew how to do. I had no fallback career options, no girlfriend (at the time), no university education – and so a kept on with it, feeling like I had no other option but to succeed at the one thing I wanted most in the world.

But then things began to change – and while it took me some time to admit it to myself, I realized that living in a van and touring the world, as amazing as it was while I was able to do it, was no longer what I desired to do for the rest of my life. I wanted more than life in a 15 passenger Chevrolet Van could offer me.

Funny too, because if I am honest with you, I was never quite able to admit that to myself or the rest of the band. Our demise was more natural than forced. Our personal circumstances began to change during our time off from tour, and rolling with those changes, we soon came to realize that to continue in our pursuit would no longer be as satisfying as it once was. And with that, we moved on to new things.

But that change happened to be exactly what I needed. That change gave me the time to pursue new opportunities, and created a whirlwind of events that have all, in some way or another, played a small roll in taking me to Brisbane, Australia. Those changes led to a move to London, England; they led a period of discontent with the social state of the world I found myself living in; they led Stefan and I to a possible solution in having tea with strangers; and as the snowball continued on it's downhill roll, I landed myself on the radio in Brisbane, Australia.

The changes in Warren's life took him from the pursuit of Hip-Hop affluence through musical creation, back to university to learn Japanese with the plan to become a translator of literature; they lead to a job in an antiques restoration shop; they led him to tune in to 4ZZZ radio on Friday mornings while he worked; and while saws and belt sanders buzzed, those changes lead Warren to listen to the story of this silly Canadian guy on a quest to meet 100 strangers for 100 cups of tea.


I stared into my nearly empty bowl of chai. It was getting late, and I knew we would have to get going soon. They may not have known it then, but our conversation, as ordinary is it may have seemed to someone seated close to us with a wandering ear – it send me on quite the journey of introspection. As daunting as my quest to meet 100 strangers for tea can sometimes seem, and as difficult as it can sometimes be to identify exactly what events, experiences, and conversations can truly change your life – I left the Three Monkeys that night with smile on my face. In talking to Warren and Amanda that night, I had realized that life isn't about picking out the events, experiences, and conversations that change your life – it's about accepting the fact that they all do – each and every one of them.

Does that mean that I already know the answer to the question that this journey seeks to answer?

I suppose it does.

But does that mean I'm going to stop having tea with strangers?

Not a chance.



4 comments:

  1. Glad to see you doing this Greg! Definitely love coming to read about each cup. Let's skype sometime if we can swing it and catch up! Also, thanks for sending over the link on Twitter the other day!

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  2. Just lovely. You have such good insight on the process of change.

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  3. @Savorie Girl
    Thanks Erika! I think about things a alot - haha, I'm glad to see it's been good for something!

    How are you? What's new? It's been a little while!

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  4. @CODY
    Thanks Cody! Skype sounds like a good idea! I'll drop you a line when I have an evening free from the clutches of work!

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