Bust that Cycle

Last night I watched video clips my favorite internet guru Ze Frank, a video blogger whose known for his intelligent (yet sometimes crude) sense of humor and philosophical discussions. In this particular video, during Happy Week (in which Ze is forced by the League of Awesomeness to not talk about current events and talk about happy things), he discussed the process of "busting cycles", things we do to break our usual routine. He explained that if we bust the right cycles and routines we might able to see the world in almost a wholly different perspective and see a whole new realm of possibilities. One of the things he would do to bust his cycle would be to walk around town at five o' clock in the morning to see it slowly .

Ze's advice had me thinking about what would happen if I woke up at an extremely early time of day and walked around the city. I've been wanting to do this ever since I started living in DC anyways. So today I woke up at five o' clock, got dressed, walked to the nearest Metro stop, and rode the train to DuPont Circle.

Of course, the illuminated streets of DuPont were ghost-like, save the occasional jogger. The purple-rimmed indigo landscape was filled with cool morning air, making the trip worth it. I walked around DuPont for around thirty minutes trying to find place to eat a nice breakfast. It's amazing that throughout this metropolitan area full of nightclubs, chic cafés and sushi bars I could not find a single diner that cooked pancakes and scrambled eggs. I ended up finding a "French" café called Au Bon Pain. It was somewhat hilarious because the place sold itself as an authentic French café but everyone who worked there were middle-aged Hispanic woman (unexpectedly ironic yet overly obvious at the same time). After I bought a egg sandwich with a cup of coffee, I looked through the large window and watched the morning blue slowly ooze across the dark skyline. As the sky brightened, the streets gradually filled with people. The classical music flowing throughout café made the scenery more amusing. The people outside looked as if they were walking in rhythm to the rushing violins.


Even though I had a good time, it was also a great learning experience. Today I learned how quickly DC comes to life, from joggers in the wee hours of the morning to businessmen with newspapers bumrushing the coffee shops when the sun comes up. I also learned that given five minutes of post-sleep and a hot shower I can pretty much be active at any time of the day. I advise anyone who wants to a quick escape from the daily hustle to observe your routines, shift them, bust them. No only will it be fun but you'll also learn a lot about yourself along the way.

To watch the Ze Frank video, click the link below: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/09/092006.html