Well, I can only apologise for the amount of time it has taken me to post, but I have finally got the Internet sorted at home, so updating should be back to normal from here on in. I apologise in advance for the self-orientation of this post, but I feel it's good to set the scene before I get back to posting normally.
I have been exceedingly busy over the month or so since my last post, and I feel I have moved on a lot; I feel as though my outlook and my direction has been changing rapidly, and often somewhat erratically, taking me in exciting new directions. I have come back to university and met new people, and seen old people again; everything around me has made a shift. A lot of the things I was pursuing before seem to have fallen from me, and exciting new things have risen up to take their place. For example, as I stand and look at my "to-read" bookshelf I am thinking to myself "Was I really that interested in that six months ago?" and as I browse through the bookshops I find all these books I had never noticed before. I feel as though a breath of wind has gone through me and taken away a lot of myself that had started to become stale, changing the way I look at things and creating space for new ventures.
I've always thought of myself as an observer, sitting around outside, or above, everything else and casting my critical eye over things, passing judgement and trying to find out more about my own thoughts and feelings; however, more and more I am feeling a pressure and a desire to "join in" so to speak. I feel I need to start doing things, changing things, building or destroying to make a better world and a better me; It's a somewhat new experience for me to have such an emphasis placed on action, as opposed to just theory, but I feel I am off to a good start and it's been new and exciting experience so far.
Allow me to clarify what I mean by "action", action could be politics, volunteering, buying ethically, taking on responsibility, working for a social good or trying to find a platform for expression of my ideals. As such my reading has taken a new direction of learning about the world and history, my viewing has taken a step in the direction of documentaries and my speaking has become more physical and action orientated. This isn't to say I have abandoned everything I once cherished, but I feel a lot of the things I used to spend my time exploring have become a part of me and now it's time to move onto pastures new. Hopefully the journey will be exhilarating if nothing else, I'll keep you posted.
Change has got to be a good thing if you can justify the change, and I guess examining your own changes can reveal your own progress…
Comfort is in contentment, but change is often needed for true happiness, even if you don’t know it. In my experience anyway… its important to remember by changing you’ll view the world from a different perspective as you seem to have Edd and by this new perspective you can look at yourself and how you used to be, just like you said miko. But its also important to notice the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but you’ll never know unless you go there.
Yep. I’m not leaving my current field, I’m just popping over the fence and having a wee look at the grass over there; investigating a bit of diversification you could say.
[...] I mentioned a few months ago in this post that I was becoming more "active", in a political/ethical sense. Since that time this has taken over my life in a big way, using up large amounts of energy and throwing me into lots of new ideas. I've been watching lots of documentaries and reading books about things ranging from media control and arms manufacturing to environmental issues and global trade networks. I've also been reading up on some modern history to try and sort all the new information I am receiving into a solid historical time line. [...]