Blessed With An Extraordinary Life

Introduction Map Journal

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25th February 2007 - First SAEL Journal entry

Hello world.

Ho hum. My first online journal article. (This is not a blog. I am not handing off my precious content to some automated system coded by God-knows-who. It's staying in the grip of my horrible bodged HTML until they pry it from my cold dead carpel - tunnel - syndrome - stricken hands.)

It seems appropriate to say "my first article, and I've got nothing to say", but truth to tell I've got a thousand things to say. I'm just not sure anyone cares or is ever going to read them. Honestly even putting my rambling thoughts up here feels like a criminal act of hubris. This may have a lot to do with the fact that I'm rather English (by nurture if not breeding). Implying that someone, anyone might want to read what I have to say, feels very prideful somehow.

But stuff it, I've got some ideas I think are worth sharing (and if that fails I've got recipes), and if you haven't already gathered from other parts of the site, I intend to have an interesting time this year. In fact, if I don't find things to do this year which are worth writing about, I've essentially failed. And fundamentally, whatever else my bio and the SAEL Introduction may say, one of the things I am, in my bones, is a writer. I like words and ideas and information, I like using them and playing with them and moving them around. So I might as well write something. Therefore, I'm going to keep writing things here until someone asks me to stop, or it becomes clear that no-one will ever be interested.

So, I'm Seeking An Extraordinary Life. I'm not going to revisit the stuff in the Introduction, but I want to provide a smoother lead-in to what I've been doing lately. This exercise isn't just about going round the world. It's about finding extraordinariness in the world, about changing myself into a bigger, stranger, more fulfilled person, and maybe changing the world a bit too. Travel is a great way to do that, but in the service of that aim I'm also going to be doing a lot of thinking about life and lifestyle, culture and art and adventures and stories, and other things that I want more of in my life. And I hope to be trying a lot of things which push back my own boundaries - basically, wherever I find something that scares me, or makes me uncomfortable, or surprises me, I'm going to try and get as close to it as possible, and at least understand it, but better still do it. Except bungee jumping. Probably. I'm already finding some fascinating things in this vein close to home, of which more shortly.

That seems to be about all I have to say here and now. I have quite a backlog of bits and pieces which, due to the aforementioned uncertainty and embarassment, I've been piling up without doing anything about them. I think I'll just keep writing these and see how it goes now the ice has been broken. Hope I provide some entertainment. And if no-one but my family ever sees this...hi, Mum!

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