This site has now been retired. I've moved to my new site Silverknife, where you'll find new blog posts and all my latest projects and photos. These pages will remain for at least a while, as I know some of you are still looking through the archives, but I'm reposting my travel journals and many other articles on the new site. Come and check it out.
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Damnit, I need to stop putting up these throwaway Sunday night posts with recipes, because (as with last week) I could really do with that content right about now!
Most of the SAEL planning updates right now are in the Things to Take section, which I suspect is of more interest to me than anyone else. Nonetheless, if you have any suggestions please feel free to weigh in!
Today's been another of those annoying slump days when I get very little done. I scrapped another assignment, putting myself very close to the deadly F line on my degree. But I can still scrape by if I put in the serious time on my remaining assignment and exams, and I think I'm capable of that if I have to. Actually it's made me really think about my problem with getting motivated for the degree work, and I've pretty much worked out why I can't do it.
Basically, I know what my path is now. I'm going to travel, learn, evolve, and when I come back I plan to find a position which is independent of the world of qualifications and job interviews and, as far as possible, money. I have no fear of being unable to find a position like that, because I'm already finding in myself many of the qualities necessary to create a better life for myself, and I can see that the remaining confidence, experience and knowledge will come to me as I travel and discover the world.
I've always been fascinated by those people who are able to really get out and change the world, to create paths for themselves out of nothing. The explorers, the company founders, the paradigm busters. Often they grew up wealthy and provided for in every way, and their success is often ascribed to having money and contacts with money. I have a pet theory that it's more about growing up without fear of need - they learn to go out in the world and make something if they believe it's worth doing, and assume that someone will always be there to support them. And because they believe that absolutely, they are right. You see the effect in the great explorers of any age, who create a plan, promote it with passion and confidence, and for that reason find backers who take care of the practical details of making it happen. I honestly believe you can learn to create the same effect whatever your background, you just need to learn to dream extraordinary dreams - which is what I'm doing here!
Back to the reason for believing in my path. I don't believe in fate in the form of unchangeable predestination, or a spiritual being who defines how our lives will turn out. What I believe in is something resembling the Tao in some Chinese philosophy - a flow of events and people towards certain patterns, places and times. I believe that if we learn to be aware, to watch for the signs (most of all those repeating patterns of weird coincidence we call synchronicity), we can follow our Tao, and the results are always good and fulfilling, make our lives worthwhile. But that doesn't mean we have no choice, or that it is necessarily wrong to "defy" the flow - because who is there to call it wrong, or to punish it?
Right now, I feel in line with my Tao. My mind and my spirit feel in alignment, and when I make decisions according to my feelings they always fit with this pattern which is evolving in my life. Information, resources and a huge number of wonderful people are appearing on every side to support my dream, and even more importantly countless events over the past few years have turned out to contribute to me being able to do this thing - as though the universe has been lining me up for this very situation. I was talking to a friend lately about this effect, as I realised that although I've never had the willpower or self-control to save money effectively, I've always resented putting my money into temporary things. I've always obsessed about only spending my money on permanent posessions. It always seemed like unhealthy materialism, but now I realise that it's also been a way of accumulating money in things which I can now sell and reclaim the cash. If I'd been the type to spend money on holidays and partying instead of DVDs, all that money would now be irrecoverable. Always a silver lining!
The only thing which doesn't fit the pattern is my commitment to this degree. I'm not doing it because I love it, because it's fulfilling or even necessary. I love the learning, I love the classes. But everything else about it (the assessment mainly) I am doing either out of a desire for the 3 years I've spent on this not to be wasted or because of a feeling of obligation to other people. It's partly obligation to the few teachers who I respect, who are (it seems to me) trapped in a sick system but still trying to do the wonderful thing they love and believe in while fighting an almost unbearable bureaucracy. Even more so it's obligation to my parents, who have supported and encouraged me through this whole strange detour in my life, and who still believe in the education system in which I have lost faith. The fact that we have very different values doesn't change the fact that I want them to be happy, and proud, and they will be proud of me if I graduate even if I don't see it as important.
And here's where the paradox lives. The perfectly "pure", "true" and honest choice would be to drop the whole thing here and concentrate my energies on SAEL. It's my dream, the only future I believe in and I know it's my Tao. But sometimes we have to choose a compromise, because we're not perfect beings of truth. We're not Nietzsche's Ubermensch, acting purely on our ideals with no concern for others or for the past. We're human beings, and we love, and fear, and regret. Sometimes we have to make choices for the benefit of other human beings who aren't at the same place on the Path, or out of attachment to times and places we have come to love (or at least gotten used to). We can't change all in one go and just run off and pursue our dreams without doubt. I'm living on that paradox line right now, and it's the source of all my confusion and demotivation. But right now the uncomfortableness resulting from it is far less than the pain and regret which will result from stepping off it. Odd thing.
I had a whole paragraph here apologising for all this navel-gazing, but it suddenly struck me that I've spent way too much of this blog apologising for writing what I feel like writing. This is a journal, all I can write here is what interests me and what I'm thinking about, and frankly I feel that yet more apologising would be more boring than helpful. Read it if it gives you pleasure, feel no guilt if it doesn't and you go elsewhere. I hope I entertain, maybe even help encourage some people who are facing similar dilemmas or at least spark interesting ideas. If this blog has given you some happiness, interested or inspired you, I'm glad. Thanks for sticking with me, following this journey with me. You're my company on this road.
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