ODO 99,350 - nearly at the ton!
There is an aspect to being a traveller that I had not really expected. I don't have direction. At any point in time, I am always headed in one of the directions of the compass. That seems, however, to have diminished as a source of inspiration and motivation.
I am in the unusual situation that nothing needs to be done. With an increasing freedom from time constraints even moving is optional. Even things that 'can't be put off', only need to happen before certain other things (which usually aren't pertinent), and nothing ever seems to back up. Things like blogging or my email inbox... being on the road, there is little significance to such things actually being up to date.
I think I have 'free time'. Previously, an abundance of this creature was semi-mythical. Something people have in movies, or maybe high school - in lands far, far away. The possibility of 'free time' always seemed to coincide with the acceptance of yet more things to do with it - an accretion which typically outpaced that actually occurance of this time. And which, of course, was consequently never 'free'.
Some people may know this as what happens after work, or on weekends. I have had some encounters with this before, and I can tell you an abundance of it is another matter altogether.
These days, I have to work out what I will do, based almost exclusevely on what I want to do. 'What(ever) you want' is only really a plus if you can actually work out how to remove the 'ever'. So I've invented all sorts of funny games, which have become the backbone of my daily life. They are not easy! Winning requires a degree of consciousness, experience and intent that I am only just building.
As a couple of examples:
Cleanliness: If you're dirty, plan to have a shower (clean the clothes etc.) after you've both accepted being dirty, then gotten sick of it. Don't plan on doing anything dirty until after you've milked the cleanliness for all its worth. (e.g., don't spend the weekend in a hostel in Carnarvon with 'snorkelling' on the todo list, when you could bask in cleanliness after a week on the beach.)
Food: Eat when you're most hungry. This is a good opportunity to be happy, don't waste it by jumping in too early or putting it off.
There are a range of base 'happinesses' which are identifiable in day to day life. Oddly enough, the best way I have found to manage them is usually by bingeing. There isn't much room for the median life on the road.
One of the definitely positive (not just new and novel) aspects of this 'free time' business is that things which should make one happy, can do so, when in normal life they usually would have a minor impact. Things like good food, fine company, beautiful surroundings - you don't need to binge to enjoy them, it just wakes you up to their presence. I've found that, having time to sit and think, I often say to myself "hey, this [potential source of happiness] should be making me happy!" And usually, then it does. It just helps to realise that.
I can only speak of myself here, but I think normally life is ruled by imperatives. 'Should do', 'need to do', 'want to do'... Out here, the positives have room to assert themselves. 'This is good', 'I enjoy it'...
Taking some getting used to, but I'm getting better at it. : )
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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Melbourne Town: New Revisions - am I really a Sydney Boy?
You know what's worse than not updating a blog?:
Teasing your readers by leaving a post unfinished, thinking up five more posts in the meantime, and still not writing anything!
I will start at the end - at the present - and work my way back.
Warning: ranting follows
I am sitting here wondering whether I really am a 'Sydney Boy' - or, more accurately, reconsidering whether I should be calling myself one. (If you want to engage me with ranting ontology I suggest you do, but not here - for today that's enough!) Sydney has always featured as the hub and my home, the centre and the default, of all my travel plans. It's like bar (think Tip - remember playing that?), but also a wall against which all other travels cast their shadows. You, my readers, are in the large a big part of that - my shadows are not just a perspective, they are being written here most literally!
Melbourne is bringing this on. No, I am not - not yet - falling in love with Melbourne Town. I'm just thinking about my plans, and these thoughts are bringing out with clarity the assumptions I have made about my locus, making me reconsider the authority of these assumptions.
You can take the student out of the university, but you can't take the anti-authoritarian bloodlust out of the student. ;)
Well this student is trying to 'work things out' in Melbourne, and the plan is needing to be changed. I expected to walk into town, pick up two or three choices of job, 40-50 hours a week - locally, I might add - and be fine and dandy. It is not to be! The reception I am getting, as someone planning to be in town six weeks (five now), is lukewarm at best. Most places aren't even bothering to take my resume off me.
So the plans are changing. But the change is good!
You so often hear about the importance of being positive and optimistic - opportunistic - when faced with unexpected and adverse situations. This, I can tell you, is more than smiling at the clouds and telling yourself you're happy for the garden... Having my plans slip away under the influence of reality is actually quite exciting: the plans are no longer failed plans, but memories making way for new plans.
I don't yet have those plans, I don't know what they will be - but I am excited, because they will be good. I am not hoping on it, I am working on it - I will make them good. That is exciting too - the agency.
That is one of the goals of this 12 months: developing agency. The kind of agency which not only develops the plans, but the kind of agency which refuses to submit to the default.
DO NOT ACCEPT THE DEFAULT. DO NOT LIMIT YOUR AGENCY TO THE BOXES OF EXPECTATION.
Bright was becoming a box. I did not express it to myself as such at the time, but I could feel it - I spent a week too long there, and it was not just because the town was getting quiet, it was because I was getting quiet too. The grass of Bright was growing beneath my feet, the grass that was defining the paths that I was walking on. I can't live in a place like that, in a job like that. I need a town that lives and changes of its own accord - and a job which does not sit still, a job which does not asymptote to a standard of excellency and that is That.
As long as I'm ranting, I will point out how this rant could follow the disestablishmentarian pathway; how I could vent against The Man who will be attempting to pin me down into being The Employee at every corner. But I won't, I will save you that. That rant is a box neither of us needs.
I will ask you, though: if what I am describing is the world that I am looking for, how can I go about finding it? Today, I am working towards agency - and I think I am doing alright, except that I am yet to hit on results. But in all the years to come? Is there some sort of stable instability I should be searching for, or should I always be looking to go 'the other way'?
As one last gasp (before I go under?), I want to thank everyone who is reading these, and an especial thanks to everyone who has responded to them, in whatever way - your responses make a world of difference. Thank you.
--------
@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)
Teasing your readers by leaving a post unfinished, thinking up five more posts in the meantime, and still not writing anything!
I will start at the end - at the present - and work my way back.
Warning: ranting follows
I am sitting here wondering whether I really am a 'Sydney Boy' - or, more accurately, reconsidering whether I should be calling myself one. (If you want to engage me with ranting ontology I suggest you do, but not here - for today that's enough!) Sydney has always featured as the hub and my home, the centre and the default, of all my travel plans. It's like bar (think Tip - remember playing that?), but also a wall against which all other travels cast their shadows. You, my readers, are in the large a big part of that - my shadows are not just a perspective, they are being written here most literally!
Melbourne is bringing this on. No, I am not - not yet - falling in love with Melbourne Town. I'm just thinking about my plans, and these thoughts are bringing out with clarity the assumptions I have made about my locus, making me reconsider the authority of these assumptions.
You can take the student out of the university, but you can't take the anti-authoritarian bloodlust out of the student. ;)
Well this student is trying to 'work things out' in Melbourne, and the plan is needing to be changed. I expected to walk into town, pick up two or three choices of job, 40-50 hours a week - locally, I might add - and be fine and dandy. It is not to be! The reception I am getting, as someone planning to be in town six weeks (five now), is lukewarm at best. Most places aren't even bothering to take my resume off me.
So the plans are changing. But the change is good!
You so often hear about the importance of being positive and optimistic - opportunistic - when faced with unexpected and adverse situations. This, I can tell you, is more than smiling at the clouds and telling yourself you're happy for the garden... Having my plans slip away under the influence of reality is actually quite exciting: the plans are no longer failed plans, but memories making way for new plans.
I don't yet have those plans, I don't know what they will be - but I am excited, because they will be good. I am not hoping on it, I am working on it - I will make them good. That is exciting too - the agency.
That is one of the goals of this 12 months: developing agency. The kind of agency which not only develops the plans, but the kind of agency which refuses to submit to the default.
DO NOT ACCEPT THE DEFAULT. DO NOT LIMIT YOUR AGENCY TO THE BOXES OF EXPECTATION.
Bright was becoming a box. I did not express it to myself as such at the time, but I could feel it - I spent a week too long there, and it was not just because the town was getting quiet, it was because I was getting quiet too. The grass of Bright was growing beneath my feet, the grass that was defining the paths that I was walking on. I can't live in a place like that, in a job like that. I need a town that lives and changes of its own accord - and a job which does not sit still, a job which does not asymptote to a standard of excellency and that is That.
As long as I'm ranting, I will point out how this rant could follow the disestablishmentarian pathway; how I could vent against The Man who will be attempting to pin me down into being The Employee at every corner. But I won't, I will save you that. That rant is a box neither of us needs.
I will ask you, though: if what I am describing is the world that I am looking for, how can I go about finding it? Today, I am working towards agency - and I think I am doing alright, except that I am yet to hit on results. But in all the years to come? Is there some sort of stable instability I should be searching for, or should I always be looking to go 'the other way'?
As one last gasp (before I go under?), I want to thank everyone who is reading these, and an especial thanks to everyone who has responded to them, in whatever way - your responses make a world of difference. Thank you.
--------
@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)
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