Tag: exhausted

On My Hols From The Safety Of My Hole

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’m off on my holidays today. Going to Thessaloniki for the weekend. I’ve been there a couple of times before, usually passing through but not really seen the place that much. I’m not entirely sure what there is to see to be honest, or what state of lockdown they’re in. I suspect not at all but I’ll know when I get there. The main plan is to visit an old friend who’ve I’ve not seen for a few years since the heady days of the refugee crisis. Unlike most people who came over he stayed and I think runs a women’s shelter in the city. I’m not entirely sure though but I don’t doubt I’ll find out.

It’s good catching up with people though. I enjoy it. When you create bonds for whatever reason, as long as they’re positive, you should make sure to keep them as strong as life allows. And of course life happens, I’ve met many people who I’ve struggled to keep in contact with beyond the first or second attempts but you just never know when the third will be. My time in Greece is specifically about fixing up this boat I’m on but I know I will see people while I’m here and this is exciting. My next city trip will be Athens but it may have to be slightly longer than two nights.

It can involve effort going places though. I arrived in Greece exhausted from months of insanity and this boat at the end of the yard has been a nice little hole to hide away in. There is a part of me that doesn’t want to leave, it is safe here and I can continue hiding away. It can be hard not to listen to this feeling, especially as it’s currently raining outside and my instincts tell me to hide away in the shelter of the boat. At some point though we need to step out of our safe hiding spots or the world and life just passes us by. Saying that, maybe it’s just a sign that I need to stay hidden a little longer. I may need more time for myself but it’s only two days and I still have the best part of two weeks before my self-imposed moving on deadline becomes reality.

Anyway, I should have probably left about an hour or two ago. I was going to avoid the toll roads and add two hours to the drive, I enjoy scenic routes and feel taxes should pay for roads. The rain doesn’t give the feel for a lovely scenic drive though and I may just have to dip into my pocket to save two hours. I’ll let you know how I get on.

To Find True Freedom

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

We get used to things. I’ve discussed habits probably as much as anything else on here but this is slightly different. This would be more about adapting. We adapt to our environment then. When we stay in one place or in one environment long enough it becomes normal and we find a way to at the very least survive. In the extreme you could have someone going from a position of power and wealth to one of poverty and subjugation, think of any successful class based revolution for example. If they didn’t end up getting their head chopped off, end up in front of a firing squad or find a way of smuggling themselves out of the country; there is a good chance they would have to either adapt to their new way of live or die. That then is an extreme example and for me right now I am as far from that as I can think. I have adapted to my surroundings though, my admittedly comfortable surroundings.

For me this adaptation has been more about a change in a way of life. Having spent ten years as a traveller living wild and being free – that is the version my romanticised ego would like to portray – I found myself in this little village by the seaside. It was only supposed to be a couple of months, the winter at most with spring bringing new adventures. There is no need to go over this years events but as I’ve previously discussed they have been habit changing to say the least. Now though I potentially change these new habits again and see whether further ones are created or old ones return. Today is Friday, on Sunday I leave my home by the sea.

Undoubtedly there has been a lot I’ve enjoyed about life here. I’m beside the sea and when not rammed with summer tourists it’s slow and chilled out. It is though a bit backwards and insular which is enough to push me away, but it has also shown me enough to imagine a new way of life is possible. There were many times in my past travelling in which I openly admitted to being exhausted and tired of constantly moving and packing but I also really enjoyed the discovery and constant new in front of my eyes. I’m still after all this time like a child when I see something previously unseen. This time has made me realise I am in my heart a wandering traveller. It has also made me realise how easily I could settle somewhere too given the right conditions. It’s all about balance apparently. This mythical never been seen or fully understood beast called balance. But you can’t have balance when you want it all.

As I pack my now enlarged pile of stuff I realise I am happy to move on while also not being entirely keen on the exhaustive side of this moving on. The stepping into the unknown excites and the prospect of being free is overjoying. As I would have discussed yesterday though had I not got distracted by Miley Cyrus, freedom is an entirely mental construct. We need to find freedom internally, allow the mind to accept the ever increasing randomness of existence and responsibly live in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether you’re stuck in the endless toil of menial labour or sailing the ocean. Admittedly one is probably easier to feel free in and we can do ourselves favours with the environment we exist in, but as I said, it’s how we approach existence that matters. One more moment before the next then in this constantly testing journey to free the mind. Maybe that would be a good habit to create. I already have the key after all. I could get used to finally being free. Just be careful not to want it too much.

Blog Dilemmas

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It is important in life to always want to improve or make progress. That doesn’t mean we should lack contentment with what we have or desire more but accept that we live in an impermanent world and with everything constantly changing we mustn’t sit still and stagnate. I say that in regards to this blog. I am happy just writing one piece a day and while the quality varies from articles I’m pleased with to ones I know are rushed or half arsed, the standard at present is satisfactory in the fact that I’m aware this is a work in progress and an experiment in writing as much as anything else. The last two days have been tough as I’ve been down in Sheffield, working and being exhausted. Even now, I have just got home and while it feels like time for bed I have to write this. What is important is that in some ways it’s easy, the habit has been formed now that to make it feel completely natural to sit down here and write up a piece. So much of our existence revolves around conditioned habits and it is satisfying to realise this is a healthy and productive habit I have managed to foster in myself.

How then does that develop from here? To write more than once a day misses the point, now I have the habit, it has to be about improving the output. The habit has to be maintained and that is partly because the experiment itself was to write one piece a day but also because after nearly three months I’m not convinced the habit is deep enough to survive too much of a change yet. I was thinking earlier how excited I am to complete this year and be able to write less frequently but to a higher standard. It was a long drive back and I came to the conclusion that the ideal would be to write one, possibly two pieces a week, of about one thousand one hundred words and to take the time to make them of real quality. Writing a successful blog is a challenging endeavour, they can be successful because you choose to write about something you know will be popular or marketable, generic dare I say. This blog will struggle because I lack cohesion when choosing topics and because they are daily they lack a standard required to really be happy with. To write one decent piece a week would allow for more thought to go into it.

However this could just be me convincing myself of some literary grass being greener idea. Maybe it will be exactly the same, the same sometimes standard but less frequently. We always love to convince ourselves that we can’t improve the situation exactly like it is, that we just need to do this or that and everything will then be perfect. It’s the same with life and happiness…if only we made that one change in our life…job, girlfriend, new toy…happiness would be right around the corner. It allows us to not have to improve the present set of circumstances but dream of some hypothetical future. A hypothetical future blog then will never be exactly as the fantasy desires it. This current incarnation is real, perhaps it would be worth starting on that.