Tag: lesson

The Inquisitive Child

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It would be appealing in the moment to say an important lesson had been learnt today. In a way one was but perhaps not the obvious and straightforward one. You see, I did something silly. Although that’s one way of looking at it. The other is that today I discovered something new which makes it a great move all round. If you’ve been following this blog you’ll have heard me refer to all sorts of different jobs I do, one minute I’m working in a bakery, the next I’m renovating a house, and then I’m making pizzas; I may have mentioned others but I forget, anyway the point is that yesterday while stripping wallpaper in the flat next door I discovered a CD-ROM. For younger folk this is a something that was commonly used in a previous decade to put files on computers before we all got fast internet. It turns out putting random CDs into computers is not necessarily the best idea. My laptop stopped working and then wouldn’t load up properly. The lesson learnt then would be not to put random CDs into computers. It’s a bit like telling a curious child not to taste everything they see just incase it has a new exciting flavour.

In moments like this though I prefer to focus on the favourable positive elements of a story and the lessons learnt. Did I learn never to put random CDs into my laptop again? Well in a way yes, but seeing as I’m typing this now there must have been a happy ending. You see I managed to open up the back of my laptop, take out the drive and manually remove the CD. My computer then loaded up perfectly and seemingly all is back to normal. But it’s not normal because I have the added satisfaction of fixing a problem and of learning something new. Is that the lesson learnt? Well again kind of but that’s hardly a lesson in the metaphorical sense. My favourite type. So I learnt not to taste random things I find, but I didn’t really because I’ll probably taste them again. And that’s what’s important. The inquisitive mind should never be caged. Why would you not want to know what was hidden inside something random you find. I’ve found some cool stuff in my life. Maybe it’s a sign I lack contentment but that urge to discover that takes me on adventures to foreign lands also seems to make me see what’s on random CDs I find under old carpets. To recognise there is discovery in every little thing. Maybe understanding that leads to more contentment in a way. Who knows, except time. Time knows everything.

Forever the child tasting new discoveries. I hope that never changes.

Tourist

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Has anyone ever been a tourist in their own city? While I have never necessarily lived in Edinburgh I was born here and grew up less than an hour away. It is my nearest city and therefore I class it as my city. Over the years friends I have met while traveling have either visited Edinburgh or have visited me but regardless the result has been me visiting certain tourist sites. Edinburgh castle is nicer from the outside, some interesting museums but nothing to get excited about. Arthurs Seat is worth walking up for an idea of the the landscape and terrain of the rest of Scotland as well as a pretty spectacular view of the city. The Royal Mile is worth walking up if you want to browse through tacky tourist shops and dodge throngs of foreigners. Edinburgh is largely foreigners these days, most actual Scots having moved to Glasgow long ago. The National Museum of Scotland, I think thats it’s name, is free and has some pretty cool things worth seeing, as is and has the National Portrait Galley. Ultimately what I am saying is that these are a few things you can do which I have done already, but my point is this weekend will be different to all previous times. For this weekend I will be actually staying in an airbnb in Edinburgh, going all out tourist.

My Mum is turning seventy on Monday which is nice, a decent wee achievement so good on her. We have some cousins, aunties and uncles or nieces, sister-in-law and brother from my mothers perspective, visiting and so we’re staying up here too. The point of all this is that while people may do tourist things where they’re from, and yes of course quite often people never explore their locale at all, very rarely do they stay in an actual hotel in their own city and go full on tourist. I’m quite looking forward to it, it will most likely be a lovely treat. Let’s see how many locals I can piss off by being an awful tourist, thats alway fun.

This is probably one of the more boring pieces I have written but I’m tired, its been a crazy couple of days and it will soon be the end of the day and I want to maintain my streak. Does that make this piece a fail. I’m unsure. At some point I may have discipline in action but not discipline in mind if all I am doing is writing a daily piece that is me simply filling space. Do you really care about me spending a weekend in Edinburgh? There are different types of discipline. To be positive though, it is all part of the learning curve because until now I had never thought about the fact there are different types of discipline, different values to what I thought was one thing. Another day, another lesson. Aren’t you just lucky to be going through this with me.

Impractical Me

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Today has provided me with an interesting lesson. It all began with me deciding to construct myself a bed. I currently have a mattress and while I have slept on many directly on the floor and continue to neither mind nor give a shit, there is a part of me that is attempting to become more of what some may describe as a normal human being. That seemingly in my eyes involves having a actual bed.

I have access to a random mismatched pile of planks and beams, and in my mind am on par with Jesus in my abilities to work with wood. Several years ago I took an eight week carpentry evening course at at the local college. This may sound impressive but it was only one night a week and for various reasons I was only able to attend four classes. I did in that time though learn a little about joints and managed to construct quite a beautiful basket for my dog. She still appreciates it today. I decided then to put some of these skills of mine into practise and what I discovered was that I am no Jesus. My excuse if that the wood was all oddly shaped and of varying quality and a jigsaw power tool would have been ideal, my handsaw was not great for the finer work, neither was my clumsy and lazy use of a chisel. Theoretically I know exactly what to do but in practise it turned out to be anything but.

Getting back to my house with everything and ready to construct the pre cut by me pieces together, I received a phone call from a friend who had a bed for me if I wanted. Would it be a waste of a day to simply take this bed and discard all my hard work. I’m pretty proud of what I created, imperfections and all, but this bed is better. To proudly display my hard work and experience the achievement of completion or to put aside my pride and just embrace easy and better. I know what I’m going to do but I am unable to decide what is a better approach for my personal development, not that that is even what it’s all about of course.

Anyway with that more or less done, next on the list is sourcing some curtains, I’m sure the neighbours have seen enough. Maybe I can find a small tree, hollow it out and cut it into hoops for the rings before crocheting the cloth. That sounds like a typically practical and easy approach to this new desire.