Tag: self-indulgent

Goodbye

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It turns out to be harder ending something than it does starting or sustaining it. We can fall into things and then rely on habitual behaviours to sustain them but finding a suitable way of calling time appears to be the real challenge. This day was always coming. The end was inevitable despite the odd temptation. The hard part is not about struggling to let go or fearing what comes next, it’s about being able to walk away from something despite it being such a big part of your life, and on the whole a positive part. Throw in the ego which somehow wants to go out with style and any suitable last piece becomes impossible. This is not my first draft. I have had more drafts today, or attempts, than I’ve had second drafts in the entire year. But call an end we must for all this must end one day.

It’s the self-congratulatory indulgent nature of this last piece I’m struggling with. I’m pleased with myself for going a whole year, writing a piece every single day. It’s not that I didn’t think myself capable but I’m only human. Granted there was the post mountain rave piece I only managed a few sentences, the day I wrote a piece but didn’t publish and the day in the first month I published a piece I had written as a back up a few days earlier. I never said I was perfect but there are no judges, nobody except myself to say I passed or failed. I may have involved others, but like most things on social media I was using you for my own ends. The Strava Wanker of the blog writing world. So I pat myself on the back, fuck it I deserve it, and carry on.

This was a fun experiment. It was exhausting and it has been a hectic year. Some pieces I really enjoyed and was pleased with and others descended into little more than journal entries. But it has been a whole year and that is plenty of time for it to morph into a mouthpiece for whatever I’m thinking or feeling, both positive and negative as the days unfolded. What now then, what comes in it’s place. Something must always come in its place. It is important to know when to finish things, and in this case the natural conclusion comes from the planned conclusion. I’ll accept I’m quite a sentimental person and will miss my daily jaunt into writing. I enjoyed creating the habit even though it wasn’t always easy. But now this habit must morph into something new. Time will give the answers and you may hear from me again, just with different intentions and not on here. For now though, thank you for sharing this with me.

On a final note I would like to wish a happy birthday to the man I call father. Sixty-nine years young today.

The Storm Of The Mind

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The first time I came to Greece, perhaps it was about four years ago now. Time is strange, it decides itself how fast it moves. It may have even been five years. The destination was Lesvos and it was with the intention of being some kind of hero, there to save the refugees. Actually I’m not entirely sure what the intention was, it was just suggested to me by a friend as something to do and I thought why not. We arrived in a storm. For about four days the island was battered as people slept rough, they slept wet, they slept on hillsides that resembled rivers. The scene was destruction and devastation. It was post-apocalyptic in everyway except that I was able to return to my little hotel room once all the heroism was done for the day.

There is a lot that could be said about that time, little of it positive in a way but there are always things which shine through the clouds. I made friends who will be friends for a lifetime. That isn’t always something you can say. I also saw the world in a way I hadn’t previously, and I understood seeing truth in another form, despite being hard to take, was a good thing for the mind. These things are all about me though because to view it from any other perspective is too much of a challenge. Thousands of people passed through everyday. The fate of nearly all of them unknown to me. Many survived but I don’t doubt many didn’t, their fates too horrific for these words here.

I’m not sure why I’m going into this. I always feel so self-indulgent. The knowledge I’ll likely always have a hotel room to go to if I need devalues something of any assistance I could give. The words become hollow, if they ever weren’t. That and the knowledge I could also jump on a plane with relative ease and go to any of those countries people were dying just to reach. There is probably a sense of guilt in a way but we shouldn’t feel guilty when ultimately we’re powerless. It is also a completely pointless emotion as we can’t help the lives we were born into. We can help what we do with them but even then we’re limited in anything genuine. It does make you grateful for a bit but that slowly passes as you start casting envious eyes around once more. I can understand how people become detached when they exist in that world for so long. Or maybe they’re detached when they begin and that is how they last. That is unfair. People do what they can. What they have to.

I know why I’m going into this. I’m in day three back in Greece and it’s currently day two of Storm Ioannis. Apparently there will be a day three and day four will be the day the world comes back to life. The scenario couldn’t be further from the last and I am as much a different person as those people I now meet but arriving in a storm seems familiar enough that it has made me reminisce. Reminisce in the most miserable and sad of ways but then weather can do that to you. Our moods are so very defined by the nature of our environment. What is important though is to remember to come out with the sunshine once it returns. It’s best not to leave yourself in the storm.

To Help Others And Alleviate The Loneliness Within

Hamar Williams1 Comment

One of the pleasures of my day is strangely enough the five hours I spend working. Not always, but one of my current jobs is a little home renovation for a friend and I find myself in a flat just working away at fixing and building while listening to podcasts. I’m in my own little world with whatever I want to listen to. It’s a real pleasure. Today I was listening to one of The Economist‘s podcasts and part of it was about loneliness and how helping people can alleviate this sense of loneliness, but more importantly boost our immune system. Apparently it leads to the down regulation of inflammatory genes, which are their words and I’m guessing a good thing. It was in relation to this current virus and the paradox of quarantine, loneliness and our health. As I said they discussed how helping people can alleviate our sense of loneliness but they also discovered that helping people can make us happier and more connected with those who we help. They used two groups of people for this study, one who helped themselves and one who helped others.

This made me think of a period in my life when I helped people. I spent six months in Greece about three years ago working with refugees crossing from Turkey, having come from countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I don’t like the word helped because it is loaded, patronising and self aggrandising. I prefer to just say I handed out food and clothes, fixed things, drove my van around a lot and played football even more, as well as just hung out with people and tried to make them feel like human beings. The group I was doing this with generally left around the same time and I remained in contact to varying degrees as we all spent the next year trying to get over everything we had seen and felt. It feels and sounds self indulgent, and I don’t even like writing these words because of that, but it’s true, as is the fact I’m sure some people left with what I would describe as a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. My point though is that I have discussed with some people and we agreed there was a sense that this was a good time, in the moment we had been truly happy. I always put this down to the fact it was a real true moment and you were needed urgently, there was no time for this fake bullshit we live in our regular existence. I always thought that it was life in the true sense that made us feel this strange paradoxical happiness but perhaps it was just the fact we were helping people and feeling more connected on a human level. I still don’t know the answers or the truth and I don’t always feel comfortable talking about it as I feel self-indulgent considering everything else that was going on to others and is still going on, but these were my thoughts and what better than this daily monster I’ve created to share them on.