Irregularity

I've been the same about writing this blog as I have been when committing to any diary writing! I've always been good at loosing interest. I suppose it's a side effect of getting easily exciting about new things. I enjoy the sensation of fresh, new projects or ideas. Over the past year my attitudes and motivations have changed dramatically since considering God an influential power in my external and internal world and also meeting a person I consider to be my soul companion and best friend. When he left me here to volunteer in Madagascar, I started his absence like a project. I was excited about the finish but like most large projects, couldn't comprehend the actual amount of time and work require to achieve the end goal. I would describe the feeling as actively waiting. It is hard work that I endure, and have been doing for 5 months. I think it has grown me in a positive direction, developing patience and determination in the face of difficulty and weariness. I have not lost interest.

Woops

Well, we're off to a good start.

I mean that ironically, but not so for my new job. Yes, I'm a cleaner, but one of the first reflections I had while cleaning was how essential is is to feel useful while working. I work at a research facility, so naturally there are layers of management with a CEO at the top (I haven't met her, but I mop outside her office everyday) and I assume menial researchers (or even the cleaners at the bottom). However, if you were to list every employee in order of how essential they are the to running and therefore success of the business, cleaner is pretty high up. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet, just observing that the respect and appreciation of the cleaner is usually inverse to how useful they are. Thankfully I don't run on praise, I've found motivation in doing a job no-one else wants to do. I'm expected to be somewhere and there are consequences if I don't go, it has value and meaning. It's also very nice to have a routine and some regular income.

First things first

This blog is essentially a conversation with myself. Ironically, I've gone and invited the internet to listen, but really this is a fairly egotistical exercise with the intention of improving my way of expressing myself to other people. It's 3 in the morning, and I'll explain my motivation for starting a blog.

I love experience. Just doing stuff, listening to stuff other people did. What's more, the thoughts and considerations that come from those experiences are as important to me as the experiences themselves. The amount of time we spend on this planet is brief. The amount of time we spend caring about how that time's spent is dismal. So, my solution to being a fart in the wind; get good at sharing and encouraging others to share. Y'know how vivid reading a good book can be, you feel you understand the characters, can imagine the places it's set, find yourself longing to be there and interact with the created world? I think being able to put thoughts into coherent, logical expression is crucial to being able to communicate, and by extension, be able to fully consider and react to an experience you've never actually had. What I've noticed is, unfortunately, having the patience to think something through is getting harder and harder. Currently, I think the culprit is the way we're learning to digest information, particularly digital information. Our culture is sliding rapidly to valuing immediacy before process. The internet doesn't require an attention span, we're not encouraged to linger or ponder. More frustratingly, I've noticed this attitude in myself. Feeling that I bore people if I'm not succinct enough, not being able to explain myself logically, rapidly moving to different topics because I've forgotten how I started the dialogue. What I really hope to achieve with blogging my thoughts and ponderings is an improved ability to share snippets of my perspective of the world and hopefully to encourage others to share theirs with me.