The politics of not voting

I didn’t vote in the local elections, and this apparently means I am a prime target for spontaneous abuse on Twitter. “You didn’t vote, you can’t moan”, “You’re part of the problem”, and so on.

As it happened, my not-voting was not actually a political statement – I don’t have faith in the political system but I still usually bother voting, because in a world where one tick in a box every few years does actually have a significant effect on you (however resentful that is; and it is), I think it’s important to participate. Not that I really need to justify my position but I had come back from holiday the night before, been given some bad news about my family, and I was working that night – I was too busy to be concerned about something I am not especially passionate about. It literally just slipped my mind and I forgot – I didn’t see any of the papers referring to the elections and frankly, it speaks volumes that someone such as I (who has enjoyed and exercised my right to vote since I could) would simply ‘forget’ to vote.

I said last night on one of my twitter accounts that the election was ridiculous, and that the election figures themselves were ridiculous. It is evidently unthinkable that I could possibly say such a thing, because I hadn’t voted myself.

Quick explanation of what a ‘right’ is, for those who are confused: A right is something you have the option to do. This means you also have the right to not do it. It is not compulsory – that would be forcing people to vote, and in itself, by definition that is authoritarian and not ideal really (think of all the uninformed voters you’ll have!) I have the right to enter into a civil partnership with a woman. Does this mean I have to? No. Does this make me homophobic if I don’t? Er, no. You see where it becomes problematic berating people for not exercising their rights?

Not to mention that it’s heavily ironic that people are exercising their right to free speech to tell me I need to exercise my right to vote, otherwise I have no right to free speech. The mind boggles at this level of logic.

What we should be doing, rather than berating and dismissing people who do not vote, is engage them. Why do they not vote? What would make them vote? This is far more constructive and instructive when we look at low turn out – maybe we could start by asking, why is low turn-out a problem? In other countries where turn-out is higher, why is low turn-out not such a problem? Does compulsory voting really work? How can you better inform people? Can you make the voting process easier – vote by text, by tweet, by email, or on the phone – less effort for people who don’t have the time to go down to the polling station? What classes are most unlikely to vote – what gender, what races – why aren’t they being engaged? Are we speaking to all aspects of the community or just a single slice? We should be asking these questions rather than dismissing the majority of people (who didn’t vote) as apathetic or uninterested. Maybe we should be interested in what they have to say.

For my part, it slipped my mind because none of the candidates grabbed my imagination – it was 2008 all over again, and I knew that Boris would get back in. I couldn’t particularly think of anyone I’d rather vote for. Give a man the choice of which way to die, and he’ll gladly pick one. But he’s still going to die, which he doesn’t want at all. It’s a false choice. I feel the same about elections, really. Which flavour of shit sandwich would I most like to chow down on? Hooray for democracy.

I am old. I am withered. (Head thoughts)

Not outside but in.

I saw some girls on the tube yesterday on their way home from a JLS concert – I imagined them to be around 14/15 years old (with, presumably, one of their mothers) and they had JLS glittered on their cheeks. I realised how different my life used to be. At 14-15, I:

- Went out drinking most weekends
- Got my nipple pierced
- Went to underground, over 18s gigs with dodgy ska bands
- Hung out with dodgy ska bands and got certain *ahem* parts of my anatomy signed
- Did drugs

No wonder the prospect of having children scares me – I don’t want a miniature me! I knew a lot of dodgy people who didn’t want what was best for me, I was manipulated, I grew up too fast. Not everything was good. But I lived and I learned.

I think if Past Soph were here today, she’d think Present Soph is terribly boring. She’d be angry and disappointed and shouty.

I lost a significant part of myself somewhere between 18 and 19 and I never got it back. A-Levels were hell for me – I wanted so badly to take a gap year but I was talked out of it, went straight to university, and within 3 months I’d had a complete mental breakdown where I kept dreaming about the best way to kill myself. I cried myself to sleep every night without fail. Friends stopped talking to me because I was perpetually gloomy (and who wants to be around that!) No one thought to gently explain to me that I might be seriously ill.

I think people underestimate how much mental illness affects people. It takes everything from you. Your identity, your confidence, your self-respect, your respect for others. You are just not the same person in any way; it massively alters your life and your perspective on it. I could go on but I won’t – it stripped me bare and left me a husk of my former self. I wasn’t fun at all during that time. I fought it for two or three years, with little recognition from friends, little sympathy, and little help. Like it has always been, I dealt with it alone. My struggle. My triumph. It’s only in the last two years, really, that I’ve started making progress and getting my life back on track. Feeling like I’m in control again. Realising that depression is a significantly different animal to ‘me’ as a person; that I can be fun and people can like spending time with me. That I am worth something to others – and actually that, even so, being of value to others isn’t the extent of how I should define or view myself.

Now, five years after my first experience of university, I’ve graduated from a different degree course and I’m working in my industry insofaras I can be… Yet, I’m faced with the stark realisation that I’m still not where I wanted to be. I never particularly envisaged myself as being or doing something specific. I just never wanted to be here. I never wanted things to stay the same for so long – I’ve always wanted to be constantly on the move. The idea of settling scares the hell out of me. Becoming stagnant and stale (=boring) is my biggest fear, I suppose.

All these years I lusted for adventure, wanting to push myself (because I think I’ve figured out that’s how I thrive – like a really awesome but tiny plant in a storm). I wanted to be able to do things that few other people could say they’ve done. I wanted to find things that excited me, to find some reason to get up in the morning and exist. I wanted a sense of purpose – even if that purpose is thinly-disguised, selfish hedonism and self-pleasure through-and-through. So what – I’m young!

I have spent so long looking at places to travel to, making vague plans in my head – “I’ll go paragliding and diving with great whites in South Africa” “I’ll go back to Romania and see how much its changed” “I’ll go skiing in Europe” “I’ll sit under the rainforest canopy in Peru at dusk and count the number of different animals I can see”.

I had so many little ‘plans’ in my head. None of them ever happened. Maybe I was unrealistic – work is/was hard to come by and I couldn’t afford to go away as much as I wanted. But also I’ve always seen myself as completely alone in these imaginary scenarios. None of my family would want to come with me. None of my friends would. I don’t have a partner.

But that scares me too. The feeling that I am perpetually alone (and I am – the older I get, the more I realise no one is going to care about me as much as I care about theirs, or indeed my own. I know this is pretty much fact. I just can’t deal with how utterly horrifying a realisation that is, and consequently I haven’t really come to terms with it). I had vaguely hoped I might ‘find’ – as if the pursuit of love/companionship is a game of hide-and-seek! – someone by now. Even if not the ‘right’ person, or a ‘soulmate’, I thought I would have found someone who loves me even a fraction of what I deserve. Nothing.

I think you live life one of two ways – you try to fit in, or you do things your own way and you don’t care what everyone else is doing. I sort of thought I might eventually somehow magically mould to fit in with everyone else, be universally accepted and adored, and feel like what everyone looks like they feel like. But maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong. Maybe I should just go with my gut feeling – do what I want, when I want, on my own. I try to, within reason. I preach it, but I don’t honestly believe it. I don’t feel like I’m quite there yet – like my heart isn’t really in it. Like there’s some unfinished business in my life at present, unresolved issues. I want to leave and do my own thing, I want to grow as a person and have adventures and feel carefree again… It’s harder than it looks, even for someone with zero official responsibility. I have been trying to find opportunities to, but it’s proving difficult to do so without strings attached, and it’s made so much harder by my current situation.

Maybe I’ll get there. Since 2010 I’ve been trying to do little things that are challenging, experiencing little glimpses of what I think I’d like to do, and doing my own thing. There have been moments where I’ve been genuinely carefree, or genuinely happy – those little moments when you just stop what you’re doing and you have a huge wave of self-awareness. When you are overcome with a feeling of Everything Being Right, and you think “Jesus Christ, I am so unbelievably lucky to be here, in this moment, experiencing this”. Looking out over Coogee Beach at dawn. Watching Dubai Fountain for the first time. Walking Darwin’s path in the Blue Mountains. Watching the sun rise from a plane. Leaving the noise behind, sitting outside by yourself and realising just how many stars you can see in the night sky when you’re in the New Forest. Simple, small, beautiful things that make you grateful you exist.

I guess feel a bit like I grew old and jaded and cynical, far too young. Like my heart died when I was about 18, and I never got it started again (or at least, it took me so long):

And this makes me feel like my time has been all the more wasted…

Dubai and other revelations

Some of you may remember, or know (as I keep going on about it) that I went to Dubai last year. I meant to write about it at the time, and then I felt a bit sheepish about it; I worried what people would think of me – for I knew that my overall impression was positive, and that largely, people don’t really like the idea of it being remotely positive. People actively wanted me to have a bad time there. Even if they hadn’t been there themselves. This is due in part to bad press, but also actually due to a very generic, all-encompassing western view that everything we know and grew up with is – well – ‘All There Is’. The One Way to do things. Anything that might not fit into that view is terrifying and Very Bad Indeed.

So, Dubai. I’ll be brief: I loved it. I met loads of people – people who have travelled or come from all kinds of places, who were doing different things. (Talking to them made me realise I have not done enough with my life.) I felt very safe most of the time I was there. I liked the sun shining (mostly). I liked the amazing, incredible architecture which is literally everywhere. Nearly every building is remarkable in its own way. It’s very American. It feels American on the surface. But its roots are Arabian, and I like that. I love eating out and going to bars, and Dubai is not short of restaurants or drinking establishments – I think only once I was a bit disappointed with food. The rest was gorgeous. There are some world-class views to be had there. Some amazing experiences, sights, and idiosyncratic/surreal things – like going skiing in a shopping mall in the middle of the desert. Or seeing a tiger hanging out of a car window. It mainly lacks culture in appearance, but it is there, bubbling just underneath the surface if you dare to scratch it. Then there’s the record-breaking Dubai Fountain, the immensity of which took my breath away… In short, it is not like any other city I have ever visited, and I don’t think it is like any other place on earth. Really.

Of course, there are negative aspects too, but I’m not going to dwell on that here. Google it or something.

Four months down the line, I’ve realised that it was a big learning experience for me. I’ve always been of the impression that – sorry, gap year haters! – going abroad really widens your horizons, and every new experience helps to shape you as a person. I could easily list a few off the top of my head:

1) Romania, 2 days after my 17th birthday, taught me that I could dive into the dark on my own, and still survive.
2) My first university taught me that sometimes, things don’t work out, and that it’s okay to fail sometimes.
3) My first job made me realise that I genuinely love working. Far, far more than studying.
4) Australia in 2010 taught me that I can be happy, that I can be fulfilled, and that I can be the life of the party if I truly want to.
5) Dubai taught me that I need to look at the bigger picture, that open-mindedness works both ways, and that it’s not possible to see things as they are until you, ummm, see them as they are.

It is this bigger picture part that has finally, finally started to make sense – that experience has suddenly collided with previous experience and now I feel a bit more sure of myself and where my life is going.

It’ll take a while to explain because it’s been a long time coming: When I was at University, we did a unit called Global Current Affairs, which I didn’t really like at the time, but got good grades on. That summer of the second year, I went to work experience at an FT magazine about Africa (TIA), which was exclusively about news in business, entrepreneurialism, trade and finance on the African continent. I really, really enjoyed it. It was niche, it was about something that was, to me, far more exciting than UK news, and I was able to put into practice a lot of what I learned in GCA. I don’t think I ever felt like I was really learning much from my degree, so it was nice to finally have something I could point to and say “THIS helped me”.

Anyway – every journalist worth their salt knows they need to have some kind of direction, some kind of passion or area they want to go into. I had previously said something along the lines of “I dunno really – whatever drops out, I’ll take”. But that’s not the most convincing answer to the question “What do you want to do with your life?” So I realised that finance and business journalism is probably where I wanted to go – I’d been nudged in that direction unintentionally, and really enjoyed it. It pays well. Finance and business will always be around, so it’s a relatively stable job. That sort of thing.

But I wouldn’t really be that happy doing that here. To me, it’s boring. I want to know about what’s going on in a bigger way – like Dubai – going there really opened my eyes to the possibilities the Middle East has, just like TIA did with Africa. They opened my eyes to the idea that maybe, just maybe, there is more to life than the western world. I want to know why Russia and China are blocking UN resolutions on Syria. I want to know how much of Africa belongs to China, and what they’re doing with that land. I want to know who else has been investing in Africa, where Brazil comes into the picture. I’m not really interested in small details anymore. Perhaps I’m being remiss, but I feel a bit like London, the UK even, isn’t big enough a stomping ground for me anymore.

I’ve finally decided I want to do international journalism, or at least business/finance – elsewhere and not here. It’s a bit of a weird one because it’s taken me a few years to really realise this is what I want to do. I’ve always wanted to travel loads, and since I can remember, I’ve never seen myself settling down. I like the idea of minimalism and scaling down, and making-do and being on the road. I like the idea of waking up to a different place and different experience every day. I feel like I’m doing something positive then, and I feel more connected and purposeful. I can’t sit around and feel sorry for myself when I’m busy.

Things are changing in my life and in my little corner of the internet. It’s a necessary move, and you’ll all understand in a short while. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this blog, even. But I feel reinvigorated, and a lot better than I have been in the recent past. I feel a bit like things are finally happening, even if its just mainly me figuring myself out – and this can only be a good thing.

Understanding power structures

If you’re going to study any isms, the first thing you should really look at is power structures – how society has traditionally structured itself and evolved. In feminism, this is often called the “Patriarchy” (rule of the father/male role models). In terms of intersectionality – which is about where feminism meets anti-racism, meets class issues, etc (ie minorities in different categories) – this is called the Kyriarchy… The interaction between different systems of domination and submission.

I start with the Patriarchy as this is the one I most commonly can relate to. This is the idea that in western society most things are geared towards men – that society values the role of men much more than the role of women, and denies women the same opportunities and equality. There are lots of stats around but what is most well-accepted is that there are more CEOs who are men than women, and more MPs who are men, than women. Why is this? There is nothing in the requirement of being a CEO or an MP that inherently discounts women – it is not an explicit requirement, for example, to have a beard or a penis, or any other thing which we dictate to be ‘male’. Levels of testosterone or maleness should not dictate that you cannot be a CEO or an MP. Yet women continue to be under-represented in these fields. Women are also paid much less in work – again, there are statistics and reports on this out there, should you wish to find them. Yet women are over-represented in the public sector – why is this? This is what feminists talk about as the Patriarchy – that “men” as a group are generally dominating, and much better off than women are. That is entirely different to saying that individual men hold power – although some do, this is clearly an inaccurate generalisation.

It’s a fairly simple concept, once you understand it, and one you can apply to any arbitrary category of society – for example, with regards to sexuality, ‘heterosexuality’ is the dominant group and ‘homosexuality’ is the oppressed. It follows thusly:

- Cisgender people are dominant, transgender people are the oppressed.

- White people are dominant, non-white people are oppressed.

- Men are dominant, women are oppressed.

- Middle class is dominant, working class are oppressed and exploited. You could even take this one further and look at the ‘ruling classes’ (ie politicians, nobility, etc) as dominating over all, including the middle classes. Then the middle class dominate over those below them, and so on – so the lowest class in society is oppressed by all of those above it.

That is not to say that anyone who happens to fit into one or all of these dominant groups is a horrible person – just that society is automatically geared towards giving them an advantage. They are privileged. These are social structures of power. It is easy for one person in the dominant group to have power over someone in the oppressed group. And while it is possible for someone in the oppressed group to be horrible to, or not like, those in the dominant group, I maintain that it is impossible for there to be ‘isms’ in this context. It is in fact entirely understandable why people in the subordinate group may hate those who have been oppressing them. Allan Johnson explains this in The Gender Knot (2005):

“Given the reality of women’s oppression, male privilege, and men’s enforcement of both, it’s hardly surprising that every woman should have moments when she resents, or even hates, ‘men’.”

It is not possible for women to be ‘sexist’ against men. It is not possible for non-whites to be ‘racist’ against white people. There is a distinct difference between group interactions (ie systematic oppression from society and its rulers – who are, incidentally, mainly cisgender, straight, white, middle class men) and individual interactions. There is a difference between me growing up in society, feeling that the message I’ve heard is “as a woman you are worth less than a man” – and me insulting an individual man, telling him he is not good at something/making generalisations. That might be wrong and not-very-nice, but it is not sexist; it is not misandrist (I have already argued that misandry doesn’t exist here and here). It is me disliking an individual man. Whereas a man doing the same thing to me, does so in a generally anti-women and hostile environment that affects me to a large extent and has a negative effect on my behaviour and the way I perceive myself (see street harassment that happens worryingly regularly if you happen to be a woman and go outside your own house). That’s sexism, and that’s why women need to fight back.

The reason that women – and other oppressed groups – feel the need to have women-only safe spaces, and should be allowed them, is that they can achieve much more without the interference of the aggressors. Some women feel deeply uncomfortable discussing feminist ideas in front of men, because they feel that men will dominate the conversation – this aggressive hijacking of the conversational thread or debate happens all the time in every day life where the dominant groups take over. It’s called derailing, and as a ‘privileged’ member, it takes a while to see that you’re doing it. This is why, when people discuss racial issues, I fully support them and I add my two cents if need be – but I’m more intrigued about following what the people who have to live with abuse due to their skin colour, have to say about it. I try to listen more and speak less. What can I possibly have to add? I have never been the victim of a racial attack and I never will be, and I suspect they are fed up of white people claiming the mantle for themselves.

What is really interesting about power structures is that once you see one (of course, I started with the patriarchy) you begin to see all. I once would have considered myself the victim of a ‘racist’ attack, where I was called a “white whore” “white prostitute” “fucking white slag” and so on by a group of young black men. I was shaken up by the experience – but the more I thought about it later on, the more I realised that, had they called me “whitey” I wouldn’t have had an issue. There is no historic meaning or basis for insults against white people – whereas there is a rich, awful history and background to, for example, the ‘N’ word. What was hurtful and awful about me being shouted at was that I was being called a prostitute, a slag, and a whore, simply because I was female. It didn’t matter what colour my skin was – it was sexism rather than racism. I think this really sums up my understanding of power structures, and it’s why – among a great many other things – Diane Abbott isn’t a racist.

Things I don’t understand about the Olympics

1) What sort of people go to the Olympics? I don’t know anyone normal that’s remotely interested in it. If I wanted to see people running around, I’d go to my local park. I don’t get the attraction, I’m sorry.

2) Why did we even bid for it when we haven’t anywhere near the infrastructure to cope with such an influx of people? The city can barely cope with the people that live there (Trust me on this – I’ve lived in London my whole life. Sometimes getting out of the underground system it feels like I’m clawing my way out of a wooden coffin)

3) How is this going to help bring money into the country? Links with point 1 I guess – the type of people that are there are not the kind of people who will be shopping at local shops and using local services, are they? Is it really going to have a big effect on the people that live there, other than cause mayhem on local transport links?
Interestingly, Ken Livingstone said he specifically wanted to have it in East London so that money would be spent on that area – a deprived area. This suggests to me that the only reason the Olympics is good is because in preparation for it, the deprived bits of London were made a bit nicer. I would love to see how this has panned out in hindsight – have those areas of London been made significantly better? Are people there happier, feeling less deprived? Or is it all superficial? I think back to the riots in the summer and I have my doubts that people in London are much better off because of this.

4) Since when did we have money to fund this massive vanity project? Though I confess, a lot of the money was budgeted long ago – the budget for the opening ceremonies has been doubled. Um, what recession and soon-to-be-huge-financial-crash?

5) This will be the legacy of our Olympics. . . . . . . . . I am just sat here open-mouthed.

6) Athens hosted the Olympics in 2004. Greece is now crippled with debt. This is an interesting piece about the true legacy of the Olympics for Greece. Although I don’t think it will be as bad, I think we are on the precipice of a huge financial fall-out and this is pretty much the worst time to have the Olympics on.

I needed to blog this because every now and then I hear something about the Olympics and it makes my blood boil. It seems like a huge waste of money to me. I want out of here by the time the Olympics roll round – I think London will become a nightmare around that time (even moreso than normal) and I am not the least bit interested in watching people run around a field.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Olympics will be a massive success, maybe London will become a much nicer and friendlier place. Maybe we will get the cash injection we badly need, and it won’t totally cripple our economy (though I fear we are past that now) due to overspending. Maybe this time next year we can all have a jolly good laugh about how I (and many others) thought that there was going to be a huge financial crash of epic proportions – far beyond the one in 2008 – that we are not prepared for, and we’ll all look back on the Olympics with a wistful fondness.

Maybe.

The learning curve

A while ago I wrote about ‘trying something new‘. A lot of people were very dismissive of my attempt at broadening my horizons, to my disappointment. Though to my surprise, I had a few private messages from the most unexpected people, telling me that they’d tried having Reiki and it had worked for them. I heard from someone who was a Reiki Master who is someone I’ve known as an acquaintance for years, and I didn’t have a clue he’d even looked into Reiki. He told me he started learning it because he had ME and was desperate to get better. He does it every day and since he started he noticed a marked improvement in his health very quickly – he no longer has ME, he no longer gets ill as much as he used to. I found this and other stories very encouraging.

Even after this, I was unsure if it would work. I thought perhaps that I personally wouldn’t be able to do it. That ‘healing’ is something other people can do (though I have been told by a couple of people that I am an ideal person for healing) – not something for me! As I said in my first post about this, to me, the opportunity to learn how to give Reiki was basically something I couldn’t miss, and something I couldn’t really lose on. The money, effort, and time involved is minimal and I always said I could easily write it off as a bad judgement if nothing happened at all. But I’ve found it really, really interesting and a positive experience thus far.

The first level of Reiki which I’m doing is mainly about treating yourself than treating others – because you have to balance yourself out before you work on others, which makes sense. So I’ve been attempting self-healing and I think it has been working, but in more subtle ways than ‘fixing’ myself physically. I gave up coffee (replaced with herbal teas) before starting to learn Reiki and that might have something to do with it, but I find myself being much more calm and relaxed about things. I am an incredibly emotional person, but I’ve found I’m not having so many mood swings. I hit my car on a skip (first accident since I passed my test!) a few days ago – but whereas normally I would be panicky and cry and get upset and not get over it for a day or so – I found myself looking at it in a different way. I was shocked, of course, but I got over it very quickly instead of instantly being angry and upset, and not letting it go. I’d almost forgotten about it until I saw the damage on my car again.

I’ve been feeling better since I started doing it (in an emotional way) but I wasn’t sure if this was just me imagining it. We did a little bit on treating others the other night, and we learned how to ‘scan’ others – where you pick up on excessive energy in the chakras, or the energy levels are fluctuating/inconsistent with the rest of the body. My Reiki Master scanned me and the woman I am learning with, and without telling us what he found, we both scanned each other. When we reported back what we’d felt, we had all felt the same thing on the same person. We didn’t do any healing then, but he encouraged us to experiment with doing healing and scanning other people – the more you do it, the better you get.

I decided to try and do some work on my sister and my mum, because I thought I could try it on them – but again, I wasn’t sure I could do it. My sister suffers from terrible migraines, and nobody knows why. She has cut out certain foods, tried different painkillers, seen several doctors, and nothing works. I spent about 45 minutes working on her. I scanned her and found out that she had a lot of energy around her head, and around the tops of her legs (which align with the root chakra) – when I worked on these areas in particular, she distinctly felt like I was doing something. “You’re moving your hands aren’t you!?” she said, when I had my hands gently placed on her head. I wasn’t moving my hands at all, but she said it felt “waves” like I was moving my hands – I could feel a lot of energy moving around too, and my hands started burning hot. At one point, my face/head felt so hot that I was almost sweating, and I felt a bit faint. At the end of the session I was totally wiped out, and she reported that her headache was a lot less painful, and she was so relaxed and tired that she fell asleep for a while.

My mum has loads of problems with her feet – small knocks confounded by arthritis and underlying problems that have been going on for years. She is rarely out of pain, especially when walking on them. I decided I would do her whole body but try to focus on her feet. She wasn’t really relaxed, I felt, and she didn’t feel anything through the majority of the session, except pain in her foot. A difficult client! When I was going down her worst leg, she started flinching and said she felt like the pain was going down her leg into her foot, and the pain was excruciating – moreso than usual – and she felt a sensation she had never experienced before. I quickly started concentrating on her feet, and she said my hands were really hot. While I was doing it, she reported pain, but afterwards, she said that her foot felt fine, and that she wasn’t in any pain at all. This morning, she said she slept quite well, and that her foot wasn’t as bad as it normally is. I’m going to try and monitor this in terms of pain etc, and experiment with it – see what works best for the pain.

It sounds crazy. It’s hard to believe, and I almost don’t want to believe it myself… But I am really happy that it seems to be working. I went into it very doubtful, but I don’t believe in writing something off before experiencing it. I have noticed, the more I try to force it, the less stuff happens – so I think my main focus as I keep learning and perhaps progress to treating other people (my dad is already in the queue!) is to just relax and let it happen. I probably won’t write about this again unless something significant happens, because I am doing it all the time and if I wrote about it every time things happened, my blog would be very boring. I know some people were intrigued about my progress, so I hope that this is useful or interesting to someone.

Trying something new

If you’re narrow minded, don’t bother reading on because you won’t like what you find.

I am not really a fan of writing personal blogs on here, mainly because I suspect the people who follow the blog are (understandably) more interested in reading about political/feministy stuff going on. I try to keep it impersonal. But I wanted to share something that some people might want to read.

This whole year for me has been one of doing new things, having new experiences, and figuring myself out, and figuring out what I like and what makes me happy. Trying to become more balanced and all that guff.

I’ll start this particular learning curve with some background information. My gran, bless her, is a stubborn 80 year old woman who is one of the most cynical people you could ever meet. She reads the Daily Mail like it’s gospel, strongly dislikes any form of religion, and is er, well, a force to be reckoned with. So imagine our surprise when she started having Reiki treatments a few years ago. It’s totally out of character for her, and my first thought was, she’s probably going to really hate the poor guy doing it when she realises it’s a con. But she did it a few times and she loved it. Now, she wouldn’t be without it. Her Reiki practitioner sees her regularly, and they’re now close friends.

I’ve been interested in alternative stuff for as long as I can remember. I don’t absolutely believe in anything but I’m an open minded person that needs some kind of proof in order to believe in things (no religion for me!)… I went on a retreat of sorts this year – and I came away feeling like I’d learned a lot but now realise I have yet to utilise the tools I’ve learned. I did a meditation class, and I really enjoyed it. I found when I was in a certain position that my hands burned hot, like they were radiating heat. I wasn’t near a radiator, and nothing else in my body was warm – how weird is that? I tried Reiki and I saw a Clairvoyant. I didn’t notice much of a difference with Reiki other than I left feeling more positive and proactive, and the Clairvoyant stuff… I found that really useful too, but I don’t really want to talk about that in a public forum.

What with being one of the vast numbers of unemployed graduates in this country, I’ve had to think of ways to keep myself amused, to keep my spirits up (have had my own brushes with mental illness in the past and I don’t want a repeat of that thankyouverymuch!)… I’ve taught myself how to sew, I’ve learned to use a lucet; new recipes; tried to learn to crochet (and failed); I’ve read Fuck It; learned about new feminist theory; I’ve had a great experience meditating; I saw a Clairoyant for the first time… I’ve been to one of those creepy talks about the power of the mind and I decided I didn’t need to buy someone else’s book to realise what I already know. And now I’m stuck again. It’s been about six months since I left Uni, but it feels like forever.

SO. I’ve decided to sign up to learn Reiki myself! Bit weird, considering I felt like I hadn’t really gained much from it. But my gran swears by it, and she would be the first person to tell me if it was nonsense. Luckily her practitioner is also a Master which means he can teach others – I met him, and we finally managed to get some dates sorted to do it. He is the most normal sort of person you could meet – I expected a soft-talking, stereotypical spiritualist kind of person. He actually reminds me of my mechanic – you wouldn’t look at him and think he is into spiritual stuff, let alone teaching it! So that was reassuring. I also thought that at £5 an hour, his course is remarkably cheap – cheap enough to write off as a bad judgement/mistake if I don’t feel it does anything. I start the first level (there’s 3 levels in Reiki) in a couple of weeks – I’m really nervous but also pretty excited. I’m doing it alongside a lovely Australian lady who is really spiritual and totally open-minded and prepared for anything, which is great. I don’t know if I will do the second, it really depends what happens.

Why am I posting this? Well, I wanted to see how people would react, I know for a lot of people it’s way too ‘out there’. I’d really like to blog as I go, after each class, and see how I feel it’s doing. I know it’s not political, I know it’s very personal, but I actually haven’t read that much about Reiki or experiences of learning Reiki/how it feels to do it to somebody else. Now I’ve explained it all and hopefully someone is still reading… Thoughts?

A belated note

I did notice that Half The World.. came up on the top 100 Lib Dem blogs at Total Politics. I thought it was a bit crass to be all like ‘look at me, I got something!’ but now it seems a bit rude to not say thank you. I had no idea I was nominated for it so to be on that list at all was a huge surprise. I didn’t notice until I started getting hits from it and Dan over at Too Liberal told me I was on there. So thank you whoever nominated and voted for me. I was/am very surprised (“Lib Dem?”) but also quietly pleased that people felt moved to vote (“I’m doing something right!”). I’ll add the badge to the blog shortly.

I feel I should write more but I’ve been feeling uninspired of late, so apologies.

PS – I like that I am number 69.

Catch up post

A few things I wanted to let you know – a couple of announcements, some requests, and shout outs. Figured it would be easier to put it all in one blog post than for it to get lost on Twitter.

Announcements

I got my degree results yesterday and I will graduate with a 2:1 degree. More importantly (to me), I got a first in my dissertation. Obviously the introduction has been changed from what is there, but I thought I would let you know – seeing as so many of you helped me out with it! So thank you very much.

I’ve also started cross-posting stuff from here over at Hackery Blog (which is great, and still accepting contributors if you’re interested) and this morning I wrote my first post on the phone-hacking scandal for a Twitter friend, @DanielFurrUK on his blog Too Liberal – hopefully I will post there more often.

Shout-outs

Two projects I’m hoping to get more involved in.

Firstly, there’s a mental health blogging project called It’s Not Just You. Once a week, over the course of a year, an interview will be published with someone who considers themselves to have had or has a mental illness. There are more details to it (you’d need to be okay with your photo and first name being published, etc) but I’m taking part and I thought I would ask if any of you would want to do it. If you want to participate, please let me know and I will put you in touch with the person who is running the project. (@ me on Twitter)

Secondly, I’ve been introduced to one of the co-founders of Youth Project UK and I thought it might be something a few people would be interested in. It’s in its embryonic stages at the moment but the intention is to campaign and try to address problems that young people face today.
One of the ideas they have at the moment is about getting young people to understand politics on their terms and really getting them engaged with current affairs, which is something that I’m really interested in and passionate about. On Dream School earlier this year, Alistair Campbell engaged the students by asking them what they care about – and then illustrated how it is political. It made them rethink what exactly politics is. This is the sort of thing that we should be doing in schools across the country – an informed population is important for democracy.

The gran project?

I finished my dissertation last week, and I have been flailing a little. (Don’t worry, this isn’t a totally personal post about my day etc – it will get better!) I’m back in London for a few days because I got bored of being in Bournemouth and wanted to meet up with a few people from Twitter. I am still very much here-there at the moment: I have my house until July, I don’t have a job or even an internship lined up (though I am section editor for a magazine in Bournemouth) and I give myself a fortnight before I start really freaking out about the whole situation. I don’t do well when I’m bored. At all.

Anyway, I saw my grandmother a couple of days ago, and we were talking about our family, as my uncle is currently working on a family tree. My gran is 80, so she’s getting on, and she’s very aware of her own mortality, she does sometimes mention ‘when I’m gone’, etc. I once lost someone who was very much like a grandfather to me (very long story) and for ages I used to think I could smell him, hear him, see his car, etc. It is most bizarre to lose someone who is that close. And I don’t have anything to help me remember him, except photos. No recordings or videos, only loose affiliations – like every time I see Dad’s Army or David Jason (we watched Only Fools and Horses endlessly) I think of him. But it always feels like it’s not enough.

So. (I am getting to the point now) – my gran is old. She has told me so many awesome/interesting things about her life over the years, that I only vaguely remember but have no actual record of. She showed me a few photos the other day and could tell me exactly who it was, etc – but I couldn’t possibly remember that when she’s gone. When I have nothing to do, and I’m at a complete loose end, I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do. The idea of losing information from one generation to the next really scares me (on a large scale this leads to complete loss of knowledge and a kind of reinvention of the wheel; on an individual scale it contributes to a watering-down of cultural/family values and identity) – and I don’t want to lose the information and anecdotes that she has accumulated throughout her life. So I’m going to do some interviews with her and kind of, collate it all together in a story/project.

I honestly think it’s really important to keep records of past generations – not only is it interesting but it also helps us to understand more about ourselves (individually and in general) and the world we live in. Yes, we have museums which can add context, and I suppose this is more of a personal project than something that will be of interest to others… But sometimes a personal touch/personal anecdotes mean a lot more. I will try and keep it quite general and topic-based, I think.

I want something significant to remember her by. I want to remember that even in old age she was still incredibly funny and intelligent – but also a force to be reckoned with. So basically, don’t be surprised if I add a new category soon and start writing odd non-political blogposts. It’s not really the best place to put it – but aside from getting an entire other blog devoted to my grandmother, which I suppose comes off a bit weird – I’m not sure where else I can stick this whole thing.

If it becomes a thing. If I even start doing it. If I don’t get a job in the mean time.

Oh, and I need to get her to co-operate first!