A Quickie

Just a quick one before I head off out into the gale that is currently battering the South East of the UK - okay, maybe it isn't a gale, but it's certainly very windy.

I've been thinking about changes and how our lives develop over time...the old thing of 'what if?' Not always a good thing to consider as you can so easily wind up feeling full of remorse and regret - If only I hadn't eaten that last doughnut! If only I'd walked instead of taken the bus!

Recently I've been teaching a bit and one of the problems some of my students have come up against is distance. Not how far they need to go to get to classes or to the pub, but how easy it is to put distance between them and their readers in their writing. I think often we keep the entire world at arms length - as children we are shielded by our parents (hopefully) from the worst that life has to offer and as parents we do the shielding. As childless adults we often protect ourselves from the outside world and avoid unpleasant experiences. Self-preservation and protection. Not a bad idea.

But what if it's stopping you from experiencing life?

What if your fear of the unknown because it might be nasty, is preventing you from having some amazing life-affirming experiences?

As I write this I'm reminded that I wrote about this subject months ago - clearly it's still something that bothers me - it's my personal bee in my blogging bonnet.

You know what? Switch this PC off and go out - go into your life, do something, anything but mostly something which scares you a little but will make you feel alive.

That's what I'm off to do.

Moving to the front of the roller coaster

It’s been a few days since I posted anything on here, sorry about that, but my life has been rather busy with work – both the temping and writing. The temping is going very well – I work for half the week in a fairly quiet office, the people are very nice and my boss is a climber so we can swap stories. The writing has moved on a bit, I have managed finally to write the masturbation scene – it was far more difficult than I had anticipated…If I had been writing for myself for fun or for someone as a ‘gift’ (ahem!) then it would have been fairly easy to get into it and enjoy it, but as this piece had to fit into the rest of a novel, to have a definite purpose, to move the narrative along, to make sense with the character and also be available to a wider audience then it ends up being more demanding for me. My supervisor was pleased with it and glad that I had bitten the bullet (so to speak!) and finally got something sexual into the novel instead of constantly hinting at it as I had been doing.

Sometimes I think we live our lives like that – constantly hinting at what we want from others and ourselves, but rarely coming out and saying it in plain language. I suppose if I had to make a New Year’s Resolution that is exactly what it would be – to tell people what I want from them, from myself, from life. To my knowledge and belief we only get one life so we should make it count.

I know from climbing that making a committed move takes courage – what do I mean? Well, sometimes when you’re on your way up a route there is a move you need to make that requires you to just trust and throw yourself into it, you might make it, you might not, but unless you try you won’t find out and you certainly won’t get to the top. I find it hard to make those committed moves – I mentally screw up my courage, tell myself I can do it and then attempt it. I can be heard on the rock face talking away to myself – “You can make that move. Think. It’s easy. If you were only a couple of feet of the ground you could do it. You can do it. Remember Yoga. You can do it. Just move. Do it.” Sadly I don’t always listen to myself.

I try in the rest of my life to do that though, and when it doesn’t involve physical danger it’s a little easier….I’m the sort of person who takes quite some time to come to a decision over major matters, but when I reach that point, then there is no changing my mind. And sometimes I can be impulsive about things and consciously don’t stop to think about the consequences – sometimes it’s good to just do things and not talk yourself out of them.

I guess I’m back talking about fear again…I seem to think about it quite a lot, but I don’t feel it so much these days. If my life was a roller coaster ride I would say I’ve moved from sitting in the safe part in the middle to a seat right at the front but I haven’t the courage to let go yet and put my hands in the air…..

Fighting Fear and Being Brave

The deadlines are rapidly approaching and so for that reason I’m writing my blog….procrastinating is one of my very best talents….

Here I am listening to Snow Patrol – I went to the climbing wall the other day, I was the only one there and they had ‘Run’ playing – I knew I knew the song, I was pretty sure it was Snow Patrol, but hadn’t heard it in ages, couldn’t get it out of my mind…so here I am playing all their albums now while I fritter away the day (again).
I have a couple of articles that need to be written, some redrafting that *has* to be done before the end of the month, an academic essay that needs writing, again before the end of the month, more needs to be done to the novel – it won’t get written on its own. But yet, you find me here writing my blog, planning my weekend (all very exciting stuff!), wasting time on my favourite websites and generally procrastinating….


I’m off out this evening with a female friend – we’re going out for Cocktails and are not planning a late night – but as she has been “asked to leave” at least one wine bar in town and I’m just as outspoken…and it’s the first time we’ve gone out on the town together…It could end up being a late and very wild one….Tomorrow I’m going down to climb some real rock near Tunbridge Wells – I’m meeting up with a fellow climber who I have chatted to (briefly) but never met….I’m adventurous I suppose you could say….Life is about experiences. Some of you may remember that I wrote about Fear some time ago – well both climbing and meeting new people are conquering fears for me – and I can honestly say that once you start taking control of things that make you feel a little scared you do become more brave (or should that be silly? Foolish? Foolhardy?). Someone recently used the word Gumption to describe me…I have Gumption – I’m sure that used to be a bathroom cleaner in the 80s….
Oh, and for those of you that may be concerned about my safety tomorrow, what with meeting someone I’ve never met before – I always make sure I tell someone where I’ll be, always take a mobile phone with me, always meet somewhere public – and although this is at a rural location as there aren’t many rock faces in cities, it does get very busy during the weekends. What more can one do? Yes I could take someone else along with me, but that’s my point – I don’t have a climbing partner at the moment – that’s why I’m going to meet someone to climb with….And I do think that sometimes we overstate dangers around us…it’s far more likely that I’d be injured in a road accident than either injured while climbing or by a stranger. But that said, clearly it’s on my mind as I’ve brought it up here in this post….but again I think that’s because so many of my female friends worry about this. Although my dear friend Roo – who left a comment on an earlier post – the one about walking and thinking – she has never, ever worried about talking to all sorts of people – quite often the weirder and odder the better! Roo has always trusted in the kindness of strangers and is quite possibly the most friendly person I know – I can’t think of anyone who ever has a bad thing to say about her or anyone who doesn’t love her to pieces – mind you now I’ve said all that I’m beginning to go off her a bit…Anyway, back on subject, Roo talks to everyone, is calm, relaxed and friendly to everyone and I’m sure this helps…and it’s not that she hasn’t been in tough situations, she is a nurse and trained in London in a large and very famous hospital in the Mile End Road in the East End….so she’s seen plenty of “colourful” life….
Maybe we’re all so tied up with the idea of being Safe and how everything is a threat – Health and Safety overloads – that we can’t imagine that most people are just the same as us…reasonably harmless…

Fear

Someone very wise said that you should do something that frightens you every day. I’m not really sure what the point of that is….but maybe it’s a good thing to feel frightened daily. Fear is often irrational but also often grounded in protection of oneself.

For instance, apparently all babies have a natural fear of snakes (I have no idea where this nugget of information comes from, but I seem to remember reading it somewhere fairly recently). If that’s true then why don’t they have a natural fear of fire? Surely the average nappy-wearer in the UK has far more chance of getting burnt than of being bitten by a Black Mamba…or even our native Adder.

Adults’ fears are based upon experience – I know that large dogs have big teeth and could bite me, therefore I’m frightened of them (the ‘I’ here isn’t me – I rather like dogs, even big ones). But what about the irrational fears? Or even the slightly irrational? Like a fear of flying….seems quite rational at first – no one wants to plummet from god knows how many feet in the air, but actually the chances of that happening are tiny, therefore the fear is irrational.

How about the fears and doubts you have surreptitiously developed? Remember as a child when anything seemed possible? You could be an astronaut or ballerina if you wanted to….all you had to do was work hard and you could achieve. And then, there you are an adult and you’re not an astronaut or a ballerina. Well that’s fine if you grew up and changed you mind about what you wanted to become and you’re happy with what you’ve achieved. But what if you’ve grown up and you still want to be a ballerina? And maybe you have the skills, knowledge and capabilities to become a ballerina but for some strange reason you just can’t do it….Why? Because someone somewhere once told you that you couldn’t….

Why is it we give credence to the negative remarks? We really listen closely to them and store them up, ever ready to drag them out as good reasons for not achieving what we really want. Yet when someone pays us a complement or tells us that we can do something we seem to choose not to hear them or dismiss their opinion as flawed. Pretty soon all that’s heard is the negative stuff; all that counts is the negative stuff. And before you know it you’re full of irrational fears….

But how do you get rid of those fears when you need to?

Is it even possible to get rid of the fears?

Maybe a genius somewhere can come up with a specially designed bag into which we could throw all of those irrational fears…then the bag would just disappear and leave us fearless and able to do whatever we chose to do….it doesn’t even have to be a bag, an envelope would do, or a Tupperware container….

If any of you out there who read this blog regularly have suggestions of how to be rid of irrational fears do let me know….