I dream of genie

Last night I was in a funk so deep I could barely move. Ever been there? It's a self perpetuating slippery-slope with no way out except time.

I suppose I've been down for some time, suffocating on my own existence and my apparent inability to change the circumstances I feel so imprisoned by. But of course, I'm a voluntary detainee, I can go any time I choose - so why don't I? What sick, masochisitic tendency is keeping me tethered to my perpetual state of under-achievement?

I come from a family of intelligent, creative, inventive people who all live far below their potential. All of us aspire to some greater endeavour, we all recognise that we have the ability and yet we all subjugate ourselves to someone else's cause. We're like horses, champing at the bit, straining against the reins, certain of success if only we could break free - but who or what is holding us back? To say it is ourselves is so obvious that it barely merits acknowledging, but what in ourselves? Where's the magic switch? Where's the handbrake?

I hate my job like I've hated no job before. I hate the work, I hate the people, I hate the pay. I berate myself on a daily basis for being there. I live in fear of bumping into someone I know and having to tell them what I'm doing these days (which is why I have a beefed up version of my job on hand at all times). I'm humiliated that this is where I am. It's not that 'I should've been a lawyer' - I had that option and chose a different path. I have no pretentions about what I do - actually, that's a lie - everyday I look at my colleagues and am acutely aware that these are the people at school who were really only a few marks off special-ed. I'm not talking about the people who were failed by a school-system which was incapable of quantifying non-academic skills, I'm talking about the people that just didn't have any - wind-up people who go where TV and trash media lead them - not bad people, just really, really thick ones!

Why don't I leave?

It's easy, walk in to my manager and resign.

And then what?

That feeling again of potential percolating, bridled brilliance, jailed genius - I could change the world if I could unleash it all... or could I? I don't believe I'm under the lash of fear of failure, I haven't got that far yet! Although I do have a nasty habit of feeling defeated before I've even tried.

I could go on forever, like so many under-acheivers, I have a super-power for over analysis which is just boring and futile. I'll just say this and then go, my biggest fear (aside from fish) is that I can't change my nature - if I had it within my potential to release this sea of possibility inside me, I would have done it by now.

Until next time, I remain your genie is a bottle.

14 years

This post is about discipline, not content, which will be entirely spontaneous and brief.

Yesterday was my partners and my 14 year anniversary - an impressive feat considering we are 31 and 32 - both each others one and only. I don't mean to brag or to seem sickeningly naive, but ours is my favourite love story of all! It's an odd thing to receive congratulations on the 'achievement' as though it is something we have toiled towards when, in all honesty, I can say it has never been a struggle, not for a second.

I intended to make a card (but life intervened in the form of a farewell encounter with a departing friend) and to that end, trawled the internet for an appropriate 'love quote'. The search not only sickened me but also obviated the recurring theme of 'love' being something fragile in need of nuturing, attention and hard work. I feel beyond lucky, even 'blessed' for want of a much better word, to be encompassed in this robust, self perpetuating force which seems genuinely rare.

We went out for a fancy dinner to a french restaurant - it was very authentic and made us long to be back in Paris. I felt myself being aware of the fact that we were/are still generating new memories, that after 14 years, it still feels like the beginning of a great adventure.

I'm sure I'll return to the topic of relationships in the future because I'm so often perplexed by them but for now, I'm looking forward to going to bed (after another night out: for my baby sister's birthday - she's 27 tomorrow, it's so strange that she should be so old that the number is meaningless).

I'll leave you with the random thought: the irony of Sudoku is that the people who got on the bandwagon did so claiming it was to sharpen their minds, but somehow the attraction to it only served to show how dull their minds really are.

Well, that went well!

Well, that went well! I can't believe its over a year since I wrote that entry, so full of resolve and inspiration for the big experiment in staying still! I was going to say that the results have been disappointing but that's not entirely true, no need to be totally self-deprecating - they say if you reach for the moon, even if you fall short, you'll still reach the stars or some such thing. To continue the analogy, I definitely feel that I thrust myself back into a bustling solar system where chaos theory is the order of the day. My only complaint would be the lack of gravity! The stars of the show? My family and friends. Actually, I'll be bold and say that the latter has been a little lack-lustre where the former has been absolutely stellar, especially in the form of my nephew - at times I suspect I'm totally in orbit around him!

I could go on and won't. I'll simply state my intention: to develop the discipline of writing regularly. I have no intended audience and no plans to share this with anyone specific (which begs the question, why publish it? I don't know!). I want to hone my writing skills before I totally lose faith in them. No doubt I'll drivel on at length about things that are of no interest to anyone but that's part of my challenge, to be decisive about what I write.

That's all for now, time for coffee and more emails.

up, up and away

i should be packing for my flight but i wanted to quickly kick this thing off as this could be construed as the first day of the adventure i'm hoping to document in this blog. like so many travel blogs, this will begin on the day of travel but unlike the others, this is likely to be the only flight for a while. i'm flying home. after six and a half years of globetrotting, i'm hereby making the commitment to plant some roots in sydney.

this isn't about 'settling down' after exorcising the travel bug - if anything, its about building a personal infrastructure that acknowledges and facilitates the pursuit of everything that matters to me - those i started out with and those i've accumulated along the way, including travel.

but like i said, no time to go into it now because my backpack won't pack itself (ok, i admit, matthew will). i'll be back with a mission statement, progress reports, reminiscences and general chit chat. i don't know who i'm writing this for but i hope you enjoy reading it.