My small community
My sea kayak trip last weekend was the first weekend where I really didn't get any study done. I really enjoyed the break, and came back with an assignment due, no food in the cupboards, and lots of little chores undone. It was the first time I had felt like that, by 'that' I mean the way I remember always feeling at Univeristy before! Which is really significant.
You see, for years I have been trying to do this and that to be the person I wanted to be. That is, to be more organised, productive, balanced, empathic, fit etc. etc...but never really felt like I was able to pull it off.
Now, here, I feel well on top of my study; am meditating and exercising everyday and doing all these other things that make me feel like I am on top of things. I am not sure exactly why it has all come together so well, but off the top of me head I can probably narrow it down to a few things:
- I do not have to work (for now....talk to me in two months and it may be a different story)
- If I am into something, I can almost guarantee that 5 other people in my class are into it: B&W photography, meditation, mountain-biking, quantum physics and how it informs daily life etc. There is this real community of support and mutual interest that makes it OK to talk about all and do all sorts of things that would be a real effort in any other setting.
- I am in Sweden..i.e. the change allows you to forget all sorts of history and start afresh...though very far from friends and family who really make me very happy.
- I only have one life and community. My 'community' is pretty small and restricted: it is my classmates. This has positives and negatives, but for now it seems fun. There is ample opportunity to 'get away' and some ways to become friends with other people outside our course. I might have to study Swedish harder to make more progress in that respect.
- I am so enthusiastic and engaged in what I am studying that it is ridiculous....
Well, it's good. And it makes me think: how I can make sure I create this sense when I go back to the 'real world'? In what way have I previously prevented other people from being coherent with themselves?
You see, for years I have been trying to do this and that to be the person I wanted to be. That is, to be more organised, productive, balanced, empathic, fit etc. etc...but never really felt like I was able to pull it off.
Now, here, I feel well on top of my study; am meditating and exercising everyday and doing all these other things that make me feel like I am on top of things. I am not sure exactly why it has all come together so well, but off the top of me head I can probably narrow it down to a few things:
- I do not have to work (for now....talk to me in two months and it may be a different story)
- If I am into something, I can almost guarantee that 5 other people in my class are into it: B&W photography, meditation, mountain-biking, quantum physics and how it informs daily life etc. There is this real community of support and mutual interest that makes it OK to talk about all and do all sorts of things that would be a real effort in any other setting.
- I am in Sweden..i.e. the change allows you to forget all sorts of history and start afresh...though very far from friends and family who really make me very happy.
- I only have one life and community. My 'community' is pretty small and restricted: it is my classmates. This has positives and negatives, but for now it seems fun. There is ample opportunity to 'get away' and some ways to become friends with other people outside our course. I might have to study Swedish harder to make more progress in that respect.
- I am so enthusiastic and engaged in what I am studying that it is ridiculous....
Well, it's good. And it makes me think: how I can make sure I create this sense when I go back to the 'real world'? In what way have I previously prevented other people from being coherent with themselves?
I feel very lucky. Thankyou Swedes, thankyou friends, thankyou all who got me here: whether it be to Sweden, or this far in life.
posted by Andrew at
8:08 PM
