Outside world.

We do not live in isolation. I sometimes worry that I have not interacted with the outside world enough in a day, or a week, or a month.

Times like this, when I am revising and stuffing information into my head, I want to ignore the outside world because it is full of information I cannot handle.

Like, I just got myself into the deep dark hole of a Men's Rights Activist comment section. I came out shaking and potentially having lost some brain cells.

Sometimes I regret venturing into the outside world.

But we do not exist in isolation. We share the same world as people who think denying rape culture is a legitimate political movement.

I can become a better person by learning patience and tranquility in the face of wilful and aggressive ignorance.

Compassion is key, even for those who make you angry. We become ourselves through our interactions with others, good or bad.

But sometimes, I really do regret venturing into the outside world.

Nothing to say.

I feel awful for not having written a post for two weeks. I feel awful for no one but myself. I think the world can keep on turning without my blogposts.

But it feels like breaking a good habit. A good routine. Even now, when I have nothing particularly interesting to say it feels good to put words to a page. To work out something, if anything, to write about.

I am busy, to be fair. I could write about Extinction Rebellion or the beautiful weather or the Notre Dame or the peace I felt yesterday sat by the river Cam in the sunshine. But my mind is reserving its energy for my finals. I must think Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, close reading, and feminist criticism.

And then it's done. I can think for myself again. Exams are a place to think for yourself, but in a very, very narrow way.

I have a huge list of books to read when I have finished. I can read them for myself and for no other reason. For pleasure. And then, I'm sure, I will have more to say.

It will go.

Have you ever felt that inexplicable sadness?

It is not painful, it is not overwhelming. It is just there.

Perhaps it makes you cry. Perhaps it makes you need to be held. Perhaps it makes you want to put the saddest songs you know on and wallow.

There is no rhyme, no reason in this sadness. It is what it is.

Sometimes the world is sad. Sometimes humans are just sad.

It will go tomorrow. Or in an hour. Or just before you go to sleep.

It will go.

Sometimes sadness is just passing through. It is good to sit and notice it. It is only fleeting. Inexplicably so.

Writing to you formally.

One of the things my dissertation supervisor keeps saying to me is that my tone needs to be "more formal". I am always surprised by this comment as I wasn't aware it was anything but.

To some extent I understand why there must be a standard of formality in academic writing, especially when it is being assessed, but unless the tone devolves into a register I would use with my friends in the pub I'm not entirely sure what the problem is.

You see, I don't think I will ever get the balance between my "own unique style" and something which is, in my mind, stiff and "formal". We are asked to be creative, to use our own voice, but only in the most minute sense.

And, from my own experience of being bored to tears in the library by academic writing, a lot of it could do with a better writing style. Say what you want to say, as long as you back it up with the right evidence, but have fun with it. That doesn't mean it can't be serious, it just means the reader can get to the end of a sentence without continuously nodding off.

Here I am, writing more formally than I normally do for a blog post about not wanting to write formally. I am taking a short break from my dissertation. It appears to have got into my head.

Just to say.

I cannot think of anything big or profound to say. I have spent all week trying to sit down and write a post and everything felt wrong or silly or useless. I used to think that everything I posted should be loaded with meaning, loaded with impact or importance, as if that could always be the case. A little naive, perhaps.

But now I always go back to Norah Ephron when I think about writing posts or about blogging in general. She wrote this:

But the other point I want to make is that getting heard outside the world of blogs occasionally requires that you have something to say. And one of the most delicious things about the profoundly parasitical world of blogs is that you don’t have to have anything much to say. Or you just have to have a little tiny thing to say. You just might want to say hello. I’m here. And by the way. On the other hand. Nevertheless. Did you see this? Whatever. A blog is sort of like an exhale. What you hope is that whatever you’re saying is true for about as long as you’re saying it. Even if it’s not much. 

And it is so reassuring to know that I can just tell you all right now this little thing:

I am sat on the comfiest sofa in the house, looking out through the large glass doors at the garden. The light outside is a greyish yellow, and drops of rain patter delicately into puddles on the patio. All the yellows in the garden seem illuminated by this yellowy light as the sun pushes its way more strongly through the clouds. The daffodils, the moss in the grass, a yellow blossom in a tree at the bottom of the garden, the seat of my old swing. And then to contrast, deep and lovely purples in the flower bed nearest to me. And it is all lovely, and I am really calm.

And I just wanted to share that with you.

The planet is dying.

I have this underlying anxiety (and anger) that I repress every time I see a news article about the state of the planet and its failing climate, every time it is warm in February, every time I see an image of a dying polar bear, or an empty Amazon rainforest or really just every single time I think about global warming.

I have to repress it because otherwise it is overwhelming. I once heard that if we were exposed to the direct effects and statistics of global warming every day we wouldn't be able to emotionally handle it. I have no evidence to back that theory up, but I feel enough to know that it is probably close to the truth.

I have to repress the anxiety and the anger because as an individual there is extremely little I can do. I can recycle properly, use less wasteful plastic, try and reduce my consumption of products from corporations which contribute the most to pollution and waste, switch lights off, use the car less. I can do that, but I am tiny. My impact is tiny. How do I know that everyone else is doing it too?

That's the other thing, I am so angry that the blame is put on the ordinary individual, that the responsibility is put to the public. How can I be responsible? I am not old enough to be responsible for this! I wasn't there! I wasn't born!

I want something radical to happen. I want these huge corporations forced into stopping waste and pollution, I want universities and companies to divest from oil companies and invest in research into the alternatives, I want governments to enforce sustainable energy sources and ban damaging behaviour like those bloody individually wrapped food items which are already in plastic packaging before you get to them. I just want something to happen.

But I don't think it will. Will it? Is everyone, and by everyone I mean governments and huge corporations, just going to continue ignoring this?

And so I repress it. The anger and the anxiety. They live humming below the surface now I think for most people, the people who have been told off for using straws as if that is the singular issue at hand. Naughty public! Buying into all of the conveniences we sold you at a disastrous price we were fully aware of but kept the truth hidden anyway, look what you've done!

Who is to blame? Where do I go? What do I do? Who am I supposed to scream "JUST FUCKING DO SOMETHING!" at? Who's even really listening?

Last Moments

I am in my last full term of university. We call it Lent term here and for two years it was a tiresome eight week struggle through bad weather and bad essays. Now, I have only two weeks left of Lent term and I find myself wishing it could stretch out just a little longer.

Time works so strangely in this place that all at once it slows down and speeds up so that eight weeks feels like half a year and nothing at all. I am sure I have done a lot this term but I can barely remember. Last week feels about a month ago, and yet each day has gone by without me really noticing.

I have spent two and a half years in this place wishing time would speed up and now I find myself trying to go back and collect the memories and the moments I wasn't thinking about. Why wasn't I thinking about them? I want time to spread out so I can go back and forward to the present and comprehend everything I did, everything I felt. But it has all been so fast and slow and there is nothing I can do about it.

Now I am having Last Moments and they are all tinged with a happy sadness. Almost nostalgia, but not quite. Currently I am sat in my college's beautiful library with its perpetual smell of dust and old books and I am remembering all the times I wished I could leave and do something else. But now I wonder how many times I have left in this lovely old room, and how much I should be savouring it. I know that in only half a year's time I will be thinking back, the latticed windows and high ceiling and uncomfortable wooden chairs suddenly becoming figments of my imagination. Things that only exist in my memory, and not just a walk down the long corridors from my own bedroom.

Of course, these last moments will go by quicker than any other now that I know the finish line is so near and the next part of my life awaits. But, still, I will cling to them even on the sloggish days, even when it rains, even when I really could just do with nipping home for a bit. Not long, now.