Dispirited Away

After 12 days on the road, I've finally found some time to blog, and with the WiFi to allow it as well. There were many memories of the places I've been and the things I've seen, but I don't have the heart to yak about them now. I guess the best thing I can do to describe them is to post them up on my flickr set - go check it out if you're interested (a picture speaks a thousand words - all that stuff I've uploaded will speak volumes if that rule applies).

The spirits have left me. Here now, in the countryside of Hampshire, England, I've become somewhat melancholic and down - little excited by what I'm seeing and, though it has been an experience, I'm starting to get discouraged that what I have been looking forward to for the past 3 months might turn out to be a something I'd rather not face.

There are many times in this short life I've lead where I thought I was doing all the right things, and no one says anything that is contrary to that. Work was one: there was a path which I took and I assumed it was right. Of course, those assumptions were checked with people I know, and often, they might have been assuring, they might have been patronising, but they were never correcting. People are afraid of correcting you, of giving you the bitter pill. Perhaps in some cultures, it is more forthcoming, but in the work culture of mine then, it was given in the wrong dosage, and at the last possible moment.

The mistakes I've made and the lessons I have learnt ought to have carried over into the relationships I make with people. I believed that I am now listening better. But I am still not doing some things right - I am listening, but inaction still grips me.

It is disappointing to learn that there are few second chances, and far fewer third chances in life. It is disappointing to also learn that when one gives, and gives, and gives, there is always something else that fail the expectations that the receiver has of one.

Perhaps it is something inherent and cannot be changed. I don't think that people cannot change, for love, for life, for oneself, for God. I just think that change is difficult - I won't change unless I am made to and I want to. If I don't change, I will die for the lack of it.

Maybe there's nothing I can say further, or nothing I can do to change things now - my inability to change fast enough, quickly enough, has led to the state of affairs now. I don't know - I think I have changed, just in a direction that isn't right. I think that life for the other has changed as well, and new relationships are entered into as the old are thrown away. Better related to, better treated with, and better listened to perhaps.

Am I looking to change things once again?



Do I still hope?