Coming Back

So writing a regular blog is going really well, huh?

It’s three in the morning in Japan, and I’m sitting beneath my covers trying not to shiver in the cold air. The flat has a tendency to drop in temperature quite a lot when the sun goes down. Tomorrow is my last day of teaching before I go home, and while that in the past would’ve filled me with a certain amount of anxiety, at the moment it’s just one more hurdle to coming home. The week has gone by exceedingly quickly, and now I’m on what might well be my last full night of sleep before getting to the airport and getting on that plane and getting on my way.

Or rather it would be, if I was not still awake.

Recently I’ve discovered the TED podcasts. For those of you who are reading this (few that you are – essentially my family and anyone else that happens to stumble across this page), TED is a conference that’s been running for a few years now, and it invites people from all over the world to come and share their ideas. For me, it’s an amazing chance to watch video of people who are exceedingly smart and capable and are really doing something with their lives. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, three things that fascinate me anyway, and getting this viewpoint into some of the new ideas, technologies and concepts that come from myriad branches of science. It’s astounding to watch, it’s great for me on a purely intellectual level to see all of this stuff and learn all of these things, and in some cases even hope to understand them.

What it does, on the other hand, is make me wonder what the **** am I doing with my life? There are people that can work that hard and produce such amazing things, why am I sitting around half-heartedly trying to do things? One of the videos said that decision was the ultimate empowering factor. Said by a guy called Tony Robbins, who works towards empowering people or motivating people (something ironically he says is not really the case). I’m not going to try and paraphrase it here, look it up on iTunes and subscribe. Broaden your mind a little, then insert a crowbar into that gap and widen it a whole lot further.

There are videos of people that create astoundingly beautiful simulations of dataflow. That have created homes for people in Africa that consist of hemp and an air pump. That are redefining the laws of physics and looking at the way that we love. Artists and musicians that blow me away with their talent and the effort that they have put into doing what they do – and I come back to the question, what the **** am I doing with my life?

I have the dream; I’ve not taken any steps towards it yet. There are better ways to spend my time than to spend it wishing and hoping – far more productive ways. But I’ll still do those things, because I’m a dreamer. Can I put my hands in my head? Oh no. But I can make these hands draw what’s in my head, build what’s in my head, type and scribble and scratch out stories and ideas and concepts and I can keep chasing the dream.

It’s a couple of weeks early for a New Year’s Resolution, but it sounds good to me. Now I have to find the best way to do that, the best way for me, the choices that I make for myself. Which seems selfish, but then maybe that’s the power of decision all over. I’m not sure. I don’t make choices for myself, I don’t always put myself first, I work really hard at not doing that, about being careful about thinking before acting – but eventually you have to act.

 Action is the ultimate power. 

Decision to act is the impetuous behind it.