Letter to my 15 year old self

I have been musing with the idea of writing a blog post about what I would say to my younger self for a while. It’s a scenario regularly visited by soaps and sitcoms when they run out of ideas but it poses an important notion; if you could change anything in your past what would it be? I was going to include a photo of me at 15 but hell no one needs to be put through that torture.

“In 20 years, you will be more disappointed by what you didn’t do than by what you did”   - Mark Twain

There are a few things I would tell my young self but one that has always plagued me was what would I do if I could change one decision I made in my past. One yes turned into a no, one left turned into a right. Mine would probably be to carry on acting; it is one thing I miss in my life now and I always wonder how far it could have gone. It would have more than likely turned into nothing but regret is a beast that eats away at undiscovered choices.

I would probably also tell my younger self to say no to eating that Chicken in Jaipur – that did not end well.

So my question to you is what choice would you go back and change? What would you tell your 15 year old self?

No Words…

Staring at a blank page, not because you don’t know what to write, but because you simply don’t know where to begin.

100th post and still going

On July 6th 2010 this blog was born. Born out of my desire to carry on writing following my graduation which meant I couldn’t write for student papers anymore. It began as a creative outlet, when my creativity felt stifled by other parts of my life. It has become so much more than that though. Now the blog has recently surpassed the ripe old age of 100 (and now has photographic sibling) I thought I would celebrate by looking back and thanking you, the reader.

Since 2010 a lot in my life has shifted and transformed irrevocably yet this blog has stood sentinel, unchanged. Some of those events have been documented on here like working as a journalist in India or moving to London. I’ve written about crazy things (my secret love of braces, being questioned by the visa police and even wearing fancy dress to beat writers block) and more somber subjects (the Japanese earthquake, religious unity and Tibet). I’ve been awarded Freshly Pressed twice and the Versatile Award, not that I’m bragging (much). The best thing, however, is reading comments and getting stopped in the street (truthfully this has happened twice now!) by people who like my blog and say that it made them laugh. If you want to understand my reasoning for blogging read my 10,000th hit post, as you can tell I like hitting milestones!

It’s only survived past the 2nd post because of you, the readers. I don’t want to go on like Kate Winslet at an awards ceremony but thank you readers and commenters, you’ve kept me sane and motivated.

I would urge anyone to start a blog, you’d be surprised where it takes you. You can be as thick as custard but as long as you have something to talk about, it will work. Just make sure it has heart, I’ve read some blogs that are just written for the sake of writing and it’s painfully obvious. Words written without heart read hollow.

So thanks for reading and here’s to the next 100.

A song for uncertain times

Although this song was released in August, 2006 never has it’s lyrics rung more true. So for anyone facing uncertain times or just a bit dissatisfied by the state of the world give the lyrics a read and more importantly listen to the song. The song, by John Mayer, popped into my shuffled selection of music this morning and (having half forgotten about it) was genuinely quite moved by it, so much so I thought I would share it with you all.

Have a good day and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!

Waiting on the World to Change – John Mayer

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

And we’re still waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

My 10,000th hit (re-posting!)

This is a reposting to mark me reaching my 30,000th hit. The sentiments still ring true, perhaps with my photography to boot now, so for those who haven’t read this before give it a butchers and see what motivates me to write!

Not the drug kind of hit, that would be dangerous. No my 10,000 blog hit, it happened sometime during the night like Father Christmas coming or foxes eating your boots (it happens). I have amazingly reached the grand old age of 10,000 and in all honestly I cannot believe it. I didn’t for one moment 6 weeks ago when I first started blogging away that anyone would read my random ramblings, let along in the colossal numbers that it has, it’s really extraordinary. All my life I never thought of myself as a writer, at school teachers were always telling me how bad I was at any sort of writing. So to reach five figures today is a big two fingers up at my demoralising teachers.

So why did I start to write?
In all honesty because of a two tiered unenthralling motivation. Firstly, boredom, that’s right not inspiration coming to me in a dream or God willing it, pure unadulterated boredom. It was my way of filling the nights when I couldn’t sleep or to escape from my solitude living. The second is my constant driving force through life; to make people smile. Anyone who knows me will readily admit that making people laugh is what motivates me. I’ve tried many other methods to make people chuckle: drama (too scripted), improv theatre (too unscripted), music (if you’ve heard me sing you’ll know why that failed) and finally I ascertained that putting pen to paper (or finger to key) created the perfect outlet. It allows me to witter away the hours by wittering away.

10,000 is a huge milestone and I hope to high heaven that I can add another 0 onto that number in the distant future but for now I am more than happy making people all around the world laugh virtually. That feeling is by far the best feeling in the world, even better than watching a slinky race down some stairs. So keep reading my scribbles on life as there are barrels more of it rattling around in my head.

The lights are on but nobody’s home

This weekend I travelled back up to Durham for Lumiere Festival (festival of lights for those not in the know). Those who have been an avid reader of this blog will know that I went to Durham University and graduated a year and a half ago. With a few remaining friends still lingering on in there my group of friends (aka The Clique) decided that we should travel up for one large reunion under the premise of art. It has been about 6 months since I was last at Durham, oddly, the place no longer felt like it used to. It had been my home for 3 years. Durham is often called the bubble and truly felt like that at the time. The world outside seemed to pale in comparison with the small perfect town. Since I left many things have changed for me: journalism in India, photography business, moving and working in London. Yet Durham seemed in my mind this unchanging object. A fixed point in time. On the face of it, arriving on Friday night it seemed that way the cathedral lit up scything through the sky, unchanged for centuries, a beacon for those seeking salvation.

“People, define a place” is a saying I’ve had for many years, mainly when travelling but when I arrived at a bar that saw many of my student days/finances spent in, it became evident that this saying was now applicable to Durham too. Despite being fit to bursting, the place seemed void of people I had spent some of the best years with. You are probably all now shouting at the screen that I am being ridiculously sentimental and I am but for those who have been back to old haunts such as university towns or cities you used to work in, that unsettling feeling of not belonging anymore haunts you.

The city itself was as beautiful as ever, the light installations added to its indisputable beauty and my friends remain as always my brilliantly bonkers family. I don’t want to say that it felt like a concluding chapter to my Durham life but it did feel, however, like it could be. If I never go back, I would not be filled with the regret of not returning.

Durham will always, always holds this incredible place for me. I’m sure I am not the only one who walks down the streets of somewhere they have spent many years in looking at places and vividly picturing your past self creating that memory.

Its a sad thing to look back too much as you end up not looking forward at all. However, the majority of the weekend has been spent by all of us looking back: our first meetings, parties, loves, leavings, the whole spectrum of memories relived through a city where memories pervade its walls.

We have all moved on since then: City jobs, Phds, doctors, teachers, working for charities (myself) or -like many graduates- looking for work, but Durham was where we all started our career’s choices and future fancies and in that way it will always remain the same. As the place our lives began.

Sorry for the rather self involved and rambling post and also for the considerable lack of posts these past few months, I am working on a few of them at the moment, normal service will resume soon.

Writing a bucket list, sad or useful?

For all of those who thought this blog post was me debating the pros and cons of creating an inventory for your storage vessels, I am sorry to disappoint. The sort of bucket list I am of course referring to is a list detailing things you wish to do before you die, or kick the bucket.

The aim of this blog is to get you thinking not about death (because that’s a bit grim) but rather about the things you would regret not doing should you get walloped by a bus tomorrow.

So ask yourself these questions; have you loved enough? Laughed enough? Cried enough? Seen enough of the world? Challenged yourself enough? Been awestruck by something? Truly helped someone?

The list of questions to ask yourself is endless, questions that question your existence and your future. It’s the sort of thing you do during a sleepless night or causes a sleepless night as cross examining yourself usually doesn’t aid your search for sleep. Mine first began just after I left school; it was first a list of things to do before I’m 30 but has now become too long and too ambitious to be done in a few -I’m not telling you how many- years. It was scribbled on a post-it note late one night before I left school and it contained my first and possibly most ambitious challenge: go to every continent in the world. This remained the only entry until I was sat in the shadow of the Himalayas and felt the world towering above me. I think those sort of moments fuel the bucket list mentality, when you feel tiny and insignificant compared to the world we live in, as it makes you question your mortality, question how you have lived your life up to now and how you will leave an imprint on this earth long after you’re gone.

My list is now two pages front and back containing doodled down dreams, on coffee stained and rain damaged bits of paper. Some of them have been scratched off if I’ve completed them or lost interest in actually doing them (e.g learning to juggle). Like in My Name Is Earl, I have great satisfaction in crossing them off as it feels like I am one step closer to appeasing my inner question mark. While some of them are personal and therefore private I will share a few with you:

• Go to Paris
• Touch the megaliths at Stonehenge
• Have my own photographic exhibit
• Get an article published in a leading UK newspaper (and be about something intellectual, not something gormless)
• Publish my Tibet book
• Run a marathon
• Live in London (for at least a few months)
• Go back to India (as soon as this one gets crossed off it goes back up again, what can I say I’m addicted!)

The key thing when writing your bucket list is not to look back and regret what you haven’t done or missed opportunities. Avoid asking what happened or how you could have kept hold of something you loved or you’ll end up crying in the fetal position inhaling chocolate like air. Rather look forward and imagine what you could do and could be.

So I hope you get writing your own, scribble them down on the nearest thing: a napkin, scrap paper, the nearest bald-headed man, whatever you can get hold of. Make sure though that above all that you are inspired by them and let them drive you forward for the future. So when you’re on your death bed (which will hopefully be very very far away) with a piece of paper with a cross through all the writing, you can kick the bucket with a smile on your face and get the rest you will no doubt sorely need by then!

Get Thinking…..

My 12-song soundtrack to 2010

For as long as I can remember I have always complied a list of 12 songs at this time of year. The songs embody the concluding year, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met and the events that filled it. Usually, however, the list is scribbled on a scrap of paper and swiftly lost in my Bermuda Triangle of a draw, to remedy this I thought I would upload it onto the blogosphere so you can all take a read and hopefully try it yourself. I find the act of scrolling through your iTunes and selecting the songs oddly therapeutic, a way to conclude a year if -like me- you define points in your life by songs.

So anyway on with the show and in no particular order….

1. Brett Dennen – Ain’t No Reason
This song has been my favourite song for many years because of its incredibly poignant lyrics, including, “It could be a bomb or a bullet of a pin, or a thought or a word or a sentence” and “slavery is stitched to the fabric of my clothes”. The song reminds me of India where I first heard it.

2. Jamie Cullum – Twenty Something
Anyone who has graduated this year must listen to it, sums up the feeling of not having a clue what to do very well, set to jazz.
“I’m an expert on Shakespeare and that’s a hell of a lot
But the world don’t need scholars as much as I though”

3. One Republic – Good Life
This is the song I would always play as I walked up the road from my hotel to the main square in Dharamsala. When the sun was pouring through the mountains and everyone waving at you as they past and this song playing I always had a spring in my step.

4. KT Tunstall – Still a Wierdo
The song title sums me up, plus it’s a good song. Simple as that.

5. Florence and The Machine – Cosmic Love
This hugely atmospheric and hauntingly brilliant song was my most played song of the year. It was on constant repeat while I was writing my dissertation, so now whenever I hear this song I think of Hadrian’s Wall in the 19th Century and probably the only person too.

6. Leddra Chapman – Wine Glass
A simple and emotive song that was on constant play thanks to my iTunes shuffle favouring it above the rest of my music. It has some beautiful lines in it.

7. Ke$ha – Your Love is My Drug
A bonkers song that finishes with the whispered line “I like your beard” which became a catchphrase for my friends in India mainly because I have a beard, in case you hadn’t realised.

8. Dabangg Soundtrack – Tere Mast Mast Do Nain
Dabangg was the first film I watched when I arrived in India, the song then followed me like a virus where ever I went. I still get it stuck in my head in England.

9. Glen Hansard – Say it to me now
The song comes from an independent film from Ireland and the music is as good as the film. I took the DVD with me to India and watched it far too many times and this song would constantly be on repeat in the hotel.

10. Joshua Radin – I’d rather be with you
Another India soundtrack song courtesy of my travelling companions.

11. The Cinematic Orchestra – Breathe
This song is actually what I had on repeat while I wrote this list simply because it evokes memories in the listener, youtube it and I’m sure you’ll find yourself lost in the music.

12. Newton Faulkner – People Should Smile More
“I can’t change the world

Cos tryin’ to make a difference makes things worse

It’s just an observation I can’t ignore

That people could smile more
People should smile more”

Something to think about.

Happy New Year Everyone.

My 10,000th hit

Not the drug kind of hit. No my 10,000 blog hit, it happened sometime during the night like Father Christmas coming or foxes eating your boots (it happens). I have amazingly reached the grand old age of 10,000 and in all honestly I cannot believe it. I didn’t for one moment 6 weeks ago when I first started blogging away that anyone would read my random ramblings, let along in the colossal numbers that it has, it’s really extraordinary. All my life I never thought of myself as a writer, at school teachers were always telling me how bad I was at any sort of writing. So to reach five figures today is a big two fingers up at my demoralising teachers.

So why did I start to write?
In all honesty because of a two tiered unenthralling motivation. Firstly, boredom, that’s right not inspiration coming to me in a dream or God willing it, pure unadulterated boredom. It was my way of filling the nights when I couldn’t sleep or to escape from my solitude living. The second is my constant driving force through life; to make people smile. Anyone who knows me will readily admit that making people laugh is what motivates me. I’ve tried many other methods to make people chuckle: drama (too scripted), improv theatre (too unscripted), music (if you’ve heard me sing you’ll know why that failed) and finally I ascertained that putting pen to paper (or finger to key) created the perfect outlet. It allows me to witter away the hours by wittering away.

10,000 is a huge milestone and I hope to high heaven that I can add another 0 onto that number in the distant future but for now I am more than happy making people all around the world laugh virtually. That feeling is by far the best feeling in the world, even better than watching a slinky race down some stairs. So keep reading my scribbles on life as there are barrels more of it rattling around in my head.

Flights Booked, now the adventure begins…

This week my future truly began in earnest, there’s no turning back now. My flight is booked, 1st of September, London Heathrow to Delhi.

I graduated earlier this month (read http://bit.ly/cIayn1 for more information on that) and as my friend pointed out I was taking the biggest risk out of all my friends, the largest lurch into the unknown. It hit me as my friend spoke that what I am planning to do with my life is very foolish and risky, perhaps too much for me. Many of my friends are doing masters degrees or getting jobs in London, not me, there’s no pathway where I’m heading. I’m following my heart, back to India, to find my ‘fortune’, my future. So with my new found freedom I have decided to do something that I have been dreaming of for well over a year. I plan to write a book, dedicated to every single Tibetan around the world.

I have been to India twice in the last three years, the first time I lived and taught in McLeod Ganj (or Dharamsala) in North West India. In this hilltop settlement, hidden among the Himalayas I truly found a home, a heaven. McLeod Ganj was originally a British hill station and saw a huge population boom until 1905 when a massive earthquake killed almost 20,000 people, this led to its abandoment and it wasn’t until 1959 when it started to become the refuge for hundreds of thousands of Tibetan people. I will do into greater detail of the history of the Tibetan people in the book but for now visit http://www.sftuk.org/about-tibet/history-culture/ for more information. On the 17th March 1959, the Dalai Lama fled his own country in fear of his own life and the safety of the nation he swore to uphold as spiritual and government leadership. This began the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, following their leader to freedom. The Tibetan people were granted McLeod Ganj as a refugee settlement by the Indian government, since then they have created a large and successful sanctuary centered around the Dalai Lama.

What struck me the most when I first arrived in Mcleod Ganj and still does today is the caring and warmhearted nature of the Tibetans despite all the heartbreaking hardships they have had to endure just to have freedom, the freedom to worship and the freedom to be Tibetan.

My aim is to create a book that is both informative and visual, to shine a light on the Tibetan peoples, a peoples that are often ignored by foreign governments, the media and the general public. I will create individual chapters for each person with in-depth interviews covering all aspects of their lives so far. What their lives were like in Tibet before they escaped, the constraints upon their basic freedoms and the experiences they have had. I will also include the astonishing tales of escape across the Himalayas, how they eventually reached sanctuary in McLeod Ganj. Finally I will document their new lives in India and their hopes for Tibet’s future and their own futures. I will intersect these stories with photography of the people and the surroundings they now live in, showing the beauty of the Tibetans and the Indian Himalayas.

I have started to create the book, with publishing contacts and people agreeing to talk about their experiences but the pages are still empty….for now. I have always been a dreamer but for once its leading me somewhere. I’ll keep you all up to date in the mean time with blogs of experiences as I’m having it, writing it out in India as well as my usual writing malarkey.

That’s my plan, now I just have to hope and write.