I have most recently been immersed in words, whether that be through learning and relearning through textbooks, listening pleasure through Audible or enjoying some of the words written here, on Medium.
I have, however, set aside the ‘Gratitude Journal’ for now, not because I wish to stop writing it (and I will return to it, but not necessarily on a sharing basis), but because I was allowing it to interfere with my desire to write other things, and it rather strangely became the subject of ‘design versus words’.
Words will always win, for me. So, a few steps of re-alignment, where I will be less thematic, and be more reactive in my choice of subject and form when continuing with writing on Medium. I don’t wish to interfere with the desire of others to do otherwise, and I wish only for a degree of mutual understanding in that respect.
I have managed to convince myself that I am capable of discipline and structure (often strangers to me) when it comes to writing for learning, as my learning at university since September 2023 has become a joy for me, and (so far, at least) become much more manageable than I had anticipated it to be. I did choose to do the course over two years, rather than one, and have attempted to do little bits of it every day of the week since starting to keep pace with it, being the aged imperfect learner that I am. I feel that has paid dividends for me, particularly when wading about in the murky waters of group dynamics and process, and the extent to which old foundations remain, but new theories have emerged to move my thinking from ‘forming, storming, norming, performing’ to ‘polarities of love and will’ (Yes, Really!), but enough of that for now.
Another new area for me is the use of ‘Audible’, where I have recently enjoyed ‘Poisonwood Bible’ (SO good) by Barbara Kingsolver, and currently enjoying ‘Complete Sherlock Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle (read by Stephen Fry), ‘Herzog’ by Saul Bellow and ‘The Mirror and The Light’ by Hilary Mantel. I surprise myself with this activity as I never used to like listening to books, but because of the huge volumes of reading on my course, I started to listen to some articles and chapters of books to help me get through it all, and I began to really appreciate that as an option. I additionally wanted to get back into reading more fiction, despite the huge reading requirements for textbooks, but wasn’t getting a grip on it. Now, I feel that I am beginning to do so. Perhaps it is just about getting older.
Finally, I am trying to get more reading done on Medium, particularly of the works created by those I follow. I have been failing on that, too, but now I am yet again gravitating towards listening rather than viewing. That is currently having mixed results for me as it is a bit fragmented, having to keep pressing play over and over again. I could wish for the ability to line-up a playlist as per ‘Spotify’ with music. Nonetheless, I am still singing the praises of Medium for integrating ‘Speechify’ to offer this as an option. I suspect that I might do a bit more of a mixture on that particular option, with the hopeful outcome of squeezing in more reading (or listening) on Medium, one way or another.
I feel like the future looks brighter, or do I mean that it sounds louder? Who knows? I will take my joy where I can find it.
Fraser
March 2024