Introducing, a Portrait of Perpetual Perplexity

A mini-blog/reflective journal, from a self-confessed air-head.

I'm not someone who appears to be capable of profound thinking, though a part of me has always wished that I were.

I took a Critical Theory module at university (I can't recall, now, whether it was a compulsory module or one I'd selected myself); however, not only did I not really grasp what was being discussed in lectures and seminars, I didn't even understand what I myself was regurgitating in my own written assignments!  Oddly, I do seem to recall getting reasonably good grades for that module - the art of writing what you surmise your lecturer wants to read, I guess (though it didn't serve me as well in all my other modules, unfortunately).

After graduating, I recall borrowing a book entitled What Do You Say After You Say Hello.  I tried reading it, and even made a real effort to get my mind around some of the concepts talked about in it.  But I never finished it.  (I also never returned it - if you were the lender and you happen to be reading this, I'm very sorry!)

Some time after university I acquired some materials for an AS Critical Thinking course, and it was the same story.  I read them, even tried getting to grips with the content.  But eventually abandoned the exercise and recycled the papers.

Latterly I've had another go, with Critical Thinking courses available from Future Learn.  And I don't know whether age and associated wisdom are a factor, but the content of these do seem to have helped somewhat.  It doesn't come naturally to me though, I have to work at it.

I struggle and get left behind with high-brow conversations amongst intellectual friends.  I can't keep complex concepts, particularly abstract ones, straight in my mind long enough to finish an article, nevermind get a good grasp on whatever theory is being talked about.  I'm not ashamed of any of this, it's just a fact of how my mind works.

So, while I'd like to write a blog containing reflections about life's 'big issues', this is actually going to be much more prosaic.  If that seems as though it's something which might interest you for whatever reason, then read on and bookmark this blog.

Taking inspiration from The Cauldron's Pagan Blog Project (which itself took inspiration from an earlier Pagan Blog Project*) I will be starting out with an alphabet themed series of blog posts - basically, in those original blog projects each fortnight throughout the year was devoted to a letter of the alphabet (my posts won't necessarily be pagan themed - some might, but by no means all).

So, whilst I'd like the first handful of posts to be along the following lines:-

• Altruism in the modern world
• Bravado, and why it's unhelpful for mental health
• Climate justice
• Dogma, and why a big part of me rebels against it
• Ecopsychology
  ...

...the actual topics will very likely be much more like the below:-

• Apps I've found useful for spirituality and self-care
• Blogging, and why it's taken me forever to start
• Coming out of Covid-19
• DBT, and why I think it'd be helpful for me
• Energy management issues with a chronic health condition

For those readers who are still here, a little bit of background about me follows, below.

I'm a UK born and bred cis white woman whose family were initially working class but whose upbringing was decidedly lower-middle class thanks to my parents' hard work.  I developed an interest in environmentalism early on in life, and later became interested in alternative spirituality.  At university I studied English Literature.  I now work in an office (because, as I discovered, English Lit doesn't qualify you for any particular career - but actually, I love my job).  I live, as I have always done, in the South of England.  I'm married, without kids (we keep cats instead).  I like to believe I'm young at heart, and I think I'm a weird, contradictory mixture of cynicism and idealism.


(*So far as I can establish, both these blog projects appear to have petered out, but for me the basic premise still had mileage, and so here we are.)





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