This is my journey.
My journey is to try to make my community better, to find other people that want to make this place better and to make others realize the potential in themselves to make it better. That’s it. Nothing else. I’ve no aspirations. Every project and group that I’ve ever belonged to have focussed on this single goal. Most have failed, a couple have had victories and one has met with some success.
There never was a plan (there still isn’t a plan) because I’m discovering the terrain as I go. Sure I could sit back and figure out every little detail, set a plan and execute it but I have chosen to live this journey openly so that others can share in it (not because I think it’s something remarkable but because I hope others will travel this path – hopefully for the right reasons). Every failure and success is out there. Every enlightenment, frustration and misstep.
As with all journeys you get to know people along the way. And on this particular journey you also get a peek behind the curtain. Some of it will make you happy, some will make you angry and lots of it will make you feel utterly helpless.
The anger and helplessness is enough to make most people avoid this particular path. After all, who invites this stuff into their lives? You’d need to care about something a hell of a lot to deal with this stuff.
And so I’ve come to discover how much I love London. And so I’ve come to discover how much so many other people love London. And THAT is what makes the journey worthwhile – in the end it is the people that make it awesome.
But the frustrations still get to me. The helplessness still gets to me. Sometimes I manage to keep all that poison inside and sometimes a little slips out.
Here’s the important bit: I’m just a regular guy. I have a hundred thousand faults and absolutely no plan. I’m fumbling my way through this shit as I go. I’m trying to expose myself to ideas and other valuable points of view that might help me along this road.
I choose not to look too deeply into the dark, ugly places. I choose not to be someone who looks on the bright side all the time. I choose to live with one foot in idealism and one foot in pragmatism. Depending on the day you catch me I might be more in one than the other.
If you happen to be on this road and we walk together for a while I’m bound to piss you off, confuse you with incomplete thoughts, champion your amazing ideas, cheer your victories and on the rare ocassion maybe inspire you to be a part of something bigger than either one of us.
But there’s no plan. I’m tryng to get better at the journey but I stumble, fall and backtrack all the time.
“Who does that guy think he is?”
I’m no different than you or anyone else. I have no more potential, intelligence, creativity or energy than you do.
I know the obstacles, I know the futility and I know the insanity of this journey and I hope you’re crazy enough to walk the road with me a while.
Didn’t ask to be this guy, didn’t want to be this guy but this is who the journey has made me (for better and worse).