home again home again jiggety jig
So we're home after an epic six month trip around Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and India). And now having moved back into our flat, gone back to work and played three intense rehearsal-free gigs immediately on returning, I can finally start processing the whole thing. Sort of. Maybe.
Was it a transformative experience? Did I come back a different person, or spiritually enlightened? No, and no. Not obviously anyway.
But I do see things and people differently now.
Was I made deeply and uncomfortably aware of my first world over-privilege? Absolutely. Do I have any idea of what to do with this deeply unfair advantage, now that I can't pretend to ignore it any more? No. I'm working on it though. A salary of just £230000 means you earn more than 99 per cent of people in the world, did you know that? I AM the 1 per cent. Now what?
So this isn't about what we saw and did while we were away. That's all in the blog. This is where do we go from here.
It's interesting that everyone asks how it feels to be back. Not how it was being away. Being home is an easier concept to deal with than six months of being a bumbling conspicuous outsider, constantly misunderstanding and being misunderstood, not having a clue what's going on most of the time. Also witnessing poverty, injustice, hopelessness and total disregard for life on a daily basis. Also seeing the enduring effects of some of the worst man-made horrors of the twentieth century and the most repressive and brutal regimes of recent times. Not that we endured any great hardship ourselves. We could afford not to have to, if we chose, But what was around us, all the time, everywhere, was impossible to ignore, and it was impossible not to be affected. And intensely lovely experiences as well - beauty, warmth, kindness, spontaneity. But people can relate to home more than away, so it's 'How does it feel to be home?'
Well home feels a lot like it did before I went away, and not as different as I thought it would. Is it good to be back? Absolutely. I love London. If I was seeing this city as a visitor for the first time (and it's good to look at your home town in this was from time to time) I would be blown away. I'm very happy indeed to be back here, and I'm enjoying - ok, loving - the comforts of first-world life again (in no particular order): flushing toilets, hot baths, clean streets, the concept of food hygiene, art, music, social niceties, people being able to do stuff beyond just making a living and basic survival.
I'm very conscious that I could get on a plane and get away when I'd had enough, And come back and do creative and fun stuff because I don't have to think about where tomorrow's food is coming from or how I'm going to pay the rent. That I'm not trapped in endless poverty and deprivation, with no prospect of escape, purely because of when and where I happened to be born.
the mind once stretched from its original dimesntions
less compassion
more fatalism
faith in the micro and cooperation reinforced
faith in overseas aid/ngos shattered
faith that colonialism is root of all evil reinforced
Was it a transformative experience? Did I come back a different person, or spiritually enlightened? No, and no. Not obviously anyway.
But I do see things and people differently now.
Was I made deeply and uncomfortably aware of my first world over-privilege? Absolutely. Do I have any idea of what to do with this deeply unfair advantage, now that I can't pretend to ignore it any more? No. I'm working on it though. A salary of just £230000 means you earn more than 99 per cent of people in the world, did you know that? I AM the 1 per cent. Now what?
So this isn't about what we saw and did while we were away. That's all in the blog. This is where do we go from here.
It's interesting that everyone asks how it feels to be back. Not how it was being away. Being home is an easier concept to deal with than six months of being a bumbling conspicuous outsider, constantly misunderstanding and being misunderstood, not having a clue what's going on most of the time. Also witnessing poverty, injustice, hopelessness and total disregard for life on a daily basis. Also seeing the enduring effects of some of the worst man-made horrors of the twentieth century and the most repressive and brutal regimes of recent times. Not that we endured any great hardship ourselves. We could afford not to have to, if we chose, But what was around us, all the time, everywhere, was impossible to ignore, and it was impossible not to be affected. And intensely lovely experiences as well - beauty, warmth, kindness, spontaneity. But people can relate to home more than away, so it's 'How does it feel to be home?'
Well home feels a lot like it did before I went away, and not as different as I thought it would. Is it good to be back? Absolutely. I love London. If I was seeing this city as a visitor for the first time (and it's good to look at your home town in this was from time to time) I would be blown away. I'm very happy indeed to be back here, and I'm enjoying - ok, loving - the comforts of first-world life again (in no particular order): flushing toilets, hot baths, clean streets, the concept of food hygiene, art, music, social niceties, people being able to do stuff beyond just making a living and basic survival.
I'm very conscious that I could get on a plane and get away when I'd had enough, And come back and do creative and fun stuff because I don't have to think about where tomorrow's food is coming from or how I'm going to pay the rent. That I'm not trapped in endless poverty and deprivation, with no prospect of escape, purely because of when and where I happened to be born.
the mind once stretched from its original dimesntions
less compassion
more fatalism
faith in the micro and cooperation reinforced
faith in overseas aid/ngos shattered
faith that colonialism is root of all evil reinforced