Welcome to 2009

This coming to you from a sun-drenched rooftop in Coron, Philippines...

My blog has received a decided lack of attention of late - this is no reflection on you, dear reader, but is rather a manifestation of my overwhelming idleness. Internet access have been somewhat patchy over here in the Philippines: I've had time to search the essential information, such as discovering the plural of Platypus is Platypodes, and occasionally throw out a passing remark on Facebook to inform the world at large that I'm some version of Alive. But blogging has very much taken a back seat - perhaps because I have so little to rant about? I am installed, after all, in one of my favourite places in the world, with no cap on my meandering time bar bank balance issues or feelings of guilt regarding a Serious Career Path. I doubt the latter will have much impact on anything, in all honesty. And having discovered the average income for an entire family in the Philippines is approximately USD4600 for an entire year, I think I'll cope financially staying here for a while.

I'm supposedly trying to do some writing work out here, find a niche that I can slot myself into somewhere out there in the wide world of publishing, but for whatever reason I'm missing my 'voice' - what a cheesy, all-American term that is. This is probably blindingly evident in this blog article; and in fact, I'm only really writing on here to try and wake up the part of my brain that is in charge of writing ability. I became so depressed by an attempt yesterday that I was forced to get exceedingly drunk on the worryingly cheap vodka they have out here, passing out on the bed at 9pm. The very classiest of wenches that I am.

Perhaps the problem is that I'm concerned my flippant, decidedly caustic style at times is going to be misinterpreted by some editors. I would love to write endless deep and meaningful tracts of prose, new philosophies emerging in spectacularly written turns of phrase - readers gasping at the sheer wonder of my words. But that isn't exactly my thing, is it. I make brash comments and follow them up with even brasher suggestions, my purpose being to entertain rather than educate. If education happens simultaneously? - bonus feature.

What am I doing over here, just ambling about between the thousand odd islands of which the Philippines is comprised? The question is difficult to answer. I'm either on Walkabout - in pursuit of Understanding. Or I'm in search of Beauty, that which can be seen and that which burrows beneath the surface waiting for an opportunity to emerge and be observed in all its shy glory. Truth is another path: honesty and integrity, the meaning of the world, the purpose of our existence. One cannot find these in a city - or perhaps they are there, but harder to seek out. The Philippines is a place bursting with life and colour, reality blended perfectly with the surreal. It is a place where I feel I can be myself without judgement; ask questions without being questioned back. Open, welcoming, and painfully honest. How can I hope to stagger through life without any comprehension of these things I'm searching for? A life without meaning is a long and pointless one.

Ah, how pretentious that last paragraph is! You see what I mean? Where has my mocking tone gone, why is it eluding me? Perhaps my brain has finally been cooked by the perpetual rays I seek.

I'm going to force myself to write something on here as frequently as internet access allows, inflict some more godawful posts on you poor readers, and hopefully in a few days' time I will write something once more that will make you furrow your brow in earnest, or lean back in your swivelling office chair and laugh out loud. I am so far from the suited and booted world it is hard to comprehend that most of you reading this will be doing so from an air conditioned cell, bright pink post-it notes dotted hurriedly around the edges of your screens, desk calendar staring you in the face reminding you of Time and its paramount importance.

Get out of your office. Go find the real world - the place beyond coffee breaks, conference calls, and overbearing bosses. It was emphatically proved last year how temporary and how fragile the world of capitalist making really is: before you get bogged down in debt and self-created responsibilities, come free yourself. Live a little. Experience everything. You get one shot at life, and spending that parked behind a formica desk is surely not what is intended for us.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”