Which led me to thinking about writing some kind of blog post about that – which in turn led me to thinking about the line in John Clare's poem, 'I am – yet what I am none cares or knows.' So then I thought it would be beyond self-indulgent for me to figure out what I am through a blog post that I then inflict on you poor readers, before it struck me that you don't have to read the dratted thing if you don't want to so, darn it all, I'll write it anyway.
I don't fit into any conventional pigeonholes. My nomadic lifestyle sees people automatically assume I'm something of a hippy – and perhaps I am in a way, just without the dreads, the dope, and the tie-dyed tshirts. I'm vegetarian (and have been for fifteen years now), have dreams of one day having my very own vegetable patch, I try to buy products that haven't been tested on animals – but you won't often catch me banging a bongo ever-so-slightly out of rhythm on a beach while a few guys dance with fire in the background.
I wouldn't classify myself as a high-achiever – but I'm the sort of person you'd expect to find in that category. My sport of choice is rowing, and any boat club around the world is invariably filled with some seriously successful individuals. Some of my closest friends are unbelievably smart people; I love the conversations I have with them that are a constant test of mental agility. It's unusual to find people who can keep up with me, and I love that I know some people I have issues keeping up with – there's nothing as satisfying as making them laugh. But a rapier wit needs to be constantly used or it becomes dull, and I readily admit I don't make the effort.
I am constantly dissatisfied with what I have, hence always moving on incase the grass is greener elsewhere. I find it difficult to be content in a place for long: what if somewhere else is even better? This means I have mastered the art of turning up in a random location and making something of it within a matter of weeks, but I have no staying power. I'm terrified of finding a comfortable rut and, while sinking gratefully into it, the world moving on without me.
Being readily addicted to anything and everything is handy in that I've focussed my attentions on a huge variety of arbitrary information over the years. But it means I am, what is that expression?, a jack of all trades but a master of none.
I have grand ideas for the world, but too healthy a dose of realism to do anything about them. As a teenager I had notebooks plastered with the words of Gandhi and Martin Luther King – 'Be the change you want to see in the world' I had pinned above my bed, and back then I meant it. Now I just figure if you can get to the end of the life without harming too many people, you've played your bit-part well.
A year ago I held a beautiful baby girl, barely 24 hours in this world. Her perfect little fist clutched onto my finger as I looked down at her, transfixed. I don't think it was until that moment I'd fully realised that we are born with infinite possibilities, with an infinite capacity to love and be loved, with infinite dreams to forge and follow.
I have some idea that 2013 is going to be a significant year for me – just a feeling I have. I'm not quite sure how, but I think it might be the year I'm finally okay with being me. I've always worried about not really fitting into any predefined niche, and always felt that people are disappointed in me in some way because I'm neither one thing nor another. Enough of that, though.
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.” (Shakespeare, of course)
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