Monday 12 December 2011

Rediscovering the Personal

It is a difficult thing keeping on top of your own self when there is no routine. While in some instances you may be turning yourself off to true raw feeling, a routine at least is simple in the sense that you know what you have to do and so long as you keep it up, too much thought is simply not required. You don’t have to deal with the agony and ecstasy of raw existence and human emotion; you just have to keep doing. Defining yourself by any one role is dangerous and can be seen as one of the things that stands in the way of our being human in that we simply forget that we are, and forget to think about what this may mean. A human could do anything, and as such is infinite possibility. It is foolish to make yourself anything else and to deny yourself this possibility.
               
So what am I talking about here and how is this relating to the distribution of The Happiness Manifesto? Well, in the past week since London I have personally been struggling with feeling like I should be getting back out onto the streets and giving more books away, but in truth I haven’t particularly felt like it. This was hard for the first few days because I couldn’t help but wonder why, and couldn’t help but question myself and my passion. I found myself saying no to a few evening opportunities with friends on the basis that I felt like I needed to be heading out into town the next day, but then on waking would find that I didn’t feel like it and so would simply end up missing out doubly.
                
This isn’t a job and so equally as it would be foolish to allow myself to be defined by selling conservatories or something of that ilk, it would be foolish to principally define myself by being a philosopher. I am that already but part of that is remembering that that is but one part of being a human, as is anything else that you could be or indeed are, and further that there is no one way to do it. Sometimes it is easy to get so wrapped up in the project so as to forget what it is that I have actually written; messages such as not allowing yourself to be too militant in anything other than your continued happiness and openness to others and that of doing what you want and letting things fall into place.
   
The signs were great and I needed to get it out of me. I had achieved something and having spent so long trying to achieve something, it was only natural that I wanted to get it out there. I was inspired to do it and I wanted to do it, but to continue for the sake of it would be to allow that to become as much a job as anything else. I made a scene but I’m done with that for the moment; lest I forget that I don’t want to be an attention seeker, I want to be a difference maker. Also lest I forget that what I’ve written is actually a reasonable piece of work. It can sometimes be hard giving something away for free as you get the impression people may be inclined to assume it’s probably not very good. However, after further thought I remembered that not only is it a reasonable piece of work, but I give it away because I want to, not because I have to.

Now that there are over 200 books in circulation it is easier to take a small step back and remember that not only is it about getting the books out there, but it is about getting them to the right people. After the impersonal but necessary approach taken in London I am now keen to get back to making those genuinely personal connections with individuals and getting the remaining books to people who would not only want a book, but may in some way almost need it. I feel this will be best achieved through getting on with being Samuel Francis Rogers, seeing who I meet and through reclaiming my care-free self. How funny that it was getting a bit messy at a feel-good reggae gig at a Caribbean restaurant that would remind me of all this. At the same time it is probably not surprising at all, I needed to let go and enjoy myself.
                
I had a great time with friends that night but I did also take one book out with me that I ended up giving to someone who may in fact on some level need it. Beautiful but crushed, intelligent but bored, trapped; I met a guy who struggles extensively with OCD (obsessive, compulsive disorder). OCD, ADHD, asperges syndrome; all these things in my mind are simply labels given to people of active mind who have struggled to cope with the boredom on offer at present from that which we call society. A friend recently put this better than I could:

‘People that are deemed unfit to function in society are only proof that the rest of us are only pretending we can.’ Stephen O’Neill

It is important to remember that there is no one way of doing this and to steer clear of formulas or systems or else risk moving away from that which I am trying to achieve. That night I only gave away one book but it went where it was needed. I’m not saying I won’t sign again and I’m not saying that that method hasn’t seen me getting books to the right people as I’m sure it has, and it definitely was important to get a good volume out there. However, it is also important to maintain my own happiness, make sure I am always doing these things for the right reasons; doing them because I genuinely want to, and getting the books to people who need them. It is only through putting yourself out there that you meet people, so having found myself saying ‘no’ to opportunities, it is time to say ‘yes’ once more.

I hope to meet you soon.


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