Soul Damage

When I was in Germany recently one of the members of the team working with the Kyoto Protocol came up to me and said ‘I’ve just realised that you are living the life I want to live. Writing books and consultancy’. I was surprised by this and as I reflect I probably am living the life I think I would have felt ideal five years ago. But isn’t it strange that the enjoyment of it is likely to come more in the reflection than the actual doing. There is so little time to reflect when doing that the pleasure, even though I admit I am vaguely conscious of it, is hard to pin down. I suspect that this is a crucial part of being a human being. If we all got satisfied in our twenties there would be little to drive our race on. And that is the reason that we are wired up to enjoy the hindsight rather than the present. We would stop too soon otherwise.

I am ashamed to say that I am just about to conduct an experiment on myself. I have accepted a contract to do some work that I am bitterly regretting taking on. I got too deep into discussions about some work that I thought I might like to do that I cannot extricate myself from. The experiment is to see if I can motivate myself to do something I have no interest in, or desire to do. Of course I shall be a professional but I suspect I will internalise some frustration and will have to make sure that I have a way of letting it out. I am also figuring out that the client is unlikely to be reading this!

In my blog at the beginning of the year I said I suspect that I would be travelling and writing a lot. I have been asked about the possibility of going to Nepal. I am shaking at the possibility.

And still the opportunity of a lifetime barks very loudly at me. Would it give or save ‘soul damage’? My soul is already damaged and I must not damage it more. The possibility of successful repair is likely to come only by risking the chance that the damage could be increased. But is my motivation based too much in the financial possibilities rather than the intellectual nourishment?

Music of the Day: I am generally not one to re-tread my youth but I really enjoyed Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ this evening.