Some Thoughts At The Beginning Of The Academic Year

There are a bunch of contradictory arguments about the value of living in the ‘now’, being grounded, being present for what one is experiencing, as opposed to dwelling in the past or fantasising about the future. Presence is valuable, but so too is recognising one’s past mistakes and learning from them, and having hope and ambition to move forward into a better future.

I have a dreadful memory, which I usually enhance by dwelling on past mistakes and slights, exaggerating them, pulling out each minute facet of a moment like a Cubist, searching relentlessly for clues to why I am the way I am, why other people act in certain ways, why things went down the way they did. I am notoriously (occasionally gloriously) past-oriented. I ignore the future as a place of unknown terror, and, from a certain viewpoint, I’d say I waste the present.

On ‘On Gratitude’

Today John Green wrote a post on Tumblr about how nerdfighteria has provided the kinds of support and interaction that he, and other nerdfighters, need to get past the challenges they face. As he put it, seeing the proof that people were “trying to focus outward, trying to imagine others complexly, doing the hard daily work of paying sustained attention to the big and small stories around them” helped him complete The Fault in our Stars and also helps him to be grateful, every day, for the people who have chosen to put themselves into the world in such a way.

I’ve been thinking about gratitude a lot*.