Run for the hills: A day in Edinburgh

Thursday 24 April 2008

A day in Edinburgh

0738
Oh the joys of the train from Dunbar to Edinburgh. But the coffee and flapjack from the Shoestring fortified me for the challenges of the day ahead. Good to see Lennie and Ewan and Chris and Richard again, however briefly. I forgot to ask Lennie how the crazy golf was going.

But how lucky I am that I'm not catching that train every morning anymore.

QUESTION
When in life are you able to talk about yourself for an hour with three people hanging on every word you say?

ANSWER
The job interview. Fantastic - what a great opportunity - thoroughly enjoyed it but I think on reflection I wasn't what they wanted. I also used the F word - not a good idea for that sort of interview. (Fun).

Changeworks
Great to see people at Changeworks again. I didn't get chance to see everyone I would have liked. Met Teresa, then lunch with Liz. Changeworks continues to face a surfeit of challenges and opportunities - exciting stuff, but I'm glad I'm out of it.

I spent most of the afternoon on Princes street - shopping (not very successfully) then to Laura and Daniels for tea - thanks guys. Daniel's home brew is a of a standard to aspire to.

Back to Dunbar on the 2100. A brief call from Tadg - I think to tell me the cat was having kittens, but you can never really tell with Tadg.

Then a catch-up with the Apprentice via BBC iPlayer. I think firing Lindy was right - Jen wont last long though.

And bed - kenacked. Can't keep up with the pace of city life anymore!

1 comment:

KitYule said...: Well, it was good to see you. Did you manage to get the desk out from under Ailsa's scaffolding without reducing it to kindling?

The play was great fun, shame you couldn't make it. I'll perform the whole thing for you at MidSummer.; 2 May 2008 at 14:39

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Where I"m coming from - !CAUTION! a bit of a polemic

Firstly, there is nothing more important than me and my family. The most precious thing I can give them (including me) is time. In my job, with all it's pressures, I singularly failed to do this. So we run for the hills and try to redress the balance.

Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.

Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.

And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.

Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.

There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)

Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.

Things I"m going to miss

Run for the hills

Thursday 24 April 2008

A day in Edinburgh

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