Why Social Enterprise is Shite

I work for a charity these days.  The big thing being pushed at charities in the UK is 'social enterprise.'  We're all getting sent on (free!) courses on how to set ourselves up with arms that trade, so that we can support our charitable work ourselves, instead of relying on donations or government handouts.

Sounds fair enough.  Does it not? 

 Arms that trade.  Makes me think of that poem, 'not waving but drowning.' 

I object.  The thing I object to is the principal that trading, selling stuff, is the only activity that matters.  Especially if this 'stuff' is just exactly that.  Stuff.  More crap that no-one really needs.  It may well be small-scale, organic, recycled, ethical and local - all good principals to direct your purchase-power.  But ultimately, it's about selling more Stuff.  More soap.  Or bags.  Or Christmas cards.  Or cakes and coffee, to an already over-cafeinated and caloried society.

Crap.  Shite.  Clutter.  Junk.

I am a person who objects to the culture that pushes us to buy, need and want ever more Stuff.  And yet now I'm being trained to direct a huge chunk of my intellectual energies and working hours towards thinking up a viable business model for creating and selling shite.  Even it is actually very good shite.  Shite that people want.

No.

The reason I do the work I do, the reason I work for a charity and not a bank, is because I'm primarily concerned with people's needs.  Not their wants.  The people I work with have severe disabilities and are not able to work.  Which means they do not have money.  Which means that they do not have any power.  Even though they have huge needs, they will never be able to buy the services they need, and so no-one will ever go out of their way to provide that service.  It is not a viable business model.

And that is why charities exist.

The ultra-consumerist, free-market-driven model is all about first creating and then catering to the wants of people who have money, and already have everything they could possibly need. Which is all very well.  But now they want charities to do the same. 

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Image by davco9200

Too Many Projects Syndrome

It's that hiatus between Christmas and New Year, that lull, the time when weeks of too much food, drink, work, stress, buying, spending, travelling in snow and general fretting finally gives way to... a rest.  Whew. 

Which of course turns the mind to New Years Resolutions.  I don't tend to do New Years Resolutions.  Don't see the point.  Why wait till the 1st January?  Why set yourself up for failure at the bleakest time of the year, the time when you're mostly likely to need the comfort of bad things - be it calories, alcohol or retail therapy?

But then, I'm also prone to making resolutions very regularly throughout the year.  Catch me out at any time of year - and if you can get me to be honest and up-front about it which is unlikely since I'm a fairly defensive kinda gal - I could confess to several resolutions bubbling away on the back burner.  I don't call them resolutions though.  I call them projects.

I am definitely someone who has 'Too Many Projects Syndrome.'

So, what are the projects sloshing round my head just now?  Well:

• There's the Creative Writing course I'm actually doing, which leads to the Someday I'll Write a Novel project. 
• There's the Very Small Business (VSB) project.  But then, there have been various VSB projects that I've worked on over the past couple years.  None yet have led to much.
• There's the Weight Loss project.
• There's the Overcome Injuries project.
• There's the Get Back into Running project - oh how I desperately miss running.  I glare daggers of envy at runners when they pass me.  
• There's the Healthy Eating project.
• There's the Reduce my Clutter project.
• There's the Save as Much Money as Possible project.
• There's the Make Nice Presents for People project.
• Etc.

Much of this is all about the changing and harnessing of habits.  There's an excellent blog called Raptitude that discusses habit change.  The blogger, David, explores habit change through a series of very focused experiments.  I love his honesty, about himself and his processes.  I can't remember which post in particular it was, or maybe there were a few, but ultimately he points out that trying to change umpteen different habits all at once is a recipe for failure. 

This year's resolution?  To have fewer resolutions.  To get over my Too Many Projects Syndrome.  Ha!

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt

Under The Radar: Conspiracy or Incompetency?

Our governments run shadowy networks that monitor the moves of every last citizen.  Even as you read this, data is being captured and stored for the future use of Big Brother.  Really.  If you want to live under the radar, the first thing you gotta do is ditch your internet habit... 

But wait, don't run screaming from your computer just yet!

It's all true.  Except the bits I'm making up. 

I am a believer in all manner of devious strategies of manipulation and mass-media brainwashing.  I'm a total cynic about many of our favourite institutions and supposedly benign influences.  And I love unpicking the discourses of advertising and closed cultures that require people to believe things that serve the ends of those in power.  I write about these sorts of things regularly. 

And obviously there are anti-terror task forces that do have all sorts of terrible powers. 

But I don't think we should get too caught up in the idea of a great big Conspiracy.  Honestly, we gotta get over all the glossy Hollywood drama of it all.  We are not living in an episode of 24 - though if we were remember we'd just be the blow-uppable extras in a thrilling sequence of explosions.  Kiefer Sutherland is not the embodiment of what we're up against here. 

Why do I say this?  Well, most of us have, I think, probably experienced the 'left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing' phenomenon when dealing with government bureaucracy.  Having worked in the NHS in the past, I can say with some authority that the idea that even your nurse, your doctor, your therapist and your social worker might have the foggiest idea what each other is doing for you half the time is being optimistic, let alone that a shadowy network is competently keeping tabs on us all.  Nae chance. 

(Though I suppose they might be keeping tabs on me, since I've written google-ranking blogposts about living under the radar... shit...).

Sophisticated surveillance isn't needed all that much for most of us.  All the hoops we have to jump through around ID and providing traceable address histories, its more for our credit scores than for the government.  

I think it's more likely that (unless you're out there planning some seriously bad shit, in which case I hope the anti-terror task forces find you), it's actually about a whole load of unrelated agencies covering their backs and making sure their boxes are ticked.   Because really there is no radar.  There's nothing but a wide-spread fear among various agencies of law suits, insurance claims, and litigation.  And these agencies pass this fear on to us, in the form of inconvenience, anxiety, and the steady erosion of freedoms.

So don't worry about living under the radar.   Unless, secretly, you really quite fancy meeting your end in a thrilling sequence of explosions.

Image by *ade

Does The World Conspire Against You?

There's no shortage of inspirational quotes, telling us to follow our bliss, commit ourselves to impossible targets, dream big and dare to fail.

There's also no lack of useful and informative books and websites telling us how to make our dreams come true, how to identify our goals, how to draw up our step-by-step road maps to success.

But without an awareness of how the status quo conspires against you, you have to be damn lucky just to get past Go. 

That's what I'm interested in: unpicking the cultural and psychological forces that inhibit, sabotage and crush all those giddy dreams for a better life.

Once unpicked, it's so much easier to push forward.

Image by cameronparkins

A Badly Dressed Woman

I've been getting fashion-envy a lot lately.  As I go about my daily business, I catch myself eyeing up other people's threads. But its not the usual stunners who're attracting my attention, and there are good reasons for that.

A Badly Dressed Woman
The other day, I gazed with admiration at a really badly dressed woman.  She broke all 'the rules' of good dress sense, and seemed to have a total disregard for the effect of her overall ensemble.  She was neither stylish, nor quirky.  This was not an intentional statement of non-conformity and individualism, packaged in some self-consciously retro combination of vintage, high street and designer.  No.  I think (though I didn't ask her) that this was a true and genuine case of just not caring.  How liberating!

So what was she wearing?  She wore blue jogging bottoms with a lilac polyester blouse and cheap granny pumps.  Her hair was straggly, thin, and all over the place.  There wasn't the slightest smudge of make-up.  If she were a client of a learning disability or mental health service, her appearance would probably be prompting all sorts of earnestly judgemental case discussions.

But this was no poor soul in need of social work intervention.  This was a lecturer in neuroscience, standing before me to lead a tutorial that was mindblowingly good.

I contemplated her appearance, and her lecture, and thought... 'wow.'

I'm As Bad As Anyone
Ok, so I'd noticed her for her pigs ear of an outfit, and evidently made a negative assessment of it, so I'm as bad as any other shallow individual for whom clothes form the basis of how people are judged.  But on reflection, she personified for me a principal frequently paid lip-service to, but rarely lived.

We all tell each other that 'appearances aren't everything' to make ourselves feel better for not being supermodels.  But most of us still strive to look the best we can, and we spend not inconsiderable sums of money to help us. 

I've as much neuroses as the next person about how I look, but lately I've been noticing the people who don't bother themselves overly much with their appearances, and thinking there's something to aspire to there.

Freedom From The Fashion-Police
Think about where this compulsion to have to look better comes from.  There's something inbuilt into human nature no doubt, psychologists would be able to tell me all about all the evolutionary and contemporary advantages of looking good.  I'm not daft nor blind, I'm aware of all that.  But I also think that we live in a culture that pushes messages at us day in day out to make us feel insecure enough to buy our way to beauty so that we can be sexier/more successful/happier/etc.  Not because it'll work, but because it feeds the economy, feeds businesses, feeds wealth (other people's), and feeds the cycle that makes as many people as possible feel the same way.

What About You?
Can you honestly say you're not affected by all that?  Have you already mastered this little life-hack to more freedom and less anxiety in life?  If so, how'd you do it?! 

There's a freedom in rejecting the priorities of appearance and physical conformity.  I'm all about freedom.

So, perhaps, it's time to test my courage, time to start dressing primarily for function, and not caring too much how it looks.  Not to go wilfully ugly just to be contrary, that's of no use to anyone!  But to just focus on 'enough' rather than more, more, more.

How much difference will it make to my life?  Now, there's an experiment for a rainy day...

Image by fictures

What Do I Do Here?

Sunday morning, the clocks went back an hour last night, and most of the UK is relishing 'an extra hour in bed.'  An extra hour in bed doesn't excite me too much, I like being up and about when the roads are quiet and my neighbours sleep. 

I'm out walking the dog as the sun breaks cover over the crest of Spittal Hill.  The moors glow shades of pink and peach, the wind is cold.  I treasure these moments, when I have the world to myself.

As I walk, I think.  I think about this blog, and what I do here.  I no longer run, and its taken months to accept that.  But I still have my dreams of doing interesting things, I still have my doubts about the systems and routines and expectations that make those interesting dreams so difficult to attain.

So, it's pretty simple really, I'll just go back to writing about all those systems that bug me so much.

Hey presto, hallelujah, abrakedabra, all sorted. 

Tune in next time for more tales of cynicism, negativity, doubt and determination.  I'm beginning to think that might be what I do best!

Image by stevendepolo

Half Cut: Long Gone

It's Saturday night. I sit at my desk, King Creosote crooning beside me.  A half-drafted work of fiction has turned my eyes square.  A half-stitched quilt has looped loops into my eyeballs.  A half-drunk bottle of red wine makes my world wobble.  The weekend is half-gone, I am half-cut, it's good to have time for all this.  G'night.

Most excellent felt eyeballs by ingermaaike2

How My Bank Wasted My Time Asking Me Stupid Questions: And Still Made Me Happy

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from one of those call-centre marketing surveys, asking me all sorts of questions about how I perceived my bank.  In general, I perceive banks as scum.  Strangely though, that wasn't one of the questions.  At no point during the phonecall was I asked to rank my bank on a scale of one to ten, where one is not remotely scummy, and ten is the pinnacle of high-scumdom.  What they did ask me was loads of very stupid questions.

For example, 'on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you  to recommend this bank's ATMs?'  Who recommends ATMs? 

Anyway, I digress. 

This banking survey did ask me one very useful question.  It asked me whether I'd seen any of their adverts.  My answers were as follows:

• TV - no (don't have one).
• Cinema - no (the nearest cinema is well over 100 miles away, and I haven't been for nearly two years).
• Billboards - no (do you do billboards on sheep?  clouds?  moorland?  ruined crofting villages?).
• Newspapers & Magazines - don't think so (do you do ads in the local paper?  Haven't noticed. Otherwise, I don't generally bother with print media).
• Internet - possibly (I am an internet junkie, so I probably have, but I'm not sure advertising works in quite the same way online, I never ever click through on ads, I'm not sure I even see them...).

This information probably wasn't all that useful to the bank.  But it was incredibly useful to me.

I now realise that I live a life with fairly limited exposure to advertising.  

This is a good thing, a great thing.  It isn't something I ever set out to do.  But, after moving to the sticks and ditching the TV a couple of years ago so that I'd have more time in my life to do the things that matter to me, I did begin to become aware that I was... happier.  That's the only word for it.  Happier.  And only part of that happiness is due to doing more stuff that I like to do.  A crucial factor is that I no longer have a constant stream of messages coming at me, telling me:

You could be so much happier if... so much cooler if... so much more attractive if... so much more efficient if... so much more enviable if... so much more successful if...  so much sexier if... so much more relaxed if... so much better if...  so much cleaner if... so much more fragrant if... so much more beautiful if... so much thinner if...

I'm not trying to sell you anything, but honestly:

You could be so much happier if... you cut the sources of advertising out of your life.

This article was made possible by the Bank of Scum.

Picture by Alan Cleaver

Back From The Void

I've been gone for ages.  I almost deleted Traildreamer.  And then, a week or so ago, I was travelling north on the train, rushing through hours of total black-out darkness, mind numb and backside aching (those seats do get uncomfortable), when this long-forgotten little blog bubbled up out of nowhere and called me back.  So I'm back.

I was seduced, for a long time, by all sorts of problogger advice, all sorts of entrepreneurial dreams, and I read up and studied all round the realm of Blogistan for tips and tricks to blog better.  What happened?  I blogged worse.  I tried to develop a 'proper' voice.  Did I get one?  No, all I did was nearly lose the only one I've got.  I messed around with self-hosting Wordpress, and got it all set up lovely, but it wasn't me.  I was clunky and awkward, like an insecure teenager in braces trying to be something I wasn't, I'm not, never will be, never want to be.  Quit trying to run with the cool kids.  It's all flash and mirrors anyway.

I'm happier here.  I am Traildreamer, I am nearly anonymous, I don't flash my name and identity about for all to see in the hope of building a brand or a tribe, trust or community, though there are folks who know who I am and its not a secret as such.  That is just not the function of this blog.  I've nothing to sell, so sod it with all the sales and marketing.  I'm just me, footering about with thoughts and ideas, that I may feel strongly, but I don't want to shout from the rooftops.  The rooftops round here are pretty low anyway, I live in a region of crofts and cottages and vast empty spaces. 

So hello again.  Though I know I speak out into the void.  That's part of the pleasure.  Hello again.

Image by cod_gabriel

Goodbye 2009

It's a new year!  Cheerio 2009, it's been mighty fine, and well helllloooo 2010.  There's loads of good posts kicking around the blogsophere just now, everyone seems to be having a think about what 2009 meant for them so, ach, I reckon I'll jump on the bandwagon too. 

In 2009 I:

• Left the big city behind.  Hopefully forever.
• Moved out to the back of beyond in the Scottish Highlands.  When Tim Ferriss talks about his 'remote working arrangements' he only knows half the story.
• Landed a fabulous new job with a fabulous small company.
• Tried working from home.  It really does rock by the way.
• Injured my ankle.  Repeatedly. 
• Gained a lot of weight.
• Lost some of it.
• Didn't run two marathons.
• Tried a gluten-free, dairy-free diet.  Not as bad as I was expecting...
• Did my first course with the OU.  Then immediately did another one.  The OU beats every other university I've ever studied with. 
• Celebrated two years with my wonderful man.  To mark the occasion, went to a comedy ceilidh, complete with flashing sporrans and hula hoop solos.  Hula hoops should be part of life more often.
• Was interviewed for a newspaper.  I'm not including the link, because it really was so embarrassing.  A media darling I am not.
• Got chickens!
• Abandoned Traildreamer.
• Resurrected Traildreamer.  Missed you baby.
• Wrote poems that made me giggle.
• Wrote stories that gave a friend's 6 year old daughter nightmares.  Note to friends, my stories are not children's fiction, no matter how childish they may seem.
• Bought a kick-ass bike.  Kicked ass, by bike, for miles in every direction.
• Spent oodles of quality time with family.
• Didn't travel overseas at all, not even once (unless you count a long weekend in the Orkney Isles.  Stromness is great, but it ain't Maui).

Overall, I've had a fabulous year.  Chickens must bring you luck.  What about you?  What did you do, or not do, this year?  Would chickens help?  Or hula hoops maybe?

Image of hula hoops by otherthings

Happy New Year

How To Find Your Blogging Voice?

All the 'how to blog better' advice always goes on about how you should blog about your passion. If you do, it'll come through in your posts, instantly making you more interesting and more likely to make your fortune from the comfort of your living room.

I agree that you should blog about something you're passionate about - why would you want to regularly sit down and write about something you find dull? Surely even the motive of finding your internet business cash cow wouldn't really be motivation enough to buckle down to it, when it comes to the slow drip feed that building up a blog takes. Post by post, day by day, one new reader at a time...

But writing passionately isn't an automatic route to great content. Finding your passion is different from finding your voice. I've been doing this Traildreamer blog for over a year now. It stems from various interests and passions, it has tracked aspects of my journey. I know I don't do much of what you're 'supposed to' if you want to increase traffic and make money, but I do feel I have found my 'voice' for this blog and I have a small number of readers who check in regularly. When I have something I want to say, it flows very naturally and I enjoy it. I hope that comes through in the reading of it. I'll never be a pro, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of this blog.

I've recently started a new blog, one that links much more closely to my professional interests, and I hope may lead to my own business in some way in the future. I'm not ready to add a link here to it, because I really haven't found my voice over there yet. Each post is clunky and awkward. The content is scatty. The focus switches. I'm trying to write about professional interests that get me really worked up, excited and enthused on a daily basis in my 'real life', but finding a way to talk about it coherently and consistently in a blog is proving unexpectedly tricky. This is stuff I do all day, but it's not stuff I've ever written about or even talked about much.

I've noticed this clumsiness in other blogs I've followed, as they switched from being personal journeys or philophy of life musings to something more strategic. I'll not name them, that would be indiscrete, but I'm guessing it's something that happens quite often. I'd love to know what others think about this. Have you seen the process in blogs you've followed? Have you been through that transition yourself and can offer some advice?

I don't yet know how to find your blogging voice. But I need a new one, and I'm going to be working on finding it. I'll let you know how I get on.

Image from Beverly & Pack

Travelling Gets Into Your Blood

There's been a rush of Hobopoet posts in the past 24 hours (see here), after months of barely anything. For many years Hobopoet was my favourite blog, before he switched from blogspot to his own domain and then promptly seemed to lose the thread of his hobopoet journey.

A new post from AJ usually gives me a wee boost, redirecting my mind back to the priorities of freedom and voluntary simplicity again. In recent months I've strayed from these priorities, because I've reached what might be described as a 'happy medium.' I've landed a great job doing something I love. And I'm living somewhere I love too - I've left the cities behind, and have the space and solitude of the Scottish Highlands to enjoy every day. A happy medium is a great place to be. Maybe the happy medium is the goal I've been chasing, the word 'medium' irrelevant? Is that word 'happy' the true bottom line? I can't complain, and don't much anymore... Except...

It can't last. My contract is for three years, and then... what? Funding dries up, and we're all back out on the street looking for jobs again. It's silly to worry about what I'll do in three years time, and I don't worry about it exactly. I feel more confident than ever before in my life. But I do feel in my bones that I couldn't bear to go back to working out of an office, with a boss who micromanages, and the autonomy and creativity I enjoy in this job firmly squashed. I couldn't stand to submit again to the senseless bureaucracy and hierarchical systems that dominate most jobs in the sector I work in. I'd hate to shelve all the projects that I can pursue in this job, projects that make a difference to my clients and excite me to pieces, and just go back to doing what I'm told and no more.

And, although I've hung up my travelling shoes and stashed my backpack at the back of a cupboard, I'd be lying if I claimed that I don't crave periods of simple nomadic wandering. I've booked a week down in Edinburgh for a training course in October, and I am so fizzy with anticipation at the thought of living out of one bag again, possessions to the minimum, drifting through hostels, quiet times spent writing and observing, learning some pretty amazing stuff at the training course for five days, and soaking in the experience of being adrift again. Travelling gets into your blood. While I may never take off for a year or more at a time again, I can't say I could settle for just two weeks a year either.

The upshot is, I've a strong desire to claim control and live my life doing what I love in a sustainable way, not to fit in with what needs to be, as dictated by a boss or a mortgage or a funding provider's short-term aims. Some people are always driven to do more, and some people aren't great at submitting to the way it is. I may be one of them.

Image by Irargerich

Once You've Got It, Would You Ever Give It Up? Working From Home

Poor Traildreamer is sorely neglected these days. The two things that drove it in the beginning were my dual passions of running and travelling.  Those two threads led to all sorts of rants and research into work culture, freedom and how to pursue your dreams. No wonder the Traildreamer blog has faltered since then - I've hung up my travelling shoes for the time being while I commit to staying in one place for a bit, probably about 3 years. I've hung up my running shoes due to injury. And many days I don't even make it into a pair of work shoes.

I work from home, often in pyjamas and slippers till lunchtime. I'm pretty passionate about my job, and have an excellent manager who's clearly sussed out that she gets the best work out of me by leaving me to it apart from a once monthly meeting and the odd email.

I'm still assimilating the novelty of this new work set-up. I often marvel at it, and speaking to colleagues in other areas of the Highlands who've been doing the same thing, they all say the same thing...

"How're we ever going to return to a normal work arrangement?" It's true. We were all selected for these jobs based on certain qualities and values, and this job has allowed those qualities to flourish. I have a job description, I have a laptop and a mileage reimbursement rate, and I have outcomes I have to achieve. But how I go about achieving those outcomes is entirely up to me. Help and advice is there for when I want to ask for it, but generally I'm trusted to get on with it entirely on my own. I love that.

Taking on that kind of working arrangement needs high levels of autonomy, integrity, discipline and creativity. And after working like that for several years, how would you go back to an office environment, hierarchies, knowing your place, being closely monitored and controlled, enforced dress codes, having to get approval for every decision or action, being told what to do...?

I think the answer to that is, you wouldn't.  Not if you could bloody well help it.  Would you?

Image by ansik

Running Gems: Barefoot Under Cover of Darkness

Under cover of darkness, I go out barefoot and walk around the block, just to see. Only it isn't about seeing, it's about feeling! The pavements feel smooth, cold, wet. Leaves are falling from the trees, and are a light, barely-present tickle against my feet. Some kind of seed pod is scattered all over the ground, and as I step on them, I'm surprised to find that they 'give' under my weight. It's a pleasant sensation. I gingerly hobble over the stones and grit where the road surface is broken, and bits stick painfully to my soles. I notice that I'm padding along on the ball of my foot more than I usually do when out I'm walking.  Back at the front door to my block of flats, I unlock and walk in. I wipe my feet, and the mat feels course, but warm after the leeching cold of the concrete outside. I notice I've left wet footprints on the tiled communal porch, and I imagine someone else in the block getting up early for work, and seeing these prints on their way out.

Photo by greencolander

A Blog Worth Checking Out

This is the most amazing post yet, from a truly amazing blog - check it out:

http://ryanrunseurope.blogspot.com/2009/07/days-47-48.html

This guy is an inspiration.

Short Trails & The Injured Runner

It used to be that anything less than 3 miles wasn’t worth getting out of bed for. 

What’d be the point of going out for such a short distance?  But currently 3 miles is about 1½ miles too far to walk, and I can forget about running it altogether. No can do. The physio and the podiatrist have both drummed it into me that over-doing it will do me no favours, so for now, just don’t run at all. I can cycle and swim as much as I like, which is a mercy, but neither are as satisfying as a fast 4 mile run before breakfast, or a full day out walking in the hills. Of course, I’ve pushed my luck, and either walked too far or tried out a bit of a run despite the advice of the professionals. But I’ve come to regret it, as my recovery has taken a knock-back each time.

Now that a whole day on the mountains is out of the question, what can I do? Where can I go that’ll still give me those much-needed shots of wilderness, exploration, and physical challenge?

I haven’t found a satisfying answer to those questions. But I do find myself looking at local ‘short walks’ guides with new-found interest. I used to find them disappointing, their definition of short being considerably shorter than anything I'd consider worth the bother of turning up for. And they don’t meet my demands of wilderness, exploration and physical challenge. But they do meet the closely related criteria of the outdoors, nature, discovery and some level of physical activity. I now appreciate these 20 minute out-and-back, signposted strolls from the car park, that take me over smooth landscaped trails and don’t require even the slightest scramble.

And I’ve gained a fresh insight into the frustrations of being restricted by my body from accessing and enjoying some of the greatest delights in this world, the places that enrich my life and replenish my soul. 

As someone who's spent the last 5 years or so working in disability services, there's nothing like an injection of first-hand personal experience to refresh my therapeutic practice.  I'm finding it all as frustrating as ever in terms of my personal fitness.  But in terms of my understanding of the importance of the natural world to my health and wellbeing, and the barriers that stop some people enjoying those same opportunities that I value so highly, I guess I'm learning something useful.

Image by cogdogblog

Gen Y Blogs: Are They Special?

I read a lot of these Gen Y blogs, especially if they have a strong entrepreneurial/start-up thread. This is even though I suspect I’m outside the Gen Y age-bracket, and despite the fact that, for the time being at least, I’ve shelved the idea of starting my own business. So why do I keep coming back to them? Why are they the ones that clutter my Google Reader, rather than the hiking/running blogs that I probably have more in common with?

I think it’s to do with the notion of striving for the life you want to live.

These Gen Y bloggers, they’re all about their search for their path in life, their striving to stay true to their dreams and passions, and they’re putting their dilemmas and initiatives out there along the way, for others to follow, and comment on, and discuss. It seems from some of these blogs that they think it’s their generation that defines them in this search - I say that it’s not. That quest is not specific to people born between year X and year Y (as stipulated in the Wikipedia definition of Gen Y). What is different for their generation is that they’ve come of age with the internet, and see their lives through that lens. Every generation of 20-somethings has a significant number of souls who struggle to find their paths and wish for something different and better that the norms offered by conventional society. The majority ‘grow out of it,’ a minority don’t and become the hippies, radicals, artists, drop-outs, nomads, and independent thinkers of their generation. What’s different, and appealing, about the current crop of Gen Y blogs is that this process is out there, globally, for all to see in the blogosphere. Support and reinforcement flows from blog to blog. And it’s also interesting that the Gen Y bloggers don’t aspire to be artists or drop-outs, but high achieving internet-based entrepreneurs... That, I think, is what’s different.

A few examples of these Gen Y blogs? Here's a good three to have a look at:

Jun Loayza
Matt Cheuvront
Luke Snedden

(Warning: Once you have a look at those few, you could end up wandering forever, lost in a world of links from Gen Y blogger to Gen Y blogger, commenting and crediting and name-checking each others stuff...).

Image by jetheriot

Phase 2

I put a couple hours into the Traildreamer blogbook this morning.

I think I have a new direction for the project. Which is exciting. I’m calling it Traildreamer Phase 2, because the themes of the original block of the blog don’t seem so relevant anymore. That fight is over, a new one is beginning.

I’m not all het up about work culture and wage-slavery anymore, because I’ve stepped out of that culture. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still working a full-time job, and I’m not working for myself... But it almost feels like it. I have such a level of freedom, autonomy and creativity in my new job, and it gels so well with my values, that it scarcely feels like work. It feels more like a passion, and I’m lucky enough to get paid to pursue it!

Traildreamer helped me get this magical job. Not directly, but indirectly. Part of what was needed for the post was an unconventional attitude, and over the months of blogging, that’s exactly what I was developing. All that reading and writing on work culture, wage slavery, manic society, freedom, following your bliss... it led me to this point, where an astute interviewer picked-up on the views simmering away underneath my surface, and instead of seeing them as a reason to dismiss me, saw them as the reason to hire me! ‘We wanted someone comfortable with a little bit of anarchy,’ she tells me 3 months after I started, ‘someone who is able to see that most things probably need to be done differently, and won’t be too shy to try some off-the-wall initiatives.’ Ha! The main thing I thought was my terrible guilty secret in my old job, is my key strength in my new one.

So, this new direction. It brings me right back to where I started, in many ways. Traildreaming. This blog isn’t about my work, though there are various points where work is relevant, and it’ll probably stay that way. Traildreamer started because I’d spent many years travelling round various parts of the world, and going running pretty much everyday. My life revolved around running, and finding damn good trails to run out on, no matter what town or village I’d washed into the day before.

Finding trails for running, walking, and cycling. Trailfinding ways through life that are thrilling and satisfying and rewarding. That’s what this blog is about, and that’s the direction I’ll be heading out on in future posts. It’s good to regroup, its good to keep going, and it'll be interesting to see where I end up.

Running Gems: Trail Run in the Highlands

It's all just too glorious. My ankle is actually still out of action (still!!!!), but I'm still making sure I get out there in some form or another. This track goes for miles. Life doesn't get any better.

Photo by Me

Back Again

I'm back. Honestly, I am.

For those of you out there who've been following me for a while, and have kept checking in from time to time on the off-chance that I might have posted something, all I can say is sorry for being otherwise occupied for the past couple months. But my life is settling down again, and there is now enough brain-space left in my head at the end of each day to be able to get back to some blogging.

It's good to be back. And it's good to be where I'm at.

Life has changed massively since I left my sensible job and my city flat back at the end of March - and I'm so glad I made the leap. That leap has liberated me from so much of the bullshit of living and working based on other people's stupid expectations and conventions. Now I'm in a position to push forward with amazing things. Here we go folks.

Amazing image by D. Sharon Pruitt