It’s been a week busy with meetings. On Tuesday I met with a group I haven’t worked with before, though several were known to me already as habitual resisters. It felt good to be part of an attempt to build a large organisation, a Union Against Landlords. I became aware, however, how much time this could suck up, i.e. every minute I make available to it. I need to keep an eye on this. I am a better human being when not stressed and tired – or perhaps a better way to say it is that I feel more myself.
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I’ve been thinking more this week about whether I’m as clear as I had once thought about who ‘myself’ is. It’s a tricky question to answer. Each part of me has a history, including the parts I don’t like, and different people Bring out different parts of myself. There is no ‘true self’, but there is a self I favour, a self sometimes hidden by circumstances and interactions and my own reactions. Perhaps this is what people usually mean when they refer to their true selves – the bits they like. We can, to some extent, make life choices that bring out our best selves, but we all end up in a relationship with the bits of ourselves we don’t like too. The compromises we can least avoid are the compromises with ourselves.
Last night I went to a meeting to discuss collectively owned homes. It was the launch of a great report and the room was full of excellent and interesting people. I left rather frustrated that the event had been led so much from the front, without leaving time for the people in the room to talk to each other. It’s one of my pet hates, having seen it many times: a roomful of people who are interested in each other, and who might produce good things together, but not given a chance to interact. Politics is interaction, and Londres militates against it. We should take all the opportunities we get to talk together, so that we can make decisions and take actions together.
This post first appeared on Londres Journal - Life In London At The End Of The World, please read the originial post: here
